Ms. Rebiya Kadeer<\/p>\n
Last week at the UN Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated China\u2019s position on the Rohingya issue. He told UN Secretary General Antonia Guterres that China \u201cunderstands and supports\u201d Myanmar\u2019s efforts in Rakhine. But why does China support Myanmar\u2019s \u201csecurity efforts\u201d against the Rohingya? Is it because of China\u2019s close relation with Myanmar\u2019s government? No. Because of China\u2019s opposition to Muslims or Rohingya Muslims? That isn\u2019t it either. Then it must be China\u2019s non-intervention policy and respect for Myanmar\u2019s sovereignty, right? Not quite.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As the leader of a people who suffer under Chinese occupation, a former citizen who lived under the CCP regime and witnessed and studied the Chinese regime\u2019s efforts and then opposed them, as a human rights activist struggling for the independence of her people, I\u2019ll answer the question. China \u201cunderstands and supports\u201d Myanmar on the Rohingya issue because it\u2019s in China\u2019s interest do so. To act otherwise \u2013 to remain silent or condemn Myanmar\u2019s violent crackdown on the Rohingya \u2013 would create a conflict of interest for China. Because while Myanmar violently suppresses hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, China is violently oppressing 10 times as many Uyghurs. Reports have classified the recent attacks on the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing, but Myanmar isn\u2019t the only one engaged in this type of atrocity. China\u2019s most recent ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs began in 2009 during the July 5th<\/sup> Urumchi Massacre and hasn\u2019t stopped since. China\u2019s unhypocritical support of Myanmar\u2019s efforts against the Rohingya aligns with its interest in carrying out similar \u201csecurity efforts\u201d against the Uyghurs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My words may seem exaggerated to some. Today, we know about the plight of the Rohingya because Myanmar is a democracy \u2013 at least in name now \u2013 and is relatively accessible. But the oppression of the Uyghurs living under Chinese occupation and dictatorship remain largely a mystery to the world. For example, we know that close to 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh and other neighboring countries. Today, China detains thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Uyghurs in re-education camps in Eastern Turkistan<\/a>, and Uyghurs are being held captive not just in prisons, detention centers and re-education camps, but also in their own villages, cities and homeland. Many Uyghurs can\u2019t even visit their neighboring village or city without permission from law enforcement authorities<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n UN officials estimate more than 1000 Rohingya deaths as a result of the Myanmar military crackdown. Since the 2009 July 5th<\/sup>Urumchi Massacre, thousands of Uyghurs have been forcibly disappeared. And very few have been identified. Human Rights Watch identified at least 43 of the disappeared Uyghurs<\/a>, while Radio Free Asia Uyghur identified about 40<\/a> . Recently, Chinese billionaire businessman Guo Wengui \u2013 who is now seeking asylum in the United States \u2013 leaked that more than 500 Uyghurs were buried<\/a> during the Urumchi Massacre, But no organization or news agency has shown interest in this information because there is no way of confirming the accuracy of Wengui\u2019s leaks. To this day, China has not revealed the number or names of those disappeared during the Urumchi Massacre. Nor has the regime released information or the deceased bodies to their families. China has refused to answer international organizations\u2019 questions about the forcibly disappeared. China imprisoned Ilham Tohti for calling on the Chinese government <\/a>to release information about the disappeared to their families.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I apologize for borrowing attention from the suffering Rohingya for even a moment. I applaud the humane governments and organizations that are struggling to address the plight of the Rohingya. But the Chinese Minister\u2019s remarks at the UN has forced me to speak up. China\u2019s support for Myanmar\u2019s violent campaign against the Rohingya emboldens the Myanmar regime. It seems it is not enough for China to oppress and murder my people in their own homeland because now it seeks to support the oppression and ethnic cleansing of my human brothers and sisters in Rakhine.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n