The Heat: China pushes back on Western narrative on Xinjiang

[Music] legal population has more than doubled in the last four decades so how can people talk about so-called genocide the chinese government pushes back against critical western reporting on xinjiang we will take a closer look hello i'm arnold neider and this is the heat [Music] western countries impose sanctions on china in response to allegations of human rights abuses in its xinjiang uyghur autonomous region those allegations reported by western media outlets claim the minority uiga muslim population is being subjected to forced labor and other abuses cgtn's huang yue went to xinjiang and filed this report nearby is the eldest daughter of her family her father became disabled after a traffic accident and her mother left them after getting a divorce her two younger sisters one still at school and the other who's just started work are unable to support the family despite all the hardships she managed to finish college and now is the only wigger among the 10 accountants in a cotton textile factory thanks to her education [Music] i came to the factory in 2017. at first my salary was not very high and i used to send half of it to my father back home gradually as my salary increased i could pay off my loans and have some savings dylannie's colleague patti gore-torson is the only person in her family who has a job her mother-in-law has been bed-ridden with severe diabetes for years and her husband has to stay home to take care of her her two teenage daughters are both in boarding school which makes life easier for her after years of hard work she's now the head of the workshop in the factory and in 2016 she was named a national model worker in the textile industry well down to the school in 2016 i trained the new employees i taught them how to use the machine safely i did very well at work so i got the award and i went to beijing to receive it it was the first time i had ever traveled by plane and also my first time in beijing i'm really grateful because if i didn't have this job i might have never had the chance to travel to beijing had only about 60 square meters of cotton filled in his hometown and the annual income from growing cotton couldn't support his family of seven so he came to axio looking for a better job now abla has a four-year-old daughter he's just bought a house in downtown axu with monthly mortgage repayment of 1601 or around 240 us dollars i met my wife a year after i came to the factory we both work here and we can earn over 10 000 yuan per month if i hadn't taken the job my life would be much harder in my hometown people's quality of life is much worse these are just three of the thousands of uyghur employees at a cotton textile company in naxxu southern xinjiang devoting themselves assiduously to working for a better life but these diligent and motivated workers have been described in western propaganda as forced labor and the company that employs them was among the entities sanctioned by the us last may over what washington says are human rights issues the firm has consistently requested that its name not be used as it wants to avoid any more negative repercussions amid the recent xinjiang khan ban a senior executive said the company suffered significant losses after the sanctions last year but still management insisted factory operations continue as over 5 000 local people 90 percent of whom are weagers rely on the factory for work as the largest yarn maker in the textile hub of axel the company is a key local employer helping over 2 600 people shake off poverty since it was founded in 2010. the products of the company used to be exported to the us and european countries but now they've been redirected to the domestic market but even during the most difficult times following the sanctions the workers say their managers made sure there were no cuts in their wages or bonuses autonomous region well to discuss the situation in xinjiang let's bring in our panel from beijing zun ahmed khan is a visiting fellow at singhua university from bangkok via skype pepe escobar is the editor-at-large for the asia times here in washington dc also via skype dan cohen is a correspondent for behind the headlines and with me here in the studio cgtn correspondent han pong who has reported from xinjiang welcome to all of you zun uh ahmed khan let me start with you there are now sanctions being imposed by some western companies in china uh we look at brands like h m nike as well very big sports equipment company they've chosen not to buy cotton which is produced in the xinjiang region what impact are these sanctions having and how are they being seen in china okay anand firstly thank you for having me on the program the question of xinjiang is something that uh in recent months especially has gained a lot of heat uh not only in western countries but now uh even in china people are discussing what is the real issue what what is the evidence on which these certain countries that are forming a coalition against uh china vis-a-vis xinjiang uh what evidence are they basing these accusations on so obviously when you see a track record of the us in particular to justify intervention sanctions on various countries um we see that this is not something new it's a script that we're familiar with secondly there is motive uh it's been a while since the u.s has made their intention very clear that they will by any means possible try to contain china's rights try to incentivize uh countries to push against china or to reduce their links for china so in all of this context when when this kind of coverage enters the chinese media and they see what's being said uh the reaction is obviously that they uh they feel perturbed they they understand that there is a motive to target them so at large chinese people we've seen a reaction that they are themselves as well boycotting uh these brands that have politicized the question without enough evidence have uh discriminated against uh xinjiang cotton and this is something that we will see moving forward that people will continue to support their government now when we talk about people in xinjiang who are being affected directly xinjiang is in fact an example for countries for the region at large that have faced the kind of issues that xinjiang was experiencing they've come a long way economic growth has been phenomenal in recent years and the uyghur people in particular have benefited from this now what is the impact of sanctions it's regular people that are trying to make a living trying to make ends and that have in xinjiang benefited from the recent stabilization of the security situation um they are the ones being impacted at first we've seen that sanctions have had a negative impact anywhere else in the world and especially when it comes to china of course you can't contain a country that big that is the biggest trading partner for most countries in the world so i think uh the reaction from the people is definitely um not they're not supportive they they feel attacked uh in china at large and as far as weaker people are concerned obviously they will be affected but i will end with this that i think china is diversifying uh there is a world outside within china there is a great market there are many countries apart from these that are boycotting and i think in the near future perhaps diversification of xinjiang cotton exporting xinjiang cotton could be the way forward hong pong there's another popular united states brand sketchers uh we see them in department uh malls all over the place they released a statement that reads sketches also confirmed that it conducted multiple audits both announced and unannounced and that none of these orders revealed any indications of the use of forced labor or other concerns on labor conditions um that's from skechers but now when it comes to companies like nike and h m do you know how they uh have got their evidence or the facts on what they base their decisions well i would say of course they didn't do any of the audits independently in xinjiang because if they've done their artists when they are going so strong in boycotting the xinjiang cotton they should at least provide some of the hard evidence to show to the world that xinjiang does have forced labor or some other you know crime against humanity right but what's going on is that we have seen that either the these companies were the western media they're just using the third or fourth hand information as evidence or they're just interviewing those one-sided exiles people who are just having one-sided part of the voices instead of having the other side of the wise in having coverage so my understanding as a journalist is that when you are doing coverage like this you should have both sides of the sources and most importantly go to xinjiang check out yeah you know in xinjiang the access for reporters are fully open uh all you need to do is to inform the government that you're going there as a foreign journalist and most importantly get permissions to enter people's homes and also you know get permissions to interview people so very quickly uh companies these are big corporations nike and h m uh so they're depending on what media reports they're just depending on reports like this which are just busy seeking for justifications in xinjiang by not providing facts but providing just a narrative or providing justifications that fits into the narrative that they want to provide right pepe escobar we have seen western pressure against china increase over the past few years in fact president biden came into office and kept most of the trump measures against china untouched and we've had many reasons on why the united states uh is doing this i mean we heard some from zun ahmed khan a moment ago but i want to play you an excerpt of a speech that lawrence wilkerson he was the chief of staff to the former secretary of state colin powell he made this speech some time ago but he talked about some of the reasons why pressure is being put on china let's listen to it they're 20 million weak years and they don't like han chinese in xinjiang province in western china well the cia would want to destabilize china and that would be the best way to do it to full men unrest and to join with those uighurs in pushing the han chinese and beijing from internal places rather than external not saying it's going on right now you didn't hear that so what do you make of that pepe what do you think the motivation is well it's absolutely correct colonel wilkerson is part of our uh circle uh we're always in touch uh what he says about the cia operation is absolutely correct in fact the destabil destabilization of sing junk from the outside is a cia black ops it's a direct counterpart to what they tried with the hong kong color revolution which which i covered in detail in a few trips to hong kong which was my former home before i moved to bangkok uh the thing is we have to look at this strategically it's very important colin wilkerson gives us a few hints this is part of a broader cia hybrid war strategy to try to destabilize china especially now investing in the key border between china and central asia which means trying to pierce a a sort of uh you know a sort of of uh a trojan horse inside xinjiang because xinjiang is the absolutely key connection of the belton road between china western china central asia and further on to uh western asia southeast asia and europe so uh what they try in hong kong color revolutions will never work in uh in xinjiang so if you demonize industry in xinjiang which is the case of the highly mechanized cotton industry in xinjiang and you create the perception for western audiences american but also europeans which copy these uh rules that emanate from the beltway from the cia especially you create a global perception that china is uh and then we hark back to the very dangerous uh world war ii era terminology of concentration camps forced labor and all that so you you create the perception in western audiences that what china is doing is equivalent what the nazis did before and during sec world war ii this is extremely dangerous it works for missing foreign people across the west but it does not work in the main audience in the world which is the global south right uh dan cohen you've done a lot of reporting on this issue uh let's listen to what president biden said recently about this he was talking at the news conference that he held just a few days ago let's watch china has an overall goal and i don't criticize them for the goal but they have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world that's not going to happen on my watch so dan you know we often hear the united states talk about the rules-based order in the world and it seems here when you listen to president biden it that he's saying that look china is violating that rules-based order can't understand why you know it would be a violation if a country wants to grow economically if it wants to be prosperous if it wants its people to have a better life so is this really about containing china i think it absolutely is about containing china i mean when president biden and american politicians as secretary of state tony blinken spoke about in anchorage to his chinese counterparts when they speak about the rules-based order this is a euphemism for american imperialism that everyone around the world all countries are subject to our subjects of the american empire and they have to follow the orders of the u.s now this rules based order is selectively enforced for example the crimes of the united states are perfectly allowed the the destruction of iraq the destruction of syria afghanistan all over uh the region the crimes in yemen israeli apartheid is sponsored yet we see that the us also in addition to creating human rights abuses it also projects these human rights abuses onto other countries like china and so we are now subject to a massive propaganda campaign because the u.s clearly understands that xinjiang is the gateway to not only central asia which is the central region to to basically be able to influence the world um but also into europe and uh the middle east and and to africa and so for the us i think this is a last desperate struggle to maintain global uh hegemony um in in uh and try to stop the inevitable seemingly inevitable rise of china as a global power that's presenting an alternative to um western imperialism and much more um of a uh a fair uh trade where um both it's not a zero-sum game as the us sees it but um where where both trading partners benefit and and that's what the us is so afraid of zun we have seen some response from china uh and we know the companies that i mentioned right at the beginning of the show companies like h m uh and nike nike has lost some of its promotional contracts in china with chinese celebrities h m uh has been taken off some of the e-commerce platforms in china as well what can you tell us about this kind of pressure that china is responding with for china and for chinese people it's a pretty i think it's a legitimate response it's in kind if a company is getting involved in politics as all of your panelists also agree um baseless uh ideas and trying to become a part of this broader scheme to channel their their negativity towards china or to become part of this entire plot then of course i think the chinese have the right and even perhaps even the responsibility to respond in kind and perhaps this is something which um here i believe that china is not just speaking for itself but a lot of countries that were not able to have this kind of an impact and were treated unjustly many countries in the global south many countries that have just been mentioned by the panel they don't have that kind of leverage because china a country of almost 1.5 billion can can retaliate can respond and it's a pro it's an appropriate response especially given that they are clearly being targeted so um i think obviously um people here feel very strongly about these kind of accusations china is not a country that tolerates diversity but celebrates it and for an ignorant western audience the kind of images and the kind of ideas that are being portrayed are extremely misleading this kind of weaponization of empathy is not being done for the first time and the polarization that's resulting from it can i think hurt the united states as well these companies that are coming in the way as well but they will definitely not hurt china more than they hurt them in the long term and it seems to be a desperate attempt um one more thing i would like to point out that a lot of the rhetoric we see now a lot of the policy we see now is very similar to the kind of strategy that was uh that was assumed during the cold war and it's been ongoing ever since so i feel at that time back then western european countries at some point said they want the russians and the americans to de-escalate and i do feel that members of the quad for example countries like india and japan for example even australia to some extent and east asian countries at some point uh we'll see that their uh their idea their uh interests do not align so much with the baiden administration okay the chinese ambassador to the united states shu tiankai he uh was on cnn last week he was interviewed there this is some of what he had to say let's watch what we did was not to start the water we did not use missiles or drones we set up efforts for education and training help people to learn more about the law to acquire good skills to improve their lives find good jobs and all this has made a huge difference there has been no single terrorist attack in the last few years now you have been to xinjiang you reported from the what can you tell us about the terrorist threat there and how it's being countered well actually if you can if you look at it um the the way that xinjiang and the united states are fighting different are fighting the uh terrorism are absolutely different uh the way that xinjiang fights terrorism is just to find the root cause the root cause is very simple poverty the poor people who are desperate are more likely to launch attacks either as terrorist attack or just a criminal attacks to ordinary people right so what xinjiang did is just to uproot that breeding ground of terrorism by eliminating poverty by the end of 2020 xinjiang had zero population under the line of absolute poverty just like the entire china and also the other thing that xinjiang is fighting is justified the infiltration of extremist ideas because there are just these people propagating these jihadist ideas saying that if you kill the so-called infidels you can go to the heaven and enjoy the 72 virgins right all these crazy ideas and then xinjiang just tell them the true version of koran telling them islam is a peaceful religion and muslims should never kill so these are just xinjiang's way of fighting terrorism doing it within its own territory and finding the root cause yeah the way the united states is fighting terrorism is absolutely different under the bush administration after the 911 attack what they did is to go this go go on with this pre-emptive strikes by overthrowing other governments and setting up the so-called american-style democracy and believing that the american-style democracy can defeat the ideology of hatred in the middle east so what we have seen after that after 20 years of war in the middle east is that terrorism is on the rise you know the way that they fight is different and the result they achieved is also very different this is not about what about ism this is about you know when the united states is having such a bad record in fighting terrorism and protecting human rights why does it have the qualification to be a teacher and what xinjiang what to do yeah pepe asked about uh you know the united states is expressing a great deal of concern about the plight of muslims in xinjiang uh the uyghurs uh and i'm wondering to what extent you know we've just been listening to what has happened in other parts of the world to what extent is this united states concern undercut by the fact that it has it seems to have a lack of concern for people in syria or in libya for that matter that's a it's a very good question because look i've been following this thing for over two years even before 9 11. i followed everything that happened in what the americans call the greater middle east which is uh from north and africa western northern africa to afghanistan and everything in between for over 20 years including all the wars including you know the war in afghanistan the war in iraq the proxy war in syria the war in libya etc uh just to give an example what i saw in mali before 9 11 is exactly what was replicated in xinjiang with the uighurs 10 years later or 15 years later they these people were being radicalized online by saudi or kawaii ultra absolute conservative and extreme right wing wahabi preachers salafi jihadis in fact online and then they will go on a jihadi against the infidels and in we were and in singapore's the same thing i talked to uyghurs in massoud's prisons in the banjeer valley two weeks before 9 11. just to give an idea through an interpreter i knew how these we gurus were indoctrinated and they were all indoctrinated online and this is a process that went on and on and on for for the past two decades so what the chinese government is doing with these radicalized elements in xinjiang is what it's it's i would say it's an even softer version of what the russians did with the chechens dagestanis and iguessions that were radicalized the underbelly of the former soviet union and they were going to the russian federation to wreak havoc and the chinese government knows that these uighurs who are in idlib in syria now they may come back to xinjiang and wreak havoc in xinjiang and against beijing okay dan cohen you wrote that many uh of the accusations against the chinese authorities have come fro come from the same source research by a man called adrian zentz what can you tell us about zen well adrian zens is a german evangelical christian fundamentalist whose first book was about what he believes will happen in the end times in an apocalyptic end times prophecy and so in that book he writes about he writes against gender equality he writes about how jews like myself will burn in a fiery furnace which is you know pretty disturbing to hear this particularly from a german um and now he has transitioned into in the past few years he's transitioned into a pseudo expert on a supposed expert on uyghurs and xinjiang province and you know china at large and you know we've we've reviewed his his claims and you know his his his so-called research doesn't hold up to the slightest amount of scrutiny um he has faked number he's faked numerous numbers um his work is published by the jamestown foundation which is a neoconservative think tank here in washington dc that um has two former cia directors i believe on its staff it was founded in the 80s by uh with the blessing of the cia director at the time and now adrian zen's um his his lies have been the basis mike pompeo the former secretary of state directly referred to adrian zens in a statement announcing uh that you know the us is designating china guilty of genocide so adrian zens is the key figure that has been propagating these lies and you know we have to wonder why not only zen's is able to do this but why does western media and not only you know right-wing media that maybe you would expect it from but progressive outlets um you know that that opposed for example the warren iraq um why are these outlets taking zen's seriously and they don't examine uh his claims they just take it at face value so um it's it's really you know speaks to the level of propaganda that we're seeing that it's one serial fabulous outright liar yeah who is being uh paraded around as an expert without um while being a documented liar that is adrian zen right june i don't have too much time left but i do have one final question for you and that is they have been called for a boycott of the winter olympics which is scheduled to take place in china next year how is china responding to that i think anand obviously any country that's hosting the olympics is doing that in a spirit of goodwill and for beijing this is going to be the second opportunity after 2008. uh calls to boycott the olympics have been refuted within countries that are where they have these voices that are active uh for china obviously they are going to cooperate fully with any authorities with the olympics council as well to make sure that um such actions are not materialized and i think china is china is not on the back foot to be very honest they are quite confident um about their position about their contributions the global community at large and obviously i hope that it doesn't materialize but i do have a quick comment which has not to do with uh the olympics yeah it has to do with radicalization and the seo and i'll just quickly want to say that let's look at other countries in the region that have faced the same issues that xinjiang has faced wherever the problem festered the sacrifice of human life was much greater the impact on people's livelihood and economy was much greater and we need to look at the context of the region to really understand why is it that xinjiang has succeeded why is it that addressing the root causes is so important and i implore people who are not doubting what's being said about xinjiang to think about what happened in iraq what happened in libya in so many other countries we have to doubt this narrative we have to doubt um such a narrative that's baseless especially so i i hope your audience can look into this okay we are going to have to leave it there we've run out of time thanks to all of you for being with us that is it for this edition of the heat i'm alan knighter with washington dc thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: CGTN America

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Id: tKhIUfuPdo4

Length: 29min 7sec (1747 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021