New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) On November 27, the Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies and Engagement (CHASE) and Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) jointly organised a webinar titled “Fate of China’s colonies under new Xi Jinping”.
The webinar was attended by four prominent experts Dolkun Isa President of World Uighur Congress (WUC) Germany; Marco Respinti, a well known Italian journalist and Director-in-Charge of ‘Bitter Winter’ which is a daily newspaper focused at religious suppression and denial of human rights in China and is published in eight languages; Lhadon Tethong, a prominent Tibetan activist and Director of Tibet Action Centre; Tashi Dhundup, President National Democratic Party of Tibet (NDPT).
It was moderated by Vijay Kranti, a prominent journalist and Chairman of CHASE.
The focus of discussion was China’s forcibly occupied colonies namely Tibet, East Turkistan (Xinjiang) and Southern Mongolia.
China’s latest colony Hong Kong too was referred to by some speakers who regretted the brutal crushing of its democratic character.
All the speakers expressed deep fears of further escalation of the ongoing process of what they termed as ‘cultural genocide’, a process which was initiated and forcibly implemented by Chinese President Xi Jinping during the past 10 years of his rule.
Speakers were of the opinion that with Xi getting a license to rule China for as long as he decides and with as much unchallenged brutality at his command, there are serious fears that new generations of these colonies are going to undergo intensive brainwashing with the aim of producing new citizens of China who would look like Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongols but their souls and minds would be of perfect communist Han cadres.
However, the experts see some ray of hope in the ongoing resistance among the Chinese citizens against the draconian immobilization of the citizens under Xi’s ‘Zero-Covid’ policy which has started exploding into mass protests against the Chinese communist government across China.
All experts were of unanimous opinion that now is the high and most opportune time when people of China’s colonies should join hands and make a common cause against the Chinese colonialism.
They also agreed to join hands with like-minded people and organisations across the world to put pressure on governments to stop treating China exclusively on considerations of economic benefit and start taking serious note of China’s aggressive policy of replacing the established world order with the one focused at only China’s economic and military interests.
“The bloody cult of personality that characterizes the old Maoist regime as a lucid ideological folly seems to rejuvenate Xi Jinping’s aim of sinicization of as much of the world as he can through his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And unfortunately we don’t see any resistance to it at international levels. No one is showing or has the will to stop this process. It is sad that the democratic world has chosen to leave aside his policy of violence, persecution and battered human rights and is only aimed at making some economic benefits from China,” said Marco Respinti.
Dolkun Isa regretted the world indifference, especially of the Muslim countries, towards ruthless crushing of human rights of the Uyghur people.
“More than 8,000 mosques in my country have been demolished by the Chinese communist regime. More than three million Uyghurs are languishing and being subjected to worst torture in the newly established concentration camps across my country by the Xi regime. And more than a million children have been snatched away by the Chinese Communist Party to be brainwashed behind the wall of residential communist schools. But still the world community is looking helplessly,” he said.
Calling upon the world community to stop enriching the Chinese regime by buying cheap solar cells and cotton products, he said that all of these products are grown and produced in ‘Xinjiang’ through forced labour by the CCP.
Lhadon Tethong analysed the commonality in the colonization, exploitation and denial of human rights in Tibet, Xinjiang and S. Mongolia by the Chinese regime over past many decades.
Things have gone from bad to worse during past 10 years rule of Xi. And now with new boundless powers in the hands of Xi, he is bound to run amuck in all colonies of China due to absence of any accountability, either to the people of his own country or to the world community.
Speaking about a complete and ruthless lockdown on any flow of information from her country Tibet, Lhadon said: “During past few decades, Tibet attracted wide world attention because some information could travel out through the international media and foreign visitors. But due to strict digital surveillance and locking out of Tibet, the world just does not know what is happening inside today’s Tibet. Unfortunately the world media has come as no relief to the deafening silence which prevails in Tibet today.”
Observing that after Xi’s victory at the just concluded Chinese Congress the world governments and world leaders have once again started embracing him because of economic greed, she regretted that Tibet and Hong Kong have again fallen of the world’s radar.
“But the way Xi Jinping and the CCP have started a new phase of repression in Tibet, Xinjiang, S. Mongolia and Hong Kong in recent past, it is a clear admission by both of them that the resistance against Chinese colonialism and determination to win back their independence have refused to die.”
Tashi Dhundup said that we can understand what will be the fate of China’s colonies under a more powerful Xi Jinping, only if we understand what his policies have been towards these colonies of Chine in past ten years since he came to the helm in China.
“Although the process of suppression, destruction and crushing of human rights has been in process since China occupied these countries. In history the world used to talk of Tibet as the ‘Shangri-la’. But it was mainly during the past decade of Xi’s rule that Tibet has gained the dubious distinction of being the ‘Hell on Earth’,” he said.
He counted the campaigns of destruction of spiritual centre like Lharung Gar; demolition of Budhha and Maitreya’s massive statues; ban on Tibetan language and forced imposition of Chinese language in Tibetan education; forcible taking away of a million Tibetan children to communist residential schools; forced marriages of Tibetan women to Han settlers; and mass DNA profiling of Tibetan people simply show that Xi’s dream about Tibet is complete genocide of Tibetan culture and identity.
“But it is unfortunate that even when world governments are aware of these Chinese atrocities in China’s colonies, the world leaders and world institutions are keeping quiet for their economic greed,” said Tashi.
–IANS
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