When I saw the open letter in the China Daily with more than 900 civil organizations listed as signatories, I laughed out loud, wondering who would believe this statement. China is again trying to fool the world. I had not expected this to put so much pressure on the most prestigious person in the world’s most prestigious organization, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
A week earlier, Bachelet had hinted that she might not keep her promise to publish a Xinjiang report, saying that in the previous months, her “office had received letters from about 40 countries, including China, asking for non-publication of the report.”
“I have been under tremendous pressure to publish, or not to publish,” she added.
However, Bachelet decided to publish the report 10 minutes before her term ended. Fortunately, in a serious international matter, China’s simple game in the UN has failed to reach its goal.
Political history and China’s own legal documents have shown that civil organizations cannot exist in a one-party government system. “Civil” organizations in such a regime are realistically a piece of the government or a puppet organization. This is common knowledge among educated people, so how could Bachelet claim not to understand this?
I spent a few days searching for information about the organizations listed in the open letter, and 90 percent of them do not exist on either Google or Baidu. Let us consider the list logically.
Who are these 900-plus so-called “civil organizations”?
There are numerous organizations on the list that include the name “Xinjiang.” The reality is that regulations dictate that no more than 15 Uighurs can gather for a wedding or funeral. Uighur residents need police approval to accept visitors into their homes. Therefore, how can such “civil organizations” exist?
According to Radio Free Asia, Uighurs are not allowed to see uncensored international news, and many are punished for crossing the “Great Firewall” of China. How would they know about the sensitive news about a Xinjiang report?
If there are some organizations with Han Chinese settlers who could speak to the world, they are not civilians, but auxiliary alliances of Chinese officials and armed forces who are committing genocide. They are the main group that is benefiting from government systems and the genocide against the Uighurs, so their opinions cannot be considered.
With that said, I do not believe that these organizations exist.
Some of the named civil organizations are associated with the Inner China provinces.
Recently, Holly Snape, a British postdoctoral fellow at the University of Glasgow specializing in China, published a report titled “Re-writing the Rules,” which said that Chinese officials assessing civil servants’ “political quality” can influence the rules they make for non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The report also said that China has enhanced laws and policies a step forward and does not allow for an independent civil society. The organizations must submit to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “total” leadership over their operations.
Thus, we can say that all the organizations on the list, if they truly exist, are branches of government agencies and are irrelevant to civilians.
I also noticed that of the foreign friendship organizations from 40 countries on the list, most have no formal regulations and systems, and they are based on specific financial interests. Some of them, including the US-China People’s Friendship Association, were under the wing of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship. That association has been described as the “public face” of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, and its leadership is drawn from the upper ranks of the CCP.
Its current chairperson is Lin Songtian (林松添), China’s former ambassador to South Africa, who had suggested that the US Army was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic in China.
Another China expert, Kalpit Makikar of the Observer Research Foundation in India, wrote in a report titled “CCP’s use of overseas Chinese to influence western democracies”: “Overseas Chinese have always had a unique relationship with China’s rulers since its imperial past. Since the Communist takeover in 1949, the party-state has sought to co-opt ethnic Chinese settled abroad through the United Front Work Department.”
“Now, [Chinese President] Xi Jinping (習近平) is weaponizing overseas Chinese on an industrial scale, and its reverberations are being felt in Western democracies,” the report said.
The most important matter of note is that no single organization among the more than 900 listed is well known internationally. They have never solved any problems and have never spoken out against any government, yet they suddenly voice concern when the Uighur genocide is being publicized, which should raise questions about their origins and nature.
Therefore, the letter, whether it contains real or fake signatures, was prepared by the united front department, whose goal is to “make the foreign serve China.”
The letters from “40 countries” were political theater orchestrated by the CCP.
Finally, Ms Bachelet realized or acknowledged the theater and released the report. In this one occasion the truth prevailed over political theater, and the oppressed, instead of the oppressor, are to be heard.
Kok Bayraq is a Uighur American.
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