China escapes global fury on Xinjiang
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, October 6: Slowly and steadily noose is tightening on China for its human rights abuse within the country, and for its brutal assaults on rules-based international order. Islamic countries on Thursday bailed out China from a debate on the human rights abuse in the autonomous region of Xinjiang where China is allegedly carrying out gravest abuse of human rights of Muslims.
China would have been down under water if not for Muslim countries coming to its rescue, as 17 nations led by the US, Germany, France, the UK voted for a debate on the abuse of minority community in Xinjiang at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Enough to send chills down the spine of China, only 19 countries voted against the motion for the debate.
Eleven countries, including India and Brazil, abstained from the voting, not in defence of the gross abuse of the minority community in Xinjiang by Beijing but for the larger principled stand that the UN body shouldn’t take up an issue which is limited just to one country.
The Muslim Uyghur population in Xinjiang are stated to being subjected to torture and abuse to force them to abandon their Islamic faith. Ironically, the Muslim world, including Pakistan, voted against the motion in an affirmation that they value the Chinese money more than any other considerations.
For countries like India and Brazil, the US and the developed world in the past have shown tendencies at the behest of the powerful non-governmental organisations to poke their noses in the domestic affairs of the developing countries. Thus, India’s abstention has nothing to do about China, but averting a precedent, which could itself have been abused by the powerful international NGOs, who have been at the receiving ends of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, as several of them have been blacklisted and prohibited from receiving foreign donations.
China’s neighbours and close economic partners Japan and South Korea voted for the debate on Xinjiang, which should be seen in the larger framework of the economic powers joining hands to call the bluff of Beijing.
Nepal voted with China on the motion, which should be a sign of the Himalayan nation not wanting to anger Beijing as its political class has shown to be coming under the influence of Beijing too often.
While China may have survived the UNHCR scare, Beijing has no room for relief, as the Thursday event is another demonstration that the democratic world is determined to take it to the task for its moral and political lapses, which are detrimental to the rules-based international order.
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China is an absurd country. Have to wait and see what the future holds for them