Uyghurs have become a thorny issue for Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations in their relations with China.<\/p>\n
By Michael Clarke
August 28, 2015<\/p>\n
Following the attack on the Erawan Shrine on August 18 in central Bangkok, which killed 20, including a number of Chinese tourists, and injured more than 100, Thai authorities and media speculated<\/a> that the attack could be the work of Uyghur extremists from China\u2019s restive Xinjiang province.<\/p>\n Given the fact that there are other Thai actors with immediate motives to undermine the current military junta, such as disaffected \u201cRed Shirts\u201d (supporters of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin) and Muslim separatists from southern Thailand, a Uyghur link would appear<\/a> on the surface to be unlikely.<\/p>\n Yet the Uyghurs have in fact become a thorny issue for the Thai government and other Southeast Asian nations in their relations with China, and further investigation into the extent of the region\u2019s \u201cUyghur problem\u201d reveals the extent of Beijing\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n Southeast Asia has emerged<\/a> over the past five years as a major transit zone for Uyghur refugees seeking asylum in Turkey (a country with a well-established Uyghur exile community) and Europe, as their traditional migration routes via Central and South Asia have been closed off by ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and greater security cooperation among governments in those regions with Beijing.<\/p>\n Thailand, in particular, as highlighted by the ongoing controversy regarding people smuggling of Muslim Rohingyas from Burma, has become a hub of illegal migration<\/a>. It is increasingly apparent that Uyghurs are also now part of such flows. In November last year, Thai authorities discovered around 100 Uyghurs<\/a>, including women and children, living in squalid conditions in a people-smuggler run camp in southern Thailand, while a further 200 were discovered living in a jungle camp in Songkhla province in March this year.<\/p>\n This has created a major problem for Thailand in its increasingly close relationship with Beijing. Last month, under considerable pressure from Beijing, Thailand forcibly repatriated 109 Uyghurs to China<\/a>, causing outrage amongst the Uyghur diaspora and human rights NGOs who feared they would face arrest or worse on their return.<\/p>\n The United Nations Human Rights Commission deemed Thailand\u2019s decision to be a \u201cflagrant breach of international law,\u201d while Human Rights Watch described Thailand\u2019s apparent cave in to Chinese pressure as both \u201cshocking and disturbing.\u201d Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha\u2019s callous remark at the time that, \u201cIf we send them back and there is a problem that is not our fault\u201d certainly did not do anything<\/a> to combat such criticism.<\/p>\n The core issue at stake here, as Alim Seytoff, president of the Uyghur American Association (UAA), has noted<\/a> is that China is increasingly able to leverage its economic and strategic weight in countries such as Thailand to seek the forcible return of individuals in \u201cdisregard of international human rights conventions and norms\u201d to which it ostensibly abides.<\/p>\n Yet China\u2019s approach should come as little surprise. In fact, it mirrors China\u2019s strategy to combat perceived Uyghur separatism and terrorism in its relations with the Central Asian republics (with which Xinjiang shares borders) over the past two decades, whereby increased Chinese economic investment and aid coincided with greater restrictions and surveillance targeting Uyghur communities and migrants there. Often, official visits by Chinese leaders to these states would be accompanied<\/a> by the extradition of Uyghur \u201cterrorists\u201d back to Xinjiang and the signing of bilateral economic agreements .<\/p>\n This pattern has been discernible over the past few years in China\u2019s relations with a number of other Southeast Asian countries. In December 2009, for instance, Cambodia, under Chinese pressure, deported 20 Uyghurs back to China and days later inked a lucrative trade and investment package during then-Vice Premier Xi Jinping\u2019s visit to the country. Similar incidents<\/a> have also occurred in Malaysia, Burma, Laos and Vietnam, with an estimated total of 72 Uyghurs forcibly repatriated to China between 2010 and 2014. The Thai decision to return the 109 Uyghurs also coincided with the Thai navy\u2019s decision<\/a> to purchase three submarines from China worth $1 billion.<\/p>\n Beijing, for its part has maintained that the Uyghurs were not in fact \u201crefugees\u201d but \u201cjihad recruits\u201d on their way to fight in the Syrian conflict via Turkey. Beijing has cited in this respect the precedent of its arrest<\/a> of nine Uyghurs and 10 Turkish nationals accused of facilitating their recruitment, en route to Syria in Shanghai in January this year.<\/p>\n In the case of the Thai Uyghurs however, Beijing has proffered little in the way way of evidence. Subsequent footage aired on CCTV of the Uyghurs on their flight back to China handcuffed, hooded and flanked by Chinese security personnel has done little to dispel<\/a> concerns as to their ultimate fate.<\/p>\n What is clear is that the Uyghur issue is set remain a point of tension in Southeast Asia\u2019s relations with Beijing as these states attempt to deal with growing illegal migration flows and China\u2019s efforts to leverage its strategic weight in pursuit of its own narrow interest in combatting what it perceives as \u201cUyghur terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n