中文
1.China Review News: The United States, Britain, Germany and NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International hosted a virtual event on Xinjiang's human rights situation in New York on May 12, keeping up the shameless hype-up on the so-called "genocide" issue in Xinjiang and also calling on China to allow unfettered access to Xinjiang by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Does China have any comment?
Hua Chunying: The United States, Britain and Germany ganged up with some NGOs to host a virtual conference on Xinjiang's human rights situation based on lies and political prejudice falsely in the name of the UN. China deplores and rejects it. The conference was awash with outrageous lies and disinformation. It was another despicable shoddy show and sheer political farces put together by a handful of countries including the US. In fact, it was firmly rejected by the vast UN membership.
I must point out that these countries that are always trying to lecture others on human rights issues actually have a deplorable record on human rights and have committed piles of crimes. The false allegations they launch against China mirror their own historical crimes and sinister mentality.
US history has recorded the horrific systemic ethnic cleansing and slaughter of Native Indians, which constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. Between the 19th century and the 1970s, the US government sent a large number of Indian children to boarding schools, which can be called the progenitor of concentration camps. An American historian at the University of Hawaii points out that the US warfare against the Native American population was the largest genocide in history. Pulitzer Prize winner John Toland wrote in his book Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography that Hitler attributed his idea of concentration camps and his practice of genocide to his study of British and American history. In the US today, racism is still a systemic and persistent existence penetrating every aspect of life. Former President Obama said, "the legacy of discrimination in almost every institution of our lives - you know, that casts a long shadow. And that's still part of our DNA that's passed on". "Defined broadly enough, one could say that there's systemic racism across every institution in America," said former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. The US claims loudly enough that it is concerned about the human rights of Muslims. However, it is exactly the US and its accomplices that have killed the most Muslims. The US waged wars and military operations in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries in the name of "fighting terrorism", taking the lives of over a million Muslims and displacing tens of millions. Where is the US concern for human rights?
Britain committed countless horrifying crimes all over the world during hundreds of years of colonial rule. The world's first concentration camp in South Africa carries with it the disgraceful brand of the British Empire. British forces killed innocent people and committed torture in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but the culprits are sheltered by the government and remain beyond the law. Where is the UK concern for human rights?
In the beginning of the 20th century, German colonists slaughtered over 100,000 indigenous Namibian tribespeople. United Nations Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights said in a report that this is the first genocide in the 20th century. During WWII, Nazi Germany slaughtered almost six million Jews. Where is Germany's concern for human rights?
Instead of reflecting deeply on their poor human rights records and crimes in the past and at present, the countries above crossed every line to smear and denigrate China. This only exposes their sanctimonious hypocrisy. If they truly care about human rights, why didn't they invite residents from Xinjiang to attend the event? If they truly care about human rights, why don't they reflect upon and redress serious racial discriminatory polices and behavior at home? If they truly care about human rights, why are they so callous as millions die of COVID-19 at home? If they truly care about human rights, they should take effective measures immediately to make sure all ethnic minorities can breathe freely, stop killing innocent civilians in overseas military operations, hold the culprits accountable and apologize to the affected countries and victims, and take prompt measures to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines globally.
Institutions and individuals attending this meeting are all anti-China in nature. Non-governmental organizations like the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have always been biased, confusing right with wrong and spreading rumors around. The so-called "World Uyghur Congress" (WUC) is an out-and-out anti-China separatist organization. Its president Dolqun Isa, one participant to the meeting, is a terrorist identified by the Chinese government. He has all along been fabricating rumors and lies on Xinjiang, spreading religious extremism, and instigating violent terrorism and separatism. The US is mechanically repeating those lies and rumors fabricated by a handful of fake "witnesses" and "scholars".
Those Western countries would rather believe the lies concocted by a few people than heed the voice of the 25 million people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang and the 1.4 billion Chinese. They would rather play along with the clumsy show of a handful of anti-China forces than acknowledge the development and progress in Xinjiang. This further exposed the hypocritical nature of their so-called democracy and human rights, and laid bare their intention to make an issue out of the human rights situation in Xinjiang to disrupt and contain China, and to divert people's attention from their own past and on-going human rights crimes and incompetency in domestic governance and COVID-19 response.
Some people said,"If you have nothing to hide, why don't you grant unimpeded access to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights?" My question is, if someone makes a false accusation against you and arbitrarily asks you to open the door unconditionally so that they can rummage through your chests and cupboards, will you allow it? This is not about facts, but sovereignty and dignity! We welcome all unbiased people to visit Xinjiang. That said, we firmly reject so-called investigation with presumption of guilt by citing lies and rumors, firmly reject interference in China's domestic affairs under the pretext of human rights, and firmly reject playing up the so-called Xinjiang-related issues to undermine China's stability and contain China's development.
A Chinese poem reads that amid monkeys' howl along the riverbanks, my skiff has travelled a thousand miles. China's growth and Xinjiang's stability and development will never be shaken by the clumsy show of these countries and individuals. We hope and believe that the international community will see their real nature and avoid being misled by people with ill intentions. This political farce started by a few countries ganging up with some anti-China organizations and individuals will only end up in a disgraceful self-defeat. (2021.05.13)
2.Beijing Youth Daily: On April 11, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US will bring the world together in speaking with one voice in condemning China's actions and will take actions to make sure that none of the companies are providing China with things that they can use to repress minority groups. Does China have any comment?
Zhao Lijian: The US has been repeating the lie of the century that there is genocide in Xinjiang. Its obsession with smearing and slandering China only reveals its three-fold conspiracy.
First, disrupting Xinjiang to contain China. Xinjiang, a vast region with an important geographical location, is at the center of the Silk Road Economic Belt and a gateway for China's opening-up on the west. On Xinjiang-related issues, some in the US are truly in a league of their own with their feverish minds and sinister means. The US committed genocide on native Indians, traded and enslaved black people, and wantonly invaded and interfered in sovereign countries. There is solid evidence for its numerous crimes. Some in the US concocted the lies of "detention camps", "genocide", "forced labor" and "systemic sexual abuse" on Xinjiang-related issues out of thin air. They also keep up a constant effort to refurbish their lies. Now they even attempt to target snow-white cotton in Xinjiang. The accusations they place on China are better left to the US itself. The last thing those in the US care about is facts and truth. Their true intention is to deal a heavy blow to Xinjiang's cotton textile industry, disrupt prosperity and stability in the region and hold back China's development.
Second, sowing discord between China and Muslim countries. We would like to remind the US that 64 countries, including Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Iran, Syria and Pakistan, spoke with one voice at the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council to support China on Xinjiang-related issues. Not long ago, SCO Secretary-General and ambassadors and other diplomats posted in China by 21 countries went to visit Xinjiang. After seeing the region as it is, they came to the conclusion that slanders against China by anti-China elements are groundless. They understand and support Xinjiang's counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts, and commend its stability, prosperity and unprecedented development achievements. As the fact has shown, the vicious US conspiracy to sow discord has no effect whatsoever on Muslim countries and visionary people of the international community. Instead of caring about the human rights of people in Xinjiang, some in the US are taking advantage of the religious sentiments of Muslims to drive wedges between China and Muslim countries.
Third, covering up its own deplorable record on the treatment of Muslims. Since 2001, the US has launched military operations in over 80 countries in the name of fighting terrorism, taking more than 800,000 lives, including 330,000 civilians. By citing a test tube of laundry powder and a staged video, the US blatantly invaded sovereign countries including Iraq and Syria, causing tens of thousands of civilian casualties and making tens of millions homeless. Is this how the US cares for the Muslims? Why does the US "worry itself sick" over Muslims in Xinjiang only? Muslims around the world have long been suffering from untold misery inflicted by the US that does not care about Muslims at all and is just trying to divert the Muslim community's anger toward itself.
If the US is bent on repeating lies 1,000 times, we will reiterate the truth 10,000 times. Whether the US chooses to see and believe it or not, facts and truth about Xinjiang will stay unshakable like the towering mountain of Tianshan and clear like the crystal lake of Tianchi. Prosperity, stability and ethnic harmony in Xinjiang are the source of our confidence. The US lies on Xinjiang will collapse and its attempt to contain China is doomed to fail.
3.Global Times: On April 6, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that "when it comes to our concerns with the government in Beijing, including Beijing's egregious human rights violations, its conduct of genocide in the case of Xinjiang, that what the United States does is meaningful". Do you have any comment?
Zhao Lijian: As we've said repeatedly, the so-called allegation of "genocide" in Xinjiang is the most preposterous lie of the century. The more diligently the US works to fabricate lies on China's human rights conditions and disguise itself as human rights defender, the more it exposes its guilty conscience burdened by its grave human rights problems at home. It can find no other way to deflect people's attention than to put the blame on others. Such ploys of trying to fool the world cannot succeed. The US has been using human rights as a fig leaf, but this has failed long ago to cover the sins it has committed, which have been inscribed in history and still manifest themselves today. Let me name a few here.
The first sin: colonialism. US history has recorded the horrific systemic ethnic cleansing and slaughter of native Indians, which constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. Over nearly 100 years after the US was founded, native Indians were expelled and killed during the Westward Expansion. Their population dwindled from 5 million at the end of the 15th century to 250,000 at the beginning of the 20th century.
The second sin: racism. In the US, racism is a comprehensive, systematic and persistent existence. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination(CERD) has long pointed out that African Americans face systemic racism in exercising their rights of health, employment, education and fair trial. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, hate crimes against Asian Americans have increased by 150% since March 2020. Earlier this year, when the UN Human Rights Council was reviewing the report on the US, over 110 countries criticized the US on its human rights issues, asking the US to take concrete measures to solve systemic problems such as discrimination against minority groups.
The third sin: exporting unrest. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the US in the name of fighting terrorism in about 80 countries have taken more than 800,000 lives, including 330,000 civilians, and led to displacement of tens of millions of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria among other countries. The "Arab Spring" that the US-led western forces helped stage has left many countries in West Asia and North Africa struggling in turmoil ever since.
The fourth sin: interventionism. For many years, hiding behind the banner of human rights over national sovereignty, the US has launched strikes against sovereign countries in defiance of UN Charter principle of respecting national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs. The US has also imposed unilateral sanctions on more than a few developing countries, leading to severe humanitarian crisis. How could there be unbroken eggs under a toppled nest? How could human rights be protected if national sovereignty is lost?
The fifth sin: double standard. The US, in sheer disregard of the reality that Xinjiang enjoys development and prosperity and the fact that the 25 million residents of all ethnic groups there live in solidarity and harmony, wantonly slapped the label of "genocide" on China based on nothing but the words of a few false witnesses. But how has the US government, who is professing such great concern over the Uyghur Muslims in China's Xinjiang, been treating Muslims at home? After 9/11, some American cities witnessed radical behaviors including smashing and looting of mosques in Muslim communities. The Muslim group were targeted by White mobs. In 2017, the previous US administration issued the anti-Muslim ban, making the US the only country in the world to have issued a ban targeting the Muslim community specifically. A US poll showed that over 80 percent of those surveyed believe Muslims face discrimination in the US.
For too long, the US has been styling itself deceptively as a exemplary model of human rights protection while flagrantly playing with double standard and using human rights as a tool to maintain its hegemony. We urge it to let go of its arrogance and bias, review and examine its serious human rights issues, and take concrete steps to address them instead of wantonly criticizing other countries.