Topics Covered: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora.
U.K. urges China to grant UN access to Xinjiang:
Context:
Britain’s government has pressed China to allow UN rights inspectors to visit Xinjiang after raising new allegations of “appalling” human rights abuses against the Uighur minority people.
Latest developments:
UK recently introduced import controls on firms that may have sourced goods from the region in northwest China using forced labour from the mainly Muslim Uighur community.
There have been reports of “slave labour, forced sterilisation, appalling human rights abuses in the region”.
Who are Uighurs?
- A Muslim minority community concentrated in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province.
- They claim closer ethnic ties to Turkey and other central Asian countries than to China.
Why is China targeting the Uighurs?
Xinjiang is technically an autonomous region within China — its largest region, rich in minerals, and sharing borders with eight countries, including India, Pakistan, Russia and Afghanistan.
- Over the past few decades, as economic prosperity has come to Xinjiang, it has brought with it in large numbers the majority Han Chinese, who have cornered the better jobs, and left the Uighurs feeling their livelihoods and identity were under threat.
- This led to sporadic violence, in 2009 culminating in a riot that killed 200 people, mostly Han Chinese, in the region’s capital Urumqi. And many other violent incidents have taken place since then.
- Beijing also says Uighur groups want to establish an independent state and, because of the Uighurs’ cultural ties to their neighbours, leaders fear that elements in places like Pakistan may back a separatist movement in Xinjiang.
Therefore, the Chinese policy seems to have been one of treating the entire community as suspect, and launching a systematic project to chip away at every marker of a distinct Uighur identity.
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- Who are Uighurs?
- Where is Xinjiang?
- Who are Han Chinese?
- Indian states bordering Xinjiang province.
Mains Link:
Who are Uighurs? Why are they in news? Discuss.
Sources: the Hindu.
