US using Xinjiang to suppress China: China Daily editorial

The US Department of Commerce's blacklisting of 28 Chinese entities for being involved in what it alleges are "human rights violations and abuses" against Uygurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang is anything but a justifiable act.

The move announced on Monday bars the 28 entities from purchasing US products, with United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross claiming that the US "cannot and will not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities within China".

Again, the US is acting as the self-appointed "guardian of human rights" and as the global policeman although no one knows where it received the mandate to play such a role. If anything, only its status as the world's sole superpower has granted it such a fiat.

However, it has got it wrong on the question of Xinjiang in at least three aspects.

In the first place, what China has done in its Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is part of the world's fight against terrorism and extremism. The training centers it has organized have nothing to do with rights violations and abuses. Instead, they have proved effective in preventing Uygurs and others from being indoctrinated with extremist ideology and teaching them vocational skills with which to make a decent living.

Second, the United States has a double standard on the definition of terrorism. It designates whatever forces that are against it as terrorist groups while calling those who have taken the lives of innocent people as fighters for independence or freedom. It seems as if the US believes it alone has the right to define what is terrorism and what is not.

Turning a blind eye to the horrible terrorist acts such as launching attacks against local police stations or hacking people to death in broad daylight, the US always points accusing fingers at whatever China does against terrorism, extremism and separatism in Xinjiang.

Third, whatever China does in Xinjiang is its own internal affair. China will do whatever it considers appropriate to maintain social stability in Xinjiang, which is in the interests of all ethnic groups there. The US has no right to interfere in China's internal affairs.

The facts speak for themselves. Xinjiang has been free from terrorist activities and received unprecedented numbers of tourists since China started doing what it is doing to eliminate the root cause of terrorism and extremism three years ago.

The US needs to change its perception of the situation in Xinjiang based on the reality in the region not its own agenda to suppress China.