America and the West’s obsession with China
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The United States, the EU, Canada and Britain have imposed sanctions on several Chinese officials for human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur minority in China's Xinjiang province. These sanctions come at a time when countries around the world are battling through the COVID19 pandemic. Political, economic and social orders are being challenged across the globe, and people are seeking reforms in various walks of life. A drastic example of a political order being changed can be seen in Myanmar[1], where after experimenting with democracy for just over a decade the military has taken control and hundreds have been massacred on the streets in a matter of weeks. The global push for green energy and the massive undertakings governments have pledged to, to bring about a change in our energy infrastructure, coupled with the colossal debt countries such as US and Canada have accrued, is indicative of the enormous economic and social change we are about to witness[2]. To discuss the significance of the sanctions on China and the West’s general obsession with changing the status-quo in China, it is important to understand the turmoil we see across the globe[3]. From there we can build a better discernment of why such political moves are being made and their possible impact extensively.
US and its allies have teamed up against China to voice condemnation of Beijing’s repression of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province[4]. These issues have been raised by reporters and independent journalists from around the world. Upon careful examination it is obvious that a mass secretive operation is underway in Xinjiang which focuses on wiping out the traditional Uyghur Islamic values, something evident from the fact that Uyghurs are now being made to read a Communist Party’s version of the Quran[5]. Numerous Uyghur groups have been raising concerns over China’s growing exertion in their region for years now, to them this move might very well seem benefactory. Nonetheless, nothing in the world of global politics can be just seen as an isolated event. No form of human suffering is or should be acceptable by the international community. The Geneva Human Rights Convention[6] was put together collectively by nations around the globe to address the need to value human rights and make sure something like the holocaust does not happen again. But why then should we focus solely on China and sanction their actions and turn a blind eye to other human rights abuses, probably of a much larger scale. Virtually no major Western media outlet would report this story, Western democracies who portray themselves as the champions of human rights won’t even talk about these abuses on international forums and the country and its abuses I am going to talk about is in essence free from all such criticism.
The country is India and the major human rights violation it has been committing is on lower caste Hindus (Dalits), their children and other minority groups across India, including Muslims[7]. Since India became independent of the British rule in 1947, untouchability has been criminalized and various constitutional measures have been taken to uplift the lower castes and other minority groups. However, the real discrimination that exists in the society never ended and it has been used by politicians and Indian elites to further suppress Dalits and other minorities[8]. Minority groups who try to voice their opinions and raise alarms have been labeled as terroristic and anti-national[9]. In 2014 an Indian activist, Kailash Satyarthi, was awarded a Nobel Prize for freeing 90,000 kids (from majority Dalits and minority backgrounds[10]) from slavery. The level of oppression has been intensifying since the election of the current ruling party, BJP (Bhartiye Janta Party) and is being collectively orchestrated by the political and social elites (The Indian Oligarchy)[11]. A recent Swedish report changed India’s status from a democracy to an electoral autocracy[12]. With COVID19, the Indian Oligarchy is yet again using a crisis to stifle those fighting oppression and is committing numerous human right violations. People from Dalit and other minority groups are being refused access to hospitals[13] and proper medical care and are seen dying on streets while the elites are rallying around India for elections, in droves[14]. Yet, neither are there any sanctions on India nor is any government talking about restricting economic ties with India.
This silence from America and its allies towards the atrocities being committed in India towards Dalits and other minority groups is emblematic of their lack of concern for human rights. We can see their silence not just with India, but with Myanmar, Yemen and countries all over the world where atrocious human rights violations are taking place in broad day light. The West’s unwillingness to speak out on these issues off human rights violations worldwide but rather just focus on China is indicative of their motive to use their power and influence to constraint China’s economic growth.
Over the course of the past 30 years China has lifted millions[15], by some estimates around 700 million people, out of poverty. Chinese economy is set to overtake the American economy in the next few years[16]. Most of this has been made possible because of massive industrialization undertakings and development of niche industries, especially the electronics industry. Southeast China has become a hub for electronics manufacture all around the world[17]. There might not be a single piece of electronic item that was manufactured in the past decade which did not have parts that came from China. And, with the Western democracies pledging to rebuild their energy infrastructure, they are struggling to find ways to do so without a dependance on Chinese companies. A move towards green energy is a move towards a world highly dependent on electronic manufacturing. Most of the new energy products are and will be based on superior battery technology and the development of quality electronic circuit boards. These sanctions by the West are merely a move to muffle Chinese industry from leading the world in that innovation. For this, fear mongering propaganda campaigns against China have been ongoing in right wing Western outlets for years. The US govt. and its allies are simply masquerading their motives under the value for human rights.
Economic sanctions, in almost all cases, hurt the citizens of a country more than they hurt the ruling governments of those countries[18]. Especially when we are talking about a country as big and economically powerful as China. We should not endorse any sanctions which create blocks around the world. West vs East (given the scale of China’s influence) is not a prudent strategy for the stability of the world. China will one day overtake US and it should overtake US as the biggest economy because it is home to 1 billion more people than the US. Even if the citizens of China earn half as much as Americans, China would be twice as big as the US in terms of GDP. Human prosperity should not be measured by which sphere has a larger influence, but how well are humans leading their lives in their respective countries.
[1] NY Times – End of Democracy in Myanmar
[2] Global News – Canada’s debt set to cross $1trillion
[3] Crisis to watch in 2021 , Protests in 2020
[4] CNN – China Uygur Sanctions
[5] NY Times – ‘Absolutely No Mercy’
[6] UN: Universal declaration of Human Rights
[7] Amnesty : India report ; HRW report
[8] Arundhati Roy : India’s Elections: “A Mockery of What Democracy Is Supposed to Be”
[9] From 2016 to 2020, Growing Use of ‘Anti-National’ in Political Discourse on Indian Twitter
[11] India's Oligarchy Shuts the People Out – and the Constitution Is to Blame
[12] The third wave of autocratisation and why it was waiting to happen
[13] National Herald : “No referral from CMO, no admission in hospital”
[16] CNBC: China could overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy
[17] Investopedia: China world’s factory
[18] Brookings : Economic Sanctions: Too Much of a Bad Thing