SinoNet: Veranstaltung: Helmut Opletal - Frank Sieren: Zukunft? China!

[Martin Winter]

Im Zusammenhang mit dem Hype von Frank Sieren etc. möchte ich auch das 
folgende Statement weiterleiten.

Danke für Eure Aufmerksamkeit,

Martin

Fwd by Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42 at cornell.edu <mailto:nf42 at cornell.edu>>

Source: https://concernedscholars.home.blog/

*Statement by Concerned Scholars on China’s Mass Detention of Turkic 
Minorities*

Scholars from around the world have signed on to a statement forcefully 
condemning the mass internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim 
minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China.

TEXT OF STATEMENT

Statement by Concerned Scholars on China’s Mass Detention of Turkic 
Minorities
November 26, 2018

As concerned scholars who study China, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous 
Region (XUAR), Central Asia, and other related regions of the world, we 
issue this statement to highlight our concerns and to call the 
international community to action in relation to the mass human rights 
abuses and deliberate attacks on indigenous cultures presently taking 
place in China’s XUAR.  The signatories to this statement are united in 
viewing the present situation in this region of China as one of 
significant international concern. This situation must be addressed to 
prevent setting negative future precedents regarding the acceptability 
of any state’s complete repression of a segment of its population, 
especially on the basis of ethnicity or religion.

Background

The Chinese state is engaged in the mass detention of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, 
Kyrgyz and other Muslim minorities in their homelands in the Central 
Asian borderlands of Northwest China.Researchers estimate that around 
one million people have been detained without trial. In the camps, these 
detainees, most of whom are Uyghur, are subjected to deeply invasive 
forms of surveillance and psychological stress as they are forced to 
abandon their native language, religious beliefs and cultural practices. 
Outside of the camps, more than 10 million Turkic Muslim minorities in 
the region are subjected to a dense network of surveillance systems, 
checkpoints, and interpersonal monitoring which severely limit all forms 
of personal freedom.

What is Happening in the Camps?

Until October 2018 the Chinese authorities officially denied the 
existence of the camps. They have since declared that the camps are 
“vocational training” schools which Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim 
minorities attend voluntarily. In programing featured on state 
television on October 16, Uyghur detainees were shown learning Chinese, 
receiving training in industrial production, and discussing their regret 
concerning past religious and ethno-national beliefs while proclaiming a 
new-found love for the Chinese political system. Yet in many of the 
shots at the camp, it is clear that the detainees are being monitored by 
numerous cameras.

Reports from eyewitnesses have noted malnourishment and severe 
psychological distress among the detainees, and some report detainees 
being forcibly given psychiatric drugs. In some cases, shoelaces and 
belts are confiscated, due to the prevalence of self-harm and suicide. 
Those who do not fully participate in political reeducation are often 
subjected to beatings, solitary confinement, and forms of religious and 
psychological violation. There have been numerous reports of deaths in 
the centers, particularly among the elderly and infirm, but also of 
younger people who were in good health when they were taken. While there 
are frequent reports of more people entering the camps, there are very 
few reports of those being released.

Why is this happening now?

China’s present signature foreign policy initiative is the “Belt and 
Road Initiative” (BRI) that seeks to connect the PRC economically to the 
rest of the Eurasian continent through large infrastructure projects 
that will stimulate international trade.  The western and south-western 
components of the BRI require the XUAR to serve as a transportation and 
commercial hub to trade routes and pipelines that will join China with 
Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and the entirety of Europe.  As 
a result, the XUAR has become a very important strategic region for 
China, and the state views its indigenous populations as an obstacle to 
developing its vision for this future critical center of international 
commercial networks.

What are the implications of the mass detention system in the XUAR for 
the rest of China?

China’s approach in the XUAR is consistent with the CCP’s broader 
implementation of the concept of “social management” as a means of 
preserving its hold on power.  For the Party, the goal of “social 
management” and the “social credit” system is to ensure that the 
population internalizes the Communist Party’s ideology and supports the 
Party’s hold on power. In the XUAR, this requires that key markers of 
Turkic Muslim identity such as religious observance and language be 
forcibly “cured” or “eradicated” through mass incarceration and 
“re-education.” There are concerns that such extreme measures could be 
replicated to address other segments of the Chinese population who are 
perceived as  threatening the Party’s monolithic vision of the PRC.

What are the implications for the rest of the world?

China has defended its mass incarceration of Turkic Muslims on the basis 
of counter-terrorism.  However, it is also apparent that China is both 
seeking to embed its Xinjiang-focused policies in counter-terrorism 
cooperation with international partners and to export the methods and 
technologies that have underpinned its “surveillance state” in 
Xinjiang.  If what is happening today in the XUAR is not addressed by 
the international community, there is a likelihood that we could see its 
replication in other authoritarian states who have used the label of 
“terrorist” to describe those who peacefully resist state hegemony.

Policy Suggestions

There is now significant discussion among US and European leaders 
regarding economic sanctions directed at key Chinese leaders and 
security companies. There is also discussion of new forms of assistance 
to Uyghur and Kazakh asylum seekers outside of China and the 
establishment of a Congressional Act in the US that would earmark 
resources to protect the human rights of Uyghurs inside China. The 
signatories support these initiatives and call for the following 
additional measures to be taken by the international community:

1)  We call on states and institutions to issue formal statements 
demanding that Xi Jinping and Chen Quanguo immediately abolish the 
“transformation through education” detention system and release all 
Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other detainees.

2) We call on states and institutions to demand and impose economic 
sanctions on Chinese authorities and technology companies in- and 
outside of China, which are benefiting from this process. Such sanctions 
should go beyond lower-level officials and target Chen Quanguo, under 
whose leadership in the region this system of mass incarceration has 
been instituted. Likewise, they should include high-profile technology 
companies, whose concessions to the Chinese government on internet 
surveillance have implicated them in the repression presently taking 
place in the XUAR.

3)  We call on states and institutions to introduce legislation joining 
Germany and Sweden in granting expedited asylum to Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and 
other Turkic Muslim minorities from China and a blanket refusal to 
deport Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims to China.

4) We call on Beijing to cease its extra-territorial campaign of 
harassment against members of the Uyghur diaspora community around the 
globe and urge relevant states and institutions where those communities 
reside to make the protection of Uyghurs a matter of priority in their 
diplomatic relations with Beijing.

5) We call on the thirteen UN member states that expressed grave concern 
about the existence of this system of mass incarceration at the recent 
UN Universal Periodic Review of China’s human rights record to spearhead 
a movement for UN action aimed at investigating this mass internment 
system and closing the camps.  Additionally, we call on those states 
that have yet remained silent on this issue, including Muslim-majority 
states and those in Central Asia whose own citizens or citizens’ 
relatives have been interned, to join in this action.

6) We call upon countries presently engaged in negotiations regarding 
projects that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative, particularly 
those that are linking to the XUAR as a hub for trade and commerce, to 
make their involvement in these projects contingent on the closing of 
the mass internment camps and the ceasing of other means of mass 
repression to which the Turkic minorities in this region are currently 
subjected.

7) We call upon academic institutions around the world with formal 
partnerships with state-run Chinese academic institutions to express 
their concern about the present situation in the XUAR with their 
colleagues and to consider suspending their partnerships until the camps 
have been closed and all detainees are released.

PDF of STATEMENT HERE:
https://concernedscholarshome.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/statement-by-concerned-scholars-on-the-mass-detention-of-turkic-minorities.pdf

Signatories (105) = listed at: https://concernedscholars.home.blog/

On 28/11/2018 11:10 a.m., Sinologie wrote:
>
>
>   Zu Ihrer Information:
>
>
>   Frank Sieren: Zukunft? China! Wie die neue Supermacht unser Leben,
>   unsere Politik, unsere Wirtschaft verändert (Penguin)
>
> /Nov/28*28.11.2018, 19:00**- **21:00*
> Hauptbücherei am Gürtel, 1070 Urban-Loritz-Platz 2a
> /Reihe: Pro und Contra – aktuelle Sachbücher im Gespräch/
>
> *Helmut Opletal im Gespräch mit Frank Sieren*
>
> China ist keine ferne Bedrohung mehr, China ist da! Politisch und 
> wirtschaftlich. Das Reich der Mitte ist ehrgeizig, schnell und gut 
> organisiert, es ist innovativ wie das Silicon Valley und bestimmt 
> zunehmend die internationalen Spielregeln. China setzt auf Wachstum 
> und digitale Technologien und hält sich nicht mit dem westlichen 
> Demokratiemodell auf. Auf allen Kontinenten investiert es in 
> Bodenschätze, Schlüsselindustrien und Infrastruktur – auch bei uns. 
> Das 1000-Milliarden-Dollar-Projekt der Neuen Seidenstraße reicht bis 
> Duisburg. An den Aktienmärkten gehören /Alibaba/ und /Tencent/ 
> inzwischen zu den weltweit größten Unternehmen. Aus erster Hand zeigt 
> der China-Experte Frank Sieren, wo China uns direkt herausfordert und 
> was die neue Weltmacht für uns bedeutet: sowohl Chance als auch Gefahr.
>
> *Frank Sieren* ist einer der führenden China-Experten Deutschlands. 
> Der Journalist, Buchautor und Dokumentarfilmer lebt seit 1994 in 
> Peking – länger als jeder andere westliche Wirtschaftsjournalist. Er 
> hat den Aufstieg der neuen Weltmacht hautnah miterlebt. Lange schrieb 
> Sieren für die /Wirtschaftswoche /und die /Zeit; /heute ist er der 
> China-Experte des /Handelsblatts./ Sieren hat bereits mehrere 
> China-Bestseller veröffentlicht.
>
> *Helmut Opletal, *ehem. ORF-Redakteur, studierte Publizistik, 
> Politikwissenschaft und Chinesisch in Wien und Peking. 1980-85 
> China-Korrespondent des ORF und mehrerer Zeitungen. Ab 2010 freier 
> Publizist und Lehrender für Sinologie an der Uni Wien. Für das 
> Weltmuseum und das Völkerkundemuseum Zürich kuratierte er eine 
> Ausstellung über die »Kultur der Kulturrevolution«. Zuletzt forschte 
> er zur chinesischen Demokratiebewegung.
>
> Büchertisch: Buchhandlung Orlando | www.orlandobuch.at 
> <http://www.orlandobuch.at/>
>
> Frank Sieren © privat
>
> Viele Grüße
>
> Katinka Kraxner
>
> /Mag. Katinka Kraxner/
>
> Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften/Sinologie
>
> Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2, Eingang 2.3
>
> 1090 Wien
>
> Österreich
>
> T: +43-1-4277-43840
>
> sinologie.ostasien at univie.ac.at <mailto:sinologie.ostasien at univie.ac.at>
>
> http://sinologie.univie.ac.at/
>
>
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