China News Agency, Beijing, May 15th: What is the truth about human rights issues in Xinjiang under the attack and smear?
China News Agency reporter Yang Chengchen
From smearing education and training centers to suppressing the cotton and photovoltaic industries, from promulgating the "Xinjiang-related Act" to staged "Uyghur Special Court" farce, from arranging lies in the political and religious fields to hyping up "genocide" and "forced labor" issues, in recent years, the United States and the West have False accusations about Xinjiang have not stopped.
Behind the smear attack by the US and the West with discourse hegemony, what is the truth about the human rights issue in Xinjiang?
First of all, China has always emphasized both sovereignty and human rights. It not only emphasizes that "Xinjiang has been a part of China since ancient times", but also emphasizes that maintaining Xinjiang's prosperity and stability, ethnic unity, and religious harmony are the greatest human rights.
China's goal of advancing counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts is to maximize the protection of human rights, including the rights of the more than 25 million people living in Xinjiang to be free from terrorism.
The US and the West slander China's Xinjiang strategy as "human rights violations" or even "genocide", which is a serious double standard.
At the opening ceremony of this year's Beijing Winter Olympics, Chinese Uyghur athletes served as the main torchbearers, which also aroused some discussions in the United States and the West.
Tadashi Murata, a Japanese scholar and an expert on modern Chinese history, commented that the American and Western media could not see or would not want to see this. This incident proves the equality, reciprocity and friendly relations among all ethnic groups in China.
On the surface, the United States and the West have questioned the governance of Xinjiang in the field of human rights, but in fact have "weaponized" the concept of human rights as a means of interfering in other countries and a tool for geopolitical operations.
Second, China's understanding of the concept of human rights has kept pace with the times.
According to Zhang Yonghe, executive director of the Institute of Human Rights at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, human rights are an open concept.
In the exploration of human rights development, China chose to promote human rights through development, and embarked on a path of human rights development in line with its national conditions.
In the past 70 years, the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang have achieved a historic change from absolute poverty to an all-round well-off.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation in the United States, believes that China has a broader and far-reaching understanding of the concept of human rights, which is a good example of eliminating absolute poverty and helping hundreds of millions of people to successfully lift themselves out of poverty.
The white paper "Guarantee of Equal Rights of All Ethnic Groups in Xinjiang" pointed out that China has always combined the universal principle of human rights with China's actual conditions, constantly enriched and developed its Xinjiang governance strategy, and effectively guaranteed the equal participation and equal development rights of people of all ethnic groups. Make new developments and progress.
Some South Asian scholars believe that Xinjiang's positive measures to strengthen the protection of labor rights, strengthen vocational training and education, and multi-ethnic common prosperity have smashed those groundless accusations against Xinjiang.
Thirdly, from the perspective of development practice, China has always adopted a "less talk and more action" attitude towards human rights issues in Xinjiang.
A happy life for the people is the greatest human right.
The cotton planting season in Xinjiang has just passed, and the weather in southern Xinjiang is fine in May, which is very favorable for cotton growth.
A Jinan University research report on the global cotton supply chain shows that, in terms of results, Chinese cotton producers have not been significantly affected by the "Xinjiang Cotton Incident".
Take another study as an example.
In March 2021, the Human Rights Research Institute of Southwest University of Political Science and Law examined the role of Xinjiang's industrial development in solving the employment problem of the poor.
Due to the improvement of education level, especially empowerment through vocational training, more people have the conditions to go out to work.
Employment and labor mobility have had many positive impacts on ethnic minorities in agricultural and pastoral areas in southern Xinjiang, and their rights to subsistence and development have been fully guaranteed.
A happy life for the people of Xinjiang is the greatest human right, and the prosperity and development of Xinjiang is the most powerful response to disturbances and noises.
In 2021, Xinjiang will achieve a regional GDP of 1.6 trillion yuan (RMB, the same below), an increase of 7%, and the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents will increase by 8% and 10.8% respectively.
The GDP growth rate in the first quarter of 2022 just announced, Xinjiang leads the country with 7%.
Behind the numbers, the transformation of the lives of ordinary people in Xinjiang has largely benefited from the huge investment of the central government.
From 2011 to 2020 alone, the central government's fiscal transfer payments to Xinjiang exceeded 1 trillion yuan.
Xinjiang, where the overall social situation remains stable and people of all ethnic groups live and work in peace and contentment, is in the best period of development in history.
The successful practice of realizing the basic human rights of people of all ethnic groups demonstrates the advantages of China's governance system and the improvement of its governance capabilities.
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