The worst danger of China's Uyghur Muslim genocide is the terrible precedent that Beijing has set which other countries might target and seek to eradicate their own Muslim majorities, said a former Pentagon official.
"Not since Nazi Germany has there been such a systematic policy of internment and cultural eradication as what President Xi Jinping now wages against China's Muslim minority. The People's Liberation Army and other Chinese security forces may not push Uighurs into gas chambers, but the mass, forced sterilization of Uighur women has the same effect upon the population, only delayed," Michael Rubin in his article for the Washington Examiner.
He pointed out that while many Muslim countries criticise France for President Emmanuel Macron's criticism of radical Islamism in the wake of the murder of French school teacher Samuel Paty and the recent attack in Nice, the three most vociferous politicians criticising Macron have been Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, and former Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad.
Rubin further called it an irony that all three are "among the most apologetic to China" and its assault on millions of its Muslims. Pakistan backed China's crackdown at the United Nations. Turkey and Malaysia did not sign on to that endorsement but separately appeared to back Beijing with their silence. He added that Erdogan has even gone so far as to extradite Uighurs back to China, where they face imprisonment or death.
"However, the biggest problem is not only letting China get away with murder but rather that their apologia for Beijing creates a precedent by which other countries can target and seek to eradicate their own Muslim majorities," he wrote further.
"Erdogan, Khan, and Mohamad might picture themselves as defenders of the faith, but they have essentially become the equivalent of kapos, the Jewish concentration camp administrators who collaborated in exchange for privilege or short-term safety," Rubin added.
The former pentagon officer wrote that the three leaders may imagine their anti-French bluster will win them populist plaudits from the broader Muslim community, but in reality, "they will be dismissed in history" as among the greatest betrayers of the Muslim community's ability to practice their own faith openly and in peace.
Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uyghurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45 per cent of Xinjiang's population, has long accused China's authorities of cultural, religious and economic discrimination.
About 7 per cent of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, has been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps, according to US officials and UN experts.
Classified documents known as the China Cables, accessed last year by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, threw light on how the Chinese government uses technology to control Uyghur Muslims worldwide.
However, China regularly denies such mistreatment and says the camps provide vocational training. People in the internment camps have described being subjected to forced political indoctrination, torture, beatings, and denial of food and medicine, and say they have been prohibited from practising their religion or speaking their language.
Now, as Beijing denies these accounts, it also refuses to allow independent inspections into the regions, at the same time, which further fuels reports related to China's atrocities on the minority Muslims.
( With inputs from ANI )
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