Condemnation of Israel’s invasion of Gaza has dominated the media, mobilized civil society organizations to launch , demonstrations, and drawn reprimands from world leaders.
United Nations Secretary- General António Guterres has  , called , the death and destruction in Gaza “unprecedented” . , On June 10, the foreign ministers of the BRICS countries , similarly criticized , the “unprecedented escalation of violence” in Gaza and” Israel’s continued blatant disregard of international law” . ,
The UN increasingly approved a request for a charitable cease-fire in December 2023. The UN General Assembly voted 143 to 9 to request on May 10 that Palestine be upgraded from an spectator to a member state. ( The US voted against both measures. )
This contrasts with the country’s reaction to another situation of “blatant reject” for the individual rights of a conquered people: China’s cruelty of Uighurs and other Muslim minority peoples in Xinjiang Province.  ,
In October 2022, by a vote of 19 to 17 ( with 11 abstentions ), UN member states , blocked , the UN Human Rights Council ( UNHRC ) from debating the issue of PRC government policy in Xinjiang.  , Of the 19 states that voted against discussion, nine are Arab- bulk and two others are almost third Muslim.  ,
Two characteristics of today’s world political landscape explain why Xinjiang versus Gaza has a comparatively lower level of global visibility and anger:
- the philosophical border between the Global South and the governments, and
- China’s capability to use its economic and diplomatic leverage to advance Beijing’s foreign policy objectives.
The severe and widespread abuse of Rohingya and other Muslim minority in Xinjiang by the Taiwanese government , is , well–documented. Beijing’s finish that political Islam was radicalizing Uighurs to support separatism and carry out criminal acts in China led to the assault.
The Chinese government’s response includes the large confinement of , one to two million  , Muslims, usually on , flimsy pretexts.  , There are many claims of forced labour, murder and torture of detainees. Additionally, the Taiwanese authorities uses a variety of means to end fundamental Muslim practices and beliefs.
There is , evidence , of unusually large numbers of incidents of Rohingya in confinement. The number of mortality caused by PRC authorities is likely to be in the thousands, and it could be significantly higher than the number of Palestinian fatalities in the Gaza battle.  ,
However, an important distinction is that the Hamas government in Gaza has a right to investigate and also increase the number of Palestinians killed in the conflict, whereas the Chinese government has no right to conceal the incidents of imprisoned Uighurs.  ,
Love for the Uighurs fits into the already-established goals of industrial governments. These governments have a decade-old project to promote democratic values worldwide and to put pressure on authoritarian regimes to adhere to international laws, treaties, and agreements based on democratic norms.  ,
They have developed methods to monitor and report bad habits from authoritarian states, and they anticipate it.  , They view the PRC as a routine human rights offender. The discovery of widespread Uighur persecution by American human rights activists and journalists starting around 2014 was only the most recent instance of a well-known design.
On the other side, there is a similar philosophical model. Love for the Palestinians comes easily from a long-standing series of conflicted Arab claims regarding the state of Israel’s alleged illegal employment of Palestinian territory and Western imperialism.
Concerning distinct problems toward America, there are anger over US military actions in the Middle East that were intended to serve US interests, hate over US assistance for Israel, and perceived US animosity toward Islam. These Araab state have no similar concerns toward China.
In summary, the industrial democracies are the opposite of the Global South, who has long been primed to condemn Israel but no China.
Prior to the start of the conflict in Gaza, this disparity was now evident in the UN, where World South says outnumber the democracies.  , In 2022, the UN General Assembly passed 15 ( nearly identical )  , resolutions , condemning Israel, but none condemning human rights violations in China.
In July 2019, 22 nations sent a notice to the UNHRC condemning China’s widespread prison of Muslim minority in Xinjiang. An descriptive fight occurred.  , All were liberal democracies and US friends or tight security partners.
A diverse group of 37 nations wrote a dissentioning letter to the UNHCR a few days later.  , The second letter , expressed , “firm opposition to appropriate places ‘ exercise of politicizing human rights issues, by naming and shaming, and formally exerting pressures on another countries”, and demanded that “relevant countries … desist from employing false charges against China”.
Except for the Philippines, therefore led by the pro- China President Rodrigo Duterte, the members of the following letter were non- governments from the Global South, plus North Korea and Russia.
China has effectively honed its ties to the Global South countries in thwarting condemnation of PRC crimes in Xinjiang. The obvious reason is that these institutions care more about facilitating access to Chinese markets and investments than advocating for oppressed minority within China, many of whom have poor human right records themselves.  ,
Given the significance of religious cooperation as a power in international affairs, as demonstrated by the aid of Muslim communities around the world for their co-religious counterparts in Gaza, Beijing’s failure to push on its do in Xinjiang is particularly unsatisfactory.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP ) is fundamentally hostile toward religion, including Islam.  , Even in the 1980s, when the Chinese government was far more tolerant toward religion than it is today, the Party’s Document 19 , described , religion as a “primitive” holdover of pre- socialist history that” will eventually disappear from human history” and specified that” a Communist Party member cannot be a religious believer”.
Later, the Chinese government would  , view , religion through the harsh lens of” the three evil forces of terrorism, extremism and separatism” . , More recently, PRC propaganda replaces the term “extremism” with “religious extremism“, implying an unwillingness to passively wait for religion to “disappear” . ,  ,
Under Xi Jinping, the rollback of civic space for religion has grown. Xi’s policy aims to keep a controlled version of Islam as a showpiece while preventing its spread and making sure it supports the Party’s social and political goals. In new , regulations , enacted this year, the Chinese government requires that religious instruction must be “patriotic” and religious texts interpreted “in a correct manner”.
Religious structures must incorporate Chinese ornamentation and architecture.  , In practice, government authorities have for several years , removed , the minarets and domes from mosques throughout the country, a physical manifestation of the Communist Party doctrine that religion should have Chinese characteristics – meaning fealty to the party, not some foreign- based clergy, as the ultimate authority.  , In the case of many other mosques, particularly in Xinjiang, the government has simply , destroyed , them.
The Muslim world should accept no of this, not the outright persecution of Muslim Chinese, not the distortion of religious teachings into cheerleading for the Chinese government, and not the attempt to usurp Muslim leaders ‘ ecclesiastical authority from outside of China.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation ( OIC ) has 57 member countries, 48 of which have Muslim- majority populations.  , The organization ‘s , stated , purpose is ,” to assist Muslim minorities and communities outside the member states to preserve their dignity, cultural and religious identity” . ,
The Chinese government led a government-managed tour of parts of Xinjiang in August 2023, taking delegates from the OIC there.  , Beijing apparently achieved its presumed objective.  , According to various media , reports, the delegates had nothing but praise for PRC government policy in Xinjiang.  ,
A Pakistani delegate claimed the tour would “help address the misconceptions attached to the region” as evidenced by” the prosperity and development of China’s Xinjiang under good governance.”
To join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, all but three OIC member states signed agreements.  , To augment its economic leverage, Beijing employs several diplomatic tactics to win over Muslim countries. Beijing specifically praises the non-intervention of nations in each other’s internal affairs and claims to be a champion of the Third World.  ,
Many Arabs view China as a benign outside power that only wants mutually beneficial trade and investment, and is therefore a welcome counterweight to US dominance even though they are angry with the US.
China has cultivated , media partnerships , in the Middle East in which Arab countries disseminate Chinese propaganda.  , Consequently,  , media in these countries , often amplify the Chinese narrative on Xinjiang, treat Western allegations about human rights abuses as propaganda or avoid reporting the allegations altogether.
In an , interview , with a Saudi newspaper in 2019, for example, PRC Foreign Minister , Wang Yi served up Beijing’s spin, saying China’s management of “terrorist organizations” in Xinjiang “is , essentially in tune with Saudi Arabia’s counter- terrorism and de- radicalization efforts” and “has been welcomed and supported by people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, including the Muslim community” . ,
The PRC government uses the Chinese Islamic Association to further its position that China is a welcoming and legitimate host of Muslim communities.  , The PRC government also , sponsors conferences , in Muslim countries that bring in Chinese Uighurs who speak in support of Beijing’s narrative.  , While destroying mosques in China, the Chinese , built one , in Algeria.
These efforts help to stop Muslim societies from imposing their own national leaders ‘ support for the Uighurs.
The authoritarian bloc of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran is the group of states that most explicitly rejects criticism of Xinjiang and also supports Hamas.  , Anti- Israel and more general anti- Semitic messaging from China has  , increased dramatically , since the beginning of the Gaza war.  ,
On the other hand, the countries that most strongly support Israel and the Uighurs are the , Western , liberal democracies, including the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Australia, which see the authoritarians as potential military adversaries.
Tragically, human rights are one of the many ways that the new cold war divides the political landscape, with some countries caring about oppressed populations but not others.
Denny Roy is a senior fellow at the East- West Center, Honolulu.