Xinjiang 'genocide' claims debunked by world bodies

The much-awaited UN report on "human rights abuses" in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has made no mention of genocide in the northwestern region of China, and the Uyghur Tribunal, a people's tribunal, has said that claims of genocide by then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and his successor, Antony Blinken, have been made without evidence and foundation.

The claims have been a figment of the imagination of Pompeo and perpetrated by Blinken to destabilize China in the world arena. But the sad fact is that they have fooled world leaders into believing their lie by distributing the falsehood through the Five Eyes network of intelligence agencies operating in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.

Pompeo, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA - thus an expert in black propaganda), once told a group of students that while he was director, the CIA stole, cheated and lied. This was confirmed by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who claimed that the CIA planned and executed every uprising in Xinjiang between 1966 and 2002, the latter part during Pompeo's CIA directorship.

But the ramifications of the big lie brought additional hardship on the millions in Xinjiang through sanctions of high taxes and embargoes on goods and produce emanating from the region.

The Uyghur Tribunal, at the behest of the World Uyghur Congress, late last year found that then-US president Donald Trump's outgoing secretary of state, Pompeo, claimed on his last day in office in early 2021 that the Chinese authority had committed genocide against the Uygurs. US President Joe Biden's incoming secretary of state, Blinken, adopted that assertion.

However, the tribunal said "nothing has been made public of the evidence on which this assertion has been made or of the reasoning leading to the conclusion about genocide. Its timing, coupled with outgoing president Trump's attitude to the PRC, have allowed some to question whether there was a political component to the decision and announcement. Only sight of the evidence relied on and the reasoning leading to the announcement can dispose of this question. The tribunal's requests to the US secretary of state for evidence and reasoning have been denied. The Pompeo/Blinken announcement is of no evidential value to the tribunal."

In fact, the only people promoting the lie are those in the pay of the US State Department through its National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Uygur genocide activists, the World Uyghur Congress, born-again evangelist ("God sent me to fight communism") Adrian Zenz, and Washington-based Rebiya Kadeer are all on the payroll of NED, according to NED annual reports.

Meanwhile, the much-awaited UN report on Xinjiang received only scant coverage in the international press because of its imperfections and a strong detailed rebuttal from the Chinese Embassy in Geneva. For the press, the UN report had no meat and was thus a nonstarter. A mere mention would suffice. The issue is now a damp squid as truth prevailed over falsehoods perpetrated by US-inspired activists seeking to undermine the progress of China.

The 46-page report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region of China does not mention "genocide" at all, despite taking evidence from 40 in-depth interviews with individuals with "direct and firsthand knowledge" of the situation in Xinjiang. These included 23 Uygurs, 16 ethnic Kazakhs, and one ethnic Kyrgyz, of which 16 were male and 24 female. Twenty-six of the interviewees had been either detained or had worked in the various holding facilities for detainees. Yet not one of the 40 has been identified.

Instead, the UN investigation centered on so-called human rights abuses during terrorism activities in Xinjiang. The report recognized there was terrorism and extremism in the region but argued at some length the definition of "extremism". It believed there had been human rights abuses to those arrested on terrorism charges, but this was rigorously rejected by the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

The mission insisted that its 122-page rebuttal be attached to the UN report to balance the allegations made by the witnesses. The rebuttal was compiled by the Information Office of the People's Government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in August 2022.

The UN report found there is no evidence of organized mass killings in Xinjiang and added that it was clear that detainees were allowed back into society, sometimes after as short a period of detention as three to six months.

An indicator of genocide is a drop in population statistics of certain ethnic groups, but this was not the case in Xin-jiang. Quite the opposite, there has been an increase in the Uygur population, according to the Mission report.

In its conclusion, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region government welcomed the international community to visit Xinjiang to see for themselves the region's economic growth, social stability, better livelihoods, cultural prosperity, ethnic unity and religious harmony.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.