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Fabian Robertson analyses the muted global response to China’s internment of Uyghurs in comparison to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The global response to George Floyd’s murder proved that the world is prepared to rise up against racism en masse. Black tiles, donation links and outpourings of support pervaded social media. Protestors took to the streets, celebrities posted stories, corporations changed their logos and governments promised to eradicate racial injustice. Regardless of its tangible impact, the Black Lives Matter movement achieved a seismic shift in consciousness.

Across the Pacific Ocean, racial persecution of enormous magnitude was taking place and had been for some time. Since 2014, at least 1 million Muslim Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang prisoner camps by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the pretence of re-education to combat “Islamic Terrorism”.

In his book, The War on the Uyghurs, Sean R. Roberts posits that the CCP implicated the Uyghurs in the Global War on Terror to justify ethnic cleansing and the curtailment of anti-CCP separatism. Following the 2001 attacks of September 11, the CCP made several concerted efforts to conflate disorganised instances of violence with the ‘international terrorism threat’. As a result, the UN Security Council listed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group in 2002, somewhat reifying the CCP’s systematic oppression of Uyghurs in the name of counterterrorism. The Xinjiang region has reportedly seen over 200 terror attacks perpetrated by Uyghurs. In his book, Roberts frames the terror attacks as an inevitable response to the government’s draconian measures and demonising rhetoric, forming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Reports from the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera and The Washington Post indicate that Uyghurs are being tortured, raped, starved, forced into labour, separated from their families, sterilised and politically brainwashed in Xinjiang camps. Outside of the camps, Uyghur culture is effectively outlawed - they are not able to practice their religion or dress in their traditional manner. According to The New York Times, the CCP’s network of cameras with facial recognition software tracks Uyghurs in their everyday lives. This surveillance is compounded by government agents intruding in Uyghur homes for extended monitoring of their behaviour.

Yet the public’s response to this cultural genocide and blatant abuse of human rights has been significantly muted compared to the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM). While anyone with a social media account could quickly brief you about George Floyd’s murder, many are still ignorant of the plight of the Uyghurs.

*Google searches for ‘george floyd’ and ‘black lives matter’ dwarf those for ‘uyghurs’*

So why the contrasting societal reactions to two horrific patterns of institutional racism? The short answer is simply this: money. While the success of BLM in the United States made supporting it a smart economic decision in the context of global capitalism, criticising the CCP is not. Consequently, while BLM rode a wave of newfound social awareness, discussion of the Uyghurs has been largely stifled.

Before delving into China’s economic chokehold on much of the world, there are some obvious points of difference that have contributed to greater awareness for BLM.

1. Freedom of communications: China has significant restrictions on media that prevent the spreading of information. For example, China banned BBC World News from broadcasting in February. The move was purportedly in response to UK media regulator Ofcom banning China’s English language news channel but was coincidentally just weeks after the BBC’s report on “systemic rape” in the Xinjiang camps.

2. Propaganda: Gardner Bovington in his book, The Uyghurs: strangers in their own land, argues that the CCP employs sophisticated propaganda to ensure widespread support of their treatment of the Uyghurs and their regime as a whole.

3. Cultural proximity and influence: US social issues typically have a greater bearing on the Western World, with much of its media permeating the culture of countries such as Australia.

4. Martyrdom: the video recording of George Floyd’s horrific murder was shared around the world, acting as the spark for the ensuing social movement.

5. History: the urgency of BLM was heightened by its historical context of centuries of racial inequality and slavery.

6. Representation: despite the oppression they face, African Americans as a group are more widely represented in sports, media and politics than Muslims (notwithstanding the commendable work of activist African-American Muslims such as Ihan Omar to draw attention to the treatment of Uighurs)

The main factor limiting awareness, however, is money. Near-totalitarian control over the mass-consuming behemoth that is China’s population affords the CCP ultimate economic bargaining power. In the hierarchical schoolyard that is global capitalism, China is the bully who hit puberty early. Criticising them will hurt.

In 2019, Arsenal Football Club’s Mesut Özil publicly censured the CCP’s treatment of Uyghurs. Consequently, China immediately threatened to cease the broadcasting of Arsenal games on television. Arsenal, who proudly stood against racism amidst BLM, released a statement distancing itself from Özil’s remarks: “The content published is Özil’s personal opinion. As a football club, Arsenal has always adhered to the principle of not involving itself in politics”, it read.

Meanwhile, celebrities who helped propel BLM into the global consciousness have chosen to remain silent on the CCP’s treatment of Uyghurs, presumably so as not to jeopardize their profit margins rather than from any lack of belief in the cause. Such hypocrisy is perhaps best exemplified by the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James, who is usually such a vocal activist for social and racial justice. James’ uncharacteristic reticence on the Uyghurs is likely related to his multimillion-dollar contracts with the NBA, Nike and his upcoming film, Space Jam: A New Legacy, all of which rely enormously on Chinese consumption.

In October 2019, Houston Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted support of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The tweets inadvertently forced James and the NBA to wade into debates on free speech and democracy, revealing their absolute spinelessness in the face of China’s economic strength. Indeed, when it became clear that Chinese sponsors were intent on ending their financial relationships with the league, the NBA released a statement distancing itself from Morey. James went one step further by criticising him in a press conference, calling Morey “uninformed” and saying that “social media is not always the proper way to go about things”. Much of the damage was done, however, with the NBA losing a total of $200 million from Chinese deals as a result of the fiasco.

*1: James on racial justice. 2: James on Morey supporting pro-democracy protests in China. 3: James on the CCP’s internment of Uyghurs.*

This hypocritical prioritisation of profits over social justice unsurprisingly extends to the world’s largest corporations. Nike, Adidas, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung all ran seemingly impassioned campaigns against racial discrimination at the height of BLM. Yet just last year, reports linked forced Uyghur labour factories to these 5 multinational companies, among 83 others. Although several have pledged to cut ties with these labour sources, none have denounced the CCP’s treatment of the Uyghurs.

Furthermore, nations are petrified into silence due to their reliance on trade with China. Although 22 nations condemned China’s detainment of Uyghurs to the UN Human Rights Council, 37 nations defended China’s policies. Shockingly, 17 of those are majority-Muslim, including Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar. Such pragmatism is emblematic of the widespread prioritisation of profits over human rights, even in international relations.

In February of this year, Canada’s parliament joined the United States in declaring the CCP’s treatment of Uyghurs as “genocide”. Even still, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Federal Cabinet abstained from the vote, likely due to his hesitation to compromise healthy relations with the CCP.

Meanwhile, just last week, Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne effectively rejected calls for the government to recognise the situation in Xinjiang as a “genocide” - an unsurprising revelation given the government’s longstanding apathy towards human rights. The calls for Federal recognition came from the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women's Association, who are leading the fight in Australia to demand justice in Xinjiang. Their Facebook page can be found here.

Thus, for celebrities, corporations and even countries, social justice and human rights are clearly unimportant considerations when money is at stake. The sheer economic strength wielded by China has silenced critics all around the world and stifled awareness, demonstrating the near-insurmountable power of wealth in our global capitalist society.

An edit was made on 19/3/21 to include mention of activist African-American Muslims such as Ihan Omar.

The genocide that we need to pay more attention to