The „Economist“ lately covered the Chinese rulers‘ policies against the Uighurs in the province of Xinjiang. Counting appr. 10 million people, the Uighurs still are slightly more than the Han Chinese in this province.
According to the „Economist“, the Uighur section of the population, most of which probably is still informed by Islam, is being subjected to an almost unbelievable nasty catalogue of comprehensive and special treatments in order to suppress any kind of possible opposition against the central government, The „South China Morning Post“, too, among others, had covered this subject lately; now the „Economist“ offers material from a correspondant who has visited the region.
In order to politically classify and to critically evaluate such a coverage, the geografic position of the Xinjiang province and its importance for the central governments geostrategic planning must be taken into account. It is common knowledge that the project „New Silk Road“ has maximum strategic weight for the Chinese leadership.
By this project, the Central Asian space is to be opened up for Chinese capitalism and made a secure transition zone for the flow of Chineses merchandise to West Asia and, above all, to Europe. The region’s mineral resources are to be opened up for Chinese capitalism, and parts of its population are to be recruited as work force. Chinese economy and power are to permeate Asia and Europe, catchword „Eurasia“, from Shanghai to Duisburg or Rotterdam, via the Balkans, Russia resp. Ukraina, the area around the Caspian Sea, via Central Asian countries like Kasachstan– and it is Xinjiang where the most important land routes are to meet Chinese territory. Besides, the Chinese leadership is working hard to establish a corresponding maritime connection via the Indian Ocean to Africa and to Europe, too, as it is well known. They call the twofold system „One Belt One Road“ („OBOR“).
In this system, Europe would serve even more as a market for Chinese merchandise; on the other hand, though, it could cash in on extended exports to China – as long as e.g. high-tech products from Europe are still wanted in China. With the passage of time, Europe would be downgraded to an appendix, highly dependent from the Chinese Eurasian empire.
It would be political naivity not to assume that the US, the main opponent of Chinese global hegemonic aspirations, has been working for quite a long time at the political mining of the Central Asian space which China is coveting for her expansion. It does not need an explanation that the US must strive to weaken or wholly derail plans like the „New Silk Road“. It is a safe bet that the US and allied powers are covertly supporting e.g. drives for autonomy or secession among Uighurs in Xinjiang, that they are recruiting Islamists or Islamic terrorists there and in Central Asian countries in order to put as many spokes as possible into China’s wheels. Thousands of Uighur Islamists have apparently been recruited for and trained in the infamous war in Syria that the US has staged via his proxies like Saudi-Arabia, employing all kinds of Islamic terror gangs.
Therefore the statements from the Chinese rulers that they have to fight Uighur terrorism in Xinjiang are certainly not made up out of thin air. In case they should indeed attempt to take the ground from under such terrorism by policies as depicted by the „Economist“, then they would actually fertilize this ground even more.
With regard to the general orientation of a magazine like the „Economist“, which does not – not yet? – just belong to Xi Jin-ping’s staunch friends, there may be exaggerations or even fakes in the report. But with regard to China’s rigorosity in exerting her power, with regard to the naive cult of her own Han-Chinese superiority and to the belief to be able to modify masses of people into permanent conformity to the Chinese imperial apparatus – with regard to such traits as revealed manyfold by Xi’s regime I tend to suppose that the article’s core content is correct.
The unprecedented measures employed by the Chinese rulers in order to police, to boss around, to reeducate and penalize the Uighur part of Xinjiangs population, as well as the measures of observation, penalization and steering directed against the whole of China’s population (catchword „social credit system“), probably sparing only the true supremos of capitalism and party, give a taste of what mankind is in for, if the imperial-bureaucratic, „confucian“ Chinese capitalism should get the upper hand.
(This article is the translation of my German article of June 06, 2018. Apologies for clumsiness in my English!)
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