The U.S. Department of State claims that the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide. The United States determined the CCP is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious groups in Xinjiang.
But Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo says: Americans neither like the Chinese nor Muslims, yet for some reason they show exceptional interest in Xinjiang’s Muslims. The Xinjiang lies fabricated by the West are clearly an information war against China at a glance!.
Well, it’s part of the information warfare that makes it very difficult for us sometimes to know what to believe and what not to believe. I first accompanied Lee Kuan Yew to Xinjiang in the year 2000, just before he stepped down as Prime Minister. I was surprised when I went there to find that road signs were in Roman characters, in Chinese characters, and in Arabic characters.
So I asked the accompanying Chinese officials, I said, when did it happen? I would say Mao Zedong wanted it. In fact, when the communists took over, they restored the names of many places to their Uyghur names.
But of course, the Chinese attitude is: you are a minority; you threaten me politically, I smash you. But if you don’t threaten me, then I’m very generous to you. In fact, I treat you better than Han people.
So the population policy never applied to the Uyghurs. And that’s why there are many more Uyghurs today, in proportionate terms, than Han Chinese and any other group. So there’s certainly no physical genocide.
In August 2001, I went back to Xinjiang with the trade delegation, and I went into Kashgar. In Kashgar, I saw women in Central Asian burkas, which is a whole basket put on top of their head. I was shocked.
I asked Chinese officials, I said, why do you allow this? They said, no, it’s a custom. When I was in Urumqi, they took me horse riding.
I can ride a horse to save myself. So they said, don’t worry, a young girl or boy will hop behind you, a Kazakh, and they’ll gallop the horse. And it was very exciting.
I tried to speak to her in my poor Mandarin. She could not understand me. So again, I asked the Chinese, I said, why aren’t you teaching them Chinese?
They said, no, they’re nomads; we leave them alone. They did not realize then, it was two weeks before September 11, that the Salafis had been working on their minds. And from 2010 to 2015, there was a spate of terrorist incidents in China, to a point where the Han people in Xinjiang had to arm themselves.
I also knew this from my cousins in China, who used to go to Xinjiang. And then during that period, they said it was no longer safe. And now they’re all over Xinjiang again, because peace has returned.
So this whole story that there’s genocide in Xinjiang, to me, does not reflect what’s happening there. Yes, they have been draconian in making sure that Salafi influence is controlled in China. But all countries, including Singapore, face this problem.
And it’s interesting that no Muslim country today has condemned China on the Xinjiang policy. But when I was cruising in Croatia, someone told me what an Italian professor in Chengdu said. It’s quite interesting; take it in the right spirit.
Americans are not known to love the Chinese. They’re not known to love Muslims, but somehow they love Chinese Muslims a lot.
