The depravity of the Chinese Communist Party

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) never had a good human rights record. But in the last decade, it reached a new and very deep low point. During these years the extent of the suppression of the Muslim Uyghur people in Xinjiang (the most northwestern region of China) was revealed step by step. What was most memorable for me was the publication of leaked Chinese government documents by the New York Times in 2019. These documents revealed that China had started a systematic campaign to crack down on the Uyghur people after an Islamist terrorist attack in Xinjiang in 2014. By 2019, China had already locked up nearly a million Uyghurs in prisons, where they are brainwashed into abandoning their religion. The documents make it clear that China’s head of state, Xi Jinping, had ordered the clampdown. After this more disturbing news trickled in gradually. Even small ‘slights’ such as wearing a veil or a beard are sufficient reason for detainment. Furthermore, there have been reports that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are abused as forced labor on cotton fields, that Uyghur women are forcibly sterilized and that there is systematic torture and rape in the detention camps.

In response to the news about the prosecution of the Uyghurs, the USA (both the Trump and Biden administrations) declared it to be genocide. Soon afterwards Canada became the second country to do so. My own country, The Netherlands, was the third. Just like in Canada however, it was only the parliament which recognized it as genocide, not the government. The Dutch government was more careful because the United Nations or an international court have not declared it to be genocide yet. Until then it prefers to speak of human rights violations. While the bar may be high for genocide, there is a British legal opinion which argues that the case for genocide is strong.

Remember that Muslims worldwide have been angered by relatively minor mistreatment in the past. The publication of Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 were sufficient for massive protests in the Islamic world and a boycott. The publication of the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims was widely denounced in the Islamic world and sparked large protests. Another case is Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian women who was accused of blasphemy against Islam and who was ultimately acquitted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2018. Again hordes of radical Muslims were foaming in the mouth, called for her death and started rioting. I could give many more examples, of course.

What amazes me perhaps even more than the cruelty of the Uyghur persecution is that China can get away with it. If the West would suppress Muslims like China did, it would face complete outrage of the Islamic world. Fatwas and terror attacks would justifiably rain down on our heads. With China as the perpetrator, the Islamic world stays silent. Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE don’t want to offend China and don’t allow their state media to report on the matter. Pakistan’s government and even its Islamist groups stay silent. Turkey is still seriously considering the ratification of an extradition treaty with China.

It turns out that there is no solidarity in the Islamic world. Muslim-majority states just allow themselves to be seduced by China’s economic power. It’s extreme irony that the West is more invested in standing up for the human rights of the Uyghurs than the Islamic world. Let’s hope that the USA, Canada and the Netherlands gather allies among other democratic states, and eventually Muslim countries as well, to form a front against China. There should be sanctions and we should work on reducing our dependence on Chinese supply chains. We can take action ourselves by avoiding products which are made in China. This is difficult, but for example Samsung doesn’t produce phones anymore in China. Avoiding the Chinese cars which are sold more often in Europe these days is comparatively more simple.

The future is hard to predict. If there will ever rise a more democratic tide in China, I hope those responsible for the prosecution of the Uyghurs won’t be able to escape Lady Justice. Maybe her balance and sword will be unexpectedly strict and sharp for Xi Jinping then. Xi Jinping is a scoundrel who should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court here in The Hague, along with his band of degenerate cronies in the CCP.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top