The divine YouTube algorithm brought me yet another reminder of the servility of the ABC to the great empire. Following the talking points on China to the letter, David Lipson gives us a tidy little fiction to make sure we don’t begin to stray from the China-bad narrative.
China gave the ABC a tightly controlled tour of Xinjiang. Here’s what we saw | ABC News takes us on the tour that, supposedly, had to be had. Unlike the 200 million tourists who visited Xinjiang last year, many from European countries that require no visa for entry, David was coerced into taking a trip arranged by the government of China.
It seems the rather than jumping into a hire care and simply going out and sampling the authentic culture of Xinjiang, David decided that, in order to create a sense of ‘control’, this tour would be far better.
David is, of course, an expert in Central Asian culture and, for this reason, has a keen eye in identifying culture that is not authentic. Those smiling dancers – they’re suspect. Everyone knows that, in their repressed state, they should not be smiling, but are being coerced into smiling.
Those dance steps too cannot be from the young emulating the dancing of the old, passing on tradition, but are entirely a product of the Communist School of Dancing, directed by Xi Jinping.
Being careful not to photograph anything that showed that Xinjiang was not ‘Sinocised’, we can see how the masses of Chinese tourists are walking around, spending money on Uyghur trinkets. Sadly, one section of vision was not as tightly edited, so let slip the trilingual scripts that characterise most signs in Xinjiang.
Although this slipup must have been punishing to the anti-China script, David soldiers on with attempting to find someone who will speak ill of the changes in Xinjiang. Ni Jaoyu is of no use as he is willing to say, “Obvious traffic, roads, life employment. We can see happy smiles on people’s faces”. Those smiling people again. Can they not just frown for the good of the story?
Good footage, however, of whizzing past non-descript buildings with great narration. Apparently, unlike Israel or the US, China thought bombing terrorists into oblivion was not a rational approach and, like Australia’s counter terrorism program, worked at a community level.
So, how were young people from moderate Muslim backgrounds being radicalised into Wahabbism? It seems via the bullying from extremists – extremists that even Muslim majority countries such as Indonesia were extremely uncomfortable with. Radicalisation that every country in the world realised was occurring and driving Islamist movements such as ISIS.
But, you know, David knows best and, of course, his judgement was that this was a terrible violation of human rights. He cites a (single) UN report last year found “serious human rights abuses that may constitute
crimes against humanity” which was not endorsed by outgoing United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.
Rather than turning to Bachelet’s statement about China, David choose to quote a report that was hastily published after Bachelet exited. This is Bachelete’s statement:
In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, I have raised questions and concerns about the application of counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation measures and their broad application – particularly their impact on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities. While I am unable to assess the full scale of the VETCs, I raised with the Government the lack of independent judicial oversight of the operation of the program, the reliance by law enforcement officials on 15 indicators to determine tendencies towards violent extremism, allegations of the use of force and ill treatment in institutions, and reports of unduly severe restrictions on legitimate religious practices. During my visit, the Government assured me that the VETC system has been dismantled. I encouraged the Government to undertake a review of all counter terrorism and deradicalization policies to ensure they fully comply with international human rights standards, and in particular that they are not applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way.
154 words in the 2000 word report refer to Xinjiang, expressing concerns. At no stage does Bachelet herald a finding of “serious human rights abuses that may constitute crimes against humanity”.
But why would David want to take a deep dive into these accusations? Why would he, for example, want to highlight this statement in the said report:
While the available information at this stage does not allow OHCHR to draw firm conclusions regarding the exact extent of such abuses, it is clear that the highly securitised and discriminatory nature of the VETC facilities, coupled with limited access to effective remedies or oversight by the authorities, provide fertile ground for such violations to take place on a broad scale.
You see how that works? They can’t conclude but David can. No need for actual evidence when you have “fertile ground” for suspicion. And we too are gifted, by David, those fertile grounds, hitherto colloquially referred to in Australia as ‘dog whistles’.
Now, I’m not going to speculate that David believes that securitised China is far more wicked than securitised Australia, UK or the US, because he has helpfully photographed some cameras, cameras, it seems, that one finds in every major city in China. Not like the …
942,562 CCTV cameras in London, meaning there is 1 CCTV camera for every 10 people in the capital. You are likely to be captured on London CCTV up to 70 times per day. (Clarion UK)
But no, the one’s in Xinjiang are the bad ones. The ones in Sydney CBD are good. Don’t get confused. David is on an anti-China mission and you shouldn’t get distracted.
And no, David is not a proponent of “bomb the shit out of them” mode of counter-terrorism unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. But, I just can’t work out whether providing vocational skills in an area which is very poor and where many women cannot work and population is so sparse that the critical mass needed to maintain a local economy is not there – I don’t think David is a big fan of schools. Not that we see any of them.
And I’m sure he doesn’t subscribe to Guantanamo model of ‘lock them up without trial’ but he doesn’t seem at all keen on that broad based community approach that both China and Australia adopted.
And, I’m sure David does not want to raise the point that China’s GTI (Global Terrorism Index), which wallowed in the teens along with US and UK in 2014, has now overtaken Australia’s brilliant position at around 65. That would hardly make the anti-China story compelling for Australians.
Nor would he want Australians to know that Xinjiang (and Tibet) had the fastest growing HDI (Human Development Index) of any place on earth over the last 30 years, especially the last decade. This might prompt Australians to completely reject his sad, ill-informed view on China.
David’s frustration at not finding those bad things was palpable by the time we heard from a VETC graduate, clearly genocided, but miraculously resurrected.
I was infected with extremely radical religious ideologies. I didn’t allow my wife to work outside and insisted that women should stay home.
Oh my God. Not affirmation that the program was effective. Cue “the man with the camera”. But Imamu continues,
tells us his time in detention was free of cruelty because I studied well I realized that radical religious views harm people they no longer have this mindset
In desperation, David reaches for the expert. Peter Irwin. Clearly, an independent voice in all this. You know, that Peter Irwin who can give you report after report on Twitter about Uyghurs and not once mention Israel’s genocide.
It’s OK. The white guy who has never been to China knows better than the Uyghur guy in front of you.
And white guys always know best. “The Old City is gone.” David laments. I mean, how dare they demolish windowless adobe structures with no electricity and sanitation? Don’t they know that, in order for Uyghurs to remain museum pieces, they must live in hovels?
No, don’t show them those photos!
I think David should sack his film editor, because he let slip that young Uyghur men back in 1990 didn’t dress up in ISIS cosplay.
I mean, wasn’t it the Chinese that forbad young guys having beards? But, but, surely, the women … !
Dammit. Seems the women weren’t dressed like good Wahabbi women either. And notice the bars. You know, the bars that only the vocational training centres had on their windows to stop Uyghurs escaping.
It would be naïve to think that David could somehow have escaped the radicalisation into China hate that is an ABC specialisation. Since he seems an all round nice guy, I’d hate to see him wallow in this cult-like ideology. I wish him the best.