The Chinese flag flies in the air at the Olympic Stadium in Beijing. The ballet of delegations from each country has come to an end. White cap on the head and red jacket on the shoulders, the two Chinese athletes Dinigeer Yilamujiang and Zhao Jiawen carry the Olympic flame to the center of the enclosure. A firework goes off. The ceremony concludes and the Games begin. If Friday’s celebrations went off without a hitch, they revealed issues that went far beyond the framework of sport, in a context marked by the boycott of many Western delegations, starting with that of the United States.
Forced labor
Beyond the nap skillfully orchestrated by Vladimir Putin during the passage of the Ukrainian delegation, the ceremony was marked by another symbol: Dinigeer Yilamujiang is from Xinjiang, where the Uyghur minority lives. “She is an unknown cross-country skier. It is an eminently political choice which responds to the Western attacks formulated against the Chinese regime by the West on its internment camps in Xinjiang. Through her, the regime wants to show the image of a Uighur integrated into the Chinese social organization”, notes the president of the Geopolitics Observatory of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic Studies, Yann Roche.
For several years, Beijing has been accused of having arbitrarily interned nearly a million Muslims from the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, in the northwest of the country, in response to attacks attributed to Islamists or separatists. Uighurs, between 2009 and 2014. Forced labor, reformation camp, sexual violence, sterilization, torture… Research work and testimonies pile up to document the repression of the Chinese state. The Communist Party presents these camps as “re-education centers” against “religious extremism”.
Western movement
Faced with these repeated human rights violations, pressure is mounting against the country led by Xi Jinping. With the approach of the Olympic Games, several governments have raised their voices. The United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom have chosen not to send any official delegation there. Without boycotting the event, France took up the news around the sporting event by adopting a resolution in the National Assembly denouncing the genocide of the Uyghurs.
However, no Muslim country has taken part in the international movement aimed at denouncing the violence exerted by the Chinese regime on the Uyghur minority. A position which is explained above all by diplomatic interests, details Haoues Seniguer, lecturer in political science and specialist in Islam: “The powers, whatever they are, never have friends, only interests. Muslim states do not interfere today because they have nothing to gain from it.”
Number 1 business partner
“If we take the example of Pakistan or Indonesia, these are countries which have very close relations with China on the cultural, commercial and even political level. They do not intend to get angry with their neighbor”, continues Yann Roche. Since Xi Jinping’s arrival in 2013, a vast strategic project to connect China with South Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East through trade networks has brought China and predominantly Muslim countries. Proof of Indonesia’s dependence, for example: Beijing is both its main supplier of manufactured goods and its first customer for raw materials. “Depending on the economic stakes, States pay little attention to human rights violations”, sums up Haoues Seniguer. Further west, China has become the leading economic partner of the Gulf countries in 2020. According to figures put forward by the Chinese Communist Party, it imports nearly 70% of its oil from this region.
Beyond commercial interests, the silence of many Muslim countries illustrates the Chinese cultural influence. “Chinese diplomacy is the opposite of the United States or European companies. Its speech is simple: ‘we will not exploit you, we respect you, but we offer you to get closer in a win-win logic.’ Many countries in Southeast Asia or the Middle East prefer to discuss with China,” notes Yann Roche. The anti-American posture also appeals to countries in which a feeling of animosity towards the United States predominates, as in Egypt. With this discourse, for countries like Iran which have nothing to do with the rest of the Arab countries of the Middle East, China also imposes itself as a recourse. “There is a marriage of convenience that is established, notes Yann Roch. We have a common enemy: the West”.
At the same time, China never makes any comments about an allied or enemy regime. The fact that it hardly intervenes in the affairs of another country pushes many powers to do the same. “Between authoritarian regimes, we get along very well with the principle of non-interference”, mocks the researcher. Still weakened by the Khashoggi affair on the international scene, Saudi Arabia is for its part discreet in relation to China. And if the civilian populations can be moved by the fate of the Uyghurs within the detention camps, the governments turn a blind eye. “Many Muslim countries try to put this question at a distance, as some can do with the Palestinian cause”, specifies Haoues Seniguer.
Turkey, a fading voice
As far as Turkey is concerned, the case of a footballer is quite emblematic. In December 2019, the German player of Turkish origin Mesut Ozil publicly questioned the silence of the Muslim world around the fate of the Uyghurs. One of the first voices to speak out publicly: “Copies of the Koran are burned…mosques destroyed…Islamic schools banned…religious intellectuals killed one after another…brothers sent by force in camps… The Muslims remain silent. Their voices are not heard”. He was then supported by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to whom he is close.
Turkey has long taken up the cause of the Uyghur people. Turkish speakers, the Uyghurs have provoked a surge of support within the Turkish civilian population and in the mysteries of power. “Turkey is the Muslim country that has the most cultural commonality with the Uyghurs,” says Yann Roche. President Erdogan had repeatedly urged his Chinese counterpart to review his re-education policy.
However, over the years, economic stakes have got the better of Turkey’s firmness. In search of new diplomatic partnerships, particularly in the resolution of the Syrian conflict, the Turkish president has favored his good relations with Beijing, to the detriment of the persecuted Muslim minority in China. In December 2020, the leader thus ratified a treaty for the extradition of the Uyghur populations to the Middle Kingdom. If Turkish diplomacy has always made it clear that only the perpetrators of the attack would be delivered to China, this gesture is a sign of the remoteness of one of the countries closest to the Uyghur people. Dinigeer Yilamujiang’s performance shouldn’t change much.