China Outmanoeuvres the Muslim World, With Its Embrace of The Amman Message
By Ilan Berman
July 15,
2020
Why have
Muslim nations stayed silent about Chinese conduct in Xinjiang? Ever since
China launched a broad campaign of repression against its Uyghur Muslim
minority in the country’s western region of Xinjiang some four years ago, that
question has been on the minds of policymakers and analysts alike.
Credit: Flickr/ Jamie Davies
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To the
extent that it has been possible to find one, the answer seems to have a great deal
to do with money. Over the past several years, as part of the signature foreign
policy initiative known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing has made
massive investments throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Asia in everything
from infrastructure to telecommunications. In the process, it has succeeded in
buying the silence of Muslim states regarding how it treats their
co-religionists.
Examples of
this passivity abound. Take Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
prior condemnation of China’s domestic conduct petered out after China’s
Central Bank offered a $1 billion bailout to stabilize the country’s ailing
economy last summer. Or Saudi Arabia, where a slew of recent deals made China a
key partner in the country’s “Vision 2030” development plan, turning the House
of Saud into an apologist for Beijing in the process. And in Pakistan, the
government of Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly refused to officially
criticize China’s treatment of the Uyghurs because of past assistance from
Beijing. All this compliance was showcased in a July 2019 letter to the United
Nations in which no fewer than 37 nations (more than a third of them majority
Muslim) officially threw their support behind China’s Xinjiang policy.
Even so,
fresh revelations regarding the scope of China’s repression in recent weeks
have put renewed pressure on Beijing, and challenged the current status quo. In
response, Chinese officials have deftly moved to co-opt the Muslim political
narrative surrounding their government’s domestic atrocities.
On July 6,
at the latest ministerial of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, China
made a major effort to ingratiate itself with the major players of the Muslim
world. As part of the summit, carried out this year via teleconference, it
officially pledged to adopt the Amman Declaration, the 2006 statement (also
known as the “Amman Message”) that serves as one of the earliest multilateral
efforts to build an intellectual response to Islamic extremism. As part of the
virtual summit, China’s official Xinhua news agency reports, the two sides
agreed to “denounce terrorist activities in all forms, actively combat
extremist ideology, acts of terrorism and incitement to terrorism, eradicate
the root causes of terrorism, and cut off its sources of funding.”
That
wording is significant, because it frames China’s domestic campaign of
repression against the Uyghurs as strictly a counterterrorism issue, and
presents Beijing as an ally of moderate Muslims against a mutual foe.
That, of
course, is precisely the consensus that China has been cultivating, and for
good reason. The success of the BRI depends heavily on Beijing bringing
Xinjiang fully under its control, because the region’s strategic location makes
it a crucial connector with Eurasian, European, and Middle Eastern markets. But
China’s government views organized religion with deep suspicion, and sees
Xinjiang’s Uyghurs as particularly prone to radicalization and extremism – and
thus a threat to their geopolitical ambitions.
As a
result, China’s Muslim minority has been subjected to a widening campaign of
repression of truly terrifying proportions. Since its launch in 2016, that
effort has imposed sweeping curbs on everything from Muslim attire to diet, and
interned more than a million souls in “re-education” camps designed to remove
religious identity and instil proper communist thought. With revelations about
forcible sterilization policies and an official intent to break up Uyghur
families now garnering serious attention, more than a few observers have begun
to equate what Chinese authorities are doing in Xinjiang to the universally
prohibited crime of genocide.
But Muslim
states likely won’t be among those speaking out. With its embrace of the Amman
Message, Beijing has succeeded in finishing what its economic investments
began: co-opting the hearts and minds of Muslim governments, both in the Middle
East and beyond. Quite simply, China has managed to outmanoeuvre the Muslim
world, and hijacked the narrative of the fight against Islamic extremism to
whitewash its own horrendous practices at home.
Original
Headline: China Outmanoeuvres the Muslim World
Source: The Diplomat
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/china-outmanoeuvres-muslim-world,-with/d/122399
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