At Central Asia Summit, China’s crackdown on Uyghurs is ignored, rights groups say

Chinese President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for Central Asian leaders attending the first China-Central Asia Summit, held Thursday and Friday in Xian, as Beijing seeks to expand its influence in the region through trade. , investment and diplomatic engagement.

The leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan are also interested in engaging with China.

But rights groups say leaders have apparently turned a blind eye to China’s crackdown on Uyghurs, as well as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Tajiks, who live in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, despite share similar religious and cultural values.

The region is home to more than 11 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities who have been repressed by the Chinese government in recent years through detention in “re-education” camps, torture and forced labor.

On the eve of the summit, the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, said the governments of the five nations had a responsibility to speak out against rights abuses.

“Central Asian governments have followed the lead of the Chinese government’s brutal treatment and intimidation against the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples,” WUC President Dolkun Isa said in a statement.

“These neighboring countries have not lived up to their commitments and have not saved the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Tajiks from the genocide being committed against them,” he said.

The WUC said it strongly condemned the prioritization of economic and trade relations to serve China’s expansionism and influence in Central Asia over curtailing the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.

‘Sanitizing China’s image’

The largely Muslim region of Xinjiang has ethnic, religious and trade ties to Central Asia, making it ideal for Beijing’s outreach to nations seen as necessary to increase trade, ensure energy security and maintain stability in Xinjiang.

Central Asia has become so critical to China that Ma Xingrui, the secretary of the Xinjiang Communist Party, met with the top leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in March.

But Central Asian governments have failed to uphold their commitment to human rights by tolerating China’s genocidal policies against the Uyghurs and Turks and by opposing a resolution on a debate on the situation, the WUC said.

Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a US-based political analyst and vice chair of the WUC executive committee, said China is strengthening its relations with Central Asian countries to do its part in international forums regarding the ongoing Uyghur genocide.

This includes “sanitizing China’s image, providing diplomatic cover for atrocities, or promoting China’s narrative that there is no genocide,” he said.

Gulbahar Jelilova, a survivor of the Xinjiang “re-education” camp, a Uyghur businesswoman from Kazakhstan who was involved in cross-border trade for 20 years until 2017, said no Kazakh official or minister asked her about her ordeal or the reason for her detention. .

“I was so discouraged by them that I left Kazakhstan and moved to Turkey,” said Jelilova, who was detained on charges of “aiding terrorism” during a business trip to Xinjiang and held in three different camps over a 15-month period last year. starting in May 2017.

Jelilova said she opposes a new visa regime that allows Chinese tourists to enter Kazakhstan for 30 days because many will go there but never leave after their visas expire, and she will not allow Uighurs from Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan to visit her countries of origin.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.