Xiism and China's crimes against humanity

Global silence on China’s gulag
By Brahma Chellaney

For more than two years, China has waged a campaign of unparalleled repression against its Islamic minorities, incarcerating an estimated one-sixth of the adult Muslim population of the East Turkestan colony at one point or another. 

Yet, with the exception of a recent tweet from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling on China to ‘end its repression’, the international community has remained largely mute.
In its reliance on mass detention, the Chinese Communist Party has followed the Soviet Union’s example. 

But China’s concentration camps are far larger and more technologically advanced than their Soviet precursors, and their purpose is to indoctrinate not just political dissidents, but an entire community of faith.
Although independent researchers and human-rights groups have raised awareness of practices such as force-feeding Muslims alcohol and pork, the Chinese authorities have been able to continue their assault on Islam with impunity. 

Even as China’s security agencies pursue Uyghurs and other Muslims as far afield as Turkey, Chinese leaders and companies involved in the persecution have not faced international sanctions or incurred any other costs.
Chief among the culprits, of course, is Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, who in 2014 ordered the policy change that set the stage for today’s repression of ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Hui and members of other Muslim groups. 

The forcible assimilation of Muslims into the country’s dominant Han culture is apparently a cornerstone of Xiism—or ‘Xi Jinping Thought’—the grand ‘ism’ that Xi has introduced to overshadow the influence of Marxism and Maoism in China.
To oversee this large-scale deprogramming of Islamic identities, Xi, who has amassed more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, reassigned the notorious CCP enforcer Chen Quanguo from Tibet to East Turkestan and elevated him to the all-powerful Central Politburo. 

Though Chen’s record of overseeing human-rights abuses is well known, the Trump administration has yet to act on a bipartisan commission’s 2018 recommendation that he and other Chinese officials managing the gulag policy be sanctioned. 

In general, financial and trade interests, not to mention the threat of Chinese retribution, have deterred most countries from condemning China’s anti-Muslim policies.
With the exception of Turkey, even predominantly Muslim countries that were quick to condemn Myanmar for its treatment of Rohingya Muslims have remained conspicuously silent on China. 

Pakistan’s military-backed prime minister, Imran Khan, has feigned ignorance about the East Turkestan crackdown, and Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has gone so far as to defend China’s right to police ‘terrorism’.
Emboldened by the muted international response, China has stepped up its drive to Sinicise East Turkestan by demolishing Muslim neighbourhoods. 

In Urumqi and other cities, once-bustling Uyghur districts have been replaced with heavily policed zones purged of Islamic culture.
The irony is that while China justifies its ‘re-education camps’ as necessary to cleanse Muslim minds at home of extremist thoughts, it is effectively supporting Islamist terrorism abroad. 

For example, China has repeatedly blocked UN sanctions against Masood Azhar, the head of the Pakistan-based, UN-designated terrorist group responsible for carrying out serial attacks in India, including on parliament and, most recently, on a paramilitary police convoy. 

As Pompeo tweeted, ‘The world cannot afford China’s shameful hypocrisy toward Muslims. 

On one hand, China abuses more than a million Muslims at home, but on the other it protects violent Islamic terrorist groups from sanctions at the UN.’
An added irony is that while China still harps on about its ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of foreign imperial powers, it has for decades presided over the mass humiliation of minorities in East Turkestan and Tibet. 

Ominously, by systematically degrading Muslim populations, it could be inspiring white supremacists and other Islamaphobes around the world. 

For example, Brenton Tarrant, the Australian extremist arrested for the recent twin mosque massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand, declared an affinity for China’s political and social values.

There has been a good deal of reporting about how China has turned East Turkestan into a laboratory for Xi’s Orwellian surveillance ambitions. 

Less known is how Xi’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative is being used as a catalyst for the crackdown. 

According to Chinese authorities, the establishment of a surveillance state is necessary to prevent unrest in the province at the heart of the BRI’s overland route.
Like Marxism–Leninism, Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism, which left millions of people dead, Xiism promises to impose significant long-term costs on untold numbers of innocent people. 

It is the impetus behind China’s ruthless targeting of minority cultures and communities, as well as its aggressive expansion into international waters and introduction of digital totalitarianism.
Thanks to Xiism, the world’s largest, strongest and oldest autocracy finds itself at a crossroads. 

As the People’s Republic of China approaches its 70th birthday, its economy is slowing amid escalating capital flight, trade disruptions and the emigration of wealthy Chinese. 

The Chinese technology champion Huawei’s international travails augur difficult times ahead.
The last thing China needs right now is more enemies. 

Yet Xi has used his unbridled power to expand China’s global footprint and lay bare his imperial ambitions. 

His repression of Muslim minorities may or may not lead to international action against China. 

But it will almost certainly spawn a new generation of Islamist terrorists, compounding China’s internal security challenges. 

China’s domestic security budget is already larger than its bloated defence budget, which makes it second only to the United States in terms of military spending. 

The Soviet Union once held the same position—until it collapsed.

Sina Delenda Est

China's Secret Landgrab (No, Not in the South China Sea)
By Zachary Keck

While China’s actions in the South China Sea have garnered more headlines, Beijing has quietly been pursuing another land grab in the Himalayan Mountains.
“Bite by kilometer-size bite, China is eating away at India’s Himalayan borderlands,” Brahma Chellaney, one of India’s foremost strategic thinkers, warned in a recent op-ed. 

“For decades, Asia’s two giants have fought a bulletless war for territory along their high-altitude border. Recently, though, China has become more assertive, underscoring the need for a new Indian containment strategy.”
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported in September 2014 that there was 334 Chinese transgressions across India’s border in the first half of that year. 

That came on the heels on 411 Chinese transgressions the year before, and 426 the year before that. These numbers have dropped off slightly in recent years, but the damage may already be done: former Indian intelligence officers estimate that China has stolen nearly two thousand square miles from India over the past few years.
As Chellaney notes, China’s strategy to acquire this land bears many similarities to its tactics in the South China Sea. 

First, it has civilians of different stripes—“herders, farmers, and grazers”—settle the land. 

Once the civilians are in place, the People’s Liberation Army comes in to provide protection. 

This allows them to establish a more permanent presence in the area. 

Once it establishes this foothold, according Chellaney, China begins “cutting off access to an adversary’s previously controlled territory and gradually surrounding it with multiple civilian and security layers.”
In other words, this is a classic salami-slicing strategy, in that no single action is aggressive enough to warrant a strong pushback, but over time, the expansion adds up. 

Although this is how China has maneuvered in the South China Sea, it is actually more similar to how America expanded westward on the frontier during its own rise to power. 

That expansion was also usually led by civilians looking to settle out west, as land in the east became increasingly scarce. 

By gobbling up land in the frontier, however, these American citizens came into conflict with Native Americans, and demanded protection from the United States. 

Although often annoyed by the settlers, who—almost certainly in contrast to China in the Himalayas—were acting on their own accord, Washington ultimately obliged, and it served U.S. grand strategy over the long run.
It is up to India to prevent China from enjoying similar success along their 2,500-mile-long border, which the countries fought a war over in 1962. 

In recent years, India has been bolstering its forces along the border to stop China’s land grab. 

Most notably, in 2013 India announced it was raising a Strike Corps to deploy along the border with China that is expected to consist of two divisions and some eighty to ninety thousand troops. 

The 17 Strike Corps, as India calls it, will be equipped and trained specifically to deal with the tough mountain terrain.
According to Indian strategists, this Strike Corps will also have an offensive capability. 

As one retired general, AK Siwach, explained to Russian media earlier this year: “We already have three Strike Corps against Pakistan... However, we were not having the Strike Corps in use against Chinese in mountains and hence a 17 Strike Corps for mountains have been raised and it will be fully deployed along the China border. So far we only have a defensive mechanism against the China, however with the Strike Corps coming and being raised, we will also have an offensive mechanism.”
While the ambitions for this Strike Corps were high, actual implementation has moved slowly, as is often the case in dealing with India’s notorious military bureaucracy. 

The original plan was for the entire Strike Corps to be ready by the 2017–18 fiscal year. 

Now, only one of the divisions, 59 Infantry Division, will be fully operational by this year, according to recent Indian media articles. 

The formation of the second division is only just beginning, and is not expected to be ready for two or three years. 

It is also not at all clear if the number of troops will reach the levels initially intended. 

A lack of dedicated funding for the new Strike Corps also raises questions about whether the forces that do exist will be equipped with the necessary equipment to fulfil their mission. 

Indeed, the army can reportedly only fight a war for fifteen to twenty days, because of “crippling” ammunition shortages.
On the positive side, India has been investing in infrastructure along the border. 

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened a five-mile-long bridge across a river that will expedite the movement of troops and material to the mountainous region. 

This is expected to be followed by a 1,200-mile highway that will cost $6 billion. 

There were also reports this month that India will deploy a squadron of ten weaponized Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Dhruv advanced light helicopters, which will be the first time India’s army has deployed armed helicopters to the area. 

Looking towards the future, Dehli is investing in new artillery, including purchasing 145 M777 Ultra Lightweight Howitzers from the United States.
All of this might not be enough to keep up with China, who has also been bolstering its forces and infrastructure along the border. 

Last year, Chinese state media announced that Beijing was elevating the Tibet Military Command, which is responsible for operations against India, one level above other provincial-level military commands. 

Furthermore, the Jamestown Foundation noted that “China has constructed roads to and along disputed areas, along with additional air bases, landing strips and logistics sites to support military deployments and operations.” 

Most recently it was reported that China is deploying its most advanced tank to the Sino-Indian border. 

In other words, India will likely to have accelerate its efforts if it wants to keep up.