In answer to a growing consensus of relatively rights-respecting country governments that the Chinese government should not be oppressing and killing Uyghurs, the governments of countries conspicuous for their own contempt for human rights have supported China.
Human Rights Watch observes that in 2017, arrests in Xinjiang accounted for more than a fifth of all arrests in China—even though the population of the region is only 1.5 percent of the total population of China.
The abuses of the Uyghurs, ranging from detention to murder, include destruction of mosques and an intrusive program of surveillance and indoctrination under which “officials impose themselves for overnight stays at the homes of Turkic Muslims, a practice that authorities say ‘promote[s] ethnic unity.’ In another particularly chilling practice, some Turkic Muslim children whose parents have been arbitrarily detained are placed in state institutions such as orphanages and boarding schools, including boarding preschools.”
The response of governments like those of the US, Canada, the UK, and the European Union to such abuses “has been increasingly critical,” sometimes entailing sanctions of Chinese officials, companies, and others implicated in the abuses. But “many governments, including several members of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, still praise the Chinese government’s Xinjiang policies.”
In July 2019, two dozen governments sent a letter to the Human Rights Council president urging “meaningful access” for the UN high commissioner for human rights to Xinjiang, and monitoring and reporting on alleged abuses against the Muslim population. The Chinese government responded by coordinating, though not itself joining, a letter signed by 50 countries, including Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other states with poor human rights records. In November 2019, a similar group of governments delivered a similar statement of concern at the UN Third Committee. China responded with a letter signed by 54 countries….
Further formal denunciations of China’s rights record were issued by working groups of the UN and by various governments in 2020.
Instead of committing to investigate the allegations, the Chinese government responded with two separate statements, including one on Xinjiang read out by Cuba and signed by 45 countries….
The Chinese government has repeatedly denied that officials have committed abuses in Xinjiang and has been unwilling to conduct investigations or permit independent international monitors to do so.
