ASIAOPINION

The essential data to analyze the Uyghur issue

By Giancarlo Elia Valori 

As is well known to all serious scholars and experts of the Uyghur and Xinjiang issue, the tensions with the Chinese State began long before the Communist Revolution and increased and changed after the quick and often destructive transformations of the Chinese para-Soviet system.

In fact Mao turned the Russian-styled economic and political centralism into a strictly Han-Chinese traditional nationalism – having also an ethnic nature – not in line with the Soviet “proletarian internationalism” that China had no intention of following.

Mao and his successors did not want to tire out the weak Chinese economy of the time, in the mad belief – only to the Soviet benefit – they could manage a “Cold War” with the West. Furthermore China started to use Xinjiang as the centre for nuclear tests and the exploitation of local raw materials. Moreover, after Tiananmen Square events, strong political and ethnical-autonomistic centripetal tensions began throughout China.

Hence, for China, the Uyghur issue became a theme to be tackled between the whole Chinese world and the new post-Soviet and Asian countries arising after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which also had its own sound Uyghur- Turkmen minority.

In that case the many post-Communist Asian republics, still having a centralized economy, accepted China’s aid, including a geopolitical chip, namely a specific treatment compared to the Asian Turkmen populations. If the Uyghur movement leaders understood this range of strategic issues, not as simple police reports, much progress could be made by both opposing parties.

Later the extraordinary growth of the Chinese economy after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms further increased the sense of alienation of the non-Han peripheral areas’ populations. They grew ever poorer and felt to be left abandoned and at the sidelines of the mass enrichment process generated by China. Nevertheless currently both the West and China have realized that the increase of widespread wealth created ethno-religious and economic centripetal tensions.

This is certainly a mortal danger for the whole Chinese political system, which either stands together or collapses miserably. Do the Uyghurs want this? I do not believe so. I think they want a better life, like everyone else, if they reassure China that there are no global entities or interests manoeuvring them – as it currently happens. Hence this reveals the geopolitical interest of many countries in increasing tensions between the periphery and the centre of Chinese power.

If Communist China became an easily controllable regional power, without large reserves of raw materials, and without the military assertiveness and monetary autonomy it has today, the United States, at first, and also the tired EU would be very happy. They would have a great country to manage according to their interests, by acquiring raw materials and manufactured goods at the lowest price and making them be paid with fully asymmetrical monetary relations and dealings.

However, at that juncture, who can stabilize the Middle East and who has the capital to penetrate into Africa? The poor Europe or the new China? Or would it be another failure of the United States, sensitive to the issue of “human rights”, but unable to interpret and understand the world’s great changes and always unable to “finish the job”? This is why there is no reason for China to put pressure on me and on my ideas. In spite of Dolkun Isa’s malicious and artful statements, these ideas are typical of a standard analysis of the local strategic context.

This is the reason why the Uyghur issue should be studied with no ethnic and political blinkers, but considering its great strategic relevance, as the first China’s part which would like to go away from the Centre, by possibly integrating itself with the pan-Turkish area or with the Saudi or Emirates’ Islam. Indeed, on the one hand, the Emirates seem to financially help the poor Westerners and, on the other, to fund and manage the global jihad, ranging from ISIS to the underground networks in Europe and North Africa.

Again in this case, there are now evident and well-known signs of the involvement of part of the Uyghur movement in this global jihad process. Human rights are very important, but should be interpreted in the right context and not used as a decoy. This can be good only for the very naïve European members of Parliament, for whom not even the classic misinformation is needed.

Those who think that I am spreading misinformation about the Uyghur issue forget that, due to my specific knowledge of Chinese issues, I am well aware of the complexity and multiple geostrategic, ethnic, economic and political meanings of the Xinjiang issue.

Moreover, Dolkun Isa’s words can make us infer that   China and others are misinforming about the Uyghur issue, but not the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). It is the classic statement of those who are about to spread their own misinformation. Furthermore, nobody from WUC has so far denied the link existing between the Uyghur insurgency and their organization.

Certainly Germany will have accepted WUC’s presence in Munich for the well-known reasons and psychological complex about its past. Germany, however, has never relinquished its pro-Islamic policy in the East, ranging from the Fertile Crescent to the Far East. Hence strategic concepts are not made only for mere statistics on “repression”, which do not provide specific data on what and who has been “repressed.” Obviously the Chinese hand is hard, but for reasons which are mostly understandable at political and strategic levels.

And this has very little to do with the myth of “human rights”, which are often coveted everywhere but by only paying lip service to them. Indeed, to be honest, as an old expert of psywar, much of the news spread by WUC seems to be really manipulated and magnified. Obviously Germany has accepted WUC’s presence both to counter the current policies of other countries, especially the United States, and to curb the still-existing British post-war dominance in those regions.

I am referring to the Greater Middle East, which is the starting point of the line connecting the Uyghur movement to those that supports it in Turkey, for Panturanic aims and designs, and to create an Islamist buffer area to be radicalized against China, where needed, as is the case with Saudi Arabia and its local allies. The jihad is always a threat, even when it is silent. And, anyway, it becomes the platform of various powers, not all necessarily Islamic.

As to the trips reported by Dolkun Isa, they have been reported to me by multiple sources that I checked and related one another. I have no desire to be a policeman, but I only want to understand the network that WUC and those who fund it want to create within the ethnic, religious and political networks which could support it.

Finally, I strongly suspect that WUC, and its global supporters, mainly want to ensnare the many members of Parliament who talk about human rights according to the lobbies putting pressures on them.

Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group and Khashoggi Holding’s advisor. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title of “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.

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Modern Diplomacy is an online journal perceived as the valuable tool for the assessment and understanding of world affairs through a combination of qualitative analysis, political commentary, information, interviews and specific thematic features

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