Collective punishment for all Uighurs

Guido Fieldsforeign editor

Re-education, torture, forced sterilization: the Uighurs suffer under Chinese rule. About a million members of the Muslim minority have been placed in so-called educational institutions, from which many are unable to get out. Witnesses, leaks and a UN report published two months ago confirm this crackdown, which has once again come to the center of the attention of the global public following a house fire that likely killed more than 40 Uyghurs.

Where do the Chinese hate the Uighurs? After the annexation of East Turkestan in 1949, Uyghur resistance against the Chinese government grew. Simona A. Grano (44), China expert at the University of Zurich: “In the past, there were extremists in Xinjiang and also terrorist attacks against Han citizens.”

The Beijing government blames the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group founded by militant Uighurs, for the attacks. After 9/11, the Chinese government began to justify its action against the Uighurs as part of the global war on terror. Grano: “She said she would fight the ‘three evils’ of separatism, religious extremism and international terrorism at all costs.”

In addition, under President Xi Jinping, 69, the Communist Party has pushed for “sinicizing” religion, that is, shaping all religions to conform to the Party’s officially atheistic doctrines and the norms of the predominantly Han people. Chinese society, says Simona Grano.

Proving ground for total control

But there is another reason for the repression. “Xinjiang is an important link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” says Grano. The gigantic development plan provides for a trade route from Asia to Europe. “Beijing hopes to stamp out any possibility of separatist activity to continue the development of Xinjiang, which has China’s largest coal and natural gas reserves.”

Grano describes Xinjiang as a kind of “testing ground” where the Communist Party tries out surveillance and control measures before implementing them on a large scale in other parts of the country.

Embassy thinks UN report is fake news

The Chinese government resists global criticism. The Chinese embassy in Bern describes Beijing’s actions against the Uyghurs as “legitimate”. When asked about it, Blick wrote: “With regard to Xinjiang, it is not about religion, ethnicity or human rights, but about fighting violent terrorism, separatism and de-radicalization. Between the 1990s and 2016, there were thousands of violent terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, killing thousands of innocent people.”

The embassy describes the UN report as one that was “staged and produced exclusively by the United States and some Western armed forces”. It is therefore illegal and invalid. “In terms of content, it is a hodgepodge of fake news, a political toolkit that serves US and Western strategy in general to use the Xinjiang issue to contain China.”

“Centers like in other countries”

There have never been so-called re-education camps or internment camps in Xinjiang, the embassy continues. These are vocational training centers that do not deviate from the concept of deradicalisation programs in countries such as the US, Great Britain or France.

The embassy writes about the concept: “By learning official and written language, getting to know law and order, learning professional skills and deradicalisation content, participants have generally improved their learning quality and significantly strengthened their legal awareness.” By 2019, all trainees would have “finished their studies” and most of them “found steady employment”.

Switzerland without sanctions

A solution to the Uyghur conflict does not seem within reach. “It is very difficult to find solutions if the Chinese government is not willing to cooperate and soften the crackdown,” says Simona A. Grano. The only remedy is for third countries to continue to put pressure on China.

Many states have sanctioned Chinese officials and organizations associated with human rights violations. This includes the EU, but not Switzerland.

When asked by Blick, the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs (Seco), which is responsible for sanctions, stated that the EU sanctions were not geographically targeted against the country, but thematically against individuals or organizations worldwide. They went “much further” than the EU’s geographic sanctions regime, which Switzerland has joined in most cases. The Seco writes: “The Federal Council has now looked into the matter and has decided to deepen its analysis on the matter before making a decision.”

However, Simona A. Grano attributes this hesitation to “our unique position in which we are exposed to financial blackmail from China because of our 2014 free trade agreement.” If China suspended this, Switzerland would lose hundreds of millions of francs in tariffs every year.

The Chinese ambassador Wang Shihting (55) knows this in Bern. In an interview with the “NZZ am Sonntag”, he recently threatened: “Should Switzerland adopt the sanctions and the situation develops in an uncontrolled direction, Sino-Swiss relations will suffer.”