‘China’s big mistake’ in Xinjiang

“Pakistani businessmen whose wives and children are trapped in China’s restive Xinjiang are traveling to Beijing to lobby their embassy,” reports Reuters. They hope “that the south Asian nation’s new government will pressure its ally for their release.”

• One of the businessmen “said he had confirmed details of 38 cases but believed there were more than 300 similar cases of Pakistani husbands whose wives and children, most of them Uyghurs, had been stuck in Xinjiang for more than a year, in camps or confined to homes.”
• “This is China’s big mistake,” said another. “Before people did not know how they treated Muslims. Now, everyone knows.”

Other reporting and commentary

The Little Red Podcast has an excellent new show in which hosts Louisa Lim and Graeme Smith interview several Uyghurs in Australia. All of them have relatives who have disappeared — either jailed, sent to “re-education” camps, or in the case of children, sent away to schools or orphanages with no way of contacting their parents. Lim has also written a companion article: Xi Jinping’s war on the Uyghurs. More stories related to Xinjiang:

• China’s repression and internment of Uyghurs: U.S. policy responses / Foreign Affairs Committee
  The U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a hearing on Xinjiang tomorrow. Scholars Adrian Zenz and Justin Jacobs, and chairman of the Uyghur Human Rights Project Nury Turkel will give testimony.
• Turning a blind eye: Why are Muslim governments around the world keeping silent about China’s human rights violations against the Uyghurs? / Hoover Institution
  Kelly Hammon, a scholar of Islam in China writes: “Economics and the potential for Chinese investment surely plays a role, but there are likely other factors as well.… In many ways, the Saudis imagine themselves as protectors of a certain vision of Islam, and the Uyghurs fall outside the purview of this narrow vision. In Central Asia and Turkey, China is often seen as a counterbalance against Russian influence in the region.”
• 郭声琨在新疆调研：进一步增强各族群众获得感幸福感安全感 / People’s Daily
  Wall Street Journal reporter Eva Dou tweeted about this article: “China’s public security minister Guo Shengkun looks to have given veiled warnings to Xinjiang officials over the severity of the re-education campaign in his visit last week, despite giving surface-level praise.”
• Under-reported: The treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xi’s China / Al Jazeera
• Editorial: Trump’s child separation policy pales in comparison to China’s / Washington Post
• I’m a Uyghur Muslim who fled China’s brutal crackdown – it’s time the world showed us some support / The Independent
• Authorities wipe out mosques in Shihezi city / Bitter Winter