By Pepe Escobar with permission from the author and first posted at Asia Times
A Beijing-Brussels-Berlin special: that was quite the video-summit.
From Beijing, we had President Xi Jinping. From Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel. And from Brussels, President of the European Council Charles Michel and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. The Chinese billed it as the first summit “of its kind in history”.
It was actually the second high-level meeting of the Chinese and European leadership in two months. And it took place only a few days after a high-level tour by Foreign Minister Wang Yi encompassing France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway, and the visit by the powerful “Yoda” of the State Council, Yang Jiechi, to Spain and Greece.
The Holy Grail at the end of all these meetings – face-to-face and virtual – is the China-EU investment treaty. Germany currently heads the EU presidency for six months. Berlin wanted the treaty to be signed at a summit in Leipzig this month uniting the EU-27 and Beijing. But Covid-19 had other plans.
So the summit was metastasized into this mini videoconference. The treaty is still supposed to be signed before the end of 2020.
Adding an intriguing note, the mini-summit also happened one day before Premier Li Keqiang attended a Special Virtual Dialogue with Business Leaders, promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF). It’s unclear whether Li will discuss the intricacies of the Great Reset with Klaus Schwab – not to mention whether China subscribes to it.
We are “still committed”
The mini EU-China video summit was quite remarkable for its very discreet spin. The UE, officially, now considers China as both an essential partner and a “strategic rival”. Brussels is adamant on its will to “cooperate” while defending is notorious human rights “values”.
As for the investment treaty, the business Holy Grail which has been under negotiation for seven years now, Ursula von der Leyen said “there’s still much to be done”.
What the EU essentially wants is equal treatment for their companies in China, similar to how Chinese companies are treated inside the EU. Diplomats confirmed the key areas are telecoms, the automobile market – which should be totally open – and the end of unfair competition by Chinese steel.
Last week, the head of Siemens, Joe Kaeser, threw an extra spanner in the works, telling Die Zeit that “we categorically condemn every form of oppression, forced labor and threat to human rights”, referring to Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
That caused quite a stir. At least 10% of Siemens business is generated in China, where the company is present since 1872 and employs over 35,000 people. Siemens was forced to publicly state that it is “still committed” to China.
China has been Germany’s top trade partner since 2017 – ahead of France and the US. So it’s no wonder alarm bells started to ring, on and off. It was in January last year that the BDI – the Federation of German Industries – first defined China as a “systemic competitor”, and not only as a “partner”. The concern was centered on market “distortions” and the barriers against German competition inside China.
The mini video-summit took place as the trade war unleashed by Washington against Beijing has reached Cold War 2.0 proportions. EU diplomats, uncomfortably, and off the record, admit that the Europeans are caught in the middle and the only possible strategy is to try to advance their economic interests while insisting on the same panacea of human rights.
Thus the official EU demand this Monday – unreported in Chinese media: allow us to send “independent observers” to Xinjiang.
Those Uighur jihadis
So we’re back, inevitably, to the hyper-incandescent issue of Xinjiang “concentration camps”.
The Atlanticist establishment has unleashed a ferocious, no holds barred campaign to shape the narrative that Beijing is conducting no less than cultural genocide in Xinjiang.
Apart from United States government rhetoric, the campaign is mostly conducted by “influencer” US thinks tanks such as this one, which issue reports that turn viral on Western corporate media.
One of these reports quotes “numerous firsthand accounts from Uighurs” who are defined as “employed” to perform forced labor. As a result, the global supply chain, according to the report, is “likely tainted with forced labor”.
The operative word is “likely”. As in Russia is “likely” interfering in US elections and “likely” poisoning opponents of the Kremlin. There’s no way to verify the accuracy of the sources quoted in these reports – which happen to be conveniently financed by “multiple donors interested in commerce in Asia.” Who are these donors? What is their agenda? Who will profit from the kind of “commerce in Asia” they are pushing?
On a personal level, Xinjiang was at the top of my travel priorities this year – then laid to rest by Covid-19 – because I want to check by myself all aspects of what’s really goin’ on in China’s Far West.
As it stands, US copycat “influencers” in the EU are having free reign to impose the narrative about Uighur forced labor, stressing that the clothes Europeans are wearing “could” – and the operative word is “could” – be made by forced laborers.
Don’t expect the Atlanticist network to even bother to offer context in terms of China fighting terrorism in Xinjiang.
In the old al-Qaeda days, I visited and interviewed Uighur jihadis locked up in a sprawling prison set up by the mujahideen under commander Masoud in the Panjshir valley. They had all been indoctrinated by imams preaching in Saudi-financed madrassas across Xinjiang.
More recently, Uighur Salafi-jihadis have been very active in Syria: at least 5,000, according to the Syrian embassy in Beijing.
Beijing knows exactly what would happen if they return to Xinjiang, as much as Moscow knows what would happen if Chechen jihadis return to the Caucasus.
So it’s no wonder that China has to act. That includes closing madrassas, detaining imams and arresting – and “re-“educating” – possible jihadis and their families.
Forget about the West offering context about the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which declared an Islamic Emirate, ISIS/Daesh-style, in November 2019 in Idlib, northwest Syria. TIP was founded in Xinjiang 12 years ago and has been very active in Syria since 2011 – exactly the same year when they claimed to be responsible for a terror operation in Kashgar which killed 23 people.
It’s beyond pathetic that the West killed and displaced Muslim multitudes – directly and indirectly – with the “war on terror” just to become oh so worried with the plight of the Uighurs.
It’s more enlightening to remember history. As in the autumn of 821, when princess Taihe, sister of a Tang dynasty emperor, rode in a Bactrian camel, her female attendants following her in treasured Ferghana horses, all the way from the imperial palace in Chang’an to the land of the Uighurs.
Princess Taihe had been chosen as a living tribute – and was on her way to wed the Uighur kaghan to cement their peoples’ friendship. She came from the east, but her dress and ornaments were from the west, from the Central Asian steppes and deserts where she would live her new life.
And by the way, the Uighurs and the Tang dynasty were allies.
The Uighur population in Xinjiang is 12-13 million.That is about 46% of the Xinjiang population. The Han Chinese,and the Hui Chinese Muslim population together is around 45% of the population of Xinjiang. Meaning those ethnic groups made up 91% of the population of Xinjiang. The other ethnic groups seem to be peaceful ,so China’s concern is with the Uighur 46%. The answer is obvious.China needs to increase the Chinese population in the region to an extra 10% or so.That would give the Chinese an overall majority of 55% to a total of all others of 45%.Encourage intermingling of the ethnic groups,and the overall problem is solved.You would still need to fight jihadis.But it would be done from a position of ethnic strength as the absolute majority in the region.
Implying 1 million Ujghurs is equivalent to every Ujghur male aged 16 to 28.
That is what these idiots are pushing through the western media.
and people take it seriously.
Artificial demographic engineering will just result in further resentment and unrest. China needs to learn to respect other cultures within the country, instead of automatically considering them as a threat and trying to smother them under Han supremacy.
The mistake the Central Government made was to fight the Uyghur terrorism in total media blackout. Regardless of how horrendous the murderous attacks were, China hid them for many years, until they exploded in Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces and in the street in front of the Forbidden City Beijing.
If you see video clips of the terror attacks with knives, machetes, bombs, axes, etc, you would say the Chinese are entitled to arrest, reeducate, and suppress the separatists, extremists and terrorists any way they need to.
The attacks were worse than in Europe, worse than in many North African cities, and as crazed as you can imagine.
Xinjiang has had no attacks in over three years. The Chinese have made Xinjiang an economic marvel. The vast majority of the Uyghurs are happy with the security and safety they enjoy. They were the victims of the terror, too.
China is where the money is, EU is fully aware of this. Kowtowing to the US on this front would basically relegate them to zero to minor growth for the foreseeable future. EU will most likely throw Russia under the bus as an appeasement to the US so they can grab the real prize. China will develop their domestic markets with or without the EU, so of course it’s much better to join in and enjoy the spoils.
Kaeser ist Mitglied der Trilateralen Kommission in Europa.[7] Vom 11. bis 14. Juni 2015 nahm er an der 63. Bilderberg-Konferenz in Telfs-Buchen in Österreich teil.
Kaeser is member of the Trilateral commission in Europe and was at Bilderberg in Austria 2015
That means he is part of bad guys….
No wonder he talks crapp about China
He is ordered to do so
Toché!
Just went through the trouble of taking a look at CSIS donors (csis.org/programs/support/our-donors) and, well, why am I not surprised with their list of supporters.
Between foundations, organizations and individuals we have quite a list of high profilers committed in informing “the decisionmaking of key policymakers and the thinking of key influencers” (sic). How convenient!
All these economic marvels are great. The people of Xinjiang just want to be what they were for a millenia. Practise their religion and live their life. They’re open to all the tomato gardens and jobs and bullet trains. But don’t take away what is in their soul. Their god, their religion.
No one taking Away any religion or way of life, except for terrorists.
https://youtu.be/-jlUy2DR8TQ
For several decades, The CCP Government quietly was soft — almost dumb — on the issue of Party membership and religious affiliation of national minority political leaders. Otherwise, who would administrate places like the Níngxià HuÌ Autonoomous Region (a prvince mainly populated bu Chinese-speaking Muslims)?
But now the Saudi heresy of Islam has been propagated for three decades, and the Central Govenment ad Pary in Bêijing have been forced to make an issue of it.
Over 40 Muslim nation delegations have explored the social situation in Xinjiang and all of them report that Islam is not repressed. Terrorism is throttled. And the economy is booming for Uyghurs.
The rest is US propaganda, Infowar, mendacity and attempts to demonize China.
“More recently, Uighur Salafi-jihadis have been very active in Syria: at least 5,000, according to the Syrian embassy in Beijing.”
And the BBC Ujghur story of a year ago claimed proof through the interview of Ujghurs who said their families were in prison. The interviews were carried out in Istanbul…….
Then James Le Mesurier was killed….
The Breitbart new “exclusives” (Alison Killing I think wrote this) shares something with the BBC. Categoric assertions of evidence of Ujghur prisons accompanied to tldr evidence pages which turn out to have evidence of no more than one prisojn (a belief in a million prisoners requires the belief of approx 250 to 300 prisons, all easily identified on google maps or other satellite services.
It is a completely fake story – and I don’t actually think anyone expected the western media to take it seriously.
Skripal again.
Oh , by the way , who brought the 5000 Uighour Salafi-jihadis to Syria? What organisation had the resources/capacities to do so? Could it be NATO? These people are not only “non-agreement” capable they are vipers. Don’t even discuss with them, period.
Really appreciate your covering of the situation.
“Human Rights” is an instrument of foreign policy.
Once you know this the West’s obsession with human rights can be understood.
It’s important to understand what the West means by “Human Rights”.They talk about rights that people can live with or without.While real human rights are things like the right to life,a place to live,food to eat,medical care,education,the right to a job,being safe from crime,and attack from outside forces.Those are much more of “Human Rights” than what the West considers as human rights.
There is an awful amount of hate flying around here. I would like to quote Alexandr Sozhenitsyn:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
All of us here could benefit from meditating on this. Lord have mercy on us all.
@Sgage: “And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Kyrie eleison, you say. Amen to that. But we fight against real evil, against Anglo Zionazi Capitalists every one of whom are rotten straight up the front and down the other side. We are fighting against U$ UK Australian and Dutch regimes who plotted to kill thousands of their own people — the people they had sworn to protect — in NYC 2001 911, and condoned the murder of their own citizens in MH17.
“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Same with the evil in one’s own heart; or in the heart of the State. Cut it away.
Pepe Escobar’s reference to Princes Taihe cannot be left to stand unchecked because he is logically flawed and historically erroneous on several counts, among which (a) he refers to her marrying a Uighur, (b) to cement a Han-Chinese friendship, and (c) ‘land of the Uighurs’. These are not points of views: Either they are true, or they are not!
Presumably, Escobar was regurgitating the information from the so-called western ‘scholars’ who can’t write even their mother’s name in Chinese, which is important because the Chinese language was the only written text available for a thousand years in the swathe of land, sea to desert and mountains across the breadth of the Great Wall. Barbarian won’t know and won’t be able to write history books on horsebacks.
I also assume Escobar doesn’t read classical Chinese text, so where then did he get that information? From Wikipedia? His mention of ‘land of the Uighurs’ raises the questions: First, when did the Uighurs first showed up in Xinjiang or anywhere? Suppose you were to date Uighurs to the so-called ‘Uighur Empire’, c.744-840 (Land of the Uighurs, says Escobar), but the focal point of that ’empire’ is present day Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, almost 5,000 km away from Urumqi. From where had the Uighurs come from? Morphed from the Donghu or the Xiongnu? Both of which tribes were, before the Tang era, roaming with their sheep and horses in present-day Manchuria and Mongolia respectively. None were Muslims. By the time of the Tang, these tribal herdsmen were Buddhists thanks to visits made by Tang religious scholars and monks trekking to Nepal and India.
I also refer Escobar to 太史公書 ‘Records of the Grand History’ also known as the shiji 史記 by Sima Qian 司马迁 (145 – c.86), whose 3,000 volume work covered the Zhou era (1,000 BCE) to Qin then to the Han dynasty at the time of Han Wudi. It was in Wudi’s court Sima served as the official Scribe, something of a historian and daily registrar who recorded all official pronouncements, penned edicts and events and so on. (The Chinese, then and today, are meticulous at recording down everything. Everything.) In that position, it meant Sima had in his possession records of previous rulers/emperors.
Four hundred years after the Han is Tang China (roughly 600 to 900 CE) and this is the period Pepe Escobar refers to. Sima’s records are important to Tang (and hence present day) because (a) between the two dynasties, end to end, is a continuous, unbroken span of 1,000 years, (b) and beginning from Sima, were the first references to the major Central Asian tribes by name (eight, omitting dozens of other small, roaming bands), that had come into contact with ancient China proper, mostly to invade, plunder and take away the women. Sima group these tribes (eg. Rong and Di gave the most trouble to the Qin dynasty) and bands of sub-groups (Beirong, Shanrong, Jiangrong) by geographical and inter-tribal/personal loyalties which today would be called a confederacy.
Sima identified four confederacies: Xiongnu (occupying present-day Mongolia, Inner Mongolia), Donghu (Manchuria and parts of Inner Mongolia), Yuezhi (Gansu, Ningxia), and Wusun (Kazakhstan). The Xiongnu, just northeast of the capital Chang’an (Xi’an today) gave the most trouble during the Han period.
Sima’s account have ramifications: Whatever happened in the territories outside or inside China proper, was carried into Tang, and to the present day. Nowhere in Sima’s accounts, despite his comprehensiveness, was mentioned the term “Uighur”, in present day Chinese 维吾尔 weiwu’er. Nothing. Not even a hint!
Here is a typical Sima entry, translated: “Fourteenth year [of the reign of King Huiwen of Qin; i.e., 324 BCE]: the Qin ruler [King Huiwen] began numbering the years of his rule again and this became the first year of the new numbering. Second Year [323 BCE]: Zhang Yi met with the chief officials of Qi and Chu at Neisang…Fifth year [320 BCE]: the King of Qin journeyed to the north bend of the Yellow River [in or near the Ordos region]. Seventh year [318 BCE]: Yue Chi became the prime minister of Qin. [The states of] Hann, Zhao, Wei, Yan, and Qi, leading a force of Xiongnu, joined in attacking Qin. Qin dispatched the militia leader Shuli Ji to do battle with them at Xiuyu. He captured their general Huan, and cut off the heads of 82,000 of the enemy.”
Another thing to be deduced from the Sima text and from the time since is the clearly marked national boundaries. Meaning, China is the world’s first nation-state, and the Great Wall is best evidential record, separating China proper from those four tribal groups.
By the time of the Tang, we learned from the official Book of Tang (10 volumes) 唐書 or tangshu. This is the lesser equivalent of Sima’s Han history. In it, is mentioned several new tribal confederacy names such as Jurchen and the Khotans, the two most loathsome, plundering groups. Also never, never mentioned was the name Uighur 维吾尔. But the Tang Book did mention Princess Taihe who was married to a Khitan, the tribe lodged in present day Hohhot and for a few short years rule China under the Liao and Jin dynasties from present day Liaoning. (See map for relative distances between from Chang’an to Liaoning and to Urumqi.)
Even Escobar’s mention of the Taihe marriage to Khitan chief Chongde Qaghan was an event nothing to shout about because that was normal in the old days. In the Tang Book, it got mentioned in three (vertical) lines. Taihe, actual name Anding 安定, was one of ten children of Emperor Xianzong, But her mother was consort to the Empress. Technically though the half-sister to Xianzong successor-son Muzong, she was in status at the bottom of the palace family pecking order. Only barbarians then and modern-day make-pretend China scholars don’t know it, deceived by the English term Princess.
Here is another thing Pepe Escobar omitted to say: Eleven years after arriving in the place name Huigu in 822, Taihe returned to Chang’an. Why? I won’t supply the answer (hint: she hated their manners), but stranger still is this: How can she? The answers to those questions tell you about the importance of this so called non-existent empire, the Uighurs but actually the Khitans who Taihe married to, and later created the Jin dynasty by conquest. Today, the Jin is is worth only a footnote.
In another phrasing, Taihe had nothing to do with Uighurs.
Now that we have settle the issue of Taihe and the so-called Land of the Uighurs (in of all places eastern Inner Mongolia and Liaoning?), we return to the the term Uighurs. It was widely popularized in the post-Soviet Union era, and coined not by the Chinese but by… make a guess, who?
In all history text until the Tang Book of history, the term Khotan referred to a kingdom in present day Khotan in Xinjiang that lasted for about 500 years until c.400CE. Here is the problem: because kingdom names designate tribes, the disappearance of the chief and collapse of kingdom ends the use of the name — in western history text. Not so in Chinese text, however. All residents around former Khotan kingdom were still referred to as Khotan 尼雅 people.
All around the Khotan were the Karluks, the Sogdian, the Turgesh, the Tujue 突厥 (for Turks), Tubo 吐藩 (Tibet), the Khanets, Khimet, Karluk and dozens of assorted smaller groups. Recall they have no permanently settled homes, hence no fixed boundaries — they aren’t nation-states — so that war and peace, seasons and settlement and allegiances would changed their identity names even though place names, i.e. geography, hadn’t changed.
Something else happened. This came from present-day Turkey that again altered the configurations and the confederacies. It was the arrival of the Abbasids, in full military force in 751, leading to the Battle of Talas between Chinese and Turkic troops. This place is present-day Talas river valley region split between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Tribes may change allegiances but China, even in the ancient days, wouldn’t change. There were two borders. Innermost is present day Dunhuang at the Gansu/Xinjiang boundary, and the second at present-day Kashgar and Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. Between Dunhuang and Bishkek is protectorate area (even though it has no settled populations) and so travellers required an emperor’s pass to enter and leave. This is the Western Region 西部, and still called as such. The farther it is from the center, the less heavily defended it is even though that region is vast. China up until 751 had only to deal with marauding bands and in that year never before had to deal with an empire such as the Abbasid.
What to do?
Answer: Create new alliances, which eventually produced a cavalry regiment of 20,000 horsemen, mostly comprised of Karluks. They were to serve under the Tang Chinese general Gao Xianzhi (he is actually from present day north Korea) with 10,000 Chinese.
Against Abbasids 100,000 troops, infantry and cavalry, China lost the battle. Only about 2,000 Tang Chinese survived. The Karluk-Assorted Tribes regiment disbanded but later moved to settle east, that is, Xinjiang, from Dunhuang to Bishkek. Why? Perhaps because they were used to living under Tang protection instead of the Ottomans. Among them were remnants of the Chinese cavalry and infantry and their families. Together, they constitute the seeds of present day populace of Xinjiang, as it was known for the first time under the Qing dynasty, another 1,000 years later. By which time, these descendants, though animists and Buddhist, had intermingled with the Turkic population to the west and became Muslims. The tribe chief becomes Muslim, everybody else follow. Excepting the Han Chinese whose emperor they serve is thousands of miles away.
Talas would have turned China Turkic and/or Muslim if not, for the following:
*Under General Feng Changqing, wrote the Tang historian Bai Shouyi, the Dunhuang garrison (Xinjiang border) was reorganised, consolidated and those Turgesh people living there and who had betrayed the trust of the Tang’s protection were placed under military control.
*Two years after the defeat at Talas, Tang soldiers under General Cheng Qianli, returned in 753, defeated the Karluk Yabgu Dunpijia, captured and cut off the head A-Busi, a Chinese traitor from Tibet, who had defected to Abbasid.
Talas brought other immense changes, politically, affecting its present-day Xinjiang policy. It help solidify China’s western most boundary where, to foreigners, it says: Stop! You shall go No Further!
Post-Talas, the Turks, preoccupied in the Caucasus, also did not advance. But they also know that the closer they are into China proper, the stronger is the Tang army. The Great Wall was extended into Xinjiang for the first time, all the way to present-day Urumqi. For the Ottomans, on the other hand, they gained not an inch of Chinese territory but this: Learning to make paper on a commercial scale from a captured Chinese soldier taken back to Turkey.
Thanks for that elaborate excursion in Chinese history. I am a total novice to the topic but enjoyed it. Now for Pepe, I would say he is a master at expanding views. If he missed out here a substantial part of history as you say, I can’t judge, but he caused your response which in itself justifies the article for me despite that possible flaw.
His recent piece on Assange is somewhat an allegory to his knowledge of ancient Greek history. Again I am not an expert here, but it has a certain dandyesque snobbish connotation which I don’t like. BUT most of his often stuff is worth a read imho.