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imsilkroad4 · 4 years ago

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China Tours - For the China Silk Streets Tour

21st Century Maritime Silk Road

The Egypt Road was a good famous bustling business route that brought about the western society centuries ago. Out of as early as 200BC that silk merchants with Xian set off making use of their camel caravans to the long trek to be able to distant Constantinople even though some adventurous pioneers just like Marco Polo visited the east to work out this mysterious medieval country.

21st Century Maritime Silk Road

China Man made fibre Road is a experience of historic web sites, cultural relics, attractive scenery and multi-colored folklore discoveries. This major historic internet sites and cultural artefacts along this road are: The Terracotta Warriors in Xian, which is one of the most necessary archaeological finds by using troops, horses and additionally carriages in fight formation in the world; Your Mogao Grottoes involving Dun Huang, which are usually considered the great resource house of Buddhist arts in existence; Gaochang Ancient City associated with Turpan, which was at one time an important garrison area on the Silk Roads; The Karez Certainly of Turpan, which can be the underground irrigation system with the the past of 2000 yrs.

Travelers along this particular legendary route could also have opportunities to see the unique local ethnicities. If your tour will begin from Xian at risk of Urumqi and Kashgar, you will see the progressive transition from Buddhist culture to Islamic culture. Urgur citizens are known for their food and they are always fast to invite anyone into their home in addition to serve you homemade foods, and the fresh native fruits. Nearly every Urgur people can voice and dance. Breaking a leg is an integral element of every Urgur families life. Urgur consumers sing and transfer for nearly every function: weddings, funerals, get-togethers, and just for interesting.

Moreover, the dazzling scenic attractions around this legendary journey include the Bird Of the islands of Qinghai Water, Salt Lake from Qinghai, the Swan Nature Reserve inside the Bayanbulak Grassland, this Heavenly Lake with Urumqi, the Flaming Mountain in Turpan and the Ghost Community of Karamay. One can find too many things for the eyes to take in.

A amazing Silk Route journey just makes everyone spellbound. This information presents my 9 days enchanting China Silk Road expedition. It's more than a visit.

Day 01: Xian

Upon arrival within Xian, our area guide will satisfy you and move you to your hotel room. The rest of the day can be free at your very own leisure.

Day 02: Xian

Enjoy a spectacular day of sightseeing what has been named the 8th Think about of the World-the Terracotta Soldiers Museum, that is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Web site in 1987. Right after lunch, visit the Bell Tower, which is the foremost well-preserved and best-known one in China and the Big Untamed Goose Pagoda, which happens to be one of the most famous Buddhist pagodas in China and initially constructed in 589.

Day goal: Xian - Urumqi

Morning visit the Medieval City Wall around Xian, the best managed city wall inside China. Fly to help Urumqi in the evening.

Day 04: Urumqi

In the morning, you will be taken up Nanshan Pasture, fo you to enjoy the breath-taking viewpoint of unique, flowing peaks with year round snow on surfaces. On the way, you will have a visit to a typical Oriental village and fulfill the local people.

Day 05: Urumqi - Turpan

With 2 hours' driving you will be influenced to Turpan, a historical Silk Road fx trading post city. Probably the most interesting stops is Karez Irrigation Blog. It is like a memorial showing how the bore holes were built along with maintained. A sample sales channel and well are made for exploring. Other day is cost-free at your own vacation.

Day 06: Turpan - Dun Huang

To avoid being out and about at the hot midday, you will be start your tour at the fracture of dawn. Initial stop is Gaochang Ruins, the original money of a local leader in the 7th hundred years. Then you will go to help you Flaming Mountains, an ideal photo-taking attraction. The subsequent stop is the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, where you may good sense the importance of Buddhism to Silk Highway travelers, many of with who stopped here so that you can prey for a prosperous journey. You will have dinner today at the Grape Valley. The wonderful trellised valley supplies a necessary respite from the warmth. Tonight you will acquire an overnight softer sleeper train to be able to Dun Huang.

Moment 07: Dun Huang

Dun Huang is the last stop to get Chinese Buddhist pilgrims on the road to India as well as the first stop designed for foreign missionaries coming China. A whole daytime tour starts by having a visit the Mogao Caves, which was added to a UNESCO list of Society Heritage Sites. Go on a short camel-riding across the Echoing-Sand Dune to arrive the Crescent River.

Day 08: Dun Huang - Beijing

Enjoy free time each morning. Fly back to Beijing in the afternoon.

Daytime 09: Beijing Leaving

Today you will soar back to your wonderful home with the some unforgettable experience.

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maritimesilkroad3 · 4 years ago

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Exploring the Silk Road

21st Century Maritime Silk Road

The actual Silk Road is one associated with China's most popular tourist destinations. There are actually already heaps of travel agents as well as tour companies offering excursions in 2010. So where is it and also why is it so popular?

21st Century Maritime Silk Road

Traditionally the actual Silk Road extends via Xian in central China and taiwan to either the Middle Far east or Europe. In fact there are several routes, some to Moscow in the north and those straight into India and Pakistan in the south. The same as travellers in the time regarding Marco Polo - the particular thirteenth century - typically the ancient trade routes remain although the type of goods available and the method of transport get changed. The reason why the Cotton Road starts/ends in Xian is that it was the ancient investment of China and dimensions trade routes, in many cases across the Yangtze and Yellow Estuaries and rivers, were already established for you to distribute goods within Cina.

Nowadays, many tourists start off their Silk Road trip in Beijing. The Poderoso City, the Great Wall involving China the many places connected with historic interest will make the 3-5 day stay useful. Add to it a little store shopping and time to experience n . Chinese cuisine and you are positioned for your Silk Road encounter.

Getting there. Most intercontinental airlines fly into Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. You will find a lesser choice of flights to help and from western Tiongkok and most of these are structured out of the capital of Xinjiang Province, Urumqi.

China offers rail connections north in order to Mongolia, Hong Kong, Tibet along with west to Moscow. To the even more adventurous there are multiple track links into Vietnam.

Instructor access from/to Pakistan is offered along the Karakorum Highway, in addition to November though April, introduced closed. Delays and distress can be part of this path so be prepared. Travel throughout Pakistan needs serious thought. We spent 12 great days travelling there at the end of 2007 but with the climb of the Taliban the risk intended for westerners has increased dramatically.

Integralinis are required for all access take into account China and I recommend that all these be obtained well in advance.

Driving around Train travel is famous in China although it is equipped with an extensive coach network. Naturally you could fly but that might really defeat the main intent behind visiting China - in order to meet the people. Train travel is usually reliable, fast and affordable. "Soft" sleeping compartments because of four or on a few routes for two persons are offered or if you want to join often the locals try the "hard" class, but unless you need treatment on a tight budget, it's not encouraged. You will need assistance buying the railroad tickets as few stop staff speak English. The particular timetables and options might be complex. Ask a travel company with China experience to help you.

Many companies offer tours over the Silk Road. Most of these work with a combination of coach and also. International companies include DISTANCE, Peregrine, World Expeditions, Vacation Indo-China. You can find these applying Google. Some tours will include a lour leader and guideline. Standards of accommodation in addition to comfort are reflected from the pricing.

Another option is to work with a guide through Chinese firms like Xinjiang Silk Path Adventures in Urumqi. Community guides can be provided with a per day basis or all round for a tour, at inexpensive prices. Tour guides are required to always be licensed in China.

When is it best to Go China is a huge country covering eight timezones. Its climate varies noticeably. Summers can be hot as well as sticky and the winters really cold so the best several weeks are in Spring and Fall months. Consult a good guide reserve for the temperatures that you can knowledge at the time of your planned vacation so that you can dress appropriately.

Egypt Road Highlights To get the best of a Silk Road quest it should not be rushed. Let a minimum of 14 days in addition to just about any stay in Beijing. If you are such as Uzbekistan add another eight days:

The major attractions are generally:

o Xian the Clay Army and other historic web sites o The Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous region to The Fort and Wonderful Wall of China Adult ed at Jiayuguan o Dunhuang for riding the two humped Bactrian camels in the great sand dunes. Nearby are definitely the Buddhist Mogao Caves fixed into a desert backdrop from the Flaming mountains. o Urumqi has an excellent Xinjiang Comarcal Museum. Two hours apart is the spectacular lake section of China, the Beautiful Lake. Here you'll find Kazakh people living in yurts and also grazing their herds associated with horses, sheep and goats. If you have the time, stay right away and experience the food and food of the locals. o Turpan is famous for its grapes, along with nearby are the ancient urban centers of Gaochang and Jiaohe, the Bezeklik thousand Juggernaut Tombs and the underground normal water systems called karez in which link Turpan to much essential snow melt from the far away Tian Shan mountains. a Kashgar, a trade option city for thousands of years. Visit the outdated city before it's destroyed and attend the famous On the animal market which though dusty is a great spectacle. e Those with extra time may find the actual southern Silk Road remanso towns of Yarkand in addition to Khotan of interest. This area is much less visited but does have several interesting side trips which includes camel safaris and journeys into the Taklamakan desert. This kind of predominantly Uyghur area provides much of interest for those that are seeking something a little different. i A short train journey or maybe flight will take you across the european Chinese border and then up on Tashkent the capital of Uzbekistan. Here the real gems in the Silk Road are to be within the ancient cities regarding Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Coach travel in Uzbekistan is comfortable and reasonably priced, although the rail line western world offers an alternative.

If you are looking for a getaway with a difference and you are a small adventurous, then travelling the particular Silk Road should be on the side your list. It is harmless and affordable. And it is any hugely rewarding experience. Sure, it will have its challenges but you may be asking yourself what a story you can tell if you get home, not to mention your excellent digital photographs of the best parts of this scenic journey.

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alexsmitposts · 4 years ago

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US Smears Those Questioning Latest Claims vs. ChinaColumn:

Politics

Region:

Eastern Asia

Country:

China

The Coda Story – a media front funded and created by and for the US government, its “Atlanticist” partners, and the corporate interests driving the vast majority of Western foreign policy – recently ran a smear against alternative media figures questioning the US-led “Uyghur-Xinjiang” narrative.

The smear is part of a wider campaign aimed at anyone questioning Washington’s Uyghur-Xinjiang narrative and the US’ attempt to use it to undermine China.

These smears follow a very specific playbook. Step one – deny there is a terrorism problem in Xinjiang, China. Step two – cite reports based entirely on anecdotal stories. Step three – never mention these stories and reports are created wholly by US-based, US government-funded organizations.

Step One: Deny Terrorism in Xinjiang

The article, “Pro-Beijing influencers and their rose-tinted view of life in Xinjiang,” claims, amid the first victim of its smear – Jerry Grey – that:

Grey, who is a former London Metropolitan police officer, admitted that he found Xinjiang’s surveillance network and continual police checks oppressive. “It was a pain in the butt,” he said. “But at no stage were they ever abusive.”

I asked him if he would willingly live under a draconian regime of surveillance and arbitrary detention like the one that operates in Xinjiang, controlling the region’s Muslim population under the guise of combating terrorism.

“Under the guise of combating terrorism?”

Terrorism in Xinjiang carried out by extremists radicalized by US, Saudi, and Turkish programs is real.

Even the Western media whose lies today Coda seeks to buttress have previously admitted the large scale and frequency of terrorism in China’s Xinjiang region.

In the BBC’s 2014 article, “Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs?,” alone it was admitted that (emphasis added):

In June 2012, six Uighurs reportedly tried to hijack a plane from Hotan to Urumqi before they were overpowered by passengers and crew. There was bloodshed in April 2013 and in June that year, 27 people died in Shanshan county after police opened fire on what state media described as a mob armed with knives attacking local government buildings At least 31 people were killed and more than 90 suffered injuries in May 2014 when two cars crashed through an Urumqi market and explosives were tossed into the crowd. China called it a “violent terrorist incident”. It followed a bomb and knife attack at Urumqi’s south railway station in April, which killed three and injured 79 others. In July, authorities said a knife-wielding gang attacked a police station and government offices in Yarkant, leaving 96 dead. The imam of China’s largest mosque, Jume Tahir, was stabbed to death days later. In September about 50 died in blasts in Luntai county outside police stations, a market and a shop. Details of both incidents are unclear and activists have contested some accounts of incidents in state media. Some violence has also spilled out of Xinjiang. A March stabbing spree in Kunming in Yunnan province that killed 29 people was blamed on Xinjiang separatists, as was an October 2013 incident where a car ploughed into a crowd and burst into flames in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Other Western media sources have confirmed terrorist organizations like the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) are funneling extremists from Xinjiang onto battlefields across North Africa and the Middle East and particularly in Syria alongside other extremists armed and backed by NATO.

The Western media admits that potentially thousands of these Uyghur extremists may return home and use their battlefield experience to wage a campaign of terrorism against Beijing.

US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America (VOA) in its article, “Analysts: Uighur Jihadis in Syria Could Pose Threat,” would admit (emphasis added):

Analysts are warning that the jihadi group Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in northwestern Syria could pose a danger to Syria’s volatile Idlib province, where efforts continue to keep a fragile Turkey-Russia-brokered cease-fire between Syrian regime forces and the various rebel groups. The TIP declared an Islamic emirate in Idlib in late November and has largely remained off the radar of authorities and the media thanks to its low profile. Founded in 2008 in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, the TIP has been one of the major extremist groups in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011. The TIP is primarily made up of Uighur Muslims from China, but in recent years it also has included other jihadi fighters within its ranks.

The TIP has already carried out deadly terrorism inside China. For example, it claimed responsibility for the 2011 Kashgar attacks in Xinjiang killing 23 people.

Would the detention of radicalized extremists in networks carrying out this violence or the creation of security check points in a region where such violence is taking place be considered “draconian?”

No. But Coda’s article never discusses this even though the West’s own media – not Chinese state media – has already admitted terrorism is a major security threat. In fact, Coda’s article never mentions terrorism in Xinjiang even once.

Is the BBC lying? Or have the facts reported on by the BBC in 2014 simply become politically inconvenient amid the West’s current and growing information, economic, and proxy war against China?

Steps Two and Three: Cite Anecdotal Stories – Never Mention They are Produced by US-based, US Government-Funded Orgs

Another target of Coda’s smear was a TikTok user who the article quotes as saying:

“I keep seeing people post about the Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, claiming there are concentration camps there – that is not true, it’s fabricated by the CIA.”

The claims being fabricated by the CIA is the closest thing resembling the truth in Coda’s article.

These claims are indeed fabricated – specifically by Washington-based fronts funded directly by the US government via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Separatist groups like the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) who openly seek Xinjiang “independence” have literal offices in Washington DC and are funded by the NED.

In fact, the US NED’s grant money to subversion in China is divided into several regions with their own dedicated pages on the NED website. Xinjiang is is listed by NED as “Xinjiang/East Turkestan” – East Turkestan being the fictional country extremists seek to create.

Other organizations funded by NED include the Uyghur American Association and the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

Unsurprisingly, Coda is also funded by the NED.

Not only is Coda itself funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) via admitted supporters including the NED and US State Department-funded International Center for Journalists as well as Europe’s own “European Endowment for Democracy” (EED) – but the author of the above mentioned smear piece – Isobel Cockerell – previously reported for Rappler – a Philippine online media website also funded by the NED.

Is it possible Isobel Cockerell is unaware that the accusations against China she repeats and smears others for questioning originate from DC-based fronts funded by the US government itself?

No. Cockerell herself has cited these very organizations in other articles. For example, in her article, “Revealed: New videos expose China’s forced migration of Uyghurs during the pandemic,” she cites UHRP she herself admits is based in Washington DC – though she omits any mention of the organization’s US NED funding.

The summation of evidence provided in Cockerell’s articles is anecdotal – based on personal accounts – or provided by dubious US-based US government-funded fronts like UHRP which – in turn – depend entirely on anecdotal accounts.

The NED is chaired by many prominent political figures in the US who openly promoted the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, many wars and interventions beforehand, and many since. This includes Elliot Abrams who had until recently oversaw US regime change attempts in Venezuela before being reassigned to targeting Iran.

It was fabricated accusations the US used to first apply sanctions against Iraq, to undermine its government upon the global stage, and eventually justify military aggression against Iraq including a devastating invasion in 2003 and subsequent occupation that is ongoing to this very day.

A similar strategy is now being aimed at China.

NED is also chaired by figures in the US media guilty of helping promote these fabricated accusations – not only against Iraq but against other targets of US military aggression and regime change including Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and more recently China’s Hong Kong.

This includes the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum.

Applebaum is also on Coda’s board of advisers alongside others drawn straight from the US and British corporate and state media.

Thus – from funding the organizations telling the lies – to spreading those lies across the corporate media – to then buttressing those lies with fronts posing as smaller, third-party news organizations like Coda – the US government and those aiding its efforts are involved in every step of the way.

For lies about China’s “abuses” of Uyghurs in Xinjiang – Anne Applebaum literally helped oversee the funding of fronts like WUC and UHRP producing these baseless accusations. Applebaum’s employer – the Washington Post – would then transform these fabrications into headline news – then use Coda she serves as adviser to as one of many ��third-party” amplifiers in the US government’s echo chamber.

This is not journalism nor confronting fake news and disinformation. This is an industrialized pipeline pumping out fake news.

Another smear aimed at alternative media publications challenging Washington’s Uyghur-Xinjiang narrative published by Axios – citing Coda – would claim:

One classic Russian disinformation tactic is the amplification of “conspiracy websites,” which Rosenberger said are third-party sites without funding transparency that promote the same theories the state aims to boost.

“Having westerners say things that are in line with the state narrative helps bolster their claims,” Darren Byler, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Asian Studies, said in a July 30 interview with Coda Story.

What separates “disinformation” from information are actual facts – which are clearly absent amidst the West’s attacks on China. Thus, Axios and Coda are accusing “Russia” and “China” of doing precisely what they themselves are clearly doing. Axios and Coda are not only “third-party sites” being amplified by the Western media to help promote their false narratives, they are third-party sites created specifically for this purpose.

It is no surprise that those actually engaged in fake news on an industrial scale would attempt to shift the blame elsewhere. The growing number of organizations across the West dedicated to shifting this blame and smearing those questioning transparently false and politically-motivated narratives promoted by verified liars and aggressors – is itself growing to an industrial scale.

But the necessity for such levels of deception only means there is an equal or greater level of honest people engaged in real journalism and analysis – efforts that are making a difference, and efforts that should continue if not doubled.

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newstfionline · 6 years ago

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‘Enemy’ or ‘mother’? Chinese party members occupy homes

By Dake Kang and Yanan Wang, AP, Nov. 30, 2018

ISTANBUL (AP)--The two women in the photograph were smiling, but Halmurat Idris knew something was terribly wrong.

One was his 39-year-old sister; standing at her side was an elderly woman Idris did not know. Their grins were tight-lipped, mirthless. Her sister had posted the picture on a social media account along with a caption punctuated by a smiley-face.

“Look, I have a Han Chinese mother now!” his sister wrote.

Idris knew instantly: The old woman was a spy, sent by the Chinese government to infiltrate his family.

There are many like her. According to the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, as of the end of September, 1.1 million local government workers have been deployed to ethnic minorities’ living rooms, dining areas and Muslim prayer spaces, not to mention at weddings, funerals and other occasions once considered intimate and private.

All this is taking place in China’s far west region of Xinjiang, home to the predominantly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, who have long reported discrimination at the hands of the country’s majority Han Chinese.

While government notices about the “Pair Up and Become Family” program portray it as an affectionate cultural exchange, Uighurs living in exile in Turkey said their loved ones saw the campaign as a chilling intrusion into the only place that they once felt safe.

They believe the program is aimed at coercing Uighurs into living secular lives like the Han majority. Anything diverging from the party’s prescribed lifestyle can be viewed by authorities as a sign of potential extremism--from suddenly giving up smoking or alcohol, to having an “abnormal” beard or an overly religious name.

Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Uighur homeland has been blanketed with stifling surveillance, from armed checkpoints on street corners to facial-recognition-equipped CCTV cameras steadily surveying passers-by. Now, Uighurs say, they must live under the watchful eye of the ruling Communist Party even inside their own homes.

“The government is trying to destroy that last protected space in which Uighurs have been able to maintain their identity,” said Joanne Smith Finley, an ethnographer at England’s Newcastle University.

The Associated Press spoke to five Uighurs living in Istanbul who shared the experiences of their family members in Xinjiang who have had to host Han Chinese civil servants. These accounts are based on prior communications with their family members, the majority of whom have since cut off contact because Uighurs can be punished for speaking to people abroad.

The Uighurs abroad said their loved ones were constantly on edge in their own homes, knowing that any misstep--a misplaced Quran, a carelessly spoken word--could lead to detention or worse. In the presence of these faux relatives, their family members could not pray or wear religious garbs, and the cadres were privy to their every move.

The thought of it--and the sight of his sister, the old woman and their false smiles--made Idris queasy.

“I wanted to throw up,” said the 49-year-old petroleum engineer, shaking his head in disgust.

“The moment I saw the old woman, I thought, ‘Ugh, this person is our enemy.’ If your enemy became your mother, think about it--how would you feel?”

Tensions between Muslim minorities and Han Chinese have bubbled over in recent years, resulting in violent attacks pegged to Uighur separatists and a fierce government crackdown on broadly defined “extremism” that has placed as many as 1 million Muslims in internment camps, according to estimates by experts and a human rights group.

Uighurs say the omnipresent threat of being sent to one of these centers, which are described as political indoctrination camps by former detainees, looms large in their relatives’ minds when they are forced to welcome party members into their homes.

Last December, Xinjiang authorities organized a “Becoming Family Week” which placed more than 1 million cadres in minority households. Government reports on the program gushed about the warm “family reunions,” as public servants and Uighurs shared meals and even beds.

Another notice showed photos of visitors helping Uighur children with their homework and cooking meals for their “families.” The caption beneath a photo of three women lying in bed, clad in pajamas, said the cadre was “sleeping with her relatives in their cozy room.”

A different photo showed two women “studying the 19th Party Congress and walking together into the new era”--a nod to when Xi’s name was enshrined in the party constitution alongside the likes of Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong.

Becoming Family Week turned out to be a test run for a standardized homestay program. The Xinjiang United Front Work Department said in February that government workers should live with their assigned families every two months, for five days at a time.

The United Front, a Communist Party agency, indicates in the notice that the program is mandatory for cadres. Likewise, Idris and other interviewees said their families understood that they would be deemed extremists if they refused to take part.

Cadres, who are generally civilians working in the public sector, are directed to attend important family events such as the naming of newborns, circumcisions, weddings and funerals of close relatives. They must have a firm grasp of each family member’s ideological state, social activities, religion, income, their challenges and needs, as well as basic details on immediate relatives, the notice said.

Families were to be paid a daily rate of 20 to 50 yuan ($2.80 to $7.80) to cover the cost of meals shared with their newfound relatives. Some families might be paired with two or three cadres at a time, according to the notice, and the regularly mandated house calls could be supplanted with trips to the local party office.

A February piece on the Communist Party’s official news site said: “The vast majority of party cadres are not only living inside villagers’ homes, but also living inside the hearts of the masses.”

Overseas Uighurs said the “visits” to their relatives’ homes often lasted longer than five days, and they were closely monitored the whole time. The cadres would ask their family members where they were going and who they were meeting whenever they wanted to leave the house.

“They couldn’t pray,” said Abduzahir Yunus, a 23-year-old Uighur originally from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. “Praying or even having a Quran at home could endanger the whole family.”

Yunus, who now lives in Istanbul, said his father used to lament to him about being visited three to four times a week by the administrator of his neighborhood committee, a middle-aged Han Chinese man. The surprise house calls began in 2016, and it was “impossible to say no,” Yunus said. They often coincided with times traditionally designated for prayer.

“Their aim is to assimilate us,” Yunus said. “They want us to eat like them, sleep like them and dress like them.”

After Yunus’s parents and older brother were detained, only Yunus’s sister-in-law and 5-year-old brother remained in the house. Around the beginning of 2018, the Han Chinese man started staying with them full-time.

Uighurs said they were particularly repulsed by the thought of male visitors living under the same roof as their female relatives and children--a practice contrary to their faith. Women and kids are sometimes the only ones left at home after male family members are sent to internment camps.

In recent years, the government has even encouraged Uighurs and Han Chinese to tie the knot.

Starting in 2014, Han-Uighur spouses in one county were eligible to receive 10,000 yuan ($1,442) annually for up to five years following the registration of their marriage license.

Such marriages are highly publicized. The party committee in Luopu county celebrated the marriage of a Uighur woman and a “young lad” from Henan in an official social media account in October 2017. The man, Wang Linkai, had been recruited through a program that brought university graduates to work in the southern Xinjiang city of Hotan.

“They will let ethnic unity forever bloom in their hearts,” the party committee’s post said. “Let ethnic unity become one’s own flesh and blood.”

As with many of the government’s other initiatives in Xinjiang, the “Pair Up and Become Family” program is presented as a way to rescue Muslim minorities from poverty. Public servants show up at homes bearing bags of rice and gallons of cooking oil, and their duties include helping with chores and farm work.

Xu Jing, an employee at Turpan city’s environmental bureau, recounted her shock after entering her assigned relative’s home. Xu said the only light in the residence came from a small window, and she realized that Xasiyet Hoshur wasn’t lying when she said she lived on 3,000 yuan ($433) a year.

Thousands of miles away, in Turkey, Uighur relatives in exile watch what is happening with dread.

Earlier this year, Ablikim Abliz studied a photo of his uncle’s family gathered around a table. Clad in thick winter jackets, his uncle and the smiling Han Chinese man beside him both held chubby-faced children in their laps.

His uncle had posted the photo to his WeChat page along with the caption “Han Chinese brother.”

The 58-year-old Abliz said his entire extended family in China has been sent to internment camps. When he saw his uncle’s photo, his first reaction was relief. If his uncle had been assigned a Han family member, Abliz thought, that meant he was safe.

But the consolation was short-lived. A friend who tried to visit his uncle in Turpan this summer told Abliz that his uncle’s front door was boarded up and sealed with police tape. Abliz has not been able to reach any of his family members since.

As for Idris, he fears that his sister is living under immense pressure with her Han Chinese “mother.” Shortly after her sister’s first post about her new relatives, a friend responded on WeChat: “I also have one! You guys better be careful!”

The same friend later posted photos of herself and a Han Chinese woman doing a Chinese fan dance, playing the drums and wearing traditional Han clothing.

His sister would never have volunteered for such a program, Idris said. She and his younger sister had been trying to get passports to bring their children to Turkey and reunite with Idris, but their applications were not accepted.

Last summer, both of his sisters deleted him on WeChat. A few months later, his aunt deleted him, too. For more than a year, Idris has not been able to communicate with his relatives. He wonders, with growing unease, how they’re getting along with their new “family.”

#China #Xinjiang #Uighurs #Han Chinese

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lindoig1 · 6 years ago

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Urumqi by any other name....... Day 9

We awoke after a somewhat better sleep to the towering Tianshan mountains a few kilometres away on both sides of the train, with some of the higher ones being snow-capped. By the time we arrived at Urumqi, there was quite a lot of snow on the tops of all the nearby mountains. Our guide, Jimmy, told us that it was very unseasonal snow that had just fallen 2 days ago – it is all around the area we are going tomorrow so we hope it is still there. I think it will be, because I am sure it fell just for our visit and there looks to be a lot there at present.

We passed through another huge wind-farm early this morning. I counted a hundred generators and then guessed at how many other hundred there might be and came up with a figure of more than 5000, only to find that we were looking north and found that there were probably as many to the south side of the train. 10000 generators? They sure don’t do things by halves here!

Our tour company in Melbourne told us that we would be arriving at 6:05am so we were packed and ready to go when we pulled into a station. I started off down the passage with our big bag only to be sent back by the carriage warden. She showed us a timetable and pointed to 7:35 and said that was when we had to get off. Sure enough, the train subsequently pulled into the station on time so off we set down the corridor to alight - only to be sent back by a different warden and told to sit on our bunks until the next station. At last we got off and walked the kilometre or so to the entrance - and were stopped for yet another ‘random check’ by the police SWAT team. Checked our passports again, scanned our luggage for the 999th time and we were finally out into fresh air. No guide!!! A young policewoman saw our predicament and was a wonderful help. She rang the local tour company and was told that we should have got off at the previous station - the old South Urumqi station rather than the new Urumqi station. Yes they could collect us, but it will cost us an extra 100RMB. No quibbles, our tickets and tour instructions were correct, but all written in Chinese as was all the signage at all the stations. The train warden was the person at fault by not letting us get off when we wanted to so it cost us $A20 or so and an extra 45 minutes wait for our guide. The policewoman was great though. She was a slip of a girl, but shifted several of her beefy colleagues off some seats near the checkpoint so we could sit while we waited, then walked with us to the gate, even helping with Heather’s heavy bag, when the guide and driver eventually arrived. Another little hiccup, but again, we have survived.

Just to add to my quandary about the pronunciation of Urumqi, the signs at the station showed both Urumqi and Wulurumqi and on the side of the train it was Wulumixi with the x being more of a sh sound (I think). We asked the guide and he seemed to confuse it further saying that foreigners pronounce it Urumki or Urumshi but locals say Wulumshi or Wurumshi, maybe even Wurulumshi - I couldn’t even pick quite how he pronounced it. Now if we could Google it, Wikipedia or something might broaden the range of possibilities even further.

We got checked in at the hotel and were whisked off again to the local history museum. It was very interesting hearing all about the early history of China and seeing so many old artefacts. I have almost no knowledge of Eastern history - and still don’t - but it seems that ancient times were not so different from today. War after war, border squabbles, tribal enmity, victories and retribution, power plays, death and disease, etc., etc. I suspect that a smidgen or two of history may have been rewritten somewhere over the years to sanitise the facts to fit more easily into current political thought. One little quote amused me - referring to a war some 3000 years ago that bound people together into ‘our great motherland’. Maybe?

The museum also houses a wonderful display of mummified corpses. We recently saw a program on TV about them finding some burial sites to the north and the museum had about 10 of the human remains on display, some dating back 3800 years. We couldn’t understand much of the text, almost all of which was in Chinese, but it was a fascinating display and the TV program we saw helped us make a bit more sense of it.

We then went off to the Erdaoquiao Bazaar, a fascinating experience in two parts. First, we went to the old market, sheathed in scaffolding and shade-cloth because it is being restored/refurbished. It had dozens of stalls with jade and other semi-precious stone jewellery: literally millions of pieces of every conceivable shape and colour in hundreds of stalls. It also had lots of silk, metal and leather goods, an almost endless array of goods from enticing valuables to complete kitch, but often interesting for all that. There was another whole floor of the strangest eastern herbs and medicines, most of which were unidentifiable, and probably just as well. I recognised dried snakes, antelope legs, strange sea creatures, deer antlers to name a few, but there was an endless array of plant specimens too, flowers, pods, seeds, fruit, nuts, most of which were new to us and unrecognisable in their desiccated form.

There were a couple of carpet showrooms, but also quite a lot of unused stalls, perhaps due to the renovations.

Then we walked through the new bazaar on the way back to the car. They had somewhat similar offerings, but tended to be a bit swisher, but not very swish for all that. We wanted to buy some nibbles - a small selection of the many varieties of raisins on offer, but the place we went to wouldn’t sell less than a kilo and wouldn’t allow us to mix the varieties - so we went to his competitor across the lane and he complied. We have probably still ended up with more than we can eat, but que sera..... At least we didn’t have to buy a kilo of each variety.

We spent a couple of hours in our room recovering and reorganising ourselves a bit, then went out for a walk to where Jimmy said there were lots of restaurants where we could get our evening meal. He was wrong unless he expected us to stand at a counter and eat all sorts of gooey cakes. We eventually found a hole in the wall just near our hotel where two very friendly Uighur mammas served us a delicious spicy noodle dish and some tasty meat pastry pockets - yum! We actually don’t think much of Jimmy. He strikes us as a know-it-all, but makes a few things up when he doesn’t know at all. All very casual - gets out of the car and strolls away, expecting us to follow while we are still getting our gear together. He is not a good guide and we are taking notes to feed back to the company when we get home. All our drivers have been really excellent though!

One interesting feature of Urumqi is that it has VERY few bikes or motorbikes. There are squillions of cars straining frantically to get to wherever they want before the lights change, but we have seen perhaps a dozen delivery bikes and half as many mini motorbikes.

A quaint thing in our hotel is that there is no minibar, no tea or coffee, there are missing lights and neither the jug nor the hair-dryer work, the air purifier creaks and groans, but doesn’t turn on - but they have special biodegradable bath towels, a really great razor and shaving cream and a good selection of free condoms, presumably all instead of providing a sachet or two of instant coffee.

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clmntlaud · 4 years ago

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Online Love Is Immeasurable!

"You should stop any deception of looking through on the web lovingfeel and fundamentally proceed with your excursion for affection in reality with authentic individuals. It is a silly movement! Why bother? I have attempted it and it's a joke!" I hear such epic amounts of remarks from other people who show me as for their pals or family who offer such restricting heading, yet what they can't deny is this is the manner in which meeting another glow is done today.

This is the inescapable fate of dating - right now! We are bleeding edge individuals taking the decisions past the old administrations. They are out of date and shut protested. Be that as it may, is ONLINE LOVE Certifiable? Does it exist? I have raised this subject as of now and felt it is remarkable to raise once more. I'm analyzing "Online Love".

Different Asian and Chinese ladies will remain in contact with me on the Asian and Chinese electronic dating protests I have a spot with and blog for and express that, "Online love is staggering."

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By and large, most figure they can end up being pathetically enthralled with somebody on a dating site by basically going on there. Some laugh at dating regions as they trust it's start and end Fake. Both are feeling the deficiency of the entire reason behind these complaints. It isn't only the site that will consequently assist you with discovering love. The dating site is another road for prelude to individuals searching for companionship like you, individuals you would not meet coolly in your bit by bit life. It essentially acquaints you with John from California, USA or Maggie from Wu Lu Mu Xi (Urumqi), China. It isn't so not actually identical to meeting somebody at a bar, club, library, school move, through partners, or that astonishing lady who grabs your attention at the store. They are generally speaking first presentations. Web dating locale are meeting grounds of equivalently put people with assumption in their spirits.

Furthermore, your chances of finding an individual of interest is unfathomably improved online than unpredictably looking for them in an open locale. You don't have the foggiest idea what you meet in the outside authentic world. You know nothing about the person at open setting typically. In any event with electronic dating you have head data about the person from their profile: age, relationship status, work, what they are looking for. Basically more data than you can get very quickly assembling somebody at a disco attempting to holler over the music, isn't that so?

Notwithstanding the way that the web dating experience is remarkable beginning stage, it doesn't bring love hence. You can not be sleepy and foresee that the web dating association should make the fundamental steps for you. Indeed, dating districts acclimate you with others; permitting a techniques for correspondence and composed exertion with one another, yet the companionship part doesn't occur without the old standard administrations of assessment, dating, presenting and finding a few solutions concerning one another. In basic terms, regardless it takes YOU and the new likely right hand to make the human association. You both should put in work for a genuine love to occur. The actual interest, the psychological gesture, the incidental being a trouble, the substance response that makes your heart beat quicker with want; This is the way wherein love has been made since the get-continue to will remain consistent all through what's to come. This is the human instinct of authentic love.

So I will concur that there is no such thing "online love", yet you can MEET somebody to love on the web meetme.com.

Bren, hitched to a Chinese lady he met on, and a Creation Chief/Fashioner by calling, makes from solitary experience and acknowledgment. From the "meet and welcome" to "wedded life" in a multifaceted relationship, he should make peruser interest and thought.

#lovingfeel #meetme.com #Online Dating Review #Online Dating #Dating #best online dating sites #good dating sites

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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The Ugliest Face of China

China’s Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang

More than a million Muslims have been arbitrarily detained in China’s Xinjiang region. The reeducation camps are just one part of the government’s crackdown on Uighurs.

— Backgrounder by Lindsay Maizland | Last updated June 30, 2020 | Council on Foreign Relations

A Uighur man works at his shop in Kashgar in Xinjiang Province. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps. Most of the people who have been arbitrarily detained are Uighur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Human rights organizations, UN officials, and many foreign governments are urging China to stop the crackdown. But Chinese officials maintain that what they call vocational training centers do not infringe on Uighurs’ human rights. They have refused to share information about the detention centers, and prevented journalists and foreign investigators from examining them. However, internal Chinese government documents leaked in late 2019 have provided important details on how officials launched and maintain the detention camps.

When did mass detentions of Muslims start?

Some eight hundred thousand to two million Uighurs and other Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been detained since April 2017, according to experts and government officials [PDF]. Outside of the camps, the eleven million Uighurs living in Xinjiang have continued to suffer from a decades-long crackdown by Chinese authorities.

Most people in the camps have never been charged with crimes and have no legal avenues to challenge their detentions. The detainees seem to have been targeted for a variety of reasons, according to media reports, including traveling to or contacting people from any of the twenty-six countries China considers sensitive, such as Turkey and Afghanistan; attending services at mosques; having more than three children; and sending texts containing Quranic verses. Often, their only crime is being Muslim, human rights groups say, adding that many Uighurs have been labeled as extremists simply for practicing their religion.

Hundreds of camps are located in Xinjiang. Officially known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the northwestern region has been claimed by China since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949. Some Uighurs living there refer to the region as East Turkestan and argue that it ought to be independent from China. Xinjiang takes up one-sixth of China’s landmass and borders eight countries, including Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Experts estimate that Xinjiang reeducation efforts started in 2014 and were drastically expanded in 2017. Reuters journalists, observing satellite imagery, found that thirty-nine of the camps almost tripled in size between April 2017 and August 2018; they cover a total area roughly the size of 140 soccer fields. Similarly, analyzing local and national budgets over the past few years, Germany-based Xinjiang expert Adrian Zenz found that construction spending on security-related facilities in Xinjiang increased by 20 billion yuan (around $2.96 billion) in 2017.

What is happening in the camps?

Information on what actually happens in the camps is limited, but many detainees who have since fled China describe harsh conditions. Detainees are forced to pledge loyalty to the CCP and renounce Islam, they say, as well as sing praises for communism and learn Mandarin. Some reported prison-like conditions, with cameras and microphones monitoring their every move and utterance. Others said they were tortured and subjected to sleep deprivation during interrogations. Women have shared stories of sexual abuse, with some saying they were forced to undergo abortions or have contraceptive devices implanted against their will. Some released detainees contemplated suicide or witnessed others kill themselves.

Detention also disrupts families. Children whose parents have been sent to the camps are often forced to stay in state-run orphanages. Uighur parents living outside of China often face a difficult choice: return home to be with their children and risk detention, or stay abroad, separated from their children and unable to contact them.

Why is China detaining Uighurs in Xinjiang now?

Chinese officials are concerned that Uighurs hold extremist and separatist ideas, and they view the camps as a way of eliminating threats to China’s territorial integrity, government, and population.

President Xi Jinping warned of the “toxicity of religious extremism” and advocated for using the tools of “dictatorship” to eliminate Islamist extremism in a series of secret speeches while visiting Xinjiang in 2014. In the speeches, revealed by the New York Times in November 2019, Xi did not explicitly call for arbitrary detention but laid the groundwork for the crackdown in Xinjiang.

Arbitrary detention became widely used by regional officials under Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang’s Communist Party secretary, who moved to the region in 2016 after holding a top leadership position in Tibet. Known for increasing the number of police and security checkpoints, as well as state control over Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, Chen has since dramatically intensified security in Xinjiang. He repeatedly called on officials to “round up everyone who should be rounded up,” according to the New York Times report.

In March 2017, Xinjiang’s government passed an anti-extremism law that prohibited people from growing long beards and wearing veils in public. It also officially recognized the use of training centers to eliminate extremism.

Workers walk along the fence of a likely detention center for Muslims in Xinjiang Province on September 4, 2018. Thomas Peter/Reuters

Under Xi, the CCP has pushed to Sinicize religion, or shape all religions to conform to the officially atheist party’s doctrines and the majority Han-Chinese society’s customs. Though the government recognizes five religions—Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism—it has long feared that foreigners could use religious practice to spur separatism.

The Chinese government has come to characterize any expression of Islam in Xinjiang as extremist, a reaction to past independence movements and occasional outbursts of violence. The government has blamed terrorist attacks on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group founded by militant Uighurs, in recent decades. Following the 9/11 attacks, the Chinese government started justifying its actions toward Uighurs as part of the Global War on Terrorism. It said it would combat what it calls “the three evils”—separatism, religious extremism, and international terrorism—at all costs.

In 2009, rioting in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, broke out as mostly Uighur demonstrators protested against state-incentivized Han Chinese migration in the region and widespread economic and cultural discrimination. Nearly two hundred people were killed, and experts say it marked a turning point in Beijing’s attitude toward Uighurs. In the eyes of Beijing, all Uighurs could potentially be terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.

During the next few years, authorities blamed Uighurs for attacks at a local government office, train station, and open-air market, as well as Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The government also feared that thousands of Uighurs who moved to Syria to fight for various militant groups, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State, after the outbreak of civil war in 2011 would return to China and spark violence.

Are economic factors involved in this crackdown?

Xinjiang is an important link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive development plan stretching through Asia and Europe. Beijing hopes to eradicate any possibility of separatist activity to continue its development of Xinjiang, which is home to China’s largest coal and natural gas reserves. Human rights organizations have observed that the economic benefits of resource extraction and development are often disproportionately enjoyed by Han Chinese, and Uighur people are increasingly marginalized.

Many people who were arbitrarily detained have been forced to work in factories close to the detention camps, according to multiple reports [PDF]. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute estimates that since 2017 eighty thousand previously detained Uighurs have been sent to factories throughout China linked to eighty-three global brands. Researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies say forced labor is an important element of the government’s plan for Xinjiang’s economic development, which includes making it a hub of textile and apparel manufacturing. Chinese officials have described the policy as “poverty alleviation.”

What do Chinese officials say about the camps?

Government officials first denied the camps’ existence. Starting in October 2018, officials started calling them centers for “vocational education and training programs.” In March 2019, their official name became “vocational training centers,” and Xinjiang’s governor, Shohrat Zakir, described them as “boarding schools” that provide job skills to “trainees” who are voluntarily admitted and allowed to leave the camps. But documents leaked in late 2019 showed how officials worked to repress Uighurs, lock them in camps, and prevent them from leaving.

Chinese officials publicly maintain that the camps have two purposes: to teach Mandarin, Chinese laws, and vocational skills, and to prevent citizens from becoming influenced by extremist ideas, to “nip terrorist activities in the bud,” according to a government report. Pointing out that Xinjiang has not experienced a terrorist attack since December 2016, officials claim the camps have prevented violence.

The government has resisted international pressure to allow in outside investigators, saying anything happening inside Xinjiang is an internal issue. It denies that people are forced to denounce Islam, are detained against their will, and experience abuse in the camps. In early 2019, it organized several trips for foreign diplomats to visit Xinjiang and tour a center; a U.S. official criticized them as “highly choreographed.”

What is happening outside the camps in Xinjiang?

Even before the camps became a major part of the Chinese government’s anti-extremism campaign, the government was accused of cracking down on religious freedom and basic human rights in Xinjiang.

Experts say Xinjiang has been turned into a surveillance state that relies on cutting-edge technology to monitor millions of people. Under Xinjiang’s Communist Party leader, Chen, Xinjiang was placed under a grid-management system, as described in media reports, in which cities and villages were split into squares of about five hundred people. Each square has a police station that closely monitors inhabitants by regularly scanning their identification cards, taking their photographs and fingerprints, and searching their cell phones. In some cities, such as western Xinjiang’s Kashgar, police checkpoints are found every one hundred yards or so, and facial-recognition cameras are everywhere. The government also collects and stores citizens’ biometric data through a required program advertised as Physicals for All.

Much of that information is collected into a massive database, known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, which then uses artificial intelligence to create lists of so-called suspicious people. Classified Chinese government documents released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in November 2019 revealed that more than fifteen thousand Xinjiang residents were placed in detention centers during a seven-day period in June 2017 after being flagged by the algorithm. The Chinese government called the leaked documents “pure fabrication” and maintained that the camps are education and training centers.

Many aspects of Muslim life have been erased, journalists reporting from Xinjiang have found. Communist Party members have been recruited since 2014 to stay in Uighur homes and report on any perceived “extremist” behaviors, including fasting during Ramadan. Officials have destroyed mosques, claiming the buildings were shoddily constructed and unsafe for worshippers. Uighur and other minority women have reported forced sterilizations and intrauterine device insertions, and officials have threatened to detain anyone who has too many children. Uighur parents are banned from giving their babies certain names, including Mohammed and Medina. Halal food, which is prepared according to Islamic law, has become harder to find in Urumqi as the local government has launched a campaign against it.

Beijing has also pressured other governments to repatriate Uighurs who have fled China. In 2015, for example, Thailand returned more than one hundred Uighurs, and in 2017 Egypt deported several students. The documents released by ICIJ showed that the Chinese government instructed officials to collect information on Chinese Uighurs living abroad and called for many to be arrested as soon as they reentered China.

What has the global response been?

Much of the world has condemned China’s detention of Uighurs in Xinjiang. The UN human rights chief and other UN officials have demanded access to the camps. The European Union has called on China to respect religious freedom and change its policies in Xinjiang. And human rights organizations have urged China to immediately shut down the camps and answer questions about disappeared Uighurs.

Notably silent are many Muslim nations. Prioritizing their economic ties and strategic relationships with China, many governments have ignored the human rights abuses. In July 2019, after a group of mostly European countries—and no Muslim-majority countries—signed a letter to the UN human rights chief condemning China’s actions in Xinjiang, more than three dozen states, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, signed their own letter [PDF] praising China’s “remarkable achievements” in human rights and its “counterterrorism” efforts in Xinjiang. Earlier in 2019, Turkey became the only Muslim-majority country to voice concern when its foreign minister called on China to ensure “the full protection of the cultural identities of the Uighurs and other Muslims” during a UN Human Rights Council session.

In October 2019, the United States imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials “believed to be responsible for, or complicit in” the detention of Muslims in Xinjiang. It also blacklisted more than two dozen Chinese companies and agencies linked to abuses in the region—including surveillance technology manufacturers and Xinjiang’s public security bureau—effectively blocking them from buying U.S. products. In June 2020, President Donald J. Trump signed legislation, passed with overwhelming support from Congress, mandating that individuals, including Chen, face sanctions for oppressing Uighurs. The law also requires that U.S. businesses and individuals selling products to or operating in Xinjiang ensure their activities don’t contribute to human rights violations, including the use of forced labor.

Human Rights Watch has advocated other actions the United States and other countries could take: publicly challenging Xi; denying exports of technologies that facilitate abuse; pressing China to allow UN investigators in Xinjiang; and preventing China from targeting members of the Uighur diaspora. Activists have also called on the United States to grant asylum to Uighurs who have fled Xinjiang.

— Jessica Moss contributed to this report.

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alexsmitposts · 5 years ago

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NYT’s “Leaked” Chinese Files Story Covers For Terrorism The New York Times has once again exposed itself as an organ of US special interests operating under the guise of journalism – contributing to Wall Street and Washington’s ongoing and escalating hybrid war with China with a particularly underhanded piece of war propaganda. Its article, “‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims,” at face value attempts to bolster allegations made primarily by the United States that China is organizing unwarranted and oppressive “mass detentions” of “Muslims” in China’s western region of Xinjiang. But just by investigating the quote in the headline alone reveals both the truth behind what is really happening in Xinjiang, why Beijing has reacted the way it has, and that the United States, including its mass media – is deliberately lying about it. Ten paragraphs into the NYT article, the quote “absolutely no mercy” appears again – only this time it is placed within proper context. It was the response Beijing vowed in the aftermath of a coordinated terrorist attack in 2014 that left 31 people dead at China’s Kunming rail station. The NYT would write (emphasis added): President Xi Jinping, the party chief, laid the groundwork for the crackdown in a series of speeches delivered in private to officials during and after a visit to Xinjiang in April 2014, just weeks after Uighur militants stabbed more than 150 people at a train station, killing 31. Mr. Xi called for an all-out “struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism” using the “organs of dictatorship,” and showing “absolutely no mercy.” The NYT – which has actively and eagerly promoted every US war in living memory – would unlikely flinch at the notion of the US showing “absolutely no mercy” against “terrorism, infiltration, and separatist,” yet it demonstrates a particular adversion to it in regards to Beijing just as the prominent newspaper has done regarding Syria and its now 8 year struggle against foreign-funded terrorism. Despite claiming to have “400 pages of internal Chinese documents” – the most damning allegations made by Washington and indeed the NYT itself – are still left unsubstantiated. This includes claims that “authorities have corralled as many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years.” No where in the NYT article is evidence derived from these documents to substantiate that claim. Dubious Origins Like much of what the US media holds up as “evidence” to bolster establishment narratives – the “leaked files” come with it doubts over their provenance, translation, and the context and manner in which they are being presented to the public. There are also the lies of omission deliberately presented by the NYT and others covering this recent “leak” that need to be considered. The NYT itself admits (emphasis added): Though it is unclear how the documents were gathered and selected, the leak suggests greater discontent inside the party apparatus over the crackdown than previously known. The papers were brought to light by a member of the Chinese political establishment who requested anonymity and expressed hope that their disclosure would prevent party leaders, including Mr. Xi, from escaping culpability for the mass detentions. Regardless – nothing appearing in the NYT article is actually a revelation of any kind. China has made its policies clear regarding terrorism and separatism in Xinjiang. Like every other nation on Earth – China refuses to tolerate violent terrorism and the extremist ideology used to drive it. These policies – when presented out of context as the NYT has deliberately done – appear heavy-handed, oppressive, unwarranted, and authoritarian. If presented together with the very real violence, terrorism, and foreign-sponsored separatism emanating from Xinjiang – the polices take on an entirely different and understanble light. Terrorism in Xinjiang is Real, But Omitted When Reporting Beijing’s Counter-terrorism Efforts The Western corporate media itself has even repeatedly covered deadly terrorism carried out by a minority of extremists among China’s Uyghur population. However – they do so in the most ambiguous way possible – and refuse to mention it when subsequently covering Beijing’s attempts to counter it. For example, CNN in a 2014 article titled, “China train station killings described as a terrorist attack,” would report: A day after men armed with long knives stormed a railway station in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 100, authorities described what happened as a premeditated terrorist attack. The article also admits that Xinjiang is beset with “frequent outbreaks of violence,” in reference to waves of violent terrorism carried out by Uyghur separatists, but falls far short of qualifying just how bad this violence has been. The BBC would extensively elaborate on what CNN meant by “frequent outbreaks of violence” in a 2014 article titled, “Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs?,” reporting that (emphasis added): In June 2012, six Uighurs reportedly tried to hijack a plane from Hotan to Urumqi before they were overpowered by passengers and crew. There was bloodshed in April 2013 and in June that year, 27 people died in Shanshan county after police opened fire on what state media described as a mob armed with knives attacking local government buildings At least 31 people were killed and more than 90 suffered injuries in May 2014 when two cars crashed through an Urumqi market and explosives were tossed into the crowd. China called it a “violent terrorist incident”. It followed a bomb and knife attack at Urumqi’s south railway station in April, which killed three and injured 79 others. In July, authorities said a knife-wielding gang attacked a police station and government offices in Yarkant, leaving 96 dead. The imam of China’s largest mosque, Jume Tahir, was stabbed to death days later. In September about 50 died in blasts in Luntai county outside police stations, a market and a shop. Details of both incidents are unclear and activists have contested some accounts of incidents in state media. Some violence has also spilled out of Xinjiang. A March stabbing spree in Kunming in Yunnan province that killed 29 people was blamed on Xinjiang separatists, as was an October 2013 incident where a car ploughed into a crowd and burst into flames in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. While the NYT also references deadly terrorism in Xinjiang – it does so in a muted, secondary fashion, attempting to decouple it from Beijing’s motivations for pursuing polices with “absolutely no mercy” in response. One need not imagine what would follow if such violence took place on US or European soil or the polices demonstrating “absolutely no mercy” that would undoubtedly follow not only domestically, but across the globe against nations perceived – or claimed – to have been involved. The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. precipitated a now 20 year long “War on Terror” which has evolved into multiple ongoing wars, military occupations, and covert operations across scores of nations. The US Department of Defense’s own newspaper, Stars and Stripes, in a recent article titled, “Post 9/11 wars have cost American taxpayers $6.4 trillion, study finds,” would admit (emphasis added): American taxpayers have spent some $6.4 trillion in nearly two decades of post-9/11 wars, which have killed some 800,000 people worldwide, the Cost of Wars Project announced Wednesday. The numbers reflect the toll of American combat and other military operations across some 80 nations since al-Qaida operatives attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, launching the United States into its longest-ever wars aimed at stamping out terrorism worldwide. By comparison, China’s attempts to rehabilitate extremists through education and employment is a far cry from America’s global war – in which as many have died, as the US claims China is “detaining.” This is before even considering that out of the 80 nations the US is waging war and killing people in – the one nation from which the majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from – Saudi Arabia – has not only been spared, but is sold record-breaking amounts of US weapons and hosts US troops to protect it from regional states it openly attacks with legions of armed extremists espousing the same toxic ideology that motivated the 9/11 hijackers. The US Sponsors Xinjiang Unrest Worse still, the US has been repeatedly caught jointly-sponsoring the very strain of extremism allegedly behind the 9/11 attacks in its various proxy and regime-change wars beforehand and ever since. Not surprisingly, there is also evidence that the US is fueling the violence in Xinjiang itself as well as recruiting extremists from the region to fight in US proxy wars abroad – most notably in Syria. These militants are then returned to China with extensive experience in terrorism. US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America (VOA) in an article titled, “Analysts: Uighur Jihadis in Syria Could Pose Threat,” would admit (emphasis added): Analysts are warning that the jihadi group Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in northwestern Syria could pose a danger to Syria’s volatile Idlib province, where efforts continue to keep a fragile Turkey-Russia-brokered cease-fire between Syrian regime forces and the various rebel groups. The TIP declared an Islamic emirate in Idlib in late November and has largely remained off the radar of authorities and the media thanks to its low profile. Founded in 2008 in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, the TIP has been one of the major extremist groups in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011. The TIP is primarily made up of Uighur Muslims from China, but in recent years it also has included other jihadi fighters within its ranks. Uyghur recruits have been trafficked through Southeast Asia where – when discovered, detained, and deported back to China – are followed by protests from the US State Department. When Thailand refused to heed US demands that Uyghur recruits be allowed to move onward to Turkey – where they would be armed, trained, and sent into Syria – a deadly bomb would detonate in Bangkok killing 20. The bombing was linked to the Turkish terrorist organization, the Grey Wolves, co-sponsored by the US for decades to augment NATO’s unconventional warfare capabilities. The US government’s own National Endowment for Democracy (NED) openly funds fronts operating out of Washington D.C. espousing separatism with the NED’s webpage detailing its funding of these groups even including the fictional name of “East Turkestan” used by separatists who reject the official designation of Xinjiang which resides within China’s internationally-recognized borders. The inclusion of the term “East Turkestan” implies US support for separatism as well as the very real, ongoing deadly terrorism demonstratably used to pursue it. And more than just implicitly supporting separatism, US government support in the form of NED money is admittedly provided to the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) which exclusively refers to China’s Xinjiang province as “East Turkistan” and refers to China’s administration of Xinjiang as the “Chinese occupation of East Turkistan.” On WUC’s own website, articles like, “Op-ed: A Profile of Rebiya Kadeer, Fearless Uyghur Independence Activist,” admits that WUC leader Rebiya Kadeer seeks “Uyghur independence” from China. WUC and its various US-funded affiliates often serve as the sole “source” of allegations being made against the Chinese government regarding Xinjiang. As the US does elsewhere it lies to fuel unrest in pursuit of its geopolitical agenda, allegations regarding Xinjiang often come from “anonymous” sources based on hearsay and lacking any actual physical evidence. The US State Department’s “Radio Free Asia” network even maintains a “Uyghur Service” which pumps out daily accusations aimed at stirring domestic tension within China, and smearing China’s image internationally. RFA allegations are uncritically repeated by other Western corporate media networks in an attempt to bolster the impact of this propaganda. US Gaslighting on a Global Scale The US through its policies and propaganda – including this most recent NYT article – accuse Beijing of “repression” for responding to very real, admitted, and extensively documented deadly terrorism plaguing China. At the same time, the US pursues a global war spanning 80 nations and resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands, destroying entire countries, and displacing or otherwise destroying the lives of millions. While citing “terrorism” as a pretext for its global aggression, it is simultaneously fueling the very armed extremism it claims it is fighting against. This includes the very real terrorism the NYT attempted to downplay to maximize the propaganda value of its “leaked files” story – despite other Western media networks covering this terrorism for years. Not only is this US policy disjointed, deceitful, and deadly – it is incredibly dangerous. It is essentially a low-intensity version of what the US has been doing in Syria and had previously done in Libya leading to the North Africa nation’s destruction. It is all but a declaration of war against China – not through direct military intervention – but through armed proxies, propaganda, and a deliberate, concerted effort to sow instability, division, and strife across Chinese society. Coupled with economic warfare aimed at crippling China’s economy – Beijing finds itself a nation under siege. The fact that it has not responded to this very real, demonstratable existential threat with a fraction of the violence and global-spanning destruction the US has employed to fight its fictional “War on Terror,” is the best proof of all that the dystopian authoritarian regime the NYT tries to portray Beijing as – is as fictional and nonexistent as journalism is at the NYT’s office.

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mexicodish98-blog · 6 years ago

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Relatives of China's oppressed Muslim minority are getting blocked online by their own family members, who are terrified to even tell them how bad their lives are

Uighurs living in western China aren't allowed to communicate with people outside the country, even if they're family. Bahram Sintash (left) and Rushan Abbas (right), two Uighurs who are American citizens, say they can't contact their relatives.Courtesy of Bahram Sintash; Courtesy of Rushan Abbas; Samantha Lee/Business Insider

China's Uighur community — a mostly-Muslim ethnic group in the western region of Xinjiang — is living through extreme repression by the Chinese government.

Chinese authorities have forbidden them from contacting relatives outside the region. Uighurs who break the rules often vanish, or are held captive in prison-like camps.

Four Uighurs living in the US and Turkey told INSIDER that their family members blocked them on instant messaging apps and social media as a way of protecting themselves.

The expat Uighurs have been left heartbroken by the lack of contact, and many fear their families members are suffering in Chinese captivity.

"There are no relatives left," said Muyesser Abdul'eher, referring to the depleted contact book on her phone. "But I'm glad they deleted me."

Abdul'eher, a teacher and poet in Istanbul, Turkey, has been systematically cut off by all her family members on WeChat, the ubiquitous Chinese messaging app.

There is only one reason for her entire family — who live in Xinjiang, western China — to cease all contact so abruptly: fear.

Her family are Uighurs, a majority-Muslim ethnic minority group China has been relentlessly persecuting.

A Uighur man has his beard trimmed after prayers in Kashgar, Xinjiang, in June 2017. Much of the region's residents are living in fear of the Chinese government's punishment.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Life in Xinjiang has effectively come to a standstill over the last two years. According to the US State Department, China has detained up to 2 million Uighur residents, for increasingly flimsy reasons, one of which is messaging people who live in other countries.

China's unprecedented crackdown is why Abdul'eher's relatives in China deleted her from their contacts, leaving her unable to talk to them or even see their latest pictures.

INSIDER interviewed four members of the Uighur diaspora, who report a similar experience of being abruptly cut off by those they love most, for fear of retribution by the heavy-handed Xinjiang regional government.

Muslim Uighur women on a cellphone in Kashgar, Xinjiang, in April 2002. Most people in Xinjiang have either blocked their contacts abroad or are too scared to talk to them.Kevin Lee/Getty

Reports from activists and media outlets claim that Uighurs who cross the authorities are physically tortured, forced to renounce their religion, and force-fed unknown medications that interfere with their memories.

Abdul'eher's said: "At first I was so hurt. I thought: 'They didn't have to do that.' After that, I understood that something serious was going on."

"I'm glad they deleted me," she said. "Because I, somehow, may be a reason for authorities to arrest them."

A Chinese flag flies over a local mosque that had been closed by authorities in Kashgar in June 2017. Life in Xinjiang has come to a standstill as China intensifies its crackdown on the region.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Local authorities in Xinjiang don't officially notify relatives abroad when they round people up.

And because most people in Xinjiang have either blocked all their contacts abroad, or are scared to talk about what's going on, they are struggling to find out about their loves ones.

They are left to wonder when their loved ones disappeared, how they were taken, what they purportedly did wrong, and where they might be now.

Read more: Shocking footage purportedly shows cells inside prison camp where China oppresses Muslim minority

Bahram Sintash (right) says his father Qurban Mamut (left) is missing. This photo was taken during Mamut's February 2017 visit to Washington, DC.Courtesy of Bahram Sintash

Bahram Sintash, a gym owner in Chantilly, Virginia, said his mother blocked him on WeChat in February 2018, likely to avoid getting captured and detained.

WeChat has passed on user data to the Chinese government in the past, which means users run a constant risk of being found out.

Sintash told INSIDER: "My mum blocked me on WeChat in February 2018. I couldn't send any messages to her. I cannot see her pictures, I cannot send any messages to her. My sister also blocked me."

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Courtesy of Bahram Sintash

His last message to his mother, in the Uighur language, was: "When are you going to [visit] our home in the countryside?"

She replied: "After Chinese New Year."

Chinese New Year came and went, and Sintash heard nothing from her.

The screenshot on the right shows Sintash and his mother's last messages to each other, and the error messages he received when he tried to send videos of his son playing the piano to his mother after she blocked him.

"Before, WeChat was the only tool that we [used to] communicate with each other," Sintash told INSIDER.

"Almost once every two or three days we sent messages and pictures. I often sent my son's pictures."

Mamut in Washington, DC, during a February 2017 visit.Courtesy of Bahram Sintash

Seven months after his mother blocked him, Sintash heard from a contact on the ground — whom he declined to name — that his father Qurban Mamut, a 68-year-old retired editor, had gone missing.

"I tried to find out the exact news, but I couldn't get any news out because people can't talk to outsiders," Sintash said.

He suspects his father was taken away because he used to edit the state-controlled Xinjiang Civilization magazine, which worked to preserve Uighur culture and history. Scholars and activists have previously warned of Beijing's efforts to eradicate Uighur culture.

"Xinjiang has become an open-city jail," Sintash said.

Abdurahman Tohti (right) lost contact with his wife and children in August 2016 after they visited Xinjiang. He suddenly found his four-year-old son, Abduleziz, in a video inside what looked like a state orphanage in January 2019.Abdurahman Tohti via Uyghur Bulletin/Twitter

Abdurahman Tohti, a self-employed driver living in Istanbul, said his wife mysteriously blocked him on WeChat shortly after she and their children arrived in Xinjiang to visit family in 2016.

His parents, who are still in Xinjiang, had cut off contact with him before that, telling him not to contact them and changing their phone number. He added that the number he had for his parents-in-law also went out of service.

Last month he found a video of his 4-year-old son, Abduleziz, filmed in what appeared to be a state-run Chinese orphanage. You can read more about his story here.

An undated photo of Abdurahman Tohti's parents, who deleted him on WeChat in February 2018.Courtesy of Abdurahman Tohti

Abdul'eher, the poet in Istanbul, also started suspecting that her cousin had been disappeared when he blocked her on WeChat.

Her cousin Erpat Ablekrem, a 25-year-old professional soccer player with whom she communicated often, blocked her on WeChat early last year, Abdul'eher told INSIDER. And when she contacted other relatives for news, they blocked her too.

Read more: This man's family vanished in China's most oppressed region. Last month he saw his son for the first time in 2 years, in a Chinese propaganda video.

"He [Ablekrem] deleted me on WeChat and we couldn't have any contact with him," she told INSIDER, adding that her brother also looked through Ablekrem's profile on QQ, a microblogging site, but did not find any updates.

"We were so curious about it, and we asked a lot of relatives," Abdul'eher said, "but they just deleted us instead of telling us."

Muyesser Abdul'ehed's cousin, 25-year-old professional soccer player Erpat Ablekrem.Courtesy of Muyesser Abdul'ehed

Abdul'eher believes Ablekrem might have been rounded up because he failed to block her and other family members in Turkey sooner.

China is known to punish Uighurs for traveling to or communicating with people in Turkey. The Turkish government has for years offered a space for Uighurs to seek refuge and stage protests against China, and Beijing has threatened to tank their economic relations in response.

Read more: The mystery of a Muslim poet who may or may not be dead in a Chinese detention camp is at the center of a diplomatic crisis between China and Turkey

A poster that activist Rushan Abbas made for her sister, Gulshan Abbas, after she disappeared in Xinjiang. The photo of Gulshan Abbas was taken in Florida in 2015.Courtesy of Rushan Abbas

Rushan Abbas, a Uighur activist living in Herndon, Virginia, took the initiative to remove herself from her family's life instead for fear that her activism would hurt them.

She told INSIDER: "I don't communicate with my family because I want to protect them. I didn't want the Chinese government to harm them because of the guilt by association, which the government does all the time."

But that appeared not to be enough. Her sister and aunt disappeared from their homes in the cities of Urumqi and Artux last September, six days after she publicly criticized China's human-rights record at an event in Washington, DC.

She said: "I have not been in touch with [my sister] since the summer of 2017. I have not talked to her at all."

Uighur activist Rushan Abbas (right) and her sister Gulshan Abbas (left), in Virginia in 2015. Gulshan Abbas vanished in Urumqi, Xinjiang, in September 2018.Courtesy of Rushan Abbas

Abbas added, with her voice close to tears: "I feel terrible because we are living in the 21st century, you know? With smartphones, people all around the world can communicate. They see each other on FaceTime, using different apps. They can communicate with anybody on the world."

"Here I am, living in America for almost 30 years — I've been an American citizen for 25 years — and I am doing everything under my constitution in America, as an American," she said.

"I am expressing my opinion for what's happening in East Turkestan," she said, referring to an alternative name for the region. "Yet, I have to worry that the Chinese government may persecute my family because of my activism."

A Uighur woman pushes her children on a tricycle in Xinjiang in June 2017. It is getting increasingly hard to get news out of the region.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

There is almost no other way to find out about Uighurs' disappearances in Xinjiang.

Louisa Greve, the director of external affairs at the American non-profit Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), told INSIDER that her organization relies on testimonies from relatives abroad, other activists, and the few rare independent news outlets that remain in the region, like Radio Free Asia Uyghur Service.

The UHRP last month identified identified 338 academics, doctors, journalists, and other scholars who have vanished in Xinjiang since 2017.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.de/family-of-uighurs-in-china-say-are-blocked-deleted-by-scared-family-2019-2?r=US&IR=T

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ericfruits · 6 years ago

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Why China is swooping on Georgia’s airline industry

IN ANCIENT times, traders on the Silk Road connecting China with Europe rarely ventured into the northern Caucasus region that is now home to Georgia. Diverting from established routes through Armenia and Anatolia to the south served little purpose unless conflict made the trackways impassable. Today, advances in transport and logistics mean that geography is less of a hurdle for traders. But friendly relations are just as important. Having signed free trade agreements with China and the European Union, Georgia is keen to pitch itself as a trade-and-transport hub for President Xi Jinping of China’s One Belt One Road initiative. A new rail line passing through its capital city, Tbilisi, adds to its appeal, halving the time it takes to carry freight from China to Turkey. Foreign direct investment by Chinese companies has also ballooned.

Hualing Group, the largest such investor, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing real estate, logistics infrastructure, and sea and ground transport facilities in the country. Its attention is now turning skyward. Hualing owns a majority stake in MyWay Airlines, a Georgian startup that was certified by regulators in January and expects to start flying with two Boeing 737 jets later this month.

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China’s One Belt One Road initiative has so far focused on building train lines and port facilities. That is no surprise. Airfreight accounts for just a fraction of the trade between Asia and Europe because it is so much cheaper to send goods by land or sea. But Chinese interest in foreign airlines is steadily growing. HNA Group, the parent of Hainan Airlines, has invested in carriers as far afield as Australia, Brazil, France, Ghana and South Africa. Having also built up interests in several other sectors, it seems to have over-reached. Mounting debt has unnerved Chinese regulators and forced the company to begin shedding assets, starting with parts of its hotel portfolio and an airline catering group.

MyWay plans to expand more cautiously. Yet its eventual goals are equally as grand. The company will start with charter flights for tour operators before launching scheduled services in April. Regional capitals such as Moscow, Kiev and Tehran will be its initial focus. Routes to the EU and central Asia should come later this year, when two more narrow-bodied jets join the fleet. The western Chinese city of Urumqi, Hualing’s home town, is among the potential destinations. Within five years, MyWay’s management hopes to deploy their first long-haul jet, a Boeing 777, on routes to Beijing and America. The airline also hopes to capture a chunk of the lucrative Asia to Europe passenger market by offering connections through its hub at Tbilisi.

MyWay will face stiff competition on the Europe to Asia route. The oneworld alliance already uses Helsinki-based Finnair for connections between Northeast Asia and Europe. Perhaps the most impressive is Air Astana, the state-backed airline of Kazakhstan in central Asia. The number of connecting passengers on its services is growing at a rate of 80% a year, according to Peter Foster, its British chief executive. And it has the lowest unit costs of virtually any carrier in the world. The Kazakh government is particularly keen on China’s One Belt One Road initiative and Air Astana is key to its plans. It wants to turn its capital, Astana, into the biggest air and rail hub on the new Silk Road. Intense competition may force MyWay to experiment with new corridors, such as West Africa to China, or India to Europe.

Whatever flightpath it takes, MyWay is guaranteed a warm welcome by Georgia’s politicians and passengers. Georgian Airways, the flag carrier, is the only local airline offering scheduled passenger flights today. It deploys just eight planes and has a modest market share of 16% in Tbilisi Airport. Despite benefiting from an open-skies agreement between its home nation and the EU, the flag carrier has shown little appetite for growth. Its European flights are low-frequency and high-cost. It does not fly to anywhere in Asia. “What Georgia needs is another Georgian airline,” says Igor Aptsiauri, MyWay’s commercial director. “It’s good for Georgian Airways as well, because they’ll be forced to compete and further improve, which I’m sure they will do.”

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whittlebaggett8 · 6 years ago

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Afghanistan: Prospects and Challenges to Regional Connectivity

Afghanistan’s strategic site has for a extended time been touted as a competitive advantage for the place. The National Unity Government (NUG) has emphasised that Afghanistan’s overall economy will be reworked and financial development attained if the state can employ this benefit and switch alone into a regional hub for trade and transit. To materialize that ambition, nevertheless, Afghanistan needs comprehensive infrastructure improvement internally and connectivity externally. To that stop, Afghanistan can tap into the probable of regional connectivity jobs like China’s Belt and Highway Initiative (BRI) and Russia, India, and Iran’s Worldwide North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) that have occur on to the scene in the latest decades.

Yet, the prospect of these initiatives in setting Afghanistan on the path to self-reliance stays unpromising, at minimum in the quick run, as the region carries on to face a multitude of interdependent problems. This was verified by the conclusions of a modern examine by the Business for Plan Exploration and Progress Studies (DROPS), a exploration imagine tank primarily based in Kabul.

Afghanistan’s Path to Regional Connectivity

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Afghan and Chinese policymakers see Afghanistan’s locale as its greatest benefit below the BRI, mostly mainly because it facilitates the motion of products, information, and vitality. The DROPS study reveals that whilst the BRI initially bypassed Afghanistan, Chinese officers introduced concrete techniques to integrate Afghanistan in 2017, a calendar year following signing of a joint MOU. As it stands, China is joined to northern Afghanistan through the graduation of the Sino-Afghanistan Special Railway Transportation Challenge and the Five Nations Railway Project. China also would like to url itself to southern Afghanistan by means of the China-Pakistan Financial Corridor (CPEC) but this has been gained with hesitation by Afghanistan as its caught in the middle of a dispute between Pakistan and India around CPEC traversing by way of disputed territory. China and Afghanistan have now initiated a fiber optic link via the Wakhan corridor and are seeking to website link the BRI to different electricity jobs and extractive sectors. Kabul-Urumqi flights resumed in 2016.

Lots of in Afghanistan experience these to be modest ways at most effective, not to mention most are continue to in the feasibility review stage. Critics are calling for extra concrete steps and investment decision to accompany these major strategies. Nevertheless, China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Liu Jinsong, outlined Afghanistan as a essential associate in the BRI.

One more key regional connectivity undertaking is the nascent Intercontinental North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) getting superior by Russia, Iran, and India as of 2017 to connection the Indian Ocean to Europe. Afghanistan has the possible to backlink itself with INSTC by Chabahar port and the Lapis Lazuli Corridor. The to start with shipment from India attained Afghanistan by way of Chabahar port in November 2017, generating the port a strategic alternate to Pakistan’s Karachi port on which Afghanistan has hence far been heavily dependent. Moreover, Afghanistan despatched the initially cargo of merchandise to Europe by means of the Lapis Lazuli Corridor in mid-December 2018. With both equally Chabahar port and the Lapis Lazuli Corridor now in operation, the INSTC could additional chances for Afghanistan to accessibility the Indian Ocean and Europe.

Issues Going through Connectivity

Notwithstanding the prospective buyers these initiatives keep for Afghanistan, we detect a number of problems, as outlined in the DROPS study, that stand in Afghanistan’s way to becoming self-reliant by way of regional economic connectivity jobs. Foremost, the examine finds that as extended as Afghanistan stays in a state of ongoing conflict and political instability, it will not be able to fortify its place in the area to materialize its regional connectivity ambitions. Countries want to experience that Afghanistan is a risk-free trade and transit hub and that they can understand a return on their investments. Furthermore, the infrastructure deficit stays a major hurdle and important reforms are required in the financial and banking establishments — these as safe and sound and knowledgeable standardized transactions– to make the ecosystem trader friendly. These issues, in accordance to policymakers in Afghanistan, limit the country’s role in regional and global economic initiatives to that of a “policy taker” somewhat than an “initiator.” This place weakens Afghanistan’s bargaining placement as its pursuits in these procedures often stay secondary to others.

Another draw back is the deficiency of progress in Afghanistan’s domestic economy and export sector. Afghanistan’s overall economy remains largely a consuming 1 therefore, if the country back links alone far too hastily to regional jobs, it compromises the expansion of its area economic climate as it will face competitors from more robust economies, this sort of as China, Iran, India, and Pakistan, that its domestic sector presently can not match.

Also, political frailty in relations involving Afghanistan and its neighbors, specifically Pakistan, poses but a different bottleneck for its integration into regional initiatives these as the BRI. The menace of financial possibilities becoming undermined by politics is really appropriate to Afghanistan’s circumstance. For instance, the study finds that the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APPTA) signed in 2010 for 5 yrs was by no means renewed just after it expired in 2015, owing to disagreements among Afghanistan and Pakistan over such as India. Disagreements involving India and Pakistan have also prevented Afghanistan from planning techniques to url itself to CPEC. Sanctions by the United States on Iran in 2015 have also still left a unfavorable affect on Afghanistan’s economic climate. Whilst partially relieved by a the latest U.S. exemption on Chabahar port in November 2018, the sanctions keep on to influence remittances, imports, and the illegal movement of U.S. currency from Afghanistan to Iran.

The Way Forward

Afghanistan has a extensive and challenging street to changeover from an help dependent financial system to a trade and transit financial state. The Afghan federal government sights initiatives these kinds of as the BRI and INSTC as automobiles that could allow it to renovate its financial system but for Afghanistan its journey to self-reliance is a race towards time. The stop of the Transformation 10 years is intently approaching, and by 2024 there will be a major decline in the aid it receives. It does not surface from this examine that the BRI and INSTC will be ready to alter Afghanistan’s economic trajectory in the in the vicinity of term as their implementation depends on infrastructure enhancement, reforms, addressing regional trade rivalries, improving upon administration, constructing regional capacities, be certain greater governance, and tackling corruption — all of which are, in switch, dependent on much bigger countrywide and regional issues related to Afghanistan’s security and safety.

With out likely into these bigger concerns, which is outside of the scope of this paper, underneath are a handful of crucial recommendations highlighted in the CROPS review by Afghan governing administration officers, the non-public sector, and civil culture corporations on how Afghanistan can remodel its economic system. Initial, Afghanistan really should create its possess proactive procedures and domestic capacities to entice many others to link with its initiatives alternatively then usually connecting to initiatives of others in the area. This is very important simply because, provided the safety an financial predicament, there is fewer motive and interest for other international locations to make an overture towards Afghanistan. 2nd, Afghanistan by itself can not handle the obstacles to knowing its full prospective as a regional hub and requires a regional strategy to “turn these weaknesses into core competencies.” This regional method may perhaps include things like regional cooperation, regional integration, and attraction of investment decision in Afghanistan’s infrastructure that will convert it into a regional hub for trade and transit. Third, the Afghan govt ought to avoid adopting hostile economic procedures with some nations, like Pakistan, whilst endorsing favorable kinds with other individuals, like India. It is a good idea that the Afghan govt steer clear of intermingling economic system and politics.

Mariam Safi is the founding Director of the Corporation for Coverage Exploration and Enhancement Reports (DROPS), a main think-tank in Afghanistan. She is a member of the Afghanistan Plan Team, a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nationwide Protection Scientific tests Sri Lanka, an alumni at the In close proximity to East South Asia Centre for Strategic Scientific studies, and a community peace-setting up skilled for Peace Immediate. Ms. Safi has an MA in Worldwide Peace Experiments from the United Nations-mandated College for Peace in San José (Costa Rica).

Bismellah Alizada is the deputy director at DROPS. He retains a BA in political science from Kabul University and has been involved in civil culture and human rights activism given that 2012 when he co-started Youth Improvement Affiliation (YDA), a nearby CSO centered on youth and women empowerment by advocacy, coaching, and consciousness elevating. He has also co-translated the e book China in the 21st Century: What Absolutely everyone Requirements to Know.

The post Afghanistan: Prospects and Challenges to Regional Connectivity appeared first on Defence Online.

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internetbetterforall · 6 years ago

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Nature The Leaders Who Unleashed China’s Mass Detention of Muslims

Nature The Leaders Who Unleashed China’s Mass Detention of Muslims Nature The Leaders Who Unleashed China’s Mass Detention of Muslims http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-leaders-who-unleashed-chinas-mass-detention-of-muslims/

Nature

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Men congregating outside a mosque after evening prayer in the old city in Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China. Nearly half of the province’s 24 million people are ethnic Uighurs.CreditCreditAdam Dean for The New York Times

BEIJING — Rukiya Maimaiti, a local propaganda official in China’s far west, warned her colleagues to steel themselves for a wrenching task: detaining large numbers of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.

The Chinese government wanted to purge the Xinjiang region of “extremist” ideas, she told her co-workers, and secular Uighurs like themselves had to support the campaign for the good of their people.

“Fully understand that this task is in order to save your relatives and your families,” wrote Ms. Maimaiti, a Communist Party functionary who works on the western edge of Xinjiang, in a message that was preserved online. “This is a special kind of education for a special time.”

Her warning is one piece of a trail of evidence, often found on obscure government websites, that unmasks the origin of China’s most sweeping internment drive since the Mao era — and establishes how President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders played a decisive role in its rapid expansion.

In a campaign that has drawn condemnation around the world, hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have been held in “transformation” camps across Xinjiang for weeks, months or years at a time, according to former inmates and their relatives.

Beijing says the facilities provide job training and legal education for Uighurs and has denied carrying out mass detentions.

But speeches, reports and other documents online offer a clearer account than previously reported of how China’s top leaders set in motion and escalated the indoctrination campaign, which aims to eradicate all but the mildest expressions of Islamic faith and any yearning for an independent Uighur homeland.

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Chen Quanguo, right, served as the party chief in Tibet before coming to Xinjiang. In Tibet, he won official praise for ramping up policing and quelling protests.CreditEtienne Oliveau/Getty Images

Mr. Xi has not publicly endorsed or commented on the camps, but he ordered a major shift in policy soon after visiting Xinjiang in 2014 to weaken Uighurs’ separate identity and assimilate them into a society dominated by the Han majority, according to the documents.

Later, amid official reports warning the results were insufficient, Mr. Xi reassigned Chen Quanguo, 62, the hard-line party chief in neighboring Tibet, to act as the chief enforcer of the crackdown in Xinjiang. Mr. Chen was also promoted to the 25-member Politburo, the party leadership council that governs China.

“What is happening in Xinjiang is the leading edge of a new, more coercive ethnic policy under Xi Jinping’s ‘new era’ of Chinese power,” said James Leibold, an expert on Xinjiang at La Trobe University in Australia who has monitored the campaign.

The Trump administration is weighing sanctions against Chinese officials and companies involved in the indoctrination camps, a move that would extend the friction between Washington and Beijing over trade and military disputes to human rights. A bipartisan commission has singled out Mr. Chen and six other officials as potential targets.

Last week, apparently stung by the international criticism, the Xinjiang government issued revised rules on “deradicalization” that for the first time clearly authorized the indoctrination camps.

Worried about Muslim extremism and ethnic nationalism, Beijing has long maintained tight control of Xinjiang, where nearly half the population of 24 million are Uighurs. In the decade up to 2014, the security forces struggled with a series of violent antigovernment attacks for which they blamed Uighur separatists.

Mr. Xi made his first and only visit as national leader to Xinjiang in April 2014. Hours after his four-day visit ended, assailants used bombs and knives to kill three people and wound nearly 80 others near a train station in Urumqi, the regional capital. The attack was seen as a rebuff to Mr. Xi, who had just left the city and vowed to wield an “iron fist” against Uighurs who oppose Chinese rule.

“That seems to have been taken by Xi Jinping as an affront,” said Michael Clarke, a scholar at the Australian National University who studies Xinjiang.

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An indoctrination camp in Hotan, China. The indoctrination campaign aims to eradicate all but the mildest expressions of Islamic faith and any yearning for an independent Uighur homeland.

A month later, Mr. Xi called for a vigorous push to make Uighurs loyal members of the Chinese nation through Chinese-language instruction, economic incentives and state-organized ethnic intermingling. The leadership also approved a directive on establishing tighter control of Xinjiang that has not been made public.

“Strengthen public identification of every ethnic group with the great motherland, with Chinese nationhood and with Chinese culture,” Mr. Xi said at a meeting on Xinjiang at the time. “There must be more ethnic contact, exchange and blending.”

In the year after Mr. Xi’s visit to Xinjiang, the documents show, the party began building “transformation through education” camps to warn Muslim minorities of the evils of religious zealotry and ethnic separatism.

The camps were relatively small back then; many detainees were held for just a few days or weeks, official speeches and reports show. But there were no public guidelines for how they should operate.

By taking a harder line in Xinjiang, Mr. Xi effectively endorsed a group of Chinese scholars and officials advocating an overhaul of the party’s longstanding policies toward ethnic minorities.

For decades, the party kept Uighurs, Tibetans and other groups under tight political control while allowing some room for preserving each nationality’s language, culture and religion. The mosaic approach was copied from the Soviet Union and made Xinjiang an “autonomous region,” where, in theory, Uighurs enjoyed greater rights and representation.

But in the 1990s, Chinese academics advising the government began arguing that these policies had contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union by encouraging ethnic separatism. To avoid similar troubles, they argued, China should adopt measures aimed unapologetically at merging ethnic minorities into a broader national identity.

“So-called ‘ethnic elites’ must never be given an opportunity to become the leaders of the pack in splitting the country,” said Hu Lianhe, a researcher in this group, in a paper he co-wrote in 2010.

Image

President Xi Jinping has not publicly endorsed the camps, but he ordered a major policy shift toward Xinjiang that emphasized efforts to assimilate ethnic minorities into a greater “Chinese nation.”CreditLintao Zhang/Getty Images

Mr. Hu is now a powerful voice setting policy for Xinjiang as a senior official in the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party agency that has claimed a growing say over the region.

He has been identified as a potential target of American sanctions. In August, he categorically denied reports of abuses in Xinjiang during a United Nations hearing. “There is no ‘de-Islamization,’” he said.

By 2016, the Communist Party’s main newspaper declared that the “deradicalization” campaign was succeeding; no serious acts of antigovernment violence had been reported since Mr. Xi’s visit to Xinjiang.

But officials gave grimmer assessments in less prominent forums. Some said that young Uighurs were more alienated from China than their elders; others warned that Uighurs who had traveled to the Middle East, sometimes to fight in Syria, were bringing back extremist ideas and fighting experience.

Such warnings appeared to persuade Mr. Xi and other leaders to back tougher measures. In August 2016, they brought in Mr. Chen from Tibet to run Xinjiang. He became the first party official to have served as the leader of both territories.

In Tibet, another frontier region experiencing ethnic strife, Mr. Chen had expanded the security forces, sent party officials to live in villages and tightened control of Buddhist monasteries and temples.

Less than three weeks after his arrival in Xinjiang, he announced a “remobilization” plan to ramp up security, citing orders from Mr. Xi.

Officials in Xinjiang were told to prepare for a multiyear offensive, according to one official report.

Image

A statue of Mao Zedong in downtown Kashgar. China is now engaging in the most sweeping internment drive since Mao’s era.CreditBryan Denton for The New York Times

In March 2017, the regional government issued “deradicalization” rules that gave a vague green light to expanding the internment camps, but the national parliament never enacted a law authorizing the detentions as would be required by the Chinese constitution. . Local officials soon began reporting growing numbers of Uighurs arrested or detained for indoctrination.

“Since the strike-hard began in 2017, there have been many detainees, including many ultimately convicted,” an official assigned to Hotan, an area in southern Xinjiang, wrote last year. “The numbers sent to transformation-through-education centers are also quite high.”

As the camps and surveillance efforts expanded, Beijing directed new funds to Xinjiang, where spending on security nearly doubled in 2017 from the year before, to $8.4 billion, according to data released early this year.

“The central level ultimately pays for all of it, so some kind of consent was certainly given,” said Adrian Zenz, a scholar at the European School of Culture and Theology in Germany who has studied the camps.

The scale of detentions across Xinjiang may have gone further than initially expected. “They were having to use train stations and other random places to hold people because they weren’t expecting to have so many,” said Jessica Batke, a former State Department analyst.

A broad definition of “religious extremism” — which included behavior as simple as trying to persuade people to quit alcohol and smoking, as well as more serious transgressions — gave the authorities wide leeway to punish even mildly pious Muslims.

Local officials like Ms. Maimaiti had little incentive to hold back; those found dragging their feet in the crackdown have been named and punished.

The public has been told to prepare for a long offensive, which one local official last week called a “campaign of intellectual emancipation.” The Xinjiang government decreed late last year that the security drive would last five years before achieving “total stability.”

A version of this article appears in print on

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with the headline:

Xi Began Drive To All but Erase Islam in China

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Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/world/asia/china-muslim-detainment-xinjang-camps.html |

Nature The Leaders Who Unleashed China’s Mass Detention of Muslims, in 2018-10-14 04:43:04

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lindoig1 · 6 years ago

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Adventures on the train - Day 7

Feeling old right now, but it has little to do with it being my birthday. We went for a very long walk after the usual big breakfast. It was about 9 kilometres and we made it there and back without getting run over by the traffic. We walked up to the University and through some somewhat strange gardens. They were called the Xingqinggong Gardens, but I hesitate to pronounce that. Not sure how to describe the area. Certainly, there were manicured lawns and beautiful colourful gardens, but there was also a lot of other things that meant it was by no means a tranquil setting. Music was blaring from numerous boom boxes, encompassing a range of ethnicities, and people were dancing, anything and everything from ballet to Bollywood, waltzing, linedancing and tai chi, much of it highly improvised. Then there was a large lake with literally hundreds of pedal boats for hire, mainly in multiple shapes of ducks - and don’t forget the ghost house - we could hear the screams. There were numerous other pavilions where you had to pay to enter, but I couldn’t figure out what was inside - I don’t read Chinese and the pictures outside were not helpful. All had loud PA systems touting for business and competing by decibels to outdo the next attraction 50 metres away. There was also a smelly zoo of sorts, presumably including an aviary from the pics, but we eschewed that on the grounds that it would probably be rather depressing.

We returned to our room via a different route and were quite buggered by the time we got back. The road back was all along larger roads, including under the East Gate where we had walked on the City Wall yesterday, but on the way to the gardens, we had walked quite a way through parkland at the edge of the moat. The older Chinese (at least) seem to spend a lot of time outdoors and we saw them playing checkers and other games we didn’t recognise. There was one area full of birdsong and I thought it might let me see some more birds, but alas, it was just a caged bird market. Nearly all the birds were some variety of small myna, but there were also a few pardalotes and silvereyes too. We did see one new species in the gardens though: some Chinese grosbeaks.

We had to check out of our room by 2pm and we did so with minutes to spare. We wandered down the street for a ‘light lunch’ that still defeated us, and we are now ensconced in the lobby for a few hours until our pickup arrives at 7pm to take us to the train. We are just too footsore to do anymore walking today! Reading and resting are much more enticing right now.

And now we are on the train to Urumqi, pronounced Urumchi, Ulurumchi, Ururumchi and presumably more variations on a theme so we are sticking with the former until we have proof to the contrary. It was a fraught experience to start with. Our driver was a little early, but obviously wanted to knock if early. He dropped us in a side street and pointed back the way we had come and shooed us out of the car. He helped unload our bags from the back of the car and was off like a shot, before we even got organised - and within a minute, I realised that our hiking sticks that have been so invaluable to us already were still in the car. I sprinted after him, but couldn’t catch him. Next problem was to find the station. With some help from a couple of locals and a friendly policeman, we eventually trudged the 500 metres or so to the station dragging our bags past the place we should have been dropped 10 metres from the station gate - and found our way through the procedure fairly quickly. Maybe 60 or 70 stairs to go up and down to get to the platform, along with a thousand or two Chinese people all pushing us along so they could board first. We had two VERY helpful middle-aged men who helped carry our bags. They are very heavy and the help these guys gave us saved the day for us!!! We found our carriage and were just starting to catch our breath when 3 police arrived. We had 4 tickets and in China, the law says you can only have one each. Worse, only two had our names on them and poor Marg and Roy Henderson are presumably on a different train somewhere trying to explain to the police why their tickets are in the names of a Wheat and Doig! It was a little disconcerting for an hour, but the police enlisted the help of a young English-speaking engineer who helped enormously to explain what had happened. He rang the emergency contact our tour company had given us and between us all, the police finally returned our passports and tickets and we locked ourselves securely into our cabin and breathed a huge sigh of relief. This is likely to be a problem again if other police question our sole use of the cabin, so we are just a little nervous about how things will pan out. (At least, by the time anyone reads this, if anyone does, we will either be safely in Kazakhstan or you will have read about our incarceration in the Press.) Once the door was locked, my birthday celebration commenced in earnest, with a half bottle of Chilean red, a couple of biscuits and cheddar, a loquat and some of the fruit left over from last night’s hotel-provided feast.

Sleep at last – very uncomfortable, but safely on our way.

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computacionalblog · 6 years ago

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Nature The Leaders Who Unleashed China’s Mass Detention of Muslims

Nature

Image

Beijing says the facilities provide job training and legal education for Uighurs and has denied carrying out mass detentions.

Image

Chen Quanguo, right, served as the party chief in Tibet before coming to Xinjiang. In Tibet, he won official praise for ramping up policing and quelling protests.CreditEtienne Oliveau/Getty Images

Last week, apparently stung by the international criticism, the Xinjiang government issued revised rules on “deradicalization” that for the first time clearly authorized the indoctrination camps.

“That seems to have been taken by Xi Jinping as an affront,” said Michael Clarke, a scholar at the Australian National University who studies Xinjiang.

Image

An indoctrination camp in Hotan, China. The indoctrination campaign aims to eradicate all but the mildest expressions of Islamic faith and any yearning for an independent Uighur homeland.

The camps were relatively small back then; many detainees were held for just a few days or weeks, official speeches and reports show. But there were no public guidelines for how they should operate.

By taking a harder line in Xinjiang, Mr. Xi effectively endorsed a group of Chinese scholars and officials advocating an overhaul of the party’s longstanding policies toward ethnic minorities.

Image

Mr. Hu is now a powerful voice setting policy for Xinjiang as a senior official in the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party agency that has claimed a growing say over the region.

Less than three weeks after his arrival in Xinjiang, he announced a “remobilization” plan to ramp up security, citing orders from Mr. Xi.

Officials in Xinjiang were told to prepare for a multiyear offensive, according to one official report.

Image

A statue of Mao Zedong in downtown Kashgar. China is now engaging in the most sweeping internment drive since Mao’s era.CreditBryan Denton for The New York Times

Local officials like Ms. Maimaiti had little incentive to hold back; those found dragging their feet in the crackdown have been named and punished.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

of the New York edition

with the headline:

Xi Began Drive To All but Erase Islam in China

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/world/asia/china-muslim-detainment-xinjang-camps.html |

Nature The Leaders Who Unleashed China’s Mass Detention of Muslims, in 2018-10-14 04:43:04

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes