ABC Four Corners “Tell the World” Analysis
Introduction
The video which can be found here: https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/xinjiang-tell-the-world/11350450 is 45 minutes in length and contains a range of allegations relating to suppression, imprisonment, mass incarceration in camps and re-education, enforced labour of Muslims and culminates in an expert talking about cultural genocide. At no stage during the 45 minutes does the documentary mention attempting to meet with, talk to or highlight any contrary point to the narrative of the story — this being that language, culture, ethnicity, religion and society are being suppressed, in fact murdered, which is what genocide means.
At no stage does the ABC mention if they tried to visit Xinjiang, or even China. Not one of the Uyghurs questioned in the documentary was asked why they were exiled from the land of their birth. Not one of the allegations has been corroborated with any evidence base that would be acceptable in a court of law. Images of the construction of “camps” (and destruction of mosques) were taken several years ago and have appeared in many reports around the world. Yet, at no stage of this video do we see an image that was more recently taken to show what is there now. During the analysis of the video, I found it raised many questions.
And, it is on the basis of these facts, these unanswered questions and a few questions of my own, that I vehemently disagree with the narrative.
I was sent a link to this video on Twitter, by the video’s host Sophie McNeill after a report came out in the Global Times about my observations on Xinjiang. On receipt of the video I replied back asking one question: have you been to Xinjiang Sophie? To date more than 3 days later, I haven’t received an answer to that question. I also sent an offer to discuss my finding prior to posting, again, 2 days later, I still don’t have a response — I checked online and found ABC twitter feed won’t allow me to contact them privately. So, I’ve been unable to discuss this article with them.
This is not an academic paper, it makes some references to facts obtained by others but they have not been referenced — every fact mentioned is available online and can be cross-checked. Any person wishing to do so, may contact me for my sources.
For the record: I’ve only been to Xinjiang 5 times but I’ve cycled across it twice — in doing so I’ve met locals, eaten and slept in their places and spoken with them. I make observations and I form opinions on these observations and discussions. I have never been paid, I have never solicited payment nor have I been offered payment for any of my opinions on Xinjiang, although, I will state, for the record: I have been offered, and expect to receive soon, payment for the writing of a recent op-ed related to my riding in China, which of course did include Xinjiang but was not related to the “Uyghur conflict”.
I do not at any stage deny there is a conflict — it’s apparent in the level of security in Xinjiang that such a conflict exist. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement, is a recognised and declared terrorist organisation, members of which are known to have spawned from Taliban and Al-Qaeda. I do not claim to be an expert — I haven’t seen the camps, not because they aren’t any, but because Xinjiang is so huge they may not have been on my path — I did cycle past one institution where the walls had towers, they were topped with barbed wire and it looked like a prison. I’m happy to accept that Xinjiang has prisons — I’ve been in dozens of prisons around the world as a police officer for 10 years and then a security industry employee for 18 years thereafter — I do know what a prison looks like.
I have tertiary and post graduate qualifications, some legal background, some criminology background but mostly in business and in cultural studies. I don’t claim expertise — what I claim, in my travels and observations, is that I’ve seen things which do not agree with this narrative. Speaking about these claims has made me a target of dissidents, anti-China watchers, China haters and have forced me into a position where I’ve become a defender of China, I like China very much, I love the people (generally) and I have lived here for 15 years. I don’t love everything about the country, or support everything their government does, but generally, they do ok. Because I have this experience, this knowledge and the observations, I have the intelligence to notice when something isn’t right — and, when it comes to the narrative of Xinjiang and the Uyghurs: something isn’t right.
Background to Part of the Xinjiang Problem
The history of Xinjiang as part of China goes back to before the time Jesus was walking around Nazareth. On and off, through the last two millennium, China has changed shape, changed form and changed its leadership. During the entire time, there has been some connection with Xinjiang under its different names Dzungaria, Xi Yu and even East Turkestan, a name given to the region by a Russian who decided his country had some influence there, but since then, adopted by portions of the locals who want a degree of independence.
China, quite rightly does not want to grant independence — think about the United States, around the same time a Russian was calling the region East Turkestan, several States were trying to break away and form a confederacy — we all know how that went.
So, China has created laws, as did the US, as does much of the rest of the world. During the last 150 years, Europe was fragmenting and leading up to the First World War, many things were changing and through those world changes China experienced it’s own revolutions: However, throughout these changes, during the Qing Dynasty, Kuomintang, or PRC era, Xinjiang, although not always called Xinjiang, has always been a part of China.
Any attempt to separate one part of China will result in clamp down and some serious issues with the government. As happened in Ireland with the IRA, Spain with Catalonia, France and Spain with Basque separatists, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are examples where separatism worked but there are many other examples, past and present, where it hasn’t.
Xinjiang is no different to any other part of the world with separatist movements — prisons, punishments, exiles and even executions exist for people who break the law. While, rehabilitation, relocation, re-education, poverty alleviation and infrastructure building are introduced for the lawful residents who want peaceful lives. I challenge any reader to demonstrate a country that has had separatism without at least some of these measures being adopted.
The Expert Witness
A narrative has been perpetuated by Dr Adrian Zenz a so called expert who, in his own admission has been to Xinjiang only once, in 2007, as a tourist — yet, because he is a “data miner” and has uncovered documents linked to procurement and tenders for constructions in Xinjiang, is considered so expert on the matter that he has even briefed Congress in Washington DC.
I ask the question, in the interest of transparency: was Dr Zenz paid by Four Corners, the ABC or any other organisation for his opinions to be offered?
As a further point of contention on the use of Dr Zenz, it should be pointed out that he received his online doctorate from a bible college in South Carolina — a college that has as its teaching philosophy the following extract from its website:
“Teaching at Columbia International University is based on the great fundamentals of the Christian faith, all of which center in the person of Jesus Christ, our crucified, risen, and glorified Savior and Lord.”
Not that I have any problem with religion, but an online doctorate from a university which espouses this kind of rhetoric in its publications, a holiday trip 13 years ago and some online research is hardly the breeding ground for an expert on Islamic issues in remote corners of China. An expert who, in my opinion, should be more rigorously debated rather than accepted at face value — the internet is full of repudiations of Dr Zenz’s work, not just from Chinese publications but from independent scholars and observers. It should be noted too, that Dr Zenz is an object of ridicule in some Chinese media, media which has been to, taken film and photographs of and spoken with Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Dr Zenz is also noted for his position on religion, he is a Born Again Christian and, although his publications list is not open for all to view, has been known to comment on homosexuality, inequality of gender and believing that spanking a child is endorsed by the bible. I wonder what it is that keeps him at the forefront of the allegations of genocide, suppression, concentration camps and forced labour — bearing in mind he’s only been there once, for a holiday, and that was years before all the institutions he is an expert on were introduced.
Perhaps it’s simply because his narrative fits with what a world, in fear of the rise of China to global power, really wants to hear.
The Documentary
Almost the entire Uyghur suppression narrative begins with Dr Zenz and is supported by allegations from exiles, blurred images from satellites and opinions from other experts interpreting data provided by Dr Zenz’s documents. To support these somewhat spurious sources physical evidence seems very hard to come by and all feeds into the narrative of secrecy and suppression. Is it possible that the evidence isn’t so deeply buried, or so secretly hidden? Perhaps it’s hard to get because it’s not actually there!
We seem to have a “self-licking ice-cream” here: Dr Zenz produces information, experts pass opinions, Dr Zenz’s information becomes more widely accepted and more experts offer more opinions making Dr Zenz more popular and therefore, more experts accepting these opinions as “facts”. Over a period of time there appears to be a wide body of evidence to prove the claims, but that body of evidence is only based one one source: the information that belongs to and comes from Dr Zenz.
As an introduction I have to point out that I feel strongly for the poor people who are separated from their families, I wish them reunited and hope it can happen as soon as possible.
I emphasise, I am not a denier, nor am I an apologist for the government of China, I simply have an opinion that differs from the narrative and it’s based on my own observations and experiences. I do not deny there are education camps, nor will I deny there are prisons but I assert there is a very good reason for these to be there.
I do not deny that mosques have been torn down. However, I’ve cycled past and even been into many mosques in Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia and Shaanxi — all areas where Islam is followed and I’ve never seen any religious suppression. Quite the opposite in fact. For example: A couple of years ago, just around the corner from my apartment a catholic church was torn down — my friends and I speculated that perhaps religious suppression was coming to Zhongshan, my home city: the opposite turned out to be true, a few weeks later, a bigger, better and more beautiful church was erected and stands proudly on the spot of the old one — is it possible that this has happened and maybe why we are always looking at satellite images from 2015? Any person with even a passing interest in this topic will recall seeing these grainy satellite images several years ago, mostly from a 2015 BBC report.
Let’s look first of all at the basis for the making of the video. There are several people in Australia who are separated from their families and who yearn to be reunited but, for some legal, administrative or other reason cannot be reunited.
I start with the simple questions: why are these people in Australia? What caused them to change their plan after arriving in Australia and not go back to their homeland?
I don’t ask these questions because I don’t think they have a right to be there I simply want to know what their reasons are and this hasn’t been explained in the documentary.
I myself was a migrant to Australia and can absolutely understand the reasons why people might stay. But, if I were a student, a tourist, or a short-term contract worker, I wouldn’t have left my family behind in another country, especially a fiancé, or a pregnant wife. And, if I suspected that my country was going to be some kind of suppressive regime, I would have been even less likely to do so. So, some event caused these people to change their life goals and remain in a country where they had temporary visas , turn those temporary visas into more permanence and suffer the pain of family separation— what was that event and why hasn’t it been explained? Why are these people afraid to go home? The answer to that question is obvious, they feel they will get persecuted, but then it begs the question why would their government persecute them? There are millions of Uyghurs, Hui, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Tibetans, Mongols and others both in Xinjiang and other provinces, who are not being persecuted — I know this because I’ve seen them but it seems the ABC and its reporters have not. And certainly, neither have any of our “expert witnesses”. Furthermore, how were these witnesses allowed to “escape” from their persecution? One came on a student visa, hardly the action of an authoritarian regime to issue passports and allow its people to study overseas. Can the ABC please offer some explanation?
In the interests of fairness, we should also be told why it is that they may be persecuted if they go home: could it be they are criminals there and have some affiliation separatist movements such as the East Turkestan Association or even terrorist organisations such as ETIM?
China is a very large country, it has 55 ethnic minorities and over 250 languages — it suppresses none of the languages but educates, and encourages everyone to communicate, in Mandarin, the national language. Every TV show has subtitles for people who do not speak Mandarin so well, my own mother and father in-law are such people. They need the subtitles to watch national news as their Mandarin is not so well developed having grown up during a period of poverty and low levels of education. A glance at Wikipedia’s page for Xinjiang will show that there are two official languages, Mandarin and Uyghur. A glance at the page for Guangdong will show that there is one official language yet 99% of the population speak a second language Cantonese (as their first language in home). This is hardly an indication of language suppression.
I noticed when I was in Xinjiang, that many of the TV shows have subtitles in Arabic. Almost every road sign in China is in two languages. Mostly, throughout China, it’s in Chinese and Pinyin (the romanisation of the language so, a road sign pointing to Beijing would say 北京 and the word Beijing). In Xinjiang, every road sign has Chinese characters and Arabic. This changes the moment you leave the border and enter Gansu, you are back to Chinese and Pinyin, or just Chinese. So, the myth of a language being destroyed is simply not correct.
What does happen in kindergarten and Primary schools throughout China, is that the national language is taught and only the national language — I know this as I have taught in schools in Guangdong where Cantonese is the local language, the kids will all speak it to each other, but the moment a teacher speaks, it’s in Mandarin. Throughout Xinjiang, we see examples of Arabic writing and, in total contradiction to the narrative, there are even visible examples shown in this documentary, in total contradiction of the narrative the documentary espouses.
There is a myth that Uyghur men are not allowed beards yet, at 8:30 seconds we see a contradiction of this with one of the witnesses and his father showing themselves in a photograph, both with a beard. And in the background, to confirm my earlier point, we see shops with Arabic writing. What the beard story is really about is that facial recognition has been introduced as a security measure so beards must be trimmed. Men under 50 years of age can’t grow long beards. Ladies are allowed to wear veils and face covering, but in a security check, they must remove them, so facial recognition can establish their identity. This technology is described as oppressive by our witnesses, but when I asked people in Xinjiang about it: they told me it made them feel safer.
On this point, some people may say I’ve been lied to, or that the subject of my conversation was too frightening for them to give me an honest answer but I was there, I asked them and that’s more than the ABC has ever done. When I tell you as my reader what I heard, this is hearsay evidence and it’s rarely accepted as proof in a court of law. When a person tells me their own story, that’s not hearsay — yet, the ABC, Four Corners or its host, Sophie McNeill, have never asked one person in Xinjiang. The ABC therefore, bases its entire narrative on hearsay.
I make my assessment that I believe I am being told the truth, based on several different factors. I was a police officer, I know a lie when I see one, I’ve been a teacher for 13 years, kids lie all the time, I know it when I see it. I’m not infallible but it’s a rare event, perhaps one in 20 where I find later that I hadn’t picked up on a lie. I have asked questions in Xinjiang, in places where only myself and the person were able to know what we were talking about, and I have asked so many, yet not one has ever given any indication that they believe it to be different. I’ll be honest, I never asked about concentration camps or suppression, because these issues never entered my head during my conversations, I often asked, because it frustrated me so much, what people thought about the level of security.
And, let’s be honest about facial recognition, it’s used in airports all around the world, in London and other British cities which have more surveillance than any city in China. Back in 1990’s I worked in a global security company selling products to the Queensland government. We were selling video motion detection equipment (VMD) this was the precursor to facial recognition, I’m am sure the governments in Australia will already have upgraded. So, to place the Xinjiang government into some box labelling them as authoritarian due to the installation of facial recognition equipment in a region where terrorism has been a major problem is hardly a fair allegation given that this technology is being used by every developed country in the world.
Early in the documentary, 4:45 minutes, we meet Sadan. This very short clip of him speaking with the two year old son he’s never met is heart wrenching, It saddens me that he and his wife and son are separated, I can’t deny that this is a tragedy of justice. However, I see an inconsistency here. I keep being told, and have read many reports, that if a Uyghur calls his or her family, it’s puts them in danger. How does Sadan manage to speak with his family, if the narrative is that Uyghurs aren’t able to contact their family without severe consequences: Is the ABC exposing him and his family to this, for the purposes of making a documentary? One part of the narrative needs to be questioned: is Sadan really in exile and separated by a brutal regime, or is he allowed regular contact and able to communicate freely by video with them? It can’t be both!
Let’s look a little closer at Sadan, he is in Australia and has been there for over 10 years, arriving as a student, according to the narration. He is now an Australian citizen. How does such an individual achieve citizenship? Let me hypothesise this: is it because he is a Uyghur and claimed refugee status to stay on after his study visa expired? Perhaps 4 Corners, or the ABC, can elaborate on this? If so, it opens the way for another, more serious question…
Having achieved that status because of persecution in his own homeland, we then hear the he returned to Xinjiang for his wedding to his fiancé. (Presumably this fiancé waited more than 7 years to marry him while he finished his studies then got his Australian citizenship and a visa to visit China). His wedding was a great success then he and his new wife travelled to the USA to enjoy a honeymoon (again, hardly the action of a persecuted minority). Shortly after returning to Xinjiang, he found he needed to return to work in Australia and she remains in Xinjiang but has her passport is now seized by the authorities so, despite finding out that she is pregnant, can no longer travel to be with her husband and her husband, despite having just spent time in Xinjiang, travelled to the USA and returned with his wife to Xinjiang, can now, no longer visit or return there — I have to question why would that be: We seem to be missing some important facts here.
The next expert witness we meet is Professor James Liebold who expresses that car bombings are the result of the clampdown. I assert that the clampdown was as a result of the bombings — I first went to Xinjiang in 2005, there was nothing unusual about the level of security. After a couple more trips I was there again in 2014 and found a high level of security in cities and towns. I read that the previous year there had been attacks on police officers — there is one famous example of a riot in Shan Shan in 2013, where several police officers were killed, another, in 2008, when a group of officers in training were bombed, this was just before the Olympic Games. “Clampdowns” are not the cause of bombing and terrorism attacks; they are the result. I don’t question the qualifications of this witness, wonder why the ABC fails to mention that he is an associate member of the “think tank” Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which receives funding from the defence department and the USA State Department, we must question his motives as this “think tank” is notoriously anti-China having been seen recently in the news and mentioned in parliament in the last few days for its dubious funding sources and its stance on China.
And again, in the interests of transparency, I ask: was Professor Liebold, or the ASPI, paid for this opinion?
Let’s move on to about the 16th minute of the documentary where we start to talk about images of camps — the narrator states that: “at first China tried to deny these camps existed”. Why don’t we get some examples of that happening? It would be very easy to show links, headlines, news conferences, UN meetings or even video interviews with officials where a denial was given, but I can’t remember seeing this. I do remember denials, and can find references to this online, that concentration camps were being built and millions (the allegations were of up to 2 million in some places, but the original estimates of more than 1 million came from our “expert” Dr Zenz) were being interned.
To further discuss the images we then meet a satellite analyst called Nathan Ruser and we find that this witness is also employed by the ASPI and makes several claims about a building which has fences and high walls. It goes on to suggest that analysts have identified nearly 100 “suspected” re-education camps and detention facilities. We can clearly see a sporting arena in many of the images shown: hardly indicative of a forced labour camp, an authoritarian prison or any other sort of totalitarian regime structure.
One must assume that the entire world, or at least the part of the world that takes an interest in these affairs will be aware of why Xinjiang is important: it contains gas, oil, military installations and even a rocket launching station. Has anyone from the documentary team visited or attempted to visit these “suspected” sites? In fact, no, we are once again basing everything on the assumption that Dr Zenz is correct and they are for internment. What if he has made a mistake — won’t the world look foolish! They could indeed be training schools, and if they are, are they really as secure as the one image shown and discussed: the same image that has been in circulation more than 5 years?
One way to find out — go and take a look, something the makers of the documentary The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) didn’t do. Which brings me to another question: was that budgetary restrictions, or some other reason?
I can attest to high security in Xinjiang, I cycled through there last year with my Chinese (Han) wife. We left Urumqi and entered the Taklamakan desert, we were out of “civilisation” for 3 days before arriving in Turfan (Turpan). We left Turpan and were in the desert again for anther 4 days before entering Hami, and then after leaving Hami, we travelled two more days to the Gansu border — at no time were we stopped from going anywhere, nor were we asked what our purpose was, nor were we asked to show what photographs we had taken along the way. This information flies in the face of any claims that China is trying to hide anything, we were allowed to disappear without escort to ride in any direction and camp overnight wherever we wanted. We passed into and through high level security checks on entering cities. We passed them on the way out too, but were waved through every time without a stop.
The United Nations was invited to send representatives to Xinjiang, but the trip was declined, the main declining party being the USA who said that the Chinese would only show what they wanted the world to see. An invitation was extended to the European Union to come and look but once again this was declined. However, 30 Muslim nations have written to the United nations to demonstrate solidarity with China in their efforts to suppress terrorism and makes no mention of concentration camps, genocide, religious suppression or forced labour of Muslim followers. These facts were omitted from the documentary and, whenever a video or news report comes from China, it’s immediately dismissed as propaganda and never believed.
I personally, never expected to be asked but I am stunned that a national broadcaster went to air with allegations and information without making some cursory check of the facts. Once again, we are facing an acceptance of everything on the basis of Dr Zenz’s interpretation being correct. This lack of scrutiny perpetuates the ongoing narrative that China is evil and is therefore not worth checking.
We come back in the video to Dr Zenz, who has been diligent enough to track down “regime documents” online. Perhaps we’ve been giving the Chinese government far too much (or too little) credit for their “secret program”. If it is so secret, how on earth did Dr Zenz manage to find all the documents online? Is Dr Zenz that good, or are the CPC and their government agencies and contractors so bad? Or, is it simply that there wasn’t a secret to hide? Given that’ I’ve cycled past one of these sites I suspect the latter.
Our next expert analyses some of Dr Zenz’s findings and illuminates us with the purchase orders for police batons, tasers, cattle prods (which are not torture implements but human restraints held at almost every public place I have been to, including police stations, train stations, airports, hotel reception areas, restaurants and even schools have these on display, not just in Xinjiang, but everywhere in China. They are a much better method of controlling people who are out of control than a gun). Once again, the narrative is expanded by information from one source — Dr Zenz. The rest of the equipment is functional riot police equipment held by every responsible law enforcement agency in the world.
We then have some “secret footage from inside a prison — footage I really can’t believe was incorporated.
A new, unused, prison, with normal prison doors, normal prison locks, normal prison cameras and other security measures is shown, with no explanation of where the footage came from, who got it or why it is relevant to this documentary because there is certainly no indication that it was taken in Xinjiang it could have been taken (by me) at my local police station — I have in fact toured my local police station and seen exactly these scenes. They are completely irrelevant to this documentary unless someone can verify that they were indeed taken in some secret camp and smuggled out — we have no such verification. We then move to a classroom where we see the teacher will be protected from the students — why is this sinister at all? Any prison facility with teaching as part of the rehabilitation anywhere in the world would protect their teachers from their prison population. So, a few problems with this segment of the movie: why is it relevant to show a prison in China and how do you know that Uyghurs are going to be kept there, or that it is even in Xinjiang? Perhaps 4 Corners or the ABC might clarify this for the viewing public?
At 18:30 in the documentary the narrator describes Chinese videos as propaganda videos, which claim the Uyghurs to be happy — is it not possible that the reason these videos have been released is to show you that people in the camps are happy? If someone comes from Australia to Xinjiang to ask questions, they might actually find that the answers are not as they expected. Certainly, my mind and my eyes were opened during my travels in Xinjiang. And surely, it begs the question: why were no efforts made to do this?
At this stage I might point out that I searched online for some indication that some, or any politician from anywhere in the English speaking world might have been for a look, I’ll be honest, I was hoping to gain some knowledge and reference some sources that would refute the narrative, but I couldn’t. However, nor could I find evidence to corroborate the circumstantial and hearsay evidence being given by the witnesses and experts in this documentary. What I did find was, in fact, quite stunning…
I found that, despite the EU, the UN, the USA and the UK all making some official mention of Uyghur suppression in their platforms, (the USA even going so far as to legislate against it) not one politician, lawmaker, member of parliament, diplomat or government official of any sort has been and taken a look at Xinjiang — yet each of these august bodies have condemned the action which they have been told about by, primarily, Dr Zenz, his corroborating experts (using Dr Zenz’s own materials) and several exiled or refugee Uyghurs.
Moving back to the documentary, we are nearly halfway through it when we meet an Australian Citizen who was arrested in Chengdu (Sichuan) airport. No explanation is given as to why he was arrested, but we do know, after three weeks in custody, most of it in Xinjiang, he was released — he was never beaten or tortured, or if he was, it isn’t made mention of here. He was never convicted or even accused of any crime, so why was he arrested? I have a theory and perhaps the ABC or 4 Corners can confirm or deny this: my theory is that he is an Australian citizen and travelled on his Australian passport, but has not rescinded his Chinese citizenship. He left Australia with an Australian passport and attempted to enter China on a Chinese passport. Could this be true? China does not recognise dual citizenship. On an Australian passport, he would have needed a visa to enter China and this would have been issued before departure, there are very few ways, although it is possible, to get a visa on entry, Chengdu is not one of the places where it can be done. An Australian entering without a visa, would never have been allowed onto the plane, so it’s seem likely that a Chinese person with a passport would be detained since he had no travel history and no reference to where he had been for the last several years — it would have been after detention that the disclosure of a second passport was made. The Australian Embassy in China was involved in this, there must be some record of events that can be verified — yet, once again, the ABC and 4 Corners don’t provide it. If this theory is wrong, perhaps the ABC or 4 Corners can give a real explanation?
We see some images of this Australian citizen being indoctrinated in the camps, he talks about having to watch 6 hours a day of propaganda (perhaps this could be described as torture!). But at no time does the documentary point out that this is a re-enactment, we are led to believe that this is a real scene —and that, I’m afraid is just shoddy journalism!
At 31:44 we see images of Kashgar where slum dwellings, described as large areas of “traditional Uyghur housing” were torn down, no mention of the fact that the residents were moved to high rise, modern apartments with electricity, running water and air conditioning. The allusion being that the culture is gone and only sanitised living remains — the reality being that people living in mud huts with no running water, no kitchen and sharing public bathing and toilet facilities are now much better off. Once again, we need to ask the people there how they feel — I know I’d rather have my own bathroom than live in an adobe hut, no matter how cultural and quaint it looks.
At 32:30 we hear about kindergartens and boarding schools being built in massive numbers. Here the theory is that kids are being “torn” from their parents and indoctrinated in Han ways” Yet, the entire region has, until very recently, lived in a slightly modernised version of the middle ages since the middle ages.
In China, I suspect the number is as high as 80%, but certainly most middle and high school kids live in dormitories. Almost all my friends who have young children put them into kindergarten before they are three years old and head back into the workplace. This is not evidence of suppression but evidence of poverty alleviation programs aimed at improving the education and lifestyles of the people involved and could easily be verified with a simple visit, or questions to the Chinese embassy: why are so many schools being built in Xinjiang? The fact is, that if this question is put to any Chinese official, there isn’t any possible sinister answer which could apply to the narrative of suppression.
At 34 minutes the narrator quotes: “there is mounting evidence of a system of forced labour”. The innuendo being that job creation is actually slave labour. Dr Zenz comes back into the picture to talk about factories being encouraged to set up and being given financial incentives and tax breaks to employ “re-educated” workers. It’s easy to see why this could be misconstrued as mounting evidence, but a look at the differences in society and the number of people employed now who weren’t employed before will indicate that poverty alleviation through job creation by offering incentives to factory owners to relocate to an area where poverty has been a serious problem, is actually a very sound and intelligent government policy — once again, I stress — you need to go there, take a look and ask your own questions to decide which is true. I know which version I prefer and which version I believe.
In the final moments of the documentary Zenz is filmed giving his conclusion as to the goals of this suppression of the Uyghur people: “the net gain” he says “is the long-term survival and rule of the Communist Party”. While this may indeed be a noble gain for the party and fit very well with the narrative of an authoritarian regime, what his theory doesn’t take into account is that in the past 70 years, the Communist party has had no need to ensure its survival, it has 80–90 million members and many more millions applying to join each year. It currently enjoys, according to international polls, 90% popularity in its own country. So, why would it need this goal?
I can not stress enough, if ABC or 4 Corners had sent someone to ask about this, the answers they found would have made a very different documentary and perhaps even put them in the running for international awards.
To Summarise
If we start with a narrative that suppression of Islam, suppression of Uyghurs and Suppression of local languages and culture are systemic in Xinjiang. Yet, we move a few hundred kilometres from there to Gansu, a little further East to Ningxia, where there are proportionally as many Muslims and ethnic minorities(including more Uyghurs) and slightly north East to Inner Mongolia and we can’t see, nor do we hear about any degree of suppression. Why would that be?
There is no doubt that a high degree of security exists in Xinjiang, but that security is based around a reduction, in fact an elimination, of terrorism. Much of which has been perpetuated by an offshoot of Al Qaeda, known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), many of whose members are known to have travelled from other countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries where they received training and military aid. ETIM was declared a terrorist organisation, not by China, but by the US Department of State. Once we realise this situation is a real one, we can understand why the Chinese government is wary of overseas travellers, especially Muslims, coming back to the region and would like to know what they did, why they went there and what they learnt when they were there.
This policy is no different from the UK, The USA, most of Europe the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Sub-Continent, all of these places have existing problems with radicalised Muslims. For this reason, overseas returnees are often held while enquiries are made. People who live overseas and return to Xinjiang, may have been involved in ETIM or other East Turkestan separatist associations and are obviously considered persons of interest and Chinese laws allow them to be arrested, interned and interviewed. Something many security forces in the world would love to emulate and some have attempted with varying degrees of success.
If we were to consider the possibility that Dr Zenz is mistaken, that somehow, his theory, based on documentation he has downloaded from the internet in Chinese, then translated into his native language, German or to his additional language, English, it’s highly possible that there are some interpretation issues: his theories and the entire world’s view of what’s happening in Xinjiang may be coming from erroneous information, supported by people who have an interest perpetuating the myth in order to obtain visas to live in other countries.
There is a separatist movement active in Xinjiang, there has been terrorism acts including bombings and murder there, many examples can be found in all kinds of media. But in the last 4 years none: why not?
Suppression of a large group of people some of whom are terrorists and separatists has no doubt taken place but if a member of a society has done nothing wrong, should they fear the government? I don’t for one moment suggest that the people Uyghurs overseas are all terrorists, but it’s quite possible that some are. We have seen evidence in this documentary of people being detained and being held for several weeks and, in our society that would be unacceptable, in Chinese society, there is no “Habeus Corpus” under Chinese law it is acceptable to arrest and hold people without warrants and without court cases, but it would need someone far more experienced than me to describe the differences. Suffice to say, there are differences, I don’t always like them, but I live in China, so I accept them. The key point is that those who have been arrested or detained have been released after several days, or weeks and now go about a normal life. Some even leave the country and can tell the stories overseas. If China is such a repressive regime, how did these people get permission to leave?
What isn’t mentioned in the documentary, because no one knows: is how many Uyghurs have never been interned or imprisoned nor how many have been re-educated or retrained? There are 12 million Uyghurs.
I am going to guess that the number of Uyghurs who have not been in trouble would be somewhere well above 90%. The number of 1 million or perhaps even 2 million, who have been incarcerated, is based on very flawed information and suppositions on how many people the camps will hold without even establishing that they are in fact, camps
Has any thought been given to the logistics of moving this many people into places where there are no train lines? (that’s a lot of buses, bus journeys and bus drivers).
If we were to reexamine the data and ask ourselves a new question, a question that doesn’t assume a totalitarian or authoritarian clampdown we might consider a whole new reason for the evidence as it appears: Is the building of kindergartens, boarding schools and the introduction of training schools and factories into impoverished areas is a good or a bad thing?
It is possible we might reach some different conclusions. Why is it that 10 or 11 million Uyghurs are not being interned or retrained? (Assuming the spurious figures of 1–2 million who have been, are correct) Once again, the best way to reach a conclusion would be to go and ask the people who live there and work there. Once again, ABC and 4 Corners did not do that.
We should believe everyone who arrives on our shores with tales of persecution, I am in favour of that. However, before we grant special status for that person to remain, we need to verify the truth of their story. How do we do this? Under some circumstances there are wars and reports from the war front, this is obvious, in other circumstances it’s not so clear cut. Some people leave their own country, seek sanctuary elsewhere and gain the benefit of refugee visas, permanent residency or even citizenship by giving stories of suppression. Of this, there is no doubt.
My only concern about the status of Xinjiang Uyghurs and the tales of persecution and suppression is that not one single representative of any of the governments which are critical towards China for its actions have ever been there to see for themselves. We are following blindly the information provided by experts such as Dr Zenz. Dr Zenz may be right, he may just as easily be wrong. I haven’t seen the mountain of documents he has seen and wouldn’t dream of attempting to interpret it and give an opinion based upon it. But surely, given that there is a mountain of documents all pointing to massive infrastructure in a region that has had severe poverty for thousands of years, surely an investigation of an alternative theory to the one that has created this narrative is warranted.
ABC — 4 Corners, if you want to show the truth, then surely, this documentary is not the way forward. Corroboration, verification, support and physical or at least visible evidence is.
I can’t say with any certainty that there are no camps, I can’t say with any certainty that there is no forced labour, I can’t say with any certainty that there are not people in prison now who do not deserve to be there but what I can, and will say, with some degree of certainty is this: it certainly doesn’t appear that the narrative of systemic suppression, religious suppression, forced labour and cultural genocide fits with what I’ve seen in Xinjiang,
I would urge, NO, I challenge the makers of this documentary to visit Xinjiang with a different mindset — look for poverty alleviation, increased educational opportunities, employment creation and opportunities.
You will see high security levels, you will be checked often, you will get annoyed at the constant intrusion of police in your daily life, I don’t deny any of those things. You can, if you look, find prisons and you may even uncover some evidence of abuse of power, for sure China is not angelic when it comes to being authoritarian. You will find training schools, you will find re-education camps and you will see many mosques, there are 29,000 in Xinjiang alone.
What you will not find is systemic abuses, you will not find cultural genocide, you will not find religious intolerance. And you will not find forced labour or any concentration camps, of this I’m sure.
Go look for yourselves: that isn’t such a big ask, is it?
