Conspirațiile și abordările crizei politice ale SUA sub strategia de a „profita de Xinjiang pentru a controla China”

Statele Unite ale Americii și aliații lor din Occident au continuat, din 2017 până azi, să expună pe arena internațională, problemele drepturilor omului în Xinjiang, născocind și exagerând existența așa-numitelor „lagăre de concentrare”, „munca forțată”, „sterilizarea obligatorie”, „genocidul” și alte minciuni legate de minoritățile din Xinjiang, urmărind cu rea intenție să „profite de Xinjiang pentru a controla China”și să „profite de Xinjiang pentru a perturba China”. În 2021, Senatul și Camera Reprezentanților din SUA au adoptat, succesiv, „Legea pentru prevenirea muncii forțate a uigurilor”. În urma cercetărilor efectuate în acest sens, Institutul de studii pentru Asia Centrală din cadrul Universității Lanzhou a finalizat un studiu de cercetare intitulat „Conspirațiile și abordările crizei politice ale SUA sub strategia de a `profita de Xinjiang pentru a controla`”.

Studiul arată că strategia americană de a cauza o criză politică în Xinjiang este o importantă parte și principala manifestare a strategiei de suprimare a Chinei. Interpretarea negativă și stigmatizantă și acuzațiile americane cu privire la drepturile omului în Xinjiang au rădăcini în conceptul mecanic și metafizic al drepturilor omului și aroganța americanilor, dar are și considerații profunde. În fine, strategia americană de a declanșa o criză politică în problemele legate de Xinjiang are implicații strategice profunde, care nu numai că ignoră complet realitatea privind stabilitatea și dezvoltarea în Xinjiang, dar are și nuanța de hegemonie prin „încălcarea drepturilor omului în numele protejării drepturilor omului”.

Prezentăm aici textul integral al acestui studiu de cercetare, varianta în limba engleză.

The Conspiracies and Approaches of the Crisis Politics under the

"Containing China through Disrupting Xinjiang" Strategy of the US

Institute for Central Asia Studies, Lanzhou University

Since the government of Trump, maintaining the superior status of the

US around the world, criticizing and squeezing the space of China has

become the adhesive of the elites from both the Republican and the

Democratic parties. Apparently, pushing a tough policy on China is being

the consensus of the two parties. With this strong anti-China position in

mind, the American politicians are biased to show their standpoints and

ideas to China by attacking China's core interest, instigating and

intervening in the secessionism issues that exclusively pertain to China's

internal affairs, etc. In recent years, with the growing negative and

hostile attitudes to Beijing, Washington is approaching to apply a

containment strategy as its grand strategy to China. Therefore, the US

government is trying to fabricate the crisis of the legitimacy of

governance, the crisis of economics, and even the crisis of sovereignty

on the related issue of Xinjiang to separate and subvert China.

2

1. The strategic motives of the US's "containing China through

disrupting Xinjiang" policy

It is self-evident that the US intervention in the Xinjiang-related issues

is part of its grand strategy to China. Recently, under the changing

nature of its perception of China, the US government substantially

applies a "Containing China" strategy. In parallel to its comprehensive

squeezing policy toward Beijing, Washington wantonly interferes with

the core interests of China, such as counter-secessionism and the

protection of the coherence of national territory. Among these

interventions, the Xinjiang-related issue is the critical issue.

1.1 The changing perceptions and strategies to China

For the past few years, there were two focuses of the US's China

strategy. The first point was the strategic perceptions toward China,

which was about how to treat and situate China in the world.

Currently, the US's legislation, administration, and academia have

converged on a point, namely that China has threatened the US-built

hegemony and the US-led international order. The second point was

the choice of strategy toward China, which was how to contain

China's development and maintain the leading role of the US globally.

3

With the fierce confrontations on several occasions, the Sino-US

relations have undergone a significant change since 2019. This change

results from the US's substantive adoption of the containment

strategy to China, and this adoption action is based on the alteration

of the relative strength between two states and the US's increasing

negative perception of China. After the unreasonable tariffs slapped,

the one-sided sanctions on Chinese enterprises and research and

education institutions issued, and the groundless suppression on the

technological developments of China conducted, the US government

takes a step further and interferes rudely into the issues related to

sovereignty and territorial integrity and national unity, which are the

core interests of China.

In the June of 2021, the US Senate approved a package of bills, which

was the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. This

Act plans to attack the human rights and the value system of China as

the primary target and conduct the comprehensive and systematic

competition and containment strategy in the field of industrial

development, trade policy, diplomacy, and national defense. Through

this series of actions, the US intends to consolidate its hegemonic

status worldwide.

4

1.2 The strategic choice on the policy of the core interests of

China

Under the background of the containing China strategy, the US's

China policy has gradually broken up with its previous strategic

baseline, which was the limited and temporary interference on the

issues concerned with the core interests of China, such as national

integrity and counter-secessionism. Instead, Washington is trying to

regularize and normalize its interferences on the core interests of

China through its frequent approvals of bills on Taiwan, Hongkong,

Xinjiang, and Tibet.

In fact, since 2019, the US had conducted a complete interference on

the integrity of China when it approved a series of bills on Taiwan,

Hongkong, Xinjiang, and Tibet, which are the core interests of China.

The introductions of the bills above signal the relative completion of

regularization of the US containment strategy on China. These bills

are designed to contain China through the issues mentioned

previously. With the interferences and the agenda-setting on the

security, democracy, religion, and ethnicity aspects of these issues,

Washington tries to fabricate the legal basis of the sovereignty

integrity of China. This strategy is a violation of the political consensus

between China and the US as well as the baseline of the Sino-US

5

relations; it also raises a great challenge and causes considerable

harm to China's core interest in the maintenance of national integrity.

On the interferences of China's territorial integrity, the US

government pays equal attention to the strategic value and tools

value. From a long-term perspective, there will be growing

importance on the issues concerned with China's core interest in

national integrity, such as Taiwan, Hongkong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

With the containment strategy, the US continuously breaks its

strategic consensus with China. Meanwhile, from the aspect of

Washington, this ideology and value-based tools value cannot be

exchanged with alternative attacking methods. This strategy has

become the US's tool to manifest its values on democracy, freedom,

etc. In fact, Washington keeps on highlighting its so-called advantages

to China in these fields currently. This action from the US gives clear

evidence of the all-the-time pride and prejudice of Western states on

the values. In addition to this, the US's containment strategy is not

exclusively fulfilled with this single issue of national integrity; it

conducts an issue linkage approach which renders a comprehensive,

multi-issue-related network or even an alliance with other states to

contain China.

6

1.3 The background of the "containing China through disrupting

Xinjiang" strategy

Xinjiang is the largest administrative district in the land area of China,

and it also serves as the frontier of counter-secessionism and

counter-terrorism. The situation in Xinjiang exerts great impacts on

the general stability of the reform and development of China. More

than this point, the peace of Xinjiang is a matter of national integrity,

national unity, national security, and it is the critical part of the

realization of the "Two Centenary Goals" and the great revitalization

of China. Since the second central work conference on Xinjiang, all

sides of the government have worked intensively on the general

target of social stability and its long-term maintenance. Up to now,

these works turn out to be effective. However, there are still threats

and challenges from terrorism, secessionism, and religious extremism,

which are obstacles to securing Xinjiang's long-term stability.

Unfortunately, these threats and challenges turn out to be

opportunities for anti-China forces in the US to interfere in the

domestic issue of China. They carry out the "containing China through

disrupting Xinjiang" strategy by interfering with the Xinjiang-related

issues, supporting the Xinjiang secessionist powers, and undermining

Xinjiang's national unity.

7

2. The US's "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" strategy

and the crisis politics

The main tactic of the US's "containing China through disrupting

Xinjiang" strategy is to instigate the Chinese central government's

governance crisis, economic crisis, and sovereignty crisis in Xinjiang.

These fabricated crises are comprehensively organized by the US's

agenda-setting, and they serve as the main approach of the US to

contain China. This containment strategy originates from the Trump

government, and it will be strengthened in its ideology and

international alliance parts in the Biden government.

2.1 Fabricating governance crisis in the name of the so-called

human rights

There is a long-standing difference in the contents of human rights

between the Eastern and the Western worlds, and the narratives

from the Western world on human rights are characterized with

inequality and pragmatism. Amongst the Western world, the US is a

typical example of the Western human rights narratives. The US

classifies three levels for its human rights narratives: self-narratives,

otherness narratives, and international narratives. At the level of the

self-narratives, the US labels itself as the unique leader of the

8

concepts of human rights and highlights that Western democracy,

freedom, and human rights protection should be the lighthouse of

the world. At the level of the otherness narratives, the US has an

all-the-time perception that the Eastern world and other developing

states can only be the followers of the Western world in terms of

human rights issues. They argue that the Eastern world and other

developing states are always underdeveloped, endowed with serious

despotism, and the worrying human rights situation. At the level of

international narratives, the US utilizes its self-narratives of human

rights as the moral high ground, along with its stereotype and

discrimination to the rest of the world, to interfere with other states'

domestic issues in the name of human rights. This unilateral,

exclusive, and hierarchical view on human rights is colored with the

hegemonic ideology of the Western world.

The US's hegemonic narratives of human rights and its strategy to

China have become a strategic tool of the "containing China through

disrupting Xinjiang" policy. On the one hand, Washington attacks the

Chinese government's governance in Xinjiang in the name of so-called

human rights by disregarding the heavy losses and significant threats

caused by terrorism, secessionism, and religious extremism, which

make all the people in Xinjiang suffer a lot with their lives and

9

possessions over the years. Regardless of the positive effects of

Beijing's counter-terrorism and de-extremism policies on the stability

of Xinjiang and the protection of the basic human rights of all the

people in Xinjiang, the US government blurs the border of

counter-terrorism and stability maintenance intentionally and even

links these issues to the specific ethnic group or religious group

incorrectly. These actions give clear evidence that the US government

is fomenting strifes and fabricating oppositions with intentions. On

the other hand, the US's reckless critique, attacks, and stigmatizations

of the Xinjiang Vocational Education and Training Centers (the

Education and Training Centers hereafter) directly negates the

appeals for human rights developments from all the people,

especially the minority people themselves in Xinjiang to long for the

skills promotion, employment enlargement and income increase.

Simultaneously, the rude actions from the US refuse the

acquirements of fundamental rights for all the people in Xinjiang to

receive the education of lingua franca and laws as other ordinary

Chinese citizens. In turn, Washington fabricates the incorrect images

that the Education and Training Centers limit people's freedom and

even enslave students, which are definitely the stigmatizations and

demonizations to the actual human rights developments in Xinjiang.

10

The US's negated and stigmatized interpretations and critiques result

from both its rigidified and metaphysical ideas on human rights and

its arrogance, but it also has some underlying conspiracies. Amongst

these conspiracies, the cardinal target is to fabricate the legitimacy

crisis of the Chinese government's governance over Xinjiang in the

name of human rights. By provoking the opposition between the

Uyghur people's human rights-related issues and the general goal of

maintaining the security and stability of Xinjiang, the US refuses to

recognize the legitimacy of the values of the Chinese government's

work in Xinjiang. By making comprehensive distortions on the

functions and values of the Education and Training Centers, the US

further neglects the rights of developments for all the people in

Xinjiang and de-constructs the legitimacy of the performance of the

governance of the Chinese government in Xinjiang. This

stigmatization throughout human rights, which is hyped and diffused

intentionally by the US and other Western media and think tanks,

especially with the contents of blames on China by some

governments, has created internationally baneful influences on China.

11

2.2 Fabricating economic crisis in the name of the so-called

"forced labor."

After the fabricated so-called "illegal governance" of the Chinese

central government in Xinjiang under the name of human rights, the

US further starts to issue sanctions on various internal and external

economic entities of Xinjiang with the groundless label of "forced

labor." These sanctions are directly related to the primary industries

concerned with the development and stability of Xinjiang. They aim

to inflict heavy losses to the economics of Xinjiang, which is

apparently natured with anti-humanitarian thoughts. Although it

labels with the so-called counter- "forced labor," it actually turns out

to deprive all the people's rights of working in Xinjiang. This action is

an absurd logical paradox.

Up to the July of 2021, under the name of the so-called "violations of

human rights" and "forced labor," the US has included 45 Chinese

enterprises and 22 Chinese institutions, which are 67 entities in total,

into the "Entity List" of the US Department of Commerce; and

included eight persons and two institutions (Department of Public

Security of Xinjiang, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction

Corps) into the "SDN List" of the US Department of Treasury, and has

further issued detention order on cotton production, tomatoes, and

12

silica-based products from Hoshine Silicon Industry Co. Ltd. by its

Customs and Border Protection. It is ridiculous to issue sanctions on

enterprises and other entities in Xinjiang in the name of "forced

labor;" it is also interference in fundamental human rights of all the

people in Xinjiang. Among the sanctioned industries, cotton

production, tomatoes, and garments not only influence the lives of

large scales of farmers but also exert great impacts on farmers'

employment stabilities and income promotions. The US's unilateral

sanctions or even its agitated multilaterally aligned sanctions to the

basic industries in Xinjiang without any clear evidence per se are rude

interferences to the basic human rights of the people in Xinjiang.

These actions are, in fact, the unilaterally anti-human rights economic

sanctions that are under cover of human rights. It is characterized by

a strong tone of hegemony.

The more insidious part of the US's conspiracy is that the US

government is trying to block and strangle the economics of Xinjiang

through its industrial and supply chains under the name of "forced

labor" and "violations of human rights." This containment tactic is to

further create the economic crisis of Xinjiang based on the negation

of the legitimacy of governance of the Chinese government in

Xinjiang. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which is proposed

13

actively by the anti-China members in the US Congress, and the

Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act of 2020 are clear signals for this

conspiracy. According to the drafts of these bills, the objects of

sanctions are enlarged to the other related Chinese enterprises and

international companies which have businesses with the Chinese

enterprises in Xinjiang. This enlargement of the scope of sanctions is

intended to cut off the supply and circular chain of the industries,

which are the core part of the economics of Xinjiang.

These insidious economic sanctions are designed to destroy every

each way of economic development and open up of Xinjiang, which

further squeezes the space of development of the key industries of

Xinjiang. This is the way of the US to obstruct the social-economic

modernization of Xinjiang by fabricating crises. The deeper design of

these sanctions is to sabotage the general stability of Xinjiang by

impeding its development, to provoke dissatisfactions, contradictions,

and conflicts by fabricating economic crises. Consequently, Xinjiang

would step into a vicious cycle of "recession-turbulence" and the

attacks from the US on human rights in Xinjiang would be justified

further. The economic crises would eventually instigate the political

crises if the Chinese government's legitimacy of governance over

Xinjiang could be overturned.

14

2.3 Fabricating sovereignty crisis in the name of the so-called

"genocide."

The most critical slander of the US and the other Western States on

the Xinjiang-related issue is the so-called "forced sterilization," which

is used as the framework by Washington in its fabrication of the

so-called "genocide executed" of the Chinese government in Xinjiang.

As the bottom line of human rights protection, genocide is the most

serious accusation in international law. The sideless accusation of the

"genocide" in Xinjiang from the US and other Western social media,

think tanks, and some political circles of the Western world have been

ridiculously exaggerated to the level of against humanity.

Basically, the fabricated accusation of "genocide" framed by the

so-called "forced sterilization" and "against humanity" is in lack the

primary evidence. It is just a manipulated, sideless argument made by

some anti-China scholars who have ulterior motives. This untenable

accusation is utilized by some US and other Western politicians to

attack the Chinese government. The US's "anti-intellectualism" on the

related issue of the so-called "genocide" fails to cover its strategic

logic under this framework of charge, which is to link the so-called

"genocide" to the responsibility of protection and thereby provokes

the sovereignty crisis of China over Xinjiang. In the 21 st century, the

15

international efforts to prevent genocide have gradually connected to

the United Nations (UN) concept of the responsibility of protection.

The responsibility of sovereignty serves as the basis of law for the

responsibility of protection. Recently, the Western anti-China camp

led by the US attempts to charge China with the name of the

so-called "genocide," and its implied goal is to negate the Chinese

government's sovereignty over Xinjiang, which is in fact a deliberated

manipulation of the fundamental contradiction between the

secessionism activities and anti-secessionism efforts of the Chinese

government in Xinjiang. The US, on the one side, stigmatizes and

disparages China in terms of value and ideology, and on the other

side, tries to subvert and decompose the integrity of the sovereignty

and territory of China legally in the name of the so-called "genocide."

All these absurd works from the US are to fulfill Washington's goal of

"containing Chian through Xinjiang."

3. Conclusion

To sum up, the US's strategy of crisis politics over Xinjiang is

deliberated with grand strategic ambition. It comes with increasingly

larger threats and long-term harms to China. Since the end of the

Cold War, the US had overthrown the regimes and disturbed the

social orders in Libya, Iraq, and Syria in the name of the responsibility

16

of protection. These actions caused serious humanitarian crises and

even genocides to the states mentioned above. Apparently, the US's

actions per se are the sins of anti-humanity. However, its hegemonic

behaviors were not accused by any other actors in the international

system.

Therefore, in the current strategic background under the US's

"containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" policy and the process

of overall stigmatization to Xinjiang, the discourse of the US-leading

Western world has detached itself from the related issue of the

development and stability of Xinjiang per se, and is on the way of

being a value- and tool- oriented. While the US keeps criticizing

China's values on the human rights-related issue over Xinjiang, it also

tries hard to negate the Chinese government's political and sovereign

legitimacies over Xinjiang by fabricating various crises. The Biden

government has three important points for its attitude and policies

over the related issues of Xinjiang, which are "inequality highlighted,"

"value highlighted," and "alliance highlighted." When these three

points meet with Trump's policies of Xinjiang-related issues, which

are "being a strategic issue," "being a legal issue," and "being a

sanction issue," it will yield extremely negative results to the

development and stability of Xinjiang.

17

Different from the illustrations of Tibet as a utopia in the

post-modernized world, a "Shangri-La" which is free from the

tarnishment of the secular life, the US and other Western states

describe Xinjiang as an anti-modernized "cage" which connives the

violations of basic human rights and even the so-called "genocide."

However, regardless of deification or demonization, this orientalized

"re-colonization of spirits" make the Tibet and Xinjiang-related issues

gradually be the issues of general value and political standpoint

worldwide. During this process, China is shaped as an opposite side to

the deified Tibet and the sinner for the demonized Xinjiang. This

distortion of China puts Beijing under heavy attacks for its proper

sovereignty and values, and it ridiculously makes the US stand on the

moral high ground and serve as the role of the so-called Saviour.

During its strategy implementation process, the US's overall

demonization of Xinjiang is characterized by the strong tone of

imperialism and colonialism. In the post-Cold War era, the US-leading

Western world had waged a series of wars over Afghanistan, Iraq, and

Lybia. All these wars were mobilized in the name of world security

and humanitarianism, which virtually aimed to fulfill the hegemonic

interests of the Western world through sanctions and fightings. Under

18

this discourse and behavior, the long-term humanitarian crises and

state crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lybia thoroughly expose the US's

logic of imperialism and colonialism.

In a fundamental sense, the US's crisis politics over Xinjiang is an

important part and a primary expression of its containment strategy

toward China. The logic of this containment strategy is twofold. First,

it uses the human rights issue as the breakthrough point and makes

China as the target of moral condemnation and thereby fabricates a

moral basis that renders a chance to work with the US allies and

international organizations to squeeze the space of China in the

international system. The practice of this tactic attempts to isolate

and suppress China. Second, it tries to enlarge the gap between China

and the US regarding technology, education, economy, and military.

The practice of this tactic would further block the development of

China through its fabrication and instigation of the domestically social

crises, which would cause dissatisfaction or turbulence in the society.

Apparently, this containment strategy is finally designed for

strengthening the leading role of the US around the world.