Bilateral Relations are Undermining Justice and Support for Uighurs Facing Persecution in China
Stephanie Dandelé, Online Staff Writer
March 9, 2021
Since 2017, Uighurs have consistently been persecuted by the Chinese government in ways that violate human rights and are consistent with acts of genocide yet there has been a lack of substantial action on the part of the international community. Internment camps that have been constructed in China’s Xinjiang region have been described by China as a counterterrorism measure meant to re-educate Uighurs who hold Islamist extremist views through vocational skills and Chinese language. However, numerous first-hand sources claim that attempts to be re-educated are centered around the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. In an interview by Nick Schifrin, Abdulsalam Mohammed who was formerly detained in an internment camp said that the re-education programs were “a plot to force us to renounce our religion”.
It is estimated that well over one million Uighurs have been detained and placed into internment camps, but that number is likely increasing. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has identified 380 detention centres within the Xinjiang region since 2017. One of their researchers Nathan Ruser highlights that significant investment has been made regarding the construction of new centres throughout 2019 and 2020, suggesting that the persecution of Uighurs is intensifying rather than decreasing and that the international community’s urges to China regarding the situation have gone unacknowledged and ignored.
Within the internment camps, reports of sexual assault, torture, mass surveillance, rape, and forced sterilization have been made by detainees and former employees and have been supported by investigative findings. In 2018, the annual report of the United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China highlights forcible detentions, the use of forced labour, restriction on the Quran, and various forms of physical and psychological abuse including waterboarding and sleep deprivation. The use of forced sterilization is a specific example of an act committed on the part of the Chinese government where, under Act II subsection d of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group with the intent to destroy a religious or ethnic group constitutes genocide. Under this definition, the genocide of Uighurs has been taking place in the Xinjiang region for the past four years. Chinese tactics have ultimately succeeded in achieving certain desired outcomes associated with genocide as forced sterilization has drastically impacted the Uighur population. Dr. Adrian Zenz found that population growth in Xinjiang’s minority regions has declined dramatically since 2017, with growth rates falling by 84 percent between 2015 and 2018, and further declining in 2019. Additionally, 80 percent of all IUD placements in China were performed in the Xinjiang region despite it making up only 1.8 percent of China’s population.
But despite evidence and reports of the treatment of Uighurs since 2017, certain countries are only now determining that the mistreatment of the specificed minority is genocide and China is only just beginning to face repercussions. The lack of action on the part of the international community has left the Uighur population of Xinjiang vulnerable and unsupported, leaving room for China to continue its genocide of Uighurs and increase funding for mass sterilization programs and investments in the construction of additional detainment centres.
Ultimately, countries appear to be more concerned with their bilateral relations with China rather than the human rights and treatment of Uighurs in the region. Both the United States and Canada only just classified the brutality occurring in Xinjiang as a genocide, with the United States doing so on January 19, 2021 and Canada on February 23, 2021. However, the knowledge of the situation has been accessible for years despite China being uncooperative and maintaining the claim that the centres are merely for voluntary, re-education purposes.
What is perhaps most puzzling is that despite these explicit human rights violations and genocide practices, Canada, a government and country that praises itself on being a champion of human rights, has been so slow in its response to the situation. Even recently, when the House of Commons voted to determine whether or not China’s treatment of the Uighur population is genocide, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau abstained from participating.
The United Nations Genocide Convention clearly lays out a definition of genocide in addition to specific acts that constitute genocide which has been ratified by both Canada and China. Given the gravity of the situation occurring in Xinjiang in addition to Canada’s stance on human rights and their ratification of the Genocide Convention, officially labeling what is occurring as genocide should not have taken this long and Justin Trudeau should have participated in the vote.
The reason behind why China’s treatment of the Uighurs has only just been classified as genocide as well as Justin Trudeau’s decision to abstain from voting may simply be Canada’s large concern for its bilateral relationship with China that benefits both the Chinese and Canadian economies. The Chinese-Canadian bilateral relationship has been beneficial to both countries, however, for a country claiming to hold human rights in such high regard, insufficient action has been taken to support the Uighur population and condemn China’s actions. Given these circumstances, one must ask at what point do interest concerning violations of human rights and genocide outweigh economic interests?