Uighur Genocide - Western Reaction - 2019

Republican Congressman Christopher Smith co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, accused China on 30 November 2018 of committing genocide against the Uihgurs, calling their actions "without precedent in modern times." He also scoffed at a threat made Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the US that Beijing would retaliate if the U.S. imposed sanctions. "It's about time we stood up for the Chinese people," he said, "because that's where our hearts, that's where our solidarity has to be with, not with a dictatorship that ruins lives."

China’s government is using a policy of “linguistic imperialism” to marginalize the Uyghur language in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) as part of a bid to “eradicate the ethnic identity” of the Uyghur people, according to a new report by a Uyghur rights group. In their attack on Uyghur culture and identity, Chinese officials have portrayed the Uyghur language as “incompatible with modernity” and are removing its relevance from the education system and public life, Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) said 16 May 2019 in a statement accompanying the release of its report “Resisting Chinese Linguistic Imperialism.”

“Following a pattern of broader development policy that has promoted the adoption of [majority] Han [Chinese] civilization as central to modernization, China has moved to diminish the status of the Uyghur language in society,” UHRP said. In the face of such an attack, UHRP said it is imperative for Uyghur families to ensure a future for spoken and written Uyghur by passing the language and culture from parent to child at home.

A group of UN ambassadors sent a letter to the human rights council in Geneva 10 July 2019 condemning China's treatment of Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region. UN diplomats from 22 mostly European nations along with Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand signed the letter. The United States had not yet signed on. The ambassadors express concern about "credible reports of arbitrary detention ... as well as widespread surveillance and restrictions, particularly targeting Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang." They urge China to stop detaining minorities and grant them "freedom of movement" within their communities.

Randall G. Schriver, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, stated 03 May 2019 that " the detention camps, given what we understand to be the magnitude of the detention, at least a million but likely closer to 3 million citizens out of a population of about 10 million, so a very significant portion of the population, what's happening there, what the goals are of the Chinese government and their own public comments make that a very, I think, appropriate description."

The US House of Representatives on 03 December 2019 approved a bill requiring a tougher response from the Trump administration to China’s crackdown on Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), including sanctions on officials responsible for abuses. The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which was passed 407-1 in the Democratic Party-controlled House, requires U.S. President Donald Trump to condemn Chinese abuses in Xinjiang and call for the closure of mass detention camps where authorities in the XUAR are believed to have held 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017. The legislation, which passed the Senate in September, calls for sanctions on XUAR Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, seen as the architect of the mass internment policy. An amended version of the bill still has to be approved by the Senate before being sent to Trump.

The Uyghur Human Rights Project, an advocacy group, applauded the vote and urged swift enactment of the bill, which it called “an important signal to Beijing that the international community is not ignoring the crimes against humanity taking place in East Turkestan.” “We are grateful to both the Senate and the House for demonstrating strong bipartisan cooperation in addressing the agony of the Uyghurs,” said UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat. “Each and every speech on the House floor tonight was a forceful indictment of crimes against humanity. Tonight’s action gives Uyghurs hope,” he said in a statement.