James Millward 米華健 Profile picture
Feb 12, 2019 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Whether #AbdurehimHeyit is alive or not, whether reports of his death, his torture are true, or the video of him speaking on 9 Feb is real, there are several takeaways from the incident which resulted in Turkey calling for the end to Chinese mass internment of Uyghurs 1/x
First, PRC admitted that #AbdurehimHeyit has been arrested and "is being investigated" in (after two years in prison)--for, it appears, lyrics in his songs. The Chinese superpower is panicked about a man playing a lute with just two strings. (Not even an electric guitar!) 2/x
How loud can those two silk strings be? This is not an expression of Chinese strength. It is an admission of weakness to have to lock up a poet and a musician--along with hundreds of thousands of others. China's own poets (e.g. Qu Yuan, Li Bai) would not approve 3/x
Moreover, is #AbdurehimHeyit known at all in China? Do authorities in CCP / PRC even realize that his music is heard, his lyrics translated into Turkish, Azerbaijani, Arabic, French, English? This could be Chinese cultural soft power, yet he is locked up / dead. 4/x
#BeltAndRoadInitiative endlessly references the Silk Road. There is nothing more "silk road" than a musician with a Central Asian lute--all such stringed instruments began in Eurasia. #AbdurehimHeyit embodies today's continuation of silk road culture. 5/x
And yet, PRC / CCP: you have put yourself in the position of arguing in weird videos whether the embodiment of silk road culture in #Xinjiang is alive or dead, while musicians and Turkic people grieve his fate across the "belt and road" countries. 6/x

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More from @JimMillward

Sep 21, 2023
This news that Uyghur folklorist Rahile Dawut was given a life sentence reders absolutely ridiculous any PRC claim that its oppression in the Uyghur region is about terrorism, job creation or poverty. (a thread)
duihua.org/life-sentence-…
@nytimes wrote about her before, so should do a follow-up now. Prof. Dawut had a job teaching and researching. She didn't need vocational training. She studied Uyghur folklore, oral literature, some aspects of religion, and did so for many years at Xinjiang's main university.
Rahile Dawut didn't change. The Chinese Communist Party's policy towards non-Han culture changed, and under Xi Jinping decided that Uyghur (and other) non-Chinese culture cannot be tolerated and must be assimilated.
Read 7 tweets
Nov 26, 2022
Some thoughts for how to try to think about and report the story of the 11-24 Urumchi fire and wave of protests across PRC opposing zero-Covid policies (a thread).
1. Obviously try to find out what happened (how many dead? were doors and gates sealed? Could people exit freely as Urumchi officials said? Who were the victims? What ethnicity?
Obviously, this will be hard to confirm definitively, since officials will attempt to enforce their version, and it's hard to report from Xinjiang.
Read 22 tweets
Nov 1, 2022
We should see the GOP bandwagoning on the complaint by a former employee of @thechinaproj as part of a broader shift, or lurch, in US politics to a point where even to suggest having anything to do with China ("engagement") or PRC people is now considered suspicious (thread)
We've seen this in FBI ethnicity-profiled investigations of Chinese academics under "China initiative." We've seen this in Trump's nearly cancelling student visas for ALL Chinese students. We see it in the Biden admin continuing $billions of Trump tariffs that add to inflation.
We see this in the fact that Chinese students in STEM fields now have problems getting visas to study in US (though that's US cutting off nose to spite face). We see it in anti-Asian hate crime.
Read 11 tweets
Nov 1, 2022
Rubio and GOP Rep Chris Smith have decided to go after The China Project (Sinica, SUP China). They say it’s a foreign agent, like Global Times.
Here’s what Global Times says about Darren Byler, who’s work has done so much to explain and call out the atrocities in the Uyghur Region:
And here’s how Sup China project treats Darren Byler : they print his invaluable series of exposés and deep explainers of oppression of Uyghurs: thechinaproject.com/author/darrenb…
Read 6 tweets
Oct 7, 2022
Why do I post that pears labeled “Xinjiang pears” are on US supermarket shelves? I have nothing against XJ’s delicious fruits (thread)
But, first, the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act makes it a “rebutable presumption” that ANY product mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in Xinjiang, could be made with forced labor. Importers have to make the case that it is not.
But PRC does not allow 3rd party auditing firms to operate in XJ and / or given recent and current conditions in XJ, auditors decide they cannot certify supply chains free of forced labor.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 7, 2022
Stories portray defeat of resolution to debate UNHCHR report about crimes against humanity as contest of China vs. the West. This gets it very wrong. (thread)
reuters.com/world/china/un…
Sure, democracies (not just US) have been pushing the point that throwing 1-2 million people in concentration camps, separating families, banning language, etc. are crimes against humanity. UN report agrees. But casting this as geopolitical contest severely misses the point.
It is sad that so many post-colonial countries (Pakistan, Indonesia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Cuba, Eritrea, Gabon, Namibia, Nepal, Senegal, Sudan, etc.) voted no or, like India and Mexico, abstained on the resolution to debate what's been happening in Xinjiang.
Read 5 tweets

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