Thread by @prolewiki

We thought the "Uyghur genocide" allegations had died down, but apparently they're making a comeback. Okay then, let's get into it.

A thread 🧵 on regime change, terrorism, and manufacturing consent. And China's model of a response to it all 🇨🇳

First, as always, you need some historical context. Xinjiang, called the Western Regions in Ancient times, were in close contact with the central regions of China since the pre-Qin period (2100-221 BC).

In 60 BC, the government of the Western Han Dynasty established the Western Regions Frontier Command in Xinjiang, officially making Xinjiang a part of Chinese territory as part of a deal for helping the Ouigour people against their foes in the province.

While the pro-regime change crowd goes on about Uyghurs being the "rightful owners" of the Xinjiang province, historically the Ouigour people (the ancestors to the Uyghur group) shared the region with many other groups, among which the Kazak, Mongolian, Hui, Kirgiz. Map from 2018

The Uyghur ethnic group came about from a long process of migration and ethnic integration (they f*cked). While their language is Turkic in origin, they are not descendants of the Turks -- a common argument to distance them from their Chinese nationality.

It's important to understand Xinjiang rests on the historic Silk Road and connected China's to the rest of the world by land; it's a region that saw a lot of people moving through it.

Uyghurs are one of 56 recognized and protected ethnicities in China, a plurinational country.

So now that we understand the history of Xinjiang, let's look more closely at the accusations: alledgedly, China is stamping out the Uyghurs' religious expression of Islam in Xinjiang because the communist Chinese are godless atheists. (Pic: Id Kah mosque, Xinjiang)

The history of religion in Xinjiang shows an expected wide array of different dominating beliefs at different times: again, the province sat right in the middle of the Silk Road. At times, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Nestorianism dominated, up to Islam today.

Islam has been the principal religion of Xinjiang (but not the sole one) since the 11th century, after the Buddhist kingdom of Yutian in the north was conquered by their southern neighbours of the Karahan Khanate.

At the turn of the 20th century, separatist and extremist groups in China started spreading the word that Uyghurs were the sole "masters" of Xinjiang. They subscribed to "Pan-Turkism", an ahistorical ideology promoted, today, by fascists. Like we said, Uyghurs are not Turkic.

If that sounds awfully familiar, that's because this is exactly what groups are saying today, like the World Uyghur Congress, the NED's regime change apparatus in Xinjiang.
If you don't know about the WUC, please read this thread, it's eye-opening:

https://twitter.com/prolewiki/status/1660284558904836097

These groups also include Saudi Arabia's own Wahhabism, their fundamentalist branch of Islam. Together, they made up the "East Turkistan" pseudo-country, a country that has only existed for a brief period in World War 2, when the KMT was too weak to enforce its rule.

Did the Ouigour people worry about East Turkistan as they were being conquered by the Turks? Did the Uygur Khanate care about East Turkistan? Did the Eastern Chagatai Khanate?

East Turkistan has only ever been a reactionary pipe dream. There is no historical basis for it, there are no "sole representatives" of Xinjiang.

The allegations of genocide today are not new, outsider groups have been conspiring for an independent Xinjiang for a century!

In 1949, with the establishment of the PRC, the Communist Party of China inherited this dangerous situation that had been left untouched by the KMT before and during the war (even at times uniting with these reactionary supremacist forces in Xinjiang against the CPC).

For example, in the early 1950s, separatists in the Xinjiang province instigated riots, calling on Uygurs to “unite under the moon-and-star banner to create a republic of Islam". In the 1990s, these groups turned from rioting to terrorism.

The birth and spread of groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS (all created by the US btw) coincides with the shift from rioting to terrorist acts in Xinjiang.

Today, these groups generally operate under the East Turkestan Party name or also East Turkestan Islamist Movement (ETIM).

We hope we don't have to explain why domestic terrorism should be combatted. But just in case, here's some of their acts:

(for screen readers: please check out the link at the end of the thread to read the source directly!)

That's just some acts between 1990 and 2016. There were more than 30 in total, which caused the deaths of hundreds of people!

China has been very patient in dealing with their terrorist issues, but in 2016, after an especially deadly mass stabbing event, said enough is enough.

Before we get into the measures enacted in Xinjiang to promote safety, we have to look at what the world's general response to terrorism is:

Bombs and drones.

Whether the US, France or the UK, the west deals with terrorists by creating more through indiscriminate killing.

That's a drone looking for ETIM bases in Pakistan. Pakistan does not want these drones flying over their air space. These drones have killed hundreds of innocent civilians (you might remember the wedding that was "mistakenly" bombed).

Do you think the US cares?

This is especially egregious after Mike Pompeo took ETIM out of the US' terrorist organisations list in 2020, begging the question: who was the US bombing since 2010?

Well, like we said, civilians.

It comes across as a very funny -- but deeply serious and concerning -- joke then that suddenly, starting in 2019, the United States was very very worried about the treatment of Uyghurs, whom they'd spent years bombing in a country they were not at war with.

That's our solution to terrorism: bomb civilian populations who can't defend themselves and haven't asked you anything, thus creating resentment, thus creating more terrorists.

And also fund them too for good measure.

China chose a different approach. All of these terrorist acts are planned from outside China, and China actually respects sovereignty.

So instead of sending soldiers, they are looking after their people to prevent their fall and capture by ETIM.

In 2015, General Secretary Xi Jingping announced a deadline of 2020 to eradicate absolute poverty in the PRC. By 2021, the goal had been reached in the entire country and counted more than 800 million people saved. Extreme poverty does not exist in China.

The CPC did this by providing the most destitute populations with free housing (creating entire, more accessible, cities for them), job training, and building infrastructure. Now these populations can support themselves and participate in the economy: all carefully planned.

Xinjiang received the same treatment, but a bit different due to the history of separatism. Essentially, China noted that this drive to extremism was due to poverty and a lack of education (and thus opportunities): Xinjiang remains rural and isolated.

Part of that drive for education took place with vocational schools, establishments where adults could enroll to learn new professional skills. Another part took place as legal penalties: some people were forcibly sent to these schools for committing a crime, instead of prison.

But let's be clear: there is no genocide in Xinjiang. What would be the goal? Uyghurs are considered Chinese, and accepted as such in China. Islam is also not forbidden: the Hui group is also Muslim, and celebrate their religion.

If there was a genocide, where are the refugees like we saw from Syria and now Ukraine? Why do Uyghurs, when interviewed by vloggers, all report that the province is much safer and richer now? Why are these Uyghurs telling Mike Pompeo to stop lying?

youtube.com/playlist?list=…

On the other hand, the US has a lot of reasons to lie about this. It's no secret they hate communism, and have connived towards the destruction of the PRC since its establishment and even before.

Xinjiang is a major step in the Belt and Road Initiative, the economic project that's rallying countries around the world to China and decoupling from the US who is incapable, or unwilling, to offer similarly attractive contracts and terms.

Xinjiang is also a province rich in natural resources: 16 billion tonnes of oil are accounted for, with 1.7 billion discovered just last year.

If you paid attention to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, you understand what this means.

One of the weirdest thing they tried to claim was that mosques in China are being demolished because the scary communists don't want people to practice religion. Yet, Xinjiang alone possesses more mosques than there are in Europe! 24300 in XI, vs 10378 in Europe.

And in some countries, like Sweden, these mosques are simply rented office space and subject to vicious Islamophobic attacks -- the west has no moral ground to talk about the plight of Muslims.

The "demolished" mosques in Xinjiang were torn down to be rebuilt, as they did not conform to safety codes or were becoming a hazard. Some were also set up by Wahabbists or Salafists; religious schools is how Wahhabists, funded by the Saudi family, spread their branch.

Interestingly, since Uyghur is an official language of the PRC, it is featured on the RMB bank notes, along with Mandarin and all other official languages.

All these personalities rallying around and propagandising a supposed Uyghur genocide (that they have yet to prove) all gravitate around the US State Department: The World Uyghur Congress, the Western mass media, Adrian Zenz...

Oh, we need to talk about Adrian Zenz. When such stories are relayed from the State Department to the mass media, it is customary for them to pick a figure to mediatize and rally behind. Example: Nathan Law in HK, Chai Ling in Tiananmen, Bin Laden in Afghanistan...

Zenz might have been the stupidest choice they could have made, however. A Christian fundamentalist (who thinks God gave him a mission to eradicate communism), he cannot read a word of Chinese by his own admission.

It seems he can't count either, because he once confused a 3.8% IUD rate for 38% (!!)

Zenz is employed by the Victims of Communism foundation, a US-Congress initiative.

If you want to learn more about this clown --> en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Adrian_Ze…

So with that, what's the situation in Xinjiang? Yes, people were forced to attend vocational training. No, we're not saying it was all fun and games. But it certainly beats rotting in prison for 50 years and not recognizing the world you live in when you come out.

It beats being bombed by a drone at your wedding. It beats dying for a pipe dream because outsiders, cozy in their villas paid for by the Pentagon, send you to stab people in a major city.

And it beats creating more terrorists.

And since 2016, there have not been any more terrorist attacks in Xinjiang.

China keeps showing the world there's another way to do things, a way that is neither imperialist nor capitalist, a way the West does not want its people to see. If we did, we might demand it for us too.

We had to leave out some stuff to keep this thread readable, but if you liked it, find sources and more info on this page! en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Economic_…

In particular, we recommend reading the White Paper the CPC published in 2019, it explains everything 👀 (available in references)