This Business Insider articles attributes the Muslim world’s silence about the Chinese government’s brutally repressive tactics toward the Uighur Muslims to economic interests. It may also be because the Muslim countries understand and respect strength and even brutality and injustice, while despising the weakness of Western states that are so afraid of charges of “Islamophobia” that they will sacrifice thousands of their nation’s girls to avoid the charge. “Islamophobia” charges and demands for special accommodation only work when one’s target is weak, ignorant, and easily intimidated. This is not to say that all of China’s actions against the Uighurs can be justified; the Communist Chinese government doesn’t feel restrained by the principles of human rights that all states should accept.
“Why the Muslim world isn’t saying anything about China’s repression and ‘cultural cleansing’ of its downtrodden Muslim minority,” by Alexandra Ma, Business Insider, August 27, 2018:
China’s crackdown on its Uighur citizens, a mostly-Muslim ethnic minority group, has faced heavy international scrutiny in recent months.
In August the United Nations said it was “deeply concerned” by reports that China had forced as many as 1 million Uighurs into internment camps in Xinjiang, western China. In April, the US State Department said it had heard of Uighurs who had “disappeared” or were unexpectedly detained.
Meanwhile, Muslim countries have been deafeningly silent.
Over the past year alone, activists have found evidence of Chinese authorities tracking Uighurs’ cellphone activity and forcing them to cut off their beards and dresses. Others say China has demanded the Uighur diaspora hand over personal information— and threatened their families if they do not.
Chinese officials have denied the camps exist, though have acknowledged a program of “resettlement” for people it refers to as extremists. Business Insider has contacted the Chinese government for further comment.
It’s not as if Muslim countries haven’t spoken out about human rights in the past. As Myanmar’s military ramped up its violence against Rohingya Muslims late last year, citizens in Jordan and Iran staged multiple protests in solidarity with the Rohingya.
Saudi Arabia’s mission to the UN also condemned the situation online.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, an international consortium which calls itself “the collective voice of the Muslim world,” also pledged this May to set up a “proper investigation” into the Rohingya crisis.
So why hasn’t anyone said anything about China’s Uighur issue?
Many Muslim-majority countries aren’t speaking out because they don’t want to jeopardize their economic relationships in China, experts say.
Several states in Central Asia and the Middle East are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive project launched in 2013 linking 78 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania through a network of railroads, shipping lanes, and other infrastructure projects.
Many of these deals entail China giving hefty loans to economies with a bad credit rating, which countries such as Pakistan are already finding difficult to repay. And it appears that these economic partnerships are stopping these countries from speaking out about Xinjiang.
Simone van Nieuwenhuizen, a Chinese politics researcher at University of Technology Sydney, told Business Insider: “Like most states, many Muslim-majority countries have increasingly close economic relations with China.
“There is a general consensus that speaking out about the situation in Xinjiang might jeopardize the development of economic ties, and it is therefore not in their interests to do so.”…