{"id":4635,"date":"2018-12-05T18:30:49","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T18:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/12\/05\/will-trump-speak-against-chinas-oppression\/"},"modified":"2018-12-05T18:30:49","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T18:30:49","slug":"will-trump-speak-against-chinas-oppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/will-trump-speak-against-chinas-oppression\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Trump Speak Up Against China\u2019s Oppression?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As President Trump prepares to meet his Chinese counterpart<\/span><\/a>, Xi Jinping, at the G-20 gathering in Argentina this weekend, tough American tariffs and a broader bilateral trade relationship are at the top the agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what about concerns that the Trump administration has expressed in the past over Beijing\u2019s repression and mass internment of Uighurs <\/span><\/a>and other Muslims? Some of Mr. Trump\u2019s top lieutenants, like Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have called attention to the Uighurs\u2019 plight, but given the president\u2019s fixation on tariffs, he may well decide to hold his fire about the Uighurs to appease Mr. Xi in pursuit of a trade deal. So it\u2019s no surprise that the White House is refusing to say whether the Uighurs will be on the agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n

The dilemma Mr. Trump faces has some faint echoes from <\/span>1989,<\/span> when President George H.W. Bush had to figure out how to recalibrate relations with China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Of course, Mr. Trump lacks the experience or subtlety that Mr. Bush \u2014 a former director of the C.I.A. and envoy to China \u2014 brought to that fraught diplomatic moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Bush \u201cwanted to safeguard the underlying geopolitical relationship,\u201d his secretary of state, James Baker, wrote in October<\/span><\/a>. Still, Mr. Baker added, \u201cThe United States could not be viewed as a cynical paper tiger on human rights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At that time, China was just beginning the economic reforms that would eventually make it an international force to be reckoned with, and relations with the United States were at a peak. Responding to pressure from Congress and international outrage over the widely publicized Tiananmen Square killings, the Bush administration imposed limited sanctions on Beijing while maintaining <\/span>dialogue<\/span> with Chinese officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, when another, more hostile strategic realignment between Beijing and Washington seems to be underway, there is again an urgent need to address at the highest levels of the American government what have been described as China\u2019s worst human rights abuses in decades. They are largely happening in secret to a group of people who are little known outside China.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Xi has imposed China\u2019s most sweeping internment<\/span><\/a> program since Mao Zedong\u2019s Cultural <\/span>Revolution,<\/span> when more than a million people were killed and millions of others were imprisoned, tortured and humiliated.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Mr. Pompeo and other senior officials have acknowledged, Chinese officials are forcibly holding hundreds of thousands \u2014 perhaps more than one million \u2014 Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims in camps across the northwest Central Asian border region of Xinjiang without any formal legal process.<\/span><\/p>\n

There have been credible reports of torture, starvation <\/span>and<\/span> death in the camps. There are, as well, accusations that officials have forced detainees to renounce traditional Islamic practices and swear allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. On Thursday, CNN reported that a Chinese photojournalist,<\/span><\/a> Lu Guang, had disappeared in China after being seized by authorities in Xinjiang.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Overlaying all of this is a sophisticated surveillance system<\/span><\/a> that uses cameras, biometric data <\/span>and<\/span> phone apps to reinforce state control. Officials reportedly have also deployed more than a million Chinese civilians, mostly members of the country\u2019s Han majority, to occupy the homes of Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang in order to indoctrinate and monitor them. The Uighurs, numbering about 11 million, are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beijing argues that the crackdown is needed to combat extremism and terrorism<\/span><\/a> on its western frontier and says that many of those detained are common criminals. But Mr. Pompeo has said that Uighur \u201creligious beliefs are decimated.<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And Mr. Pence, in a hard-hitting speech in October, lambasted a \u201cnew wave of persecution\u201d <\/span><\/a>that is \u201ccrashing down on Chinese Christians, Buddhists <\/span>and<\/span> Muslims.\u201d He said the Uighurs \u201cendure round-the-clock brainwashing\u201d as part of a \u201cdeliberate attempt by Beijing to strangle Uighur culture and stamp out the Muslim faith.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Such rhetoric helped focus more international attention on the campaign of oppression against the Uighurs, but it\u2019s not nearly enough. While Western countries have begun to speak out, where is the outrage from Muslim countries? Why aren\u2019t China\u2019s neighbors demanding an end to the abuses?<\/span><\/p>\n

The world can ill afford to remain mute, as it did for too long when the generals in Myanmar began unleashing genocide against the Rohingyas<\/span><\/a>, members of a Muslim ethnic group that <\/span>have<\/span> been killed by the thousands and forced to flee to Bangladesh.<\/span><\/p>\n

For several months, administration officials have been discussing whether to impose punitive measures on China over its treatment of Uighurs. In mid-November, lawmakers in Washington introduced legislation <\/span><\/a>that would level sanctions on specific Chinese officials and limit the sales of American technology products to certain Chinese state agencies.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n