Washington claims about Xinjiang blatant lies: China Daily editorial

According to the United States' Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, the US State Department has to submit an annual report on the imposition of sanctions.

The four-page report submitted this year repeats the same old lies and unsubstantiated allegations tirelessly spread by Uygur secessionists, extremists and terrorist elements that have been on the US' payroll for years. And the individuals the US government has imposed sanctions on, who range from grassroots police officers to key lawmakers, are exactly those playing important roles in safeguarding Xinjiang's stability, and who are the enemy of the "performers" and "witnesses" living on Washington's funding.

Washington always claims that Beijing is guilty of the genocide of Uygurs in Xinjiang. The facts expose the accusation to be a lie. Over the past six decades, the population of Uygur people in Xinjiang has swelled from about 5 million to nearly 13 million, their average life span has increased from 30 plus years to about 72. The living standards of local residents have improved dramatically over that period, as shown by the per capita disposable income increasing by more than 200 times.

The US also accuses China of trying to eradicate the Uygur culture and that of other minority ethnic groups. But there are more than 24,400 mosques in Xinjiang, more than 10 times the number in the US where the Muslim population is about half of that of Xinjiang. Xinjiang has more than 5,400 intangible cultural heritages of various levels that are strictly protected and passed down to future generations with the funding of governments, the majority of which are related to the Uygur.

The most absurd claim in the report is that China is using its "poverty alleviation" campaign as a disguise to cover up its human rights violations. Yet that is belied by the deaths of more than 1,800 grassroots civil servants, mostly members of the Communist Party of China, who have died in the noble cause over the past few years to lift all the rural population in the country out of abject poverty. Apart from the US and its key allies, almost all countries and world bodies praise China's remarkable poverty alleviation achievements which stand in stark contrast to the meager crumbs of assistance provided to the poverty-stricken population in the US over the years by successive administrations.

The report and related sanctions constitute grave interference in China's internal affairs and violate international law and the basic norms of international relations. It is right that Beijing should take countermeasures in accordance with China's Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law. The State Department report actually does a disservice to the Uygurs in Xinjiang but that should come as no surprise given the recent wars it has waged. The US condoning of what is happening in Gaza shows how much it cares for Muslim people.