For many years, the Chinese government has been pursuing a policy of economic and social development in its more remote areas, including the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. This now includes boosting tourism in the region through the construction of approximately 200 international hotels. The clear beneficiaries will be the residents of Xinjiang who will gain from greater employment opportunities and a more thriving economy.
You might think this would be welcomed by everyone who wants to see less developed parts of the country catching up with the remarkable economic and social advances elsewhere in China. It was rather dispiriting, therefore, to read a piece in the respected British newspaper, The Guardian, turning what should have been a good-news story into a platform for some China-bashing. The main focus of the article is the claim by “human rights” groups that the presence of international hotels in Xinjiang could “sanitize” the Chinese government’s alleged “forced labor” and “human rights abuses” against the local, predominantly Muslim, Uygur population. It also refers to claims that the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang amount to “genocide”, even though this has not been proven in any international court.
The article reports the case put forward by “human rights” groups that China’s policies amount to “crimes against humanity”, that “the presence of foreign enterprises in Xinjiang lends legitimacy to the Chinese government’s crackdown”, and that these firms should abandon the region. It points out that this sort of pressure on Western companies was successful in November when Volkswagen was harried into selling its Xinjiang factory. The Guardian could also have chosen to mention earlier, similarly successful Western campaigns, aimed at boycotting Xinjiang produce such as tomatoes and cotton. The campaign has now switched its focus to foreign tourism businesses in a bid to stymie Beijing’s promotion of Xinjiang as a holiday destination for both domestic and international tourists. The article reports that international hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott and Wyndham are now in the spotlight, being urged to “freeze expansion plans, halt operations and sever business ties”.
In short, the article was a depressing read, reminding me of the sort of unbalanced Western reports about Hong Kong that we saw during the 2019-20 riots and subsequent period of security legislation enactment. Although the Chinese government’s denials of abuses in Xinjiang were mentioned in the report, there was little real attempt to present a properly balanced picture. This would have involved reporting some pertinent facts about the region and also some independent and compelling testimony from observers who have recently spent time or lived there.
It would have been an easy matter, for example, to point out that in the region’s dominant tomato and cotton industries (not mentioned in The Guardian report) over 90 percent of the production is mechanized, undermining common Western allegations that it is based on forced labor. Similarly, alongside reporting unproven allegations about “genocide”, the article could have pointed out contrasting evidence that Beijing has invested heavily in the protection and promotion of ethnic minority groups in China, including the Uygur culture, language and religion. An example of this is the Xinjiang Islamic Institute, a center for religious and academic education for the 25 million Muslims living in China. A new campus for the institute, funded by Beijing, was built in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, in 2017. It incorporates a library with approximately 50,000 books, including translations of the Quran into Mandarin Chinese, the Uygur language, and other ethnic minority languages. This doesn’t sound like the actions of a government intent on implementing “genocide”.
The Guardian report also ignored a wealth of positive testimony from independent observers who have visited Xinjiang for extended periods. The highly respected American consultant and author, Shaun Rein, for example, went there with the specific purpose of investigating US allegations of genocide. As someone who lost family members in the Holocaust, he was determined to report any evidence of genocide if he found it. On his third visit in 2022, Rein traveled independently and was free to interview as many people as he wished. He acknowledges that some respondents referred to ethnic tension between Han Chinese and Uygurs, mainly over relatively minor issues like eating pork, which of course is forbidden for Muslims. However, the vast majority of Uygurs said that tensions had diminished over the past few years and that, significantly, the central government had played a positive role in mitigating animosity. Even more significantly, in his book, The Split, Rein writes, “Not one Uygur claimed to me to have heard of genocide”, even those who were openly critical of Beijing.
Rein also describes his conversations with a Uygur cotton farmer who told him that 95 percent of the cotton-picking process is automated. The farmer went on to bemoan the US sanctions on Xinjiang cotton which were adversely affecting his business. The irony here is self-evident. The US justifies its cotton sanctions because of allegations of forced labor, ignoring the inconvenient fact that the industry is automated. In doing so, it impoverishes the very people it is supposedly trying to help. The Uygur farmer’s interpretation was clear: “The US was trying to contain China’s cotton growth unfairly because it did not want to lose its dominant position”.
Had The Guardian expanded its report to include reliable eye-witness accounts such as these, alongside its well-publicized accusations from human rights groups, it would have created a much more balanced and thought-provoking article.
It could even have decided to go further and give some context and historical perspective to the claims of “repression” in Xinjiang. There was, for example, no mention of Beijing’s legitimate concerns about terrorism in the region, including a prolonged campaign of bombings, knife attacks and arson from 1990 to 2016, peaking after the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001. Beijing was determined to eradicate the terrorist threat, seeing it as a dangerous, radical Islamist movement, influenced by the extremism of al-Qaida, that had spread to Xinjiang from bordering countries. Beijing was very much supported in this by the US and its then-president George W Bush. In 2002, the US Department of State published a document determining that an organization promoting separatism in Xinjiang, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, “has committed, or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States”. Bush was clear that the US-China relationship was extremely important, stating that China is a wonderful country and a friend, not an enemy. He committed to fostering an open, cooperative, and constructive relationship with China and to sharing intelligence in the “global war on terrorism”. Since then, of course, US-China relations have soured. China is now portrayed as an economic and military threat to the US, and Beijing’s counterterrorism measures in Xinjiang have been reinterpreted as a “human rights violation” stick with which to beat China.
This is the historical context to Western claims of Chinese repression in Xinjiang. The hostility generated by these claims is now being used to oppose economic development in the region, as The Guardian’s report on the targeting of tourism businesses demonstrates. A more balanced report could well have concluded that even if some Western claims can be verified, showing that some Uygurs may indeed have been treated harshly, there is a mitigating historical context to this and China’s counterterrorism policy was once fully supported by the US.
A more balanced report would also have contrasted claims of “forced labor” with the reality of mechanized, automated farming processes now in operation in Xinjiang. Additionally, it would have contrasted claims of “genocide” with eye-witness testimony to the contrary and with Beijing’s promotion of ethnic minorities.
Most importantly, from a human rights perspective, surely any development in Xinjiang that brings in tourists, develops the local economy, and creates jobs and opportunities for the Uygurs should be welcomed, rather than attacked. It’s a strange interpretation of human rights that supports impoverishing the Uygurs and keeping Xinjiang a deprived area. If journalists really want to occupy the moral high ground, they should stress this point and balance their reports of alleged abuses by giving credit to the Chinese government for its efforts to develop the region’s economy, improve the living standards of its people, and promote the culture of ethnic minorities, including the Uygurs.
The author is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, an international secondary school in Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
