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The plight of China’s Uighurs is old news, although it still seems not to have reached the developing world. Last Wednesday, 22 states at the UN’s Human Rights Council signed a letter condemning China’s treatment of its Uighur and other minorities. Every country to do so was rich. Not one of these countries has a Muslim majority, despite them existing in 13 of the council’s 47 member states, and the only Asian, Latin American, or African country to sign it was Japan. In short, the developing world has acquiesced in China’s totalitarian project.
Human Rights Watch reports that the Chinese government is holding around one million Uighurs in “political education camps,” which human rights groups alternatively describe as concentration or reeducation camps. The Uighurs, a Muslim majority Turkic ethnic group, are native to China’s northwestern Xinjiang province. In the camps, officials force them to pledge loyalty to the regime, eat pork, shave their beards, and abandon their cultural and religious heritage. Uighurs aren’t allowed to travel freely and are required to host Chinese Communist Party cadres as observers in their homes. Even those outside of the camps live in a virtual prison.
One might think this would make China the new target of Muslim solidarity. It hasn’t. The countries that abstained from signing the letter run the geographical and cultural gamut: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, and Tunisia. They are Arab, African, and South and Central Asian. They have Shia and Sunni majorities. Saudi Arabia is the center of the Islamic universe. Egypt is home to Sunni Islam’s most distinguished university. Pakistan was founded in the name of Muslim solidarity. They differ greatly but can all agree on one thing: the Uighurs aren’t worth bothering China about.
It all comes down to the money. According to AEI’s China Global Investment Tracker, since 2005, China has invested a collective $231bn in the abstaining Muslim countries. In nine of these countries, China has invested more than $3 billion. In Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, three of the most populous and influential Muslim countries, China has invested $25bn, $58bn, and $38bn respectively.
It’s dismaying enough that the Muslim world has abandoned its brothers and sisters in China, but then again, most of these countries have their own human rights issues. Worse yet is that some of the world’s most vibrant democracies won’t confront China about its egregious human rights abuses. India abstained, as did South Africa, Uruguay, and Brazil. In fact, the only non-European countries to sign the letter were Australia, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.
The divide over who will stand up for human rights is not between democratic and non-democratic nations; it’s between those that are developed and developing. China is increasing its sway over the world’s fastest growing countries and leveraging this to buy their silence. Only in the developed and rapidly aging West do human rights still matter. The Uighurs face a grim future.
A letter condemning China’s treatment of the Uighurs shows a global divide between approaches to human rights.
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