At a time when China is being cornered from all sides, its propaganda machinery has gone on an overdrive to douse the fires of negative publicity. From Coronavirus to fighting with the neighbours to the unethical treatment of Uyghur Muslims, China has brought the wrath of countries from across the globe.
In a related attempt to change the narrative, China through its global mouthpiece China Global Television Network (CGTN) has launched a documentary series that conveniently alters the reality of the atrocities the Communist regime undertakes on millions of Uyghur Muslims.
The propaganda machinery is looking to masquerade the atrocities on the Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as an anti-terrorism drive to flush out the terror operatives.
According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, the documentary shows the necessity of anti-terrorism and extremism in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
“The Xinjiang issue is not about human rights or religion but about fighting against terrorism and separatism, and the documentary proves the necessity of anti-terrorism measures with specific cases and the enormous efforts made by the Chinese government.” Zhao Lijian said while side-stepping the entire Human-rights debate.
Uyghur Muslims and their plight
For the uninitiated, China’s brutal crackdown on the Uyghur Muslims is gut-wrenching. In September last year, Lawyer Hamid Sabi, speaking at the UNHRC headquarters in Geneva claimed that the Chinese government is harvesting and selling organs from persecuted ethnic and religious minorities including the Uyghur Muslims, who are being persecuted at an accelerated pace.
Since the 1990s, the red authoritarian regime has repressed the Uyghur populace in the name of combating “separatism”, an excuse for attacking minorities that were not palatable to the international community at the time.
China kept denying about putting the Uyghur Muslims into inhumane concentration camps up until last year but when reports came out in the international community and its charade was all but over, the communist regime flipped.
Beijing claimed that the concentration camps were instead vocational skill retraining centres. A truly fabricated statement as evidence points otherwise.
In a stunning November 16 feature article titled ‘The Xinjiang Papers’, the New York Times published a story based upon 400-plus pages of leaked documents that disclosed the abhorrent truth about China’s internment camps.
China has a very low number of voluntary organ donors, at an average of just more than 100 per year. However, the number of organ transplants run into thousands. This number shot up in a big way only after 2004. In fact, a report says that in China, over 60,000 to 100,000 transplants have been taking place annually, to the point that surgeons have ‘lost count’.
Trump brings Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act
The Chinese documentary comes at the same time when American President Donald Trump has brought in the ‘The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, 2020’ which is pre-meditated to corner China. The bill signed by Trump paves the way for the American authorities to impose sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials who are directly involved in the atrocities committed on the Uyghur Muslims.
“The internment of at least a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities is reprehensible and inexcusable, and the Chinese Communist Party and government must be held to account. This legislation is the product of a true bipartisan, bicameral effort and I look forward to its full implementation soon.” Senator Jim Risch, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had said after the passing of the bill.
Meanwhile, Trump has also threatened to cut off ties with China as Trump took to Twitter to say, “It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault (yesterday in Committee) in that perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, but the U.S. certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. Thank you!”
It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault (yesterday in Committee) in that perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, but the U.S. certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
CGTN—another propaganda tool of China
CGTN has produced the documentary series and is also churning out lengthy editorial pieces to provide legitimacy to its videos.
The US has already decided that these mouthpieces of China do not fit the bill of what can be termed as Journalistic institutions.
CGTN, Xinhua, China Radio, China Daily, Han Tian Development USA, China Central Television, China News Service, People’s Daily and the Global Times—all have been designated as foreign diplomatic missions by the Trump administration.
The Republican government has argued that the Chinese state media are essentially operatives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and therefore they do not deserve to be put in the same bracket of media and its related institutions.
Muslim World has been silent
The so-called members of the Muslim world, including Pakistan PM Imran Khan and Turkey President Erdogan, have turned a blind eye to the Chinese Communist Party’s unspeakable atrocities against the Uyghur Muslims.
CGTN can bring up a thousand videos to whitewash the Uyghur Muslim conundrum but the facts are plain as a day for everyone to see. China considers Islam as a mental disease and consequently it is going all out to cull their population, all while hiding behind the garb of fighting terrorism.
A majority of the Chinese natives and their understanding of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre–to-date is that it was a terrorist attack and therefore it would be really a stretch to think that the Chinese will be aware of the atrocities happening in their backyard.
