China continues to lump terrorist groups and peaceful activists together \u2014 and to censor media coverage of both.<\/p>\n
By David Volodzko
November 23, 2015<\/p>\n
In a statement to French President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande<\/a>, President Xi Jinping strongly condemned the Paris attacks of November 13, both personally and as China\u2019s president, offering his sympathy to the victims and their families and promising to work with the international community to fight terrorism and make the world safer for all.<\/p>\n Even before the Paris attacks, on November 9, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei told reporters that<\/a> \u201cit is imperative that we give full play to the coordinating role of the UN to pool together counter-terrorism actions by different parties. There should be no practice of double standards nor linking of terrorism with any specific ethnic groups or religions.\u201d<\/p>\n On November 16, he further commented<\/a>, \u201cthe Chinese side believes that joint efforts are needed to address both the symptoms and the root causes of terrorism. Double standards should be abandoned. All sides should give full play to the leading role of the UN and form a united front against terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n The motive behind these references to a \u201cdouble standard\u201d became clear when Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who also denounced double standards<\/a>, referenced the East Turkestan Islamic Movement \u2014 a sentiment echoed by Xi himself<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBy denouncing double standards the Chinese government is asking the international community to accept wholesale their claims of terrorism,\u201d remarked<\/a> Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International\u2019s regional director for East Asia. \u201cBut we know these claims are very problematic, they are very politicized and they go far beyond anti-state violence or violence against civilians to include peaceful dissent and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that China has lost credibility by repeatedly exaggerating or even manufacturing reports of terrorist attacks, and that the mere support of Xinjiang or Tibetan independence, whether peaceful or not, is considered by the Chinese government an act of terrorism.<\/p>\n In fact, in 2003 the China\u2019s Ministry of Public Security released a list of terrorist organizations<\/a> that included the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, East Turkestan Liberation Organization, and the World Uyghur Youth Congress.<\/p>\n The World Uyghur Youth Congress, which receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy<\/a>, is lead by the activist Rebiya Kadeer. After the July 2009 Urumqi riots, which left 197 dead, the state news agencyXinhua<\/em> published a letter allegedly penned by one dozen of Kadeer\u2019s relatives, which read:<\/p>\n Because of you, many innocent people of all ethnic groups lost their lives in Urumqi on July 5, with huge damage of properties, shops and vehicles \u2026 please think about the happiness of us and your grandchildren. Don\u2019t destroy our happy life here. Don\u2019t follow the provocation from some people in other countries.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n But according to Phelim Kine<\/a>, who is currently deputy director for Human Rights Watch\u2019s Asia Division, \u201cwhat is striking is that the language is boilerplate propaganda department phrasing.\u201d In other words, the letter was likely written by Chinese officials.<\/p>\n Also on the Ministry of Public Security\u2019s 2003 list of terrorist organizations was the East Turkestan Information Center, which publishes reports on human rights abuses against Uyghurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n On November 20, journalist Chang Ping wrote an editorial<\/a>, originally published in Chinese<\/a> in Deutsche Welle<\/em>, in which he noted that state police recently killed 17 in Xinjiang, including women and children<\/a>. He went on to comment:<\/p>\n It is precisely because Western media do hold China to the same standard as other countries that they are so critical in their coverage. China\u2019s government is always yammering on about how China\u2019s \u2018national circumstances\u2019 are unique. What is this if not a desire that the West holds China to a separate standard?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n He then explained how the recent raid in Xinjiang was reportedly a counter-terrorism attack, targeting those responsible for the September mine attack in Aksu, which left 40 dead. The government censored reports of the raid and later only released information through Xinhua<\/em>, Chang writes.<\/p>\n Chang then asks us to imagine how the world might react if the French government handled the Paris attacks in the way that the Chinese government handled the Aksu attacks, censoring all reporting, including reports of death tolls.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should be obvious to everyone,\u201d he says, \u201cthat Western media would have criticized the French government with at least the same intensity as the criticisms leveled against China in the case of Xinjiang. In all probability, the blowback from the attempted restrictions would precipitate an end to the current French administration.\u201d<\/p>\n Acknowledging a \u201cstupor of nationalism\u201d that emerged in the West following 9\/11, Chang also points to the existence of \u201ca more critical and reflective tone,\u201d one that argues against aggregating Muslim identity, whereas Chinese media continue to group terrorists and peaceful separatists together.<\/p>\n In other words, until the Chinese government gives its media the same freedom to cover such events, and its people the same basic human rights that terrorism exists to violate, Beijing has no right to speak of a double standard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China continues to lump terrorist groups and peaceful activists together \u2014 and to censor media coverage of both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2222"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}