(East-West Question) Zheng Liang: Why do the differences in Xinjiang narratives in different public opinion fields highlight the arrogance and alienation of the United States and the West?
China News Agency, Beijing, March 29th: Why do the differences in Xinjiang narratives in different public opinion fields highlight the arrogance and alienation of the United States and the West?
China News Agency reporter Liu Dawei and Yang Chengchen
In recent years, Xinjiang-related issues have become the focus of public opinion in China and the West. The United States and Western countries continue to smear China's Xinjiang and slander China's Xinjiang governance strategy.
The two sound fields of international and domestic communication, and their respective information flows in one direction.
Why do the differences in Xinjiang narratives in different public opinion fields highlight the arrogance and alienation of the United States and the West?
Zheng Liang, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Jinan University and dean of the Institute of Communication and Frontier Governance, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Questions" to interpret this.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service: In recent years, Xinjiang-related issues have become the focus of international communication competition between China and the West. However, in the construction of issues, there is a big difference between the international public opinion field and the domestic public opinion field. What do you think of the stance gap created between these two public opinion fields?
Zheng Liang:
When looking at the differences between public opinion fields, we must look at the underlying reasons.
The first is the serious double standard that the US and the West treat China's Xinjiang.
They slander China's Xinjiang governance as a "violation" of human rights or even "genocide"; they have no remorse for their own systematic and routine serious human rights violations, and label them "protection" of human rights.
These double standards have seriously disrupted the normal order of global human rights.
Secondly, the knowledge production system of the US and the West is different from that of China on Xinjiang-related issues.
The research on Xinjiang-related issues in Chinese academic circles mainly focuses on ethnic integration, Chinese national community, and national unity.
Western knowledge production focuses on the relationship between the central government and ethnic minorities, as well as the issue of frontier social governance.
For example, some people in Western academic circles have recently used "settler colonialism" to describe China's Xinjiang governance. This framework reflects the arrogance and intellectual laziness of the United States and the West, neither wanting nor unwilling to understand China ethnic policy and frontier governance system.
Thirdly, in the field of Xinjiang-related public opinion, China emphasizes both sovereignty and human rights. For example, it emphasizes that "Xinjiang has been a part of China since ancient times", and also emphasizes that maintaining Xinjiang's prosperity and stability, ethnic unity, and religious harmony are the greatest human rights.
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 with other countries and a tool for geopolitical operations.
On July 15, 2021, the People's Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region held a press conference on Xinjiang-related issues in Beijing.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Hou Yu
The underlying logic of media discourse is knowledge production in academia.
In the past few decades, the research on Xinjiang in the United States has never stopped, and the publication and publication of articles have been particularly active.
Scholars are constantly producing and providing the media with an adequate source of knowledge.
It must be pointed out that the positions of the American and Western intellectuals, media and human rights organizations on Xinjiang-related issues are highly unified.
Xinjiang-related public opinion in the US and the West is reluctant to admit that there is a terrorism problem in Xinjiang.
Even if it is reluctant to admit, quotation marks are often added to terrorism in reports to highlight the difference from terrorism in the United States and the West.
From 2012 to 2016, there were frequent terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, so the United States and the West had to admit that "terrorism exists in Xinjiang", but believed that the terrorist attacks in Xinjiang "were the result of the Chinese government's suppression of ethnic minorities."
This prejudice essentially comes from the arrogance of the US and the West, or the West does not recognize the legitimacy of China's counter-terrorism.
They believe that "only we are qualified to fight terrorism".
To China is a kind of disdain of "Are you still qualified to fight terrorism?"
China News Service: You mentioned that since 2012, the increasing number of violent and terrorist incidents in Xinjiang has forced the West to admit that there is terrorism in Xinjiang. In the process of Western media and academic circles studying Xinjiang-related issues, are there any changes in their knowledge production system?
Zheng Liang:
There are changes. It was formed after the issue of vocational skills education and training centers appeared.
Previously, major Western media paid attention to Xinjiang-related issues, but the density was relatively low.
Western research on Xinjiang was mainly started by various explorers in the 19th century.
After China's reform and opening up, Western academic circles have resumed their research on Xinjiang. So far, they have produced a large number of papers and published dozens of Xinjiang-related research works.
Generally speaking, the dominant framework of these papers and monographs concerning Xinjiang governance and ethnic relations is "oppression-resistance", or the relationship between the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the central government is antagonistic and conflicting.
After the increase of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, the attitudes of the United States and the West towards Xinjiang are contradictory: they both consider these attacks to be terrorism, but are reluctant to admit them under the influence of ideological prejudice.
Once these attacks are recognized as terrorism, the dominant framework for research on Xinjiang-related issues formed over the past few decades will be overturned.
On December 15, 2015, the Eighth Special Police Detachment of the Public Security Bureau of Urumqi, Xinjiang conducts an emergency response exercise.
The picture shows the SWAT team searching for the target at the top of the mountain at an altitude of 2300 meters.
China News Agency reporter Liu Xinshe
After the issue of education and training centers emerged, some Western media's research on Xinjiang-related issues adjusted to the framework of "human rights oppression".
This adjustment is more influenced or even coerced by various Western human rights organizations.
The transformation of the framework does not go beyond the traditional western cognition of Xinjiang.
Therefore, the dominant Xinjiang-related narrative framework in the West has not changed from beginning to end, but its manifestations have been adjusted in different periods.
China News Agency reporter: Can you help us review how Xinjiang-related issues have become international hot topics?
Zheng Liang:
Since 2017, Xinjiang-related issues have gradually become an international hotspot, which essentially comes from the transformation of the reporting framework. Western media use the human rights framework instead of the anti-terrorism framework to construct education and training centers.
In other words, it has changed from accusing "China's terrorism is a resistance brought about by the government's oppression of the Uyghurs" to "China is violating human rights on a large scale in the name of counter-terrorism".
In essence, this has completely grafted and transferred the Western people's psychological resistance and hatred of terrorism to their concern for human rights.
If Xinjiang-related issues are to be hyped as a lever to check and balance China, they must be brought into the lives of the Western public, and extensive social mobilization must be carried out.
To transform from a hot event in the media into a social movement in reality, it first needs to ferment in Western society and form a public opinion field among the people.
Since the second half of 2019, the Western media have translated "education and training centers" into so-called concentration camps, which were initially used as internment camps or prison camps. De-radicalization and social governance issues shift to a stigmatized struggle between "justice" and evil.
This is a node and a means to turn Xinjiang-related issues into a social movement.
When the term "concentration camp" is used and becomes mainstream, it can be observed that various reports and smears produced by Western human rights organizations at that time have begun to compare the definition of "genocide" in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. concocted.
Western media propaganda has produced a certain brainwashing effect. Western people understand through social media, their emotions are mobilized, and they begin to participate in it.
In fact, the Uyghur population has now reached 13 million, and there is no so-called "genocide" at all.
A central problem is that political correctness is the only visible existence when Western public sentiment is stirred up.
China News Service: What do you think about the way Western media reports on Uyghurs living overseas and the vast majority of Uyghurs living in Xinjiang and other provinces in China?
Zheng Liang:
The Western media's construction of the Uyghur ethnic group is generally divided into binary divisions.
In Western media narratives, only those who dare to resist the CCP overseas are "normal" Uyghurs.
If anyone supports the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, they are either "brainwashed" or they are not Uyghurs.
At the opening ceremony of this year's Beijing Winter Olympics, Uyghur athlete Dinigar Yilamujiang participated in the lighting ceremony, but the title of the "New York Times" report wrote "an athlete with a Uyghur name" because they I dare not admit, or say that I do not want to admit that Yilamujiang is a Uyghur athlete.
In the eyes of the Western media, the Chinese government will only throw Uyghurs into so-called "concentration camps" or carry out "genocide" against them. How could it be possible to give such a great honor to a Uyghur?
Involving a Uyghur athlete in the lighting ceremony has posed a great challenge to Western cognitive frameworks.
So we saw The New York Times quietly modify the title of the report, from "athletes with Uighur ancestry" to "athletes with Uighur names" at the beginning.
The essence of this deliberate change is the unwillingness to admit that Yilamujiang is Uyghur.
On the evening of February 4, 2022, the opening ceremony of the 24th Winter Olympic Games was held at the Beijing National Stadium.
The picture shows the last torchbearer Dinigel Yilamujiang (left) and Zhao Jiawen embed the torch in the center of the "big snowflake".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Mao Jianjun
China News Service: How did Western media only emphasize the so-called "identity contradiction" and "oppression" in their reports in the past, thereby distorting and smearing China's border governance practices?
Zheng Liang:
The Western media's construction of the image of the Uyghurs is essentially based on the Western nation-state theory.
They are accustomed to exaggerating the differences of ethnic minorities in China, and basically do not mention the commonalities.
These reports are full of clichés such as "Urumqi is closer to Baghdad than Beijing", hoping to erase the inextricable links between Xinjiang and other provinces and to portray Xinjiang as an "independent" region different from other places.
In 2013, when the Chinese government proposed the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, the West began to interfere and destroy the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt. At this time, the so-called "three forces" in Xinjiang became the best tool for the United States.
U.S. manipulation of Xinjiang-related issues is an integral part of the changes in China-U.S. relations in recent years.
China News Service: The "Xinjiang Cotton Incident" concocted by Western public opinion has been around for almost a year now. Do you think that a year has passed, have they achieved their promotional goals? On Xinjiang-related issues, what aspects does China want to convey more clearly to the international community?
Zheng Liang:
Jinan University recently made a research report on the impact of U.S. sanctions on Xinjiang on the global cotton supply chain.
As a result, Chinese cotton producers were not significantly affected.
In 2021, the Xinjiang cotton industry is actually expanding.
Western media clamoring to boycott Xinjiang cotton, under the guise of so-called "forced labor", is essentially restructuring the industrial chain.
On October 21, 2019, in Gulebag Town, Shaya County, Xinjiang, a large cotton picker is undergoing mechanized picking.
Shaya County is a national-level high-quality commercial cotton production base.
China News Agency reporter Liu Xinshe
The essence of Xinjiang-related issues is not an ethnic or religious issue, but an issue of counter-terrorism and de-radicalization.
The goal of China's counter-terrorism and de-radicalization work is to maximize the protection of human rights, including the rights of ordinary people to be free from terrorism and the basic rights of victims of terrorism, rather than the "pretext to suppress ethnic minorities" slandered by Western media .
This goal needs to be communicated more clearly to the international community.
From the perspective of human rights discourse, the Chinese central government has done a lot of work in Xinjiang, and the living standards of Xinjiang residents have generally improved, especially in 2020 to achieve comprehensive poverty alleviation.
It is a pity that the media rarely report this as a guarantee of human rights.
From 2011 to 2020 alone, the central government's fiscal transfer payments to Xinjiang exceeded 1 trillion yuan.
Behind the numbers, the transformation of the lives of ordinary people in Xinjiang has largely benefited from the huge investment of the central government.
The family of Rehemaitihan Muniati (second from right) in Agdalla Town, Qinghe County, Altay Region, Xinjiang, has an annual income of 80,000 yuan.
On the basis of completing the construction of relocation sites, the local area has helped the poor people get rid of poverty and become rich through measures such as land transfer, development of animal husbandry, cultivation of agricultural industrial chains, and provision of social jobs.
The picture shows the lunch of the family of Rehemaitihan Munyati in 2020.
China News Agency reporter Liu Xinshe
In addition to counter-terrorism narratives, Chinese media must add more human rights discourses, so as to present Xinjiang to the world more comprehensively.
"Human rights", "democracy" and "freedom" are not unique to the West. When these concepts are "weaponized" by the West, can China give them a more inclusive and broader world meaning through its own practice?
The human rights narrative on Xinjiang-related issues is actually a good starting point.
(over)
Interviewee Profile:
Zheng Liang, Deputy Dean, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan University, and Dean of the Institute of Communication and Frontier Governance.
Main research fields: global communication; communication and frontier governance; ethnicity, religion and counter-terrorism; reconstruction of the world human rights discourse system, etc.
Author of "County-level Media Center and Grassroots Social Governance Research/Communication and National Governance Research Series" (Jinan University Press, 2020), published "From Ethnic Separation to Global 'Holy War' - 'East Iraqi Movement' Terrorist Organization" "Analysis of Ideological Evolution"" ("Ethnic Studies", No. 2, 2020) and other 9 papers.
He has presented research results on Xinjiang, human rights in China, counter-terrorism and extremism at the UN Human Rights Council for many times.