09/12/2021
'Sir Geoffrey Nice, a prominent British barrister who chaired the tribunal hearings, said its panel was satisfied China had carried out "a deliberate, systematic and concerted policy" to bring about "long-term reduction of Uyghur and other ethnic minority populations". He added that the panel believed senior officials including the Chinese president Xi Jinping bore "primary responsibility" for the abuses against Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region.
The tribunal's panel was made up of lawyers and academics. Its findings have no legal force and are not binding on ministers, but its organisers said at the outset they intended to add to the body of evidence around the allegations against China and reach an independent conclusion on the question of genocide.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-59595952
China committed genocide against Uyghurs, independent tribunal rules
A London-based unofficial tribunal says China is deliberately preventing births among Uyghurs.
26/11/2021
'The Biden administration has upheld its predecessor’s determination that China’s mass incarceration and forced sterilisation of its Muslim Uyghur population constitutes genocide. It has also been critical of the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and repressive measures in Tibet.
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that Biden raised human rights abuses in his summit with Xi.
“President Biden is always going to be Joe Biden. He is going to be direct and straightforward. And he’s not going to sand down the edges of direct messages on hard issues,” Sullivan told a Brookings Institution video conference assessing the summit on Tuesday.'
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/16/us-reportedly-plans-diplomatic-boycott-of-chinas-winter-olympics
US reportedly plans diplomatic boycott China 2022 Winter Olympics
Biden administration may not send official delegation to Beijing 2022, in protest at human rights abuses
30/08/2021
'Both the Taliban and the former government of Afghanistan have aided in China’s transnational repression efforts to silence Uyghur dissidents, a joint report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs revealed this month.
“At the behest of the Chinese authorities, Islamabad [Pakistan] and Kabul are engaged in the harassment, detention, and deportation of vulnerable Uyghurs,” UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat said. “Some of the targeted Uyghurs have been tortured and executed in China, while others have experienced the breakup of their families and heavy-handed surveillance of their communities. China’s economic largesse can buy all sorts of complicity in violence against Uyghurs.”'
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/08/19/report-pakistan-afghanistan-complicit-chinas-uyghur-genocide/
Report: Taliban, Afghanistan Complicit in China's Uyghur Genocide
Uyghur expat communities in Muslim-majority Afghanistan have faced repression from both the Taliban and the legitimate government.
23/08/2021
"Beijing has economic interests in the country, with a particular eye on its vast mineral wealth, but China's main interest is that conflict doesn't spill beyond Afghanistan's borders.
Central to those worries are how to curb regional instability and eliminate any potential for Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorist groups, especially Uyghur militants in the country. An early test for the new era of the Taliban's relationship with China will be if the militants ban the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) -- a Uyghur group that Beijing blames for unrest in its western Xinjiang Province -- from operating on Afghan soil.
While many analysts dispute the severity of the threat posed by Uyghur groups to China, it is seen as a major threat by Beijing -- with counterterrorism being central to the Chinese Communist Party's justification for its crackdown in Xinjiang, where it is believed to have interned more than 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities."
https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-china-goals/31420549.html
Explainer: What Does China Want From Afghanistan After The Taliban Takeover?
Beijing is preparing for a reshaped geopolitical map and a new era of security risks in South and Central Asia after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.
16/08/2021
"The government has long encouraged labour-intensive industries to set up in Xinjiang. Now it is trying much harder. In its latest five-year plan for the region, finalised in June, it stressed the importance of basic manufacturing. It sees factories as the best source of steady, well-paid jobs.
Human-rights groups sense ulterior motives. Analysis of satellite imagery points to factories being built alongside many of the region’s expanding prisons. Testimonies from inmates suggest that forced labour is common. Many of those released from re-education camps seem to be on indefinite probation, compelled to work wherever they are assigned.
The government denies such allegations. It claims to have created jobs last year for about 2.7m “surplus labourers” in Xinjiang, many in textile factories. At present, textiles account for only about 2% of Xinjiang’s industrial output. That should soon start to rise."
https://www.economist.com/china/2021/08/07/chinas-efforts-to-lift-xinjiangs-economy-may-smother-it
China’s efforts to lift Xinjiang’s economy may smother it
Prison camps and forced labour are unlikely to produce economic dynamism | China
09/08/2021
Will open-source intelligence change the game?
"In the face of vehement denials from the Kremlin, Bellingcat, an investigative group, meticulously demonstrated Russia’s role in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight mh17 over Ukraine in 2014, using little more than a handful of photographs, satellite images and elementary geometry. It went on to identify the Russian agents who attempted to assassinate Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, in England in 2018. amateur analysts and journalists used osint to piece together the full extent of Uyghur internment camps in Xinjiang. In recent weeks researchers poring over satellite imagery have spotted China constructing hundreds of nuclear-missile silos in the desert."
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/08/07/the-promise-of-open-source-intelligence
The promise of open-source intelligence
It is a welcome threat to malefactors and governments with something to hide | Leaders
24/07/2021
'The poverty in Xinjiang, China is the highest of the Chinese provinces at approximately 6%. However, certain regions within Xinjiang face more poverty than others. Yutian County, for example, has a poverty rate of around 25%. Even so, the region has made great strides in poverty alleviation in recent years, lifting 2.3 million out of poverty. Xinjiang’s resource-rich areas have caught the attention of Han Chinese, driving migration and economic growth. Additionally, the government has promoted various industries, employment transfers and citizen relocation. This has the result of further driving down poverty rates.
Unfortunately, many Uyghurs are excluded from the benefits of reduced poverty. Employment discrimination prevents Uyghurs from getting jobs in these growing markets. As a result, a disproportionate amount of Han Chinese receive better jobs. This furthers the economic disparity between the two groups. On top of this, the rising number of Han Chinese in the region has made the native Uyghurs feel distant from one another and worry their culture is disappearing.'
20/07/2021
'Are the policies counterproductive? How has the migration of Han Chinese to the region changed it? Won’t economic development erase the tensions in the region? Is Are Americans and other Westerners concerned about Xinjiang only because of the negative light it shines on China? These questions and more were discussed.'
What's At Stake In Xinjiang | US-China Institute
A symposium featuring a distinguished panel of specialists to discuss Uyghur beliefs and Chinese government policies in the region.
16/07/2021
How should we draw the line between counterterrorism and terrorism? It's not easy to answer this question - and China is not the first to abuse this ambiguity.
'All this points to sinicization, not security, driving China’s repressive policies in Xinjiang. Rather than routing out terrorists Beijing is attempting to drive out ideas and symbols that they deem insufficiently Chinese.
Regardless of this evidence, a growing number of countries appear to have bought Beijing’s line or, at the very least, are prepared to regurgitate it. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan does not even try to pretend otherwise. “What they [Chinese officials] say about the programs in Xinjiang, we accept it,” he remarked in a recent interview.'
Time to Confront China’s ‘Counterterrorism’ Claims in Xinjiang
Beijing has defended its actions against Muslims by saying they are necessary to w**d out terrorism. That claim cannot go unchallenged.
14/07/2021
Fascinating debate!
'Is the rise of terrorism and violence justifiably traced to the teachings of Islam, or is this call to war a twisted interpretation of the true Muslim faith? Most of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims are moderates who see Islamic terrorism as a violation of their sacred texts. Is it wrong to let a radical minority represent authentic Islam? Has fear blinded us to its lessons of tolerance and peace?'
Islam Is A Religion Of Peace
Is the rise of terrorism and violence justifiably traced to the teachings of Islam, or is this call to war a twisted interpretation of the true Muslim faith? Is it wrong to let a radical minority represent authentic Islam? Has fear blinded us to its lessons of tolerance and peace?
11/07/2021
‘Amnesty International has collected new evidence of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China, which it says has become a “dystopian hellscape” for hundreds of thousands of Muslims subjected to mass internment and torture.
The human rights organisation has collected more than 50 new accounts from Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities who claim to have been subjected to mass internment and torture in police stations and camps in the region.
Testimonies from former detainees included in a new report launched on Thursday allege the use of “tiger chairs” – steel chairs with leg irons and handcuffs that restrain the body in painful positions – on detainees during police interrogations.
The report also claims that beatings, sleep deprivation and overcrowding are commonplace in police stations. Uyghur Muslims, often arrested for what appeared to be lawful conduct, also reported being hooded and shackled during interrogation and transfer.’
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jun/10/china-uyghur-xinjiang-dystopian-hellscape-says-amnesty-international-report
China’s Uyghurs living in a ‘dystopian hellscape’, says Amnesty report
Widespread internment, torture and rights abuses have been claimed by former detainees as Beijing continues a policy of denial
10/07/2021
OPEN TO PUBLIC University of Newcastle conference - 'The Crisis: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, Justice’ (1-3 September 2021). Registration required for in-person/virtual auditing.
https://forms.ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=11698122
The Xinjiang Crisis: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, Justice
01/03/2021
Thank you St Andrews Law Review for paying attention to this important issue!
The Persecution of the Uyghurs: Is it Genocide?
This article discusses the definition of genocide and whether it is correct to use this term in relation to the persecution of Uyghurs.
13/01/2021
Thank you so much for the support we have received ever since this page began in the summer of 2020. Thank you especially to those of you who have noticed our recent silence. The atrocities in Xinjiang/East Turkestan had not abated, if not intensified.
Throughout this project, many of our members were unaware of each other, and I have acted as the only node of communication between them. While this is far from an ideal model for any team, the fear of losing career prospects, their own safety and their family's, is extremely real. Many of our team have returned home to mainland China, where Facebook and Gmail are no longer accessible without risk. Many of us, from Hong Kong, have finally lost the sense of home in their own city. Perhaps it is only paranoia and an exaggerated villainization of the Chinese government that has scared us, but the censored public information and rumours of sudden crackdown and arrests, is itself an intimidation strategy that has left us not knowing what to think, when there is so much to lose.
There have been a lot of direct and indirect support from the non-Chinese engagement as well, and we are really grateful for this. It really means a lot that those who face less risk speak up where we cannot. Please, please, continue to pay attention to the sufferings of the Uyghurs and other minorities in China: just because we cannot see it or hear it directly does not mean that the torture they go through is any less. Frankly, this page had never wanted to be political. We had only ever wanted to speak out against torture of human beings. We still think this is a reasonable objection. If we are determined, together, we can make the post-pandemic world one of unity and compassion, ignoring all those who stand in the way with their hate and selfishness.
In 2021, we will try to update this page as much as possible as some of us are returning to the UK and are still willing to contribute. Please stay with us!
Here are some articles we recommend:
A detailed and vivid report of Uyghurs silenced in London: https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/10/15/if-i-speak-out-they-will-torture-my-family-voices-of-uyghurs-in-exile
An intimate story of a Uyghur's survival:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/uighur-xinjiang-re-education-camp-china-gulbahar-haitiwaji
An example of violence in industry, that you might be part of without knowing!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nz0g306v8c/china-tainted-cotton?fbclid=IwAR0CpW9D1DSVuERywwt7xXx-qFQT4gLZGv-P8gFC33ZA_rOCGAL_MH6KqIk
Crackdown in Hong Kong:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/hong-kong-national-security-law-internet/2021/01/12/01738064-53b6-11eb-acc5-92d2819a1ccb_story.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/06/dozens-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-figures-arrested-in-sweeping-crackdown
Dozens of Hong Kong pro-democracy figures arrested in sweeping crackdown
Campaigners and politicians held in wave of arrests under the national security law
19/10/2020
No vaccine for cruelty. "Measuring the pandemic’s effect on democracy and human rights is hard. Without covid-19, would China’s rulers still have inflicted such horrors on Muslim Uyghurs this year? Would Thailand’s king have grabbed nearly absolute powers? Would Egypt have executed 15 political prisoners in a single weekend this month? Perhaps. But these outrages would surely have faced stronger opposition, both at home and abroad. Granted, the current American administration makes less fuss about human rights than previous ones have and covid-19 has not changed that. But the voice from the White House is not the only one that counts.
Last year was a year of mass protests, which swept six continents, brought down five governments (Algeria, Bolivia, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan) and forced others to rethink unpopular policies, as in Chile, France and Hong Kong. This year, by contrast, governments have banned mass gatherings to enforce social distancing. For many, this is wonderfully convenient." https://www.economist.com/international/2020/10/17/the-pandemic-has-eroded-democracy-and-respect-for-human-rights?fsrc=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-10-16&utm_content=article-link-1&etear=nl_today_1
The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights
Strongmen have taken advantage of covid-19 in numerous ways
18/10/2020
Omg he is so badass 😍 "Harvard president Lawrence Bacow yesterday (March 20) espoused the values of free speech and academic freedom at one of China’s top universities, even reading out a verse written by a poet from the country’s long-suppressed Uyghur community.
Bacow’s speech at Peking University also lauded the long and deep ties between the two schools even as Washington and Beijing “are engaged in important and at times difficult discussions over a range of issues.”
https://qz.com/1577381/harvard-president-lawrence-bacaw-reads-uyghur-poem-on-china-visit/
Harvard’s president read a Uyghur poem to students at Peking University
Lawrence Bacow visited during a particularly frosty chapter in US-China relations, and an increasingly repressive time in China and on its campuses.
17/10/2020
"As another Uyghur man told me, “Uyghur society was not perfect before. Just as in every other society, it had its own problems. But the Communist Party did not set out to establish the camps to help solve these social issues. They set out to eliminate Uyghurs as a distinct group of people. Only now have they made these propaganda videos to put themselves in a positive light.” Continuing, he said, “I think this shift mirrors their prior denial of the camps and their later acknowledgement of their existence as ‘vocational schools.’” In fact, the language of “vocational schools” is belied by the videos themselves, which center on punitive, Islamophobic “reeducation” and dictating what counts as “normal life” rather than job training." https://supchina.com/2019/04/03/uyghur-stories-need-to-be-mainstreamed/
Uyghurs don’t need to be saved. Their stories need to be mainstreamed - SupChina
Uyghurs are a nation of poets. Poets, and the musicians who perform their lyrics, are the leaders of the nation. If they were to be given even limited forms of autonomy in Xinjiang, poetry might bring their traditions into the present and guide them into the future. But the autonomy they desire is n...
16/10/2020
The Economist 1843 spent months interviewing the Uyghur diaspora in London. Sit down and dive into this brilliantly written piece of gripping and heart-wrenching stories. "Miryam answered, trying not to say the wrong thing. Her mother responded, “Bye.” All she could do was send a kiss. A few days later, when she messaged again, she received an automated response saying the account she was trying to reach had been reported for unusual activity." https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/10/15/if-i-speak-out-they-will-torture-my-family-voices-of-uyghurs-in-exile?fsrc=bulk?utm_campaign=1843-magazine&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=mail-chimp
16/10/2020
On 'Is there really a genocide?' "For years, experts and activists have called the situation a “cultural genocide.” That label carries a blistering significance and refers to the CCP’s attempts to wipe out Uyghur culture and traditions. The CCP has razed burial sites, closed mosques, and effectively criminalized most expressions of faith. Still, cultural genocide is not recognized as a crime under the U.N.’s 1948 convention on genocide. Invoking cultural genocide rather than simply genocide has been a cautious way to speak out about the situation in Xinjiang without discrediting one’s argument through exaggeration. In light of recent developments, that’s no longer required.
In late June, Adrian Zenz, the German anthropologist who has provided most of the groundbreaking revelations on the Xinjiang mass-detention drive, published a new report detailing a systematic forced-sterilization and birth-control program to lower Uyghur birth rates. Among his findings were that birth rates plummeted 84 percent from 2015 to 2018 in Xinjiang’s two major Uyghur prefectures; that a mass campaign to sterilize 14 to 34 percent of Uyghur women in rural parts of the region was underway; and that the CCP planned to sterilize or implant intrauterine contraceptive devices in 80 percent of childbearing-age women in Xinjiang’s rural southern areas. During the same period, Zenz noted, the state worked successfully to increase the Han Chinese population in Xinjiang. He likens these population-control techniques, which are based on ethnicity, to “opening or closing a faucet.” They are reminiscent of the CCP’s rule over Tibet, where Chen Quanguo, the party official who has presided over the Xinjiang genocide, gained a reputation for ruthless competence.
This implicates one of the five acts that can be considered genocide under Article II of the convention: “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.” Prior to June, there was already evidence implicating CCP officials in the four other acts: They have killed and caused “serious bodily or mental harm” to Uyghurs, two of the acts. In addition, the CCP has inflicted on the Uyghur people “conditions of life calculated to bring about [their] physical destruction in whole or in part,” by deliberately failing to provide adequate living conditions to detainees. And the CCP has “forcibly [transferred] children of the group to another group,” by sending Uyghur children, whose parents in many cases are detained in the camps, to state facilities." https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/09/21/the-uyghur-genocide/
The Uyghur Genocide | National Review
Call it what it is.
15/10/2020
The million-dollar question! 'Fortunately for those of us seeking answers to this question, China was a major power for long stretches of history, and the foreign policies and practices of its great dynasties can offer us insights into how modern Chinese leaders may wield their widening power now and in the future.
Of course, Chinese society today is not the same as it was 100 years ago—let alone 1,000 years. But I’ve long been studying imperial China’s foreign relations, and clear patterns of a consistent worldview emerge that are likely to shape Beijing’s perceptions and projection of power in the modern world.' https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/10/what-kind-superpower-will-china-be/616580/
What Happens When China Leads the World
The policies and practices of the country’s dynasties offer insights into how modern Chinese leaders may wield their strength.
15/10/2020
"Beijing’s latest bid to join the global fight against the coronavirus follows criticism over its handling of the pandemic, which has contributed to a growing unfavourable view of China in advanced nations, a recent survey showed.
“We are taking this concrete step to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, especially to developing countries, and hope more capable countries will also join and support COVAX,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.
The statement did not detail the support Beijing will provide to the COVAX programme, which aims to deliver at least 2 billion doses of vaccine by the end of 2021."
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-china-covax/china-says-joins-covax-vaccine-facility-for-covid-19-idUKKBN26U02M?il=0&utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=458284e180-briefing-dy-20201009&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-458284e180-45274498
China joins WHO-backed vaccine programme COVAX rejected by Trump
China has joined a global scheme for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine backed by the World Health Organization (WHO), it said on Friday, giving a major boost to an initiative shunned by U.S. President Donald Trump.
14/10/2020
Uyghur traditional clothing: "While men sport the chapan, women wear exquisitely embroidered long-sleeved dresses that billow out at the waist. Popular embroidery motifs include vines, pomegranates, moons, arabesques, and geometric patterns. Golds, reds, and blacks are the most popular colour combinations, although pinks, greens, blues, purples, and even tie-dyes also feature. To complement these luxurious dresses, Uyghur women don plenty of jewellery, including large earrings, bracelets, and necklaces.
Young girls tend to braid their hair in a number of long plaits, as this is regarded as a symbol of feminine beauty, while married women usually wear two plaited pigtails affixed to the head with a crescent-shaped comb. Although it is still reasonably uncommon, some women will wear the veil in-keeping with their Islamic faith. Both men and women wear silk slippers or leather boots, depending on the season and the occasion. From shimmering satins to rich silk threads, the opulence of the Uyghurs’ traditional dress is undeniable!" https://www.asiaculturaltravel.co.uk/traditional-dress-of-uyghur-minority/
Uyghur Traditional Dress | China & Asia Cultural Travel
12/10/2020
Interview with Dr David Brophy, 'There’s a common way of looking at politics in Eurasia in the early twentieth-century, which says that there were various “pan-” movements (e.g. pan-Turkism, pan-Slavism) on the one hand, alongside particularistic ethno-nationalisms on the other, and people had to pick between them. The case of the Uyghurs shows that that’s really too simple a way of thinking about things.
The construction of a certain narrative of Uyghur history, as the glorious history of a steppe civilization distinct from surrounding Chinese, Slavic, or Iranian civilizations, had wide appeal, and not just among the Turkic-speaking Muslims of western China. Before it came to China, an idealized sense of “Uyghur” history as the history of all civilized Turks became a point of pride for cultural nationalists in Russia and the Ottoman Empire. If events had taken a different course, we might today still think of “Uyghurism” alongside pan-Turkism and Turanism as part of a set of romantic discourses that were inclusive of all the world’s Turkic peoples.'
David Brophy is Senior Lecturer in Modern Chinese History at the University of Sydney whose work explores the history of modern Uyghur nationalism as it emerged in the context of imperial competition, reform and revolution in Russian and Chinese Turkistan
https://www.uyghurism.com/post/history-of-uyghurism-the-birth-of-uyghur-nationalization
History of Uyghurism The Birth of Modern Uyghur Nationalism
The Russian Revolution in East Turkistan: An Interview with David Brophy By Lefteast The following interview is part of a year-long series LeftEast is running exploring the impact of the Russian Revolution in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Over the course of this anniversary year we will publish histor...
11/10/2020
In 1937, an Islamic rebellion broke out in southern Xinjiang. The rebels were 1,500 Turki Muslims led by Kichik Akhund, tacitly aided by the 36th Division against the pro-Soviet provincial forces of Sheng Shicai. Learn more here. https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Islamic_rebellion_in_Xinjiang_(1937)
Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang (1937)
In 1937, an Islamic rebellion broke out in southern Xinjiang. The rebels were 1,500 Turki Muslims led by Kichik Akhund, tacitly aided by the 36th Division against the pro-Soviet provincial forces of Sheng Shicai. Contents[show] Start of rebellion Sheng Shicai had moved against Divisional General Mah...
10/10/2020
'She said, “The very simple thing about learning our own native language, like many communities in the United States, it’s a very normal thing to do. But for us, it’s a crime. It’s a crime to learn your own language. It’s a very political thing. And that’s sad.
“Being a Uyghur is a crime now.”
I’m Ashley Thompson.
I’m Caty Weaver.' https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/uyghurs-in-america-aim-to-keep-language-alive/4787003.html
Uyghurs in America Aim To Keep Language Alive
The Uyghur language and culture are closely related to Turkish, Uzbek, Kazakh and other Turkic groups. Today, Uyghurs use an Arabic-based writing system.
09/10/2020
Perhat Tursun’s “Elegy”
Among the corpses frozen in exodus over the icy mountain pass, will you recognize me? Our brothers
we begged for shelter took our clothes. Pass by there even now and you will see our naked
corpses. When they force me to accept the massacre as love
Do you know that I am with you.
After three hundred years they awaken and do not know each other, their own greatness long forgotten,
I happily drank down poison, thinking it fine wine
When they search the streets and cannot find my vanished figure
Do you know that I am with you.
In that tower built of skulls you’ll find my skull as well
They cut my head off just to test the sharpness of a sword. When before the sword
our beloved cause-and-effect relationship is ruined like a wild lover
Do you know that I am with you.
When in the market men with tall fur hats are used for target practice and a man’s face draws out in agony as a bullet cleaves his brain, and
before the eyes that look to find the reason of their death the executioner fades and disappears,
reflected in that bullet-pierced brain’s fevered thoughts will be my form, just then
Do you know that I am with you.
In those times when drinking wine was a greater crime than drinking blood, do you know the taste of the flour ground in the blood-turned mill? The wine
that Alishir Nava’i deliriously dreamed took its flavor from my blood
In that endlessly mystical drunkenness’s farthest, deepest chambers
Do you know that I am with you.
March 2006, Xihongmen, Beijing
https://medium.com/fairbank-center/uyghur-poetry-in-translation-perhat-tursuns-elegy-902a58b7a0aa
Uyghur Poetry in Translation: Perhat Tursun’s “Elegy”
Joshua L. Freeman, Ph.D. Candidate in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard University, introduces and presents a translation of Uyghur…
09/10/2020
Opinion piece: 'Indeed, Chinese leadership goals, aspirations, and capabilities shifted in the years around 2008-2012. They began to focus on strengthening the Party at home and abroad by increasingly relying on surveillance technology, and on moving away from market economics and social liberalization. While Beijing’s own choices have largely driven a need for a coordinated global response, the move to a more confrontational U.S. approach often rests in part on a critique of the past four decades of U.S. policy towards the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a criticism broken down into three intertwined elements. First, the previous policy of bringing China into international institutions through diplomacy has failed, and the act of “engagement” has somehow ceded U.S. leverage. Second, U.S. leaders and policymakers were ignorant of, or naive about, the true nature of the repressive Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Third, that misunderstanding led to policies that endangered U.S. security, prosperity, and open society—threats which could have been mitigated or avoided with different policies.
This is simply historical revisionism.'
https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/defense-of-diplomacy-china
In Defense of Diplomacy with China
Critics of the last four decades of China policy have incorrectly and simplistically labeled diplomacy a failure because the People’s Republic did not become a liberal democracy. That was never the goal or an achievable objective of U.S. policy. The goal was to shape Chinese policy to align more w...