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THE UIGHURS, TURKEY AND CHINA: THROWING STONES FROM GLASS HOUSES
Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/x-363 1-LA-Foreign-Policy-Examiner~y2009m7d17-The-Uighur s-Turkey-and-China-throwing-stones-from-glass-hous es
July 17 2009
On Tuesday, Moises Naim at Foreign Policy posed a simple but powerful
question about the recent violence in China involving the Uighurs and
decades of repression against the muslim-minority group: why doesn't
the Islamic world speak up about the Uighurs?
Of course, countries with ethnic and religious ties tend to side
with their ethnic and religious kin in other areas. Ethnic/religious
countries generally sided with similar ethnic groups in the breakup of
Yugoslavia and the civil war in Lebanon, Russia supports for Russian
minorities in former Soviet Republics, Iran finances Hezbollah and
of course, many Muslim countries support the Palestinian movement.
But the Uighurs have been the exception--they never had the same amount
of international support, even though they have legitimate grievances
against the Han Chinese majority, who have banned their language,
moved into their territory en masse and generally discriminate against
them in education, housing and employment.
Naim points out that much of the "Islamic World" is very silent on
this issue--governments, the Arab League and imams have said little,
if anything.
Iran, for example, has said very little, probably because China is
its leading trading partner. Money talks, or has the ability to
shut up governments. The Iranian government itself is struggling
through unrest.
Turkey has been something close to the exception, however, because
Turks have close ethnic, linguistic and cultural tires to Uighurs. Its
President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that Turkey "cannot remain
silent in the face of what is happening." On Tuesday, Erdogan said,
"The incidents in China are simply put, a genocide. There's no point
in interpreting this otherwise."
Before we think of this move as bold, it really smacks of throwing
stones from glass houses. Objectively, its difficult to call the
Han Chinese discrimination of the Uighurs genocide, even though the
recent riots killed at least 184 people. But Turkey has, of course,
put people in prison for calling the Armenian Genocide--which was
actually genocide before the term even came into use--a genocide. The
Turkish government recalled its ambassador to Istanbul after the US
House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring it genocide
and threatened to disallow American planes to fly over its airspace
en route to Iraq.
But even if he didn't call it genocide, many governments are
reluctant to criticize China because China does not criticize other
governments for human rights violations and expects other governments
to reciprocate--to put it in UN-speak, the PRC respects the national
sovereignty of other nations and regards the events/unrest/violence
in your country as an internal matter. That's really why these other
governments are so silent. So the Chinese government sees it as odd
when Turkey--with its own human rights problems with its Kurdish
minority that it frequently calls an internal matter--criticizes China.
China has a stock response for this kind of thing, which is to
personalize the dispute in English. Blogger Joel Martinsen created
a map of countries that have "hurt the feelings of the Chinese
people." The map includes many countries, with the worst offender
being Japan (not surprising) with 47 offenses against the Chinese
people. (The U.S. is in second place with 23).
Predictably, a writer at the state-run English language newspaper of
China, the Global Times, wrote an editorial called, "Turkey, another
axis of evil?" Like all English-language state-run press in China,
it is pretty poorly written propaganda (I corrected a few spelling
errors). But the quote is worth reprinting here:
Five years ago, when terrorist bombings hit Turkey in November
2003, China took its firm stand on the side of Turkish people
and condemned the violent act. However, when the riots happened,
inflicting causalities and property damage in Urumqi on July 5,
Turkey stands by the side of the thugs, revealing its shame to the
whole world and repaying China with evilness.
Then Turkey is not on the side of the Chinese people! (But National
Review contributor Andy McCarthy clearly is, writing a blog post that
could be confused for being from the Chinese government).
Ultimately, I doubt significant outside criticism could compel China
to change its policy against the Uighurs as it hasn't worked for
Tibet--it's too popular among the 90% or so Han Chinese who make up
the country. But it is revealing what leaders say and don't say.
Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/x-363 1-LA-Foreign-Policy-Examiner~y2009m7d17-The-Uighur s-Turkey-and-China-throwing-stones-from-glass-hous es
July 17 2009
On Tuesday, Moises Naim at Foreign Policy posed a simple but powerful
question about the recent violence in China involving the Uighurs and
decades of repression against the muslim-minority group: why doesn't
the Islamic world speak up about the Uighurs?
Of course, countries with ethnic and religious ties tend to side
with their ethnic and religious kin in other areas. Ethnic/religious
countries generally sided with similar ethnic groups in the breakup of
Yugoslavia and the civil war in Lebanon, Russia supports for Russian
minorities in former Soviet Republics, Iran finances Hezbollah and
of course, many Muslim countries support the Palestinian movement.
But the Uighurs have been the exception--they never had the same amount
of international support, even though they have legitimate grievances
against the Han Chinese majority, who have banned their language,
moved into their territory en masse and generally discriminate against
them in education, housing and employment.
Naim points out that much of the "Islamic World" is very silent on
this issue--governments, the Arab League and imams have said little,
if anything.
Iran, for example, has said very little, probably because China is
its leading trading partner. Money talks, or has the ability to
shut up governments. The Iranian government itself is struggling
through unrest.
Turkey has been something close to the exception, however, because
Turks have close ethnic, linguistic and cultural tires to Uighurs. Its
President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that Turkey "cannot remain
silent in the face of what is happening." On Tuesday, Erdogan said,
"The incidents in China are simply put, a genocide. There's no point
in interpreting this otherwise."
Before we think of this move as bold, it really smacks of throwing
stones from glass houses. Objectively, its difficult to call the
Han Chinese discrimination of the Uighurs genocide, even though the
recent riots killed at least 184 people. But Turkey has, of course,
put people in prison for calling the Armenian Genocide--which was
actually genocide before the term even came into use--a genocide. The
Turkish government recalled its ambassador to Istanbul after the US
House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring it genocide
and threatened to disallow American planes to fly over its airspace
en route to Iraq.
But even if he didn't call it genocide, many governments are
reluctant to criticize China because China does not criticize other
governments for human rights violations and expects other governments
to reciprocate--to put it in UN-speak, the PRC respects the national
sovereignty of other nations and regards the events/unrest/violence
in your country as an internal matter. That's really why these other
governments are so silent. So the Chinese government sees it as odd
when Turkey--with its own human rights problems with its Kurdish
minority that it frequently calls an internal matter--criticizes China.
China has a stock response for this kind of thing, which is to
personalize the dispute in English. Blogger Joel Martinsen created
a map of countries that have "hurt the feelings of the Chinese
people." The map includes many countries, with the worst offender
being Japan (not surprising) with 47 offenses against the Chinese
people. (The U.S. is in second place with 23).
Predictably, a writer at the state-run English language newspaper of
China, the Global Times, wrote an editorial called, "Turkey, another
axis of evil?" Like all English-language state-run press in China,
it is pretty poorly written propaganda (I corrected a few spelling
errors). But the quote is worth reprinting here:
Five years ago, when terrorist bombings hit Turkey in November
2003, China took its firm stand on the side of Turkish people
and condemned the violent act. However, when the riots happened,
inflicting causalities and property damage in Urumqi on July 5,
Turkey stands by the side of the thugs, revealing its shame to the
whole world and repaying China with evilness.
Then Turkey is not on the side of the Chinese people! (But National
Review contributor Andy McCarthy clearly is, writing a blog post that
could be confused for being from the Chinese government).
Ultimately, I doubt significant outside criticism could compel China
to change its policy against the Uighurs as it hasn't worked for
Tibet--it's too popular among the 90% or so Han Chinese who make up
the country. But it is revealing what leaders say and don't say.