When the West gets it wrong on the Hong Kong and Uyghur questions

 A sense of insecurity has engulfed the territory of Hong Kong with the other-wise avid supporter of the protests for Hong Kong’s quest for greater freedom, Yonden Lhatoo, chief news editor of South China Morn-ing Post, being issued with death threats.

He is being accused of leaning toward supporting the recently passed national security law which seeks to prevent reoccurring of the enduring chaos and violence that the world witnessed last year in the territory.

On another front, the US right-leaning news outlet, Fox News, continues to vilify and demonize China, now featuring politicians who accuse China of using slave labor from the Uyghur community in its economy, especially in the manufacturing sector.

All this points at the endless anti-China propaganda: currently, the western interference in China’s domestic affairs is obvious – more recently exploiting the legal measures taken by the Chinese Government in regard to the administration of the highly autonomous region of Hong Kong.

The ‘cross-border’ extortion of China’s efforts in addressing domestic weaknesses exhibit all indications of ill intentions about a rising Asian power which affirms its commitment to multilateralism in a world mainly dominated by the post-war US hegemony and its allies such as Britain, Canada, Australia and others.

By attacking China from multiple angles while forgetting their responsibilities at home, such actions by the West attest to the betraying of their own intelligence by ignoring the very principle of sovereignty which they hold high when it comes to their own territories since the coming into force of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

China’s adjustments to the administration of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) as well as rehabilitation of the Uyghurs guilty of minor crimes or law-breaking through education and training, including curbing terrorism and religious extremism, all fall within its jurisdiction and should not be undermined.

Such actions are ordinary and should raise no concern for human rights abuse in the manner they are being portrayed by the West.

One would also need to further contemplate the West’s endless meddling in China’s internal affairs from different lenses: while China wouldn’t bother to mind how the US governs its extended territories of Guam Islands, for example, or the Britain’s treatment of its sub-territory of the Islands of Mann, why would the duo be so much interested in the former’s affairs?

Had these countries been serious about the plight of the oppressed populations around the globe, they wouldn’t have turned a deaf ear to the sufferings of the people of Western Sahara and West Papua, for instance.

In all respects, the anti-China sentiments don’t occur in a vacuum but are a manifestation of the pursuit of selfish interests, including destabilizing China to maintain the Western socio-economic and politi-cal dominance.

Unfortunately, this strategy comes with little effort at revamp-ing the West’s once powerful industrial base, especially the manufacturing sector, which would guarantee increased exports for it to be able to significantly reduce China’s global economic market share.

That being said, the anti-China propaganda points at nothing but the same old tricks; and in the case of China, the bullying takes a more discursive than a coercive turn given the country’s relative power to defend itself.

Things may have taken a different turn had China been weak enough to allow for military intervention as it has been the case in several weak states of Africa and Asia such as Sudan and Laos, which have become victims of similar devastation.

After all, the west’s tarnishing of China’s image rather speaks of its own hypocrisy; the wide-spread police brutality against people of color in the US and other countries; the US reported infection of over 600 African American men during the 1932-1972 Tuskegee Study; and the huge wage inequality between male and female workers in majority of these countries, all speak of the gross neglect of own population that they would not want to admit.

Therefore, as argued by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the ‘one country, two systems’ requirement as stipulated in the agreements establishing the HKSAR, is contingent upon patriotism which ensures the integrity of the state, and sustaining the two-system approach comes second.

Likewise, the alleged use of slave labor as far as the Uyghur question is concerned is mere fabrication that turns the minority population into pawns in the anti-China propaganda.

Mr Unuki is a social affairs analyst based in Dar es Salaam [email protected]