The legislature on Tuesday last week passed a resolution recognizing China’s crimes against humanity and genocide against Uighurs. This is not only progress on recognizing the abuses of the ethnic minority, but also a historic event in Uighur-Taiwanese ties.
For 70 years, Uighurs have been oppressed under Chinese occupation, while Taiwanese have been living under the threat of it. Uighurs have paid a heavy price due to attempts to regain independence, and Taiwanese are relentlessly fighting to preserve their independence. Thus, Taiwanese and Uighurs have similar dreams and worries.
Through the resolution, the legislature fulfilled its historic role, and we would like to express our gratitude on behalf of all Uighurs.
However, what is happening to Uighurs in China is beyond human comprehension. The world might think that cutting the skirts of women and plucking the beards of men in the name of eradicating religious radicalism can only happen in a tribal country; it cannot imagine such actions in China, which claims to have a 5,000-year-old culture. Europeans would find it difficult to believe that China’s “pair up and become relatives” campaign, in which Han Chinese cadres sleep in the houses of Uighurs, could be true. They would think that the cadres would refuse to carry out such an irrational and immoral act.
The more skilled Chinese become at carrying out such inhumane actions, the more skilled and experienced they become at concealing them.
Although China’s official name for East Turkestan is “Xinjiang,” literally “new border,” Chinese officials do not hesitate to say that it has been a part of China since ancient times. China also calls concentration camps “vocational training centers” and juvenile prisons “angelic schools.”
Taiwanese, who share a language with China, have the most complete understanding of those word games and the terrible orders in leaked documents, such as the Xinjiang Police Files.
The common enemy of Uighurs and Taiwanese is a regime that hid the initial outbreak of COVID-19 to protect its honor and thus allowed the pandemic to happen, killing more than 6 million people worldwide. China seeks support from all dictators worldwide to change the international order, and eventually seeks to corrupt all officials and enslave all people worldwide.
On the one hand, this is good news for Uigurs and Taiwanese, as it makes China not only their enemy, but the enemy of all humanity. Except for Taiwanese, Uighurs, Tibetans and Mongolians, there is a lack of awareness of this danger in the international community, including in the US.
We believe that humanity will one day realize this danger and will not leave us alone. We will defeat China’s state terrorism.
China is not committing genocide from a position of strength, it does so because its multinational policies have failed, and Beijing cannot find a way to create unity of the state on the foundation of peace and justice. The Uighur genocide marks the beginning of the decline of imperial China and the Chinese Communist Party.
The legislature’s decision is yet more proof that truth is stronger than power, and a sign that China will fall. Exploring a genocide and preparing a report is not an easy process. Uighurs will remember the bravery of the 15 authors of the report, including Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇).
Orkesh Dolet, Nury Turkel, Dolqun Isa, Omer Qanat, Ilshat Hesen, Ilham Mahmut, Umit Agahi, Mihrigul Tursun have acted as ambassadors for East Turkestan and introduced the knowledge of the Uighur genocide to Taiwan. History will not forget these heroes.
Finally, on behalf of Uighurs whose voices have been silenced through the ongoing genocide in East Turkestan, we applaud the legislature’s Uighur resolution.
Rebiya Kadeer is a former president of the World Uyghur Congress. Kok Bayraq is a Uighur-American observer.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past