By John Queripel

Sep 30, 2022

Image: iStock

Repeat a supposed fact sufficient times and it will become assumed truth. That seems the case very much when it comes to claims about China’s oppression of the Uyghurs in its western Xinjiang province. Supposedly one million or more Uyghurs have been imprisoned in vast re-education camps with the term ‘genocide’ being frequently used. Even the charge of infanticide has been laid. Not all that is supposed however, is reality.

From where do these charges against China come and what evidence accompanies them? Until 2018 little was said about Xinjiang and it would be fair to say few knew of its complex history or demographic mix, though it had been the location for several terrorist attacks. Suddenly, however it was front and centre in the news, just at the time when the Chinese led ‘Belt and Road Initiative,’ set to radically reorient the world economic order, and heavily dependent on Xinjiang, came into play. The Belt and Road passes from Xinjiang into a number of Muslim majority nations so the easiest way for the West to frustrate the economic and strategic challenge it represents would be for them to allege the mistreatment of Muslim people. None of these Muslim majority nations however have bought the argument but are instead heavily involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.