Alex Lo

My Take | Human rights campaign or political harassment of foreign businesses in Xinjiang?

If genocide is going on in China, the West should be ashamed of what it is NOT doing. But if there isn’t one, it should be even more ashamed for what it IS doing

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

99+

Workers walk by the fence of what is officially known as a ‘vocational education centre’ in Xinjiang. Photo: Reuters

Alex Lo

Published: 9:00pm, 20 Jan 2022

Two North American entrepreneurs have got into hot water over comments they made recently about the Uygurs in Xinjiang. Both were ambushed by their interviewers. These days, unless you follow the preapproved politically correct script about “genocide” in Xinjiang, you are bound to get into trouble, especially when you are a foreigner with a sizeable business in Xinjiang. But why just those in Xinjiang, and not the whole of China itself?

If the worst of crimes is being committed by a country, you would think it hardly matters in which province or region it is being committed. You must campaign against the whole country.

Unless, of course, you know you are exaggerating and blowing undeniable human rights violations, terrible as they are, out of all proportion, for political purposes. The only problem is, when you cry wolf over China’s “genocide” this time, you will have little credibility when real genocides take place in future. And you are redefining away or watering down this gravest of accusations and crimes so as to render it meaningless. You are also ignoring and covering up horrible atrocities being done by your own governments in the West.

That, actually, was the point made by American-Canadian billionaire investor and co-owner of the National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors, Chamath Palihapitiya. He has been castigated in the English-language media for saying: “Let’s be honest, nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uygurs, OK?”

He is, no doubt, wrong, even factually. Given the orchestrated and sustained Western campaign, a lot of people who might not have otherwise, have ended up caring. Whether they are helping is another issue. But he was not wrong when he then tried to clarify and explain himself, in a podcast with US internet investor and interviewer Jason Calacanis.

Western countries had their own track records of human rights abuses, Palihapitiya said, including wars of aggression and torture at domestic prisons. Concerns about foreign atrocities, such as the furore over China and the Uygurs, he added, had at times even served as a cover for military interventions that caused immense sufferings. Virtually all English-language news media skipped this part of the interview.