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Xi Tightens His Grip Over China, Buckles Up For Diplomacy

By LokMarg 3rd November 2022

After securing his third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and tightening his grip over Beijing, Xi Jinping has now geared up to practice diplomacy as the Chinese President has a busy diplomatic schedule ahead of G20 in Bali. He is also planning to rebuild relations with Europe that got disrupted due to Beijing’s human rights violations involving Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Nikkei Asia reported.

As Xi Jinping has already rejigged members for the politburo in the new term and has tightened his grip on the country, it will be interesting to see how the Chinese leader interacts with US President Joe Biden to discuss relations between the two countries during the G-20 summit in Bali.
It is predicted that Chinese premier Xi Jinping’s re-election as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the head of the state for the next five years will witness more hard-lined policies with regard to the economy, foreign relations, human rights, and public dissent.

Xi sent the National Committee on US-China Relations a message last Wednesday saying China stands ready to work with the US to find the right way to get along with each other to which Biden also sent a congratulatory message, Nikkei Asia reported.

The thing of most interest will be whether Xi meets face-to-face with US President at the G-20 summit as the two leaders have only held telephonic conversations since Biden took his position at the White House.

Moreover, Xi’s diplomacy is seen with the neighboring nations too after securing the third term as on Monday, he received the leader of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, for a meeting in Beijing. Notably, the two countries are involved in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi who is in line to become a top diplomat spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken by phone on Monday (local time) and discussed the need to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the Sino-American relationship, Nikkei Asia reported citing the US State Department readout.

After securing his third term, Xi has surpassed China’s great leader Mao Zedong, hailed as the ‘red sun’. However, with an emboldened Xi, we might witness a world worse than what Mao created, reported Voices Against Autocracy.

Xi’s comfortable filling the Politburo Standing Committee with his close allies forebodes a future where there would be no one in the Chinese political elite to stop him from doing as he pleases, no matter how that might impact the country and the world at large.

The emphasis on security has particularly accelerated under Xi’s reign, as he tides to maintain his political relevance amidst slowing economic growth and the rising geo-political tension with the West. Added to these is the recent surge in internal protests by Chinese citizens against the establishment for a plethora of issues, including the draconian lockdown-led zero-COVID strategy and economic hardships. (ANI)

China Sets Up 5G Base Stations In Xinjiang For Uyghur Surveillance

By LokMarg 16th October 2022

China recently launched thousands of 5G base stations throughout its Xinjiang region, raising concerns the technology will be for greater digital surveillance of Uyghurs rather than the state use of economic development, according to a US government-funded news service.

China’s Information Technology Ministry last month announced the number of 5G base stations in use across China has exceeded 1.96 million.

“The high-quality industrial internet network covers over 300 cities in China, accelerating the transformation and upgrading of traditional Chinese enterprises,” ministry official Wang Peng was quoted saying by state media outlet Xinhua.

With the aim to fully digitize its economy and society, Beijing’s build-out in Xinjiang is part of the expansion of the 5G tech for broadband cellular networks that started in 2019.

Xinjiang has the largest land area of all the provinces and autonomous regions in China with an area of 642,800 square kilometers, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.

“The 5G network rollout across the entire region will augment an existing pervasive digitized system that monitors the movement of residents through surveillance drones, facial recognition cameras, and mobile phone scans as part of China’s efforts to control the predominantly Muslim population,” RFA quoted experts as saying.

Josh Chin, a journalist with The Wall Street Journal, said, “It’s definitely an interesting development. I have to imagine it will only make surveillance that much more pervasive and efficient.”

The rollout of 5G base stations across the vast, sparsely populated region is “overkill,” according to Geoffrey Cain, a U.S. journalist, and China analyst.

“It’s very extreme, and it also strikes me as very suspicious,” he told RFA.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in her long-awaited report in August said the Chinese government has committed abuses that may amount to crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in Xinjiang.

The report by the outgoing UN rights chief contains victim accounts that substantiate mass arbitrary detention, torture, and other serious human rights violations and recommends world to take action to end the abuses.

It outlined China’s crimes against humanity due to its “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of Uyghurs and other Muslims.

Adrian Zenz, in an interview with ANI, termed this bombshell report as ‘overall positive, very conservative and cautious in its approach. Zenz is a Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Washington, DC.

“My assessment of the report is overall positive, it’s useful but of course, it’s not perfect at all and there are some shortcomings in it. The report is very conservative and cautious in its approach,” Zenz said. (ANI)

India Abstains From UN Voting On Violations In China’s Xinjiang

By LokMarg 6th October 2022

India on Thursday abstained from voting on a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on holding a debate on the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang.

The draft resolution on “holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China” was rejected in the 47-member Council after 17 members voted in favour, 19 members voted against, including China, and 11 abstentions, including India, Brazil, Mexico and Ukraine.

“India has never supported country-specific issues in Human Rights Council,” sources said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan voted against the resolution. Pakistani envoy’s statement in UNHRC over Xinjiang exposes the country’s double standards.

On one hand, Pakistan claims to speak for Muslims and on the other hand, it “appreciated” China’s “efforts” to protect its minority in Xinjiang, a region which has been widely known for Beijing’s grave human rights violations.

It is pertinent to mention that 12 out of 17 (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)countries voted in favour of China. Four of these OIC countries abstained.

Somalia is the only OIC country that voted in favour of the decision of holding a debate on the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang.

A UN report said that the violations have taken place in the context of the Chinese Government’s assertion that it is targeting terrorists among the Uyghur minority with a counter-extremism strategy that involves the use of so-called Vocational Educational and Training Centres (VETCs), or re-education camps.

In a strongly-worded assessment at the end of the report, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the extent of arbitrary detentions against Uyghur and others, in the context of “restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights, enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

The assessment was initiated following serious allegations of human rights violations against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim communities brought to the attention of the UN Human Rights Office and UN human rights mechanisms in late 2017, particularly in the context of the Chinese Government’s policies and measures to combat terrorism and “extremism”.

The OHCHR said that the government policy in recent years in Xinjiang has “led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights.” Even if the VETC system has as China says, “been reduced in scope or wound up”, said OHCHR, “the laws and policies that underpin it remain in place”, leading to increased use of imprisonment.

The systems of arbitrary detention and related patterns of abuse since 2017, said OHCHR, “come against the backdrop of broader discrimination” against Uyghur and other minorities.

“This has included far-reaching, arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, in violation of international laws and standards”, including restrictions on religious freedom and the rights to privacy and movement.

The assessment is based on a rigorous review of documentary material currently available to the Office, with its credibility assessed in accordance with standard human rights methodology.

Particular attention was paid to the government’s laws, policies, data and statements. The Office also requested information and engaged in dialogue and technical exchanges with China throughout the process.

The information was assessed against applicable international human rights law and builds on the work of a number of UN human rights mechanisms.

Notably, the UN’s assessment comes at a time when Chinese President Xi Jinping is poised to break with tradition by taking on a third term. (ANI)