TIANSHANNET
Photo taken on August 12, 2021 shows the 52nd Press Conference of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Xinjiang-related Issues. Photo by Xinjiang Daily/Zhou Peng
Xu Guixiang: Good morning, dear media friends! Welcome to the Press Conference of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) on Xinjiang related-issues. I’m Xu Guixiang, the spokesman of the Government of XUAR.
Photo taken on August 12, 2021 shows Xu Guixiang, spokesman of the government of XUAR speaks at the 52nd Press Conference of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Xinjiang-related Issues. Photo by Xinjiang Daily/Zhou Peng
First, I would like to introduce the participants in today’s press conference. They are Mr. Liu Weidong, research fellow of the Institute of American Sudies of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Zulhayat Ismayil of Xinjiang University, and Professor Peng Wuqing of the Law School of Xinjiang Normal University. The press conference for today is held via online video.
First of all, I would like to make some comments on relevant issues.
For a period of time, some media, think tanks and politicians in the United States have lost their minds collectively. They tried their best to politicize and stigmatize the counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures taken in Xinjiang, labeling them as “ethnic repression”, “cultural extinction”, “religious oppression”, “forced labor”, “forced sterilization” and “inter-generational isolation”, and finally claimed that Xinjiang had committed a “genocide”. The United States is so anxious about China, which has been incisively and vividly reflected on the issues related to Xinjiang, that it has arrived at madness, deliberate provocation and shamelessness.
As we all know, the United States preaches the so-called “universal values” everywhere, flaunting itself as “a guardian of democracy, a beacon of freedom, and a model of human rights”, and always lecturing others. The United States always finds fault with others, but never reflect on itself. Today, we will unveil the ugly face of the United States. Along the historical path of the United States is a traveling freak with a human rights record of “poisons” and an ugly international image. The United States can be called the “executioner” of genocide. Within the nearly 100 years since the founding of the United States, it carried out systematic ethnic cleansing and massacre against Indians, and committed countless crimes. The United States can be called a “recidivist” of racial discrimination. African Americans are suffering from systematic discrimination, and the cry of Floyd “I can’t breathe” still hurts people. The United States can be called “the most belligerent country in the history of the world”. In the history of more than 240 years after the United States was founded, only 16 years doesn’t see it in the war. It has ignited conflicts and wars everywhere and engaged in militarism, resulting in extremely serious casualties and property losses. The United States can be called the “vanguard” of interventionism, openly trampling on the international order and brutally interfering in the internal affairs of other countries under the banner that human rights are higher than sovereignty. The United States can be called a “well-known double standard” of terrorism. It considers terrorist activities in China as treasure and fight fiercely against terrorist activities in the United States. The United States can be called the “forefather” of forced labor. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, thousands of African slaves were sold from the African continent to the cotton fields in the southern United States for enslavement. The United States can be called a “recidivist” of privacy surveillance. Armed with the most advanced intelligence system in the world, it unscrupulously spies on its own people and people of other countries, and even peeps at the leaders of its allies. The United States can be regarded as a “master” excelling in creating the separation of flesh and blood. The forced separation of parents and children imposed on Indians and the “zero tolerance” immigration policy have created countless human tragedies. The United States can be called the “poker-faced killer” ignoring the respect for life. Known as the country with the most abundant medical resource and the best medical care capability, the United States has messed up the COVID-19 prevention and control and has largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and the largest COVID-19 fatality. The United States can be called a “lie maker”. It brazenly takes lies as a foreign policy and lies with its eyes open on issues related to Xinjiang!
The truth is the most powerful rumor shredder. At present, the economy in Xinjiang is developing with high quality, and its endogenous driving force and sustainable development ability are continuously enhanced. The overall social situation is as stable as Mount Tai, and there have been no violent terrorist cases for more than four consecutive years. The living standards of people have been continuously improved. As far as the good social situation in Xinjiang is concerned, today, infants can get nursing, children have access to schooling, workers get paid from their work with contentment, patients can get proper medical treatment, the old people have no worries about subsistence, and people enjoy comfortable housing. In terms of ethnic relationship, it is harmonious, and the people of all ethnic groups hold together like pomegranate seeds and are working together for common prosperity and development. The religious field is imbued with friendly and harmonious atmosphere, the freedom of religious belief is fully guaranteed, and all religions are inherited in a healthy and orderly manner. As for cultural area, cultural undertakings have flourished, and cultures of all ethnic groups enjoy each other, exchange with each other and learn from each other, blooming brilliantly in the embrace of Chinese culture. In the area of economy, economic cooperation and exchanges continue to expand, the status of the core area of the “Silk Road Economic Belt” is getting increasingly prominent, and the construction of a new inland opening-up heights is accelerating. All the regions around Tianshan Mountain, rural and urban, show a gratifying scene of prosperity. In Xinjiang, where can we find “concentration camps”? Which place is like “hell on earth”?? Please answer, the United States!
With the voice of Xinjiang being spread all over the world, the international community has become increasingly clear about Xinjiang related issues. Many insightful people have come forward to speak out, praising Xinjiang and accusing the United States, and formed an irresistible torrent of justice. Some individuals and institutions including Alfred de Zayas, a former independent expert of the United Nations on the promotion of democracy and a fair international order, Maxim Vivas, a French writer, Max Blumenthal, editor in chief of Gray Zone, an independent news website of the United States, Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University of the United States, William Schabas, a professor at Middlesex University of the United Kingdom Michele Geraci, a former Italian dignitaries, Japanese scholar Murata Tadayoshi, and the Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research have exposed the sinister intention of the United States to slander Xinjiang in different ways and on different occasions.
“Those who are clear are clear themselves, and those who are turbid are turbid themselves.” Although a person who pretends to sleep will never be waken up, his ugly and evil ways can not be concealed by pretending to sleep. Today’s press conference on Xinjiang related issues is to take off the “fig leaf” of the United States and let the world have a look at its bloody history and reality.
Xu Guixiang: Some anti-China forces in the United States claim that Xinjiang implements “forced labor”. however, it is well known that in American history here have been large-scale forced labor. Even at present, the problems of human trafficking and forced labor in the United States are still very prominent. Now let’s invite Professor Peng Wuqing to comment on this issue.
Photo taken on August 12, 2021 shows Peng Wuqing speaks at the 52nd Press Conference of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Xinjiang-related Issues. Photo by Xinjiang Daily/Zhou Peng
Peng Wuqing: For some time, some anti-China forces in the United States have wantonly fabricated the lie of “large-scale forced labor” in Xinjiang, abused long arm jurisdiction and export control measures on this pretext, and tried to suppress enterprises in Xinjiang and create “forced unemployment” and “forced poverty” through sanctions. In this way they attempt to put the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang in poverty, isolation and backwardness in order to achieve the sinister goal of bringing disaster and chaos to Xinjiang. Recently, the so-called “Uygur Forced Labor Prevention Act” was concocted in a vain attempt to further intervene in Xinjiang affairs and interfere in China’s internal affairs. However, it is ironic that these anti-China forces only know how to criticize and discredit Xinjiang, and seem to forget that the United States itself is the country where forced labor really exists.
In fact, the United States has a history of trafficking, abuse and discrimination against black slaves for hundreds of years. From the reception of the first batch of slaves in 1619 to the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, the southern plantations on the American continent became the main places where blacks and other minorities were forced to work. In order to ensure sufficient labor force, even during the prohibition of the international slave trade from 1783 to 1808, American traders still transported about 170,000 slaves to the United States through various means, which is one third of the total number of slaves imported to North America since 1619. According to statistics, the labor value squeezed by American slave owners from black slaves is as high as $14 trillion at current prices. It can be said that forced labor is an indelible stain in the “history of prosperity” of the United States.
Although the sunshine of the 21st century has been shed on the whole world, forced labor, the poisonous legacy of slave society, is still deeply rooted in the United States. However, the immigrants have taken over the identity from the hands of African slaves. Over the past five years, cases of forced labor and human trafficking have been reported in all 50 states of the United States and Washington, DC. Every year, as many as 100,000 people are trafficked from abroad to the United States as forced labor, half of which are trafficked to “sweatshops” or subjected to domestic slavery. In 2019 alone, the FBI reported 1883 cases of human trafficking, an increase of over 500 cases, compared to the number in 2018. According to the statistics of some American academic institutions, at least 500,000 people in the United States have been subjected to modern slavery and forced labor. Recently, according to The Associated Press, hundreds of workers from India were recruited to build a large Hindu temple in New Jersey. After they disembarked from the plane, their passports were taken away. These workers were forced to work more than 87 hours a week. The local minimum wage in New Jersey is $12 an hour, while the wage of these Indian workers is only $1.20 an hour.
American agriculture is also a hard hit area of forced labor. The organization Farm Workers’ Justice said in its report entitled No Way to Treat a Guest that American farmers do not need to pay social security and unemployment insurance for seasonal migrant workers. They use labor at very low cost, maliciously deducting wages and implementing debt slavery and racial discrimination, and habitually do not guarantee basic accommodation and a safe workplace. In the field of agriculture, 30% of farm workers and their families live below the federal poverty line. It is difficult for them to express their demands, and they are often subjected to threats or violence and forced labor. The vast majority of farm workers are male immigrants, many of whom are not registered and may be deported at any time. Because they can’t speak English, they know nothing about labor rights. They are afraid of being deported, so they can only choose to swallow their anger in the face of employers’ exploitation.
The prison and detention system in the United States hides the dirt of forced labor. The United States has the largest prison system in the world, holding about 2.3 million prisoners. Although the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1865 abolished slavery, it allowed prisons to force prisoners to work. There is absolute evidence that American prisoners are forced to work at low wages, ranging from US $0.86 to US $3.45 per day on average. In some states, they can’t even get any pay at all. According to the website of the Black Agenda Report in the United States, American prisoners are not protected by law and have no right to refuse forced labor. They may be forced to take part in some dangerous work, such as extinguishing California wildfires, and can only get up to $5.12 a day. According to the Los Angeles Times, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 in 2020 in the United States, prisoners in women’s prison in California were forced to produce masks at risk of infection. They worked for up to 12 hours a day, with a maximum wage of 1 dollar per hour, or even 8 cents. They produced thousands of masks every day, but they couldn’t own one.
The abuse of child labor in the United States is also notorious. The United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to the statistics of some American industry associations, there are about 500,000 child workers engaged in agricultural work in the United States. Many children start working at the age of 8, working for 72 hours a week, and working for more than 10 hours a day is not uncommon. The cancer risk of child workers due to pesticides is three times that of adults. According to official statistics of the United States, in 2019, US law enforcement personnel found 858 cases of child labor in violation of Fair Labor Standards Act, and 544 minors working in dangerous workplaces. Of particular concern is the high prevalence of child labour in the United States tobacco industry. According to some human rights organizations, tobacco farms in many states in the United States employ a large number of children to harvest and dry tobacco leaves, and even operate heavy machinery. At the same time, tobacco farms do great harm to children’s physical and mental health. It is reported that children working on tobacco farms generally feel nausea and headache, and they have caught nicotine poisoning, and even lung infection.
The violation of labor rights is not only confined in the United States, and some American enterprises have extended their claws of forced labor to other countries. According to Reuters, one of the world’s largest tire manufacturers, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of the United States, has recently encountered a number of allegations.
Countless historical facts and cases have repeatedly proved that the forced labor in the United States is not only the African slaves’ history of blood and tears, but also the nightmare of American immigrants in modern society. However, the US government has avoided talking about this, and even deliberately evaded its responsibility to protect immigrants. According to the statistics of the international labor organization, so far, the United States has only ratified 14 international labor conventions. Among the eight core conventions of ILO, the United States has ratified only two, and is one of the countries with the least number of ratification. This coincides with the long-standing poor record of forced labor and violations of labor rights in the United States. No matter how some anti-China forces in the United States discredit and attack Xinjiang on the labor issue, and no matter how they flaunt themselves as “beacon of democracy” and “guardian of human rights”, they will never be able to hide the hard evidence of the violation of labor rights by the United States.
Xu Guixiang: Next, please watch the footage of the TV documentary American Story on the forced labor practiced during the “Westward Movement”.
Xu Guixiang: Some anti-China forces in the United States claim that there is “genocide” in Xinjiang. But can this label be attached to Xinjiang? In fact, the United States is terribly guilty on the racial issue. Now let’s invite Professor Zulhayat Ismayil to comment on this issue.
Photo taken on August 12, 2021 shows Zulhayat Ismayil speaks at the 52nd Press Conference of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Xinjiang-related Issues. Photo by Xinjiang Daily/Zhou Peng
Zulhayat Ismayil: The United States attached the label of the so-called “genocide” to China, accusing the Chinese government of implementing “genocide” in Xinjiang and falsely claiming that the people of Xinjiang “suffered coercion and persecution”. But in fact, the United States itself is the country that really implements “genocide”.
The United States carried out inhuman ethnic cleansing over native Indians. Especially in the “Westward Movement”, they wantonly expelled and killed Indians. By the beginning of the 20th century, the American Indian population had plummeted from 5 million in 1492 to 0.25 million. Today, the number of Indians in the United States accounts for only 2% of the total US population. While slaughtering Indians, American rulers assimilated Indians culturally in order to eliminate dissidents. As early as the end of the 19th century, the United States began to fully implement the white model education and implement the mandatory English only education. Nowadays, most of the people who speak Indian are old people living on reserves. To this day, American Indians still live like second-class citizens, and their rights have been trampled upon.
The United States discriminates against and arbitrarily kills African Americans. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance issues noted that the number of killings and cruel abuses of African Americans by US law enforcement authorities is alarming and they are rarely prosecuted. It is reported that 60% of African Americans believe that they are often discriminated against in job hunting and shopping, and discrimination is common in housing application, loan processing, insurance collection and other issues. According to the website of Police Violence Map, in 2020, the US police shot and killed 1127 people, and did not kill for only 18 days. African Americans account for only 13% of the total population of the United States, butt account for 28% of the number shot by the police. The probability of African Americans being killed by the police is three times that of whites. From 2013 to 2020, about 98% of the police involved were not charged with crime, and very few were convicted. Especially in 2020, the death of African American man Floyd and the large-scale protests triggered by it once again exposed the long-term and systematic serious racial discrimination in the United States, which has made American minorities “unable to breathe”.
The United States wantonly bullies Asian groups. In 1882, Chester Arthur, president of the United States then, officially signed Chinese Exclusion Act, which was the first anti-immigration law against a specific race and nation in American history. The bill not only discriminates against Chinese in the United States, but also directly threatens their safety. Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1943, and the US Congress did not make a symbolic apology until 2012. In the context of COVID-19, violence against Asian Americans has aggravated, and all kinds of bullying, abuse and attacks emerge endlessly. NBC website reported on September 17, 2020 that a survey on Asian American young people showed that in the past year, a quarter of Asian American young people had become targets of racial bullying. Fueled by the racist remarks of the US government leaders then, nearly half of the respondents expressed pessimism about their situation, and a quarter expressed fear about the situation of themselves and their families.
Faced with such a serious problem of “genocide” and racial discrimination, what qualifications does the United States have to lecture on other countries’ ethnic policies? The United States should first solve its own domestic problems and then “care” about the other parts of the world.
Xu Guixiang: Now please watch the pictures and videos reflecting the massacre over Indians and the peeling of human skin to make leather boots in the United States.
Xu Guixiang: Some anti-China forces in the United States claimed that Xinjiang “oppressed Muslims”, but in fact, the evil systematic persecution on Muslims in the United States is shocking. Now let’s invite the research fellow Liu Weidong to comment on this issue.
A screenshot of the video taken on August 12, 2021 shows Liu Weidong, research fellow of Institute of American Sudies of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences speaks via video at the 52nd Press Conference of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Xinjiang-related Issues. Photo by Xinjiang Daily/Zhou Peng
Liu Weidong: The United States has flaunted itself as a country with freedom of religious belief, but in fact the freedom is only enjoyed by Christianity believers. Islam, one of the three major religions in the world, has been excluded, restricted and even prohibited for a long time. Muslim groups have been discriminated against, suppressed and even persecuted for a long time, and their basic political, economic, cultural and social rights are difficult to be guaranteed. What’s more, some American politicians and media often equate Muslim groups with terrorists.
Since the founding of the United States, it has systematically forced Muslims to abandon their religious beliefs. Before the 20th century, American Muslim immigrants mainly came from Africa and the Middle East. Muslims accounted for 10% ~ 15% of the black slaves trafficked from Africa to North America. However, due to severe religious persecution, it was difficult for them to maintain their original beliefs. Most of them had to eventually convert to Christianity, and their descendants no longer recognized themselves as Muslims.
So far, Muslims in the United States have always been regarded as “untrusted outsiders”. In recent decades, with the adjustment of American immigration policy, millions of Muslim immigrants have come to the United States. A large part of these people are scholars, doctors and engineers with professional skills. They have contributed to the development of the United States. However, due to geopolitical factors, especially the relationship between the United States and countries in the Middle East, negative emotions against Muslims continue to rise in the United States. The endless negative reports in the media have exacerbated the hatred and violence against Muslims in the American society.
After Sept 11 incident, the “Islamophobia industry” even emerged and prospered in the United States, and some people “feed on” the discrimination and persecution against Muslims. Many anti-Islam people take advantage of publishing books, writing blogs and serving as interview guests to make a great deal of extreme remarks and even false information, depicting Muslims as sinister and anti-American images advocating violence, and they are obsessed with Muslim conspiracy theory. In this anti-Muslim social atmosphere, the vast majority of Americans gradually feel fear, distrust and even deep hatred towards Muslims. According to the FBI report, hatred crimes against Muslims in the United States increased by 1600% in 2001.
The United States signed the so-called “Muslim Ban” on January 27, 2017, banning citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States. Trump’s national security assistant Flynn compared Islam to a “malignant tumor”, claiming that Islamism is a “political idea hidden behind the religious appearance”, and that the fear of Muslims is “reasonable”. Bannon, who once served as Trump’s chief strategist, called Islam “the most extreme religion in the world” and claimed that people who believe in Islam were establishing a “Fifth Column” in the United States.
On the one hand, the United States has wantonly persecuted Muslims and vigorously engaged in de-Islamization. On the other hand, it has accused Xinjiang of de-radicalization and hypocritically expressed “care” for Muslims in Xinjiang. They do not respect Islam at all, nor do they really care about Muslims. Instead, they use Islam and Muslims’ religious feelings to artificially create unstable factors in order to disrupt Xinjiang. This is completely a ruthless ambition.
Xu Guixiang: Now please watch the footage collection on how the United States blatantly waged war against Muslim countries.
Xu Guixiang: Some anti-China forces in the United States claim that Xinjiang has implemented the “separation of flesh and blood” movement, but a large amount of evidence shows that the United States has implemented an inhuman separation policy on Indians, causing severe trauma. Now lets invite Professor Zulhayat Ismayil to comment on this issue.
Zulhayat Ismayil: For a long time, the United States has frequently lectured other countries by using the so-called human rights issues, but it has played down the repeated humanitarian crises such as harsh treatment of immigrants and “separation of flesh and blood” at its borders, or even avoided talking about them.
As early as the 19th century, the United States began to implement the assimilation policy towards Indians and opened more than 350 Indian boarding schools to assimilate Indian children and youth into European and American culture. In boarding schools, young children were forced to give up their native American identity and culture, use European names, prohibit speaking indigenous languages, and even be separated from their families. According to studies conducted by the American Indian Affairs Association in 1969 and 1974, one in every three to four Indian children was forced to “separate” from their parents. Many of them have been abused in foster families, deprived of cultural identity and unable to heal their trauma all their lives. Some scholars estimate that this may have caused as many as 40,000 deaths of Indian children in more than 150 years.
In recent years, the United States has implemented the “zero tolerance” immigration policy, resulting in a large number of children being forced to separate from their parents, brothers and sisters and countless human tragedies. Since 2018, 24 immigrants, including 7 children, have died in US border shelters. Of the nearly 270,000 immigrant children detained by the US government in recent years, nearly 25,000 were detained for more than 100 days, nearly 1000 spent more than a year in refugee shelters, and many were detained for more than five years.
We call on the international community to continue to pay attention to human rights violations in immigration detention centers in the United States, urge the United States to immediately stop human rights violations in immigration detention centers, close all offshore detention centers, stop the “separation of flesh and blood”, and effectively respect and protect the rights of immigrants, especially migrant children.
Xu Guixiang: Now please watch the video on the implementation of the “forced fosterage” policy and assimilation of Indians in the United States.
Xu Guixiang: Some anti-China forces in the United States claim that there is “large-scale surveillance” in Xinjiang, but judging from the recent disclosures, the United States has wantonly surveilled the people and even foreign dignitaries for a long time, which is uproarious. Next, I would like to comment on this issue.
Xu Guixiang: For a long time, agencies of the US government have carried out large-scale organized and undifferentiated network theft, surveillance and attacks on the government, enterprises and individuals. The United States is recognized as number one “hacker empire” and major secret theft criminal in the world .
The US government has continuously strengthened its surveillance over the people, greatly restricting and reducing the free space of American society, and seriously violated civil liberties. In 2012, the US Congress passed a bill authorizing the government to infringe on people’s privacy through unauthorized eavesdropping and electronic devices. In June 2013, Snowden exposed the “Prism” plan of the United States, revealing that the US intelligence department kept all mobile phones and online computers around the world under 24-hour surveillance every day, even leaders of allies such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel was under surveillance. However, after that, the United States continuously expanded its surveillance on leaders of other countries and international organizations, ordinary people and related enterprises, and the technical means of surveillance are being renovated day by day. In 2016, by investing in relevant private companies, the CIA strengthened the surveillance of citizens’ comments made on social media such as twitter, Facebook and Instagram. A windowless building in downtown New York is the secret surveillance center of US National Security Agency in Manhattan. It surveil US domestic communications, and the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, at least 38 other countries as well. The US National Security Agency operates a spy center code named “Titanpointe” in the building, using the equipment of AT & T in the building to surveil telephone, fax and internet information in and out of the United States, and intercept satellite data including mail, chat, Skype telephone, password and internet browsing history. In 2017, US President Trump signed an administrative decree requiring the installation of face scanning equipment at 20 major US airports. US intelligence and law enforcement departments use photos on driver’s licenses and avatars of “Facebook” users to establish a face database, and law enforcement departments often retrieve the data in the database at will. A study published by Georgetown University shows that about half of American adults are included in the face recognition system used by law enforcement agencies. On December 6, 2019, the Dallas Morning Post website reported that the US federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have set up eight secret surveillance centers in Texas alone to share intelligence and surveil social media and other online forums. According to the report of the US Audit Office on June 4, 2019, the Face Recognition Office of the FBI can arbitrarily search the database containing more than 641 million photos without legal permission.
Surveillance scandals concerning the United States are frequently exposed, which once again fully reveals the hegemonic mentality of the United States which ignores international rules and morality, continuously keep the world under its surveillance, and only safeguards its own interests. Unexpectedly, the United States, such a big thief stealing secrets, while acting as a “destroyer”, pretends to be a “victim”, and claims to maintain network security under the banner of “cleaning the network”. The network security maintaining is false and the suppression on its competitors is true; safeguarding the security of allies is false and safeguarding its own hegemony is true. The United States, which keeps the world under surveillance, even falsely accuses Xinjiang of using high technology to violate human rights, and uses this as an excuse to sanction Chinese high-tech enterprises. This is completely outrageous bandit logic!
Xu Guixiang: Now please watch a video on Snowden’s exposure of the implementation of “Prism” plan in the United States.
Peng Wuqing: Terrorism is a common threat confronting mankind, and it is also an important issue that requires the cooperation of all countries. In recent years, terrorism and extremism have spread all over the world, bringing serious disasters to mankind. In the face of the raging of terrorism and extremism, no country can stay safe alone. Being united to combat terrorism is not only an urgent task for the international community, but also its responsibility.
However, in the view of the United States, combating terrorism is only a political means to serve American hegemony and a cheap excuse to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. The United States has no mercy on terrorist activities against the United States. It has even gone abroad and brazenly launched the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, causing unrest in many countries. However, the United States condones and protects terrorist activities against China, and even supports them openly and secretly. As we all know, the notorious ETIM was recognized as a terrorist organization by the United Nations as early as 2002 and included in the sanction list of the 1267 Committee of the UN Security Council. For a long time, in order to achieve the goal of separating Xinjiang from China, the ETIM spread the thought of terrorist violence under the guise of religion. They incited, planned and implemented a series of terrorist attacks, which caused great harm to the safety of people and property. The violent terrorist attacks, such as the October 28 terrorist attack at Jinshui Bridge in Beijing, the March 1 terrorist incident in Kunming, Yunnan, and the April 30 terrorist attack at Urumqi South Railway Station in Xinjiang were plotted and implemented by ETIM. In December 2019, a counter-terrorism documentary entitled The Black Hand--ETIM and Terrorism in Xinjiang released by CGTN has showed a large number of objective and real examples of the numerous crimes committed by ETIM including disrupting Xinjiang, instilling extreme ideas, inciting ethnic hatred, poisoning women and children, and producing terrorist attacks etc.. In the face of such a sinful terrorist organization, the United States openly announced that it would revoke the decision to recognize the ETIM as a terrorist organization, trying to wash off the crimes of ETIM. It supports the terrorist forces, and becomes the “Black Hand”, which manipulates the chaos and disruption in Xinjiang.
The “double standards” adopted by the United States on the issue of counter-terrorism and its ugly nature concerning its attitude toward terrorist organizations have no legitimacy at all. To use or abandon terrorist organizations solely depends on whether they would cooperate with the United States or not. This poses the greatest threat to the cause of international counter-terrorism, a serious challenge to the bottom line of human civilization, and a great offence to more than 25 million people of ethnic groups in Xinjiang. Those anti-china forces are destined to be nailed to the stigma of history.
Xu Guixiang: Now please watch the footage of the documentary The Black Hand--ETIM and Terrorism in Xinjiang.
Xu Guixiang: The US government unreasonably sanctioned the cotton industry in Xinjiang on the pretext of so-called “forced labor”, but it seems to have forgotten the history of blood and tears--African slaves were forced to pick cotton in the United States. Now let’s invite the research fellow Liu Weidong to comment on this issue.
Liu Weidong: The development of American cotton industry is closely related to enslaving blacks. Since the 18th century, with the rapid expansion of cotton planting in the southern United States, a large number of blacks were sold here and forced to engage in cotton planting and picking. In Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and other major cotton growing areas in the United States, a large number of black slaves wore shackles around their necks and ankles. They were forced to work by slave owners, downtrodden and flogged by white foreman from time to time. White cotton forms a sharp contrast with black skin.
Sven Beckett, a history professor at Harvard University, gave a detailed introduction to the American enslavement of blacks to grow cotton in his book entitled Empire of Cotton: A Global History. The book says that in order to expand cotton production on a large scale, southern planters introduced thousands of slaves. In the 1890s, the number of slaves in Georgia nearly doubled to 60,000. In South Carolina, the number of slaves in inland cotton growing areas was 21,000 in 1790 and increased to 70,000 20 years later, including 15,000 slaves newly imported from Africa. With the expansion of plantations, the proportion of blacks in the four typical inland counties in South Carolina increased from 18.4% in 1790 to 39.5% in 1820 and 61.1% in 1860. Until the outbreak of the American Civil War, the cotton industry and slavery went hand in hand and developed synchronously. The United States and Britain became the two axes of the emerging cotton empire.
The book also records how a slave named John Brown was beaten by a leather whip and how the foreman “hunted” fugitive slaves. John Brown remembered that when the price of cotton in the British market rose, poor slaves immediately felt the consequences, because their days were more difficult and the whips kept beating them. Another slave, Henry Bibb, also remembered the scene that he was being punished: in the sound of the foreman’s whistling, all the slaves gathered to witness my punishment. I was stripped and forced to lie face down on the ground. There were four stakes standing on the ground. My hands and feet were tied to these stakes, and the foreman beat me with a whip.
The development history of American cotton industry is not only a history of black slavery full of blood and tears, but also an ugly history of “forced labor”. The US government unreasonably sanctioned the cotton industry in Xinjiang under the pretext of so-called “forced labor” completely out of “judging others from one’s own position”. They endeavor in vain to shift its own historical stains and dirty practices to Xinjiang, China. There is an American film adapted from a real-life story called Twelve Years a Slave, which shows how African Americans are forced to work.
Xu Guixiang: Now please watch the clip of the film Twelve Years a Slave.
Xu Guixiang: Recently, a handful of anti-China congressmen in the United States claimed that they would promote the process of enacting bills related to Xinjiang, so that the U.S. government could impose sanctions on “violations of Muslim human rights in Xinjiang". Now I would like to make comments on this issue.
Xu Guixiang: In fact, the United States has a long history of undermining the international rule of law and waving a big stick of sanctions under the guise of law. As early as the 1980s, the United States used its long arm jurisdiction and brought down Toshiba and other leading enterprises in Japan’s semiconductor industry. In 2008, Siemens in Germany sank into a global bribery. The bribers and bribe takers in the bribery had nothing to do with the United States. However, because the company was listed in the United States, it was subject to the “long arm jurisdiction” of the Overseas Anti-Corruption Act of the United States, and was fined $1.6 billion by the US government, which created a historical record. According to the statistics of the New York Times in 2012, among the top 10 companies fined for violating the US Overseas Anti-Corruption Act, only one is headquartered in the United States, and the United States has seized huge settlement funds by this means. In 2013, the United States used “long arm justice” as a tool to crack down on French energy giant Alstom. In addition, European Airbus, Japanese car enterprises, Ericsson of Sweden and other enterprises have had similar experiences.
In recent years, the United States has wantonly slandered China’s policy of governing Xinjiang and frequently imposed unilateral sanctions on entities and individuals involved in Xinjiang in accordance with its domestic law. In May 2020, US Department of Commerce included 33 Chinese entities in the “list of export control entities”, accusing 9 of them of “violating human rights in Xinjiang”; In September 2020, US Customs and Border Protection issued an export ban on five Xinjiang related enterprises under the pretext of “forced labor” in Xinjiang. In October 2020, US Department of Commerce included 18 entities such as the Public Security Department of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the “list of export control entities” based on the so-called “human rights” issue; In March 2021, the United States included relevant officials and entities in Xinjiang in the sanctions on the pretext of “forced labor” in the cotton industry in Xinjiang. In June 2021, US Department of Commerce included four Xinjiang photovoltaic enterprises and Xinjiang production and Construction Corps in the “list of export control entities” under the so-called “suspected violation of human rights”. In July 2021, US Department of Commerce included 23 Chinese entities in the “list of export control entities”, accusing 14 of them of participating in the so-called “suppression, detention and surveillance” in Xinjiang.
This bullying act of the United States has incurred strong resentment and widespread criticism from the international community. Former French Prime Minister Jospin said, “American laws can only be implemented in the United States, not in France.” In an interview with Reference News in 2019, French Senator Philip Bonacarell said that France opposes the power logic of the United States, and that the long arm jurisdiction of the United States exists from Asia to Europe, which poses a severe challenge to our sovereignty. Borrell, a senior EU official, said that the United States is increasingly using sanctions or threats with sanctions against European enterprises, and that this “extraterritorial sanctions” is in violation of international law. When the United States imposed long arm sanctions on the Nord Stream 2, a cooperative project of Russia and Europe, Zaharova, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, pointed out that the United States lectured other countries so frequently that one day the United States would prohibit other countries from “breathing”. “The United States has long been weakening its competitors with the improper means of law, and all the other countries should unite to resist American unilateralism,” said Frederick Pieruqi, a former Alstom executive and author of the book American Trap.
Facts have proved that long arm jurisdiction has become a hegemonic tool for the United States to suppress foreign entities, interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and even subvert the regimes of other countries. In order to maintain its hegemonic position in the world, the United States frequently puts its domestic law above international law, wantonly provoking other countries’ national sovereignty and arbitrarily infringing on the rights and interests of other enterprises and citizens of other countries, seriously undermines the basic principle of international rule of law--equality of national sovereign, and seriously tramples on the international order, disregarding the strong oppositions of the world. The United States has repeatedly used the seemingly powerful weapon--long arm jurisdiction. In fact, it is like drinking poison liquid to quench thirst, which will only make the United States carried away in hegemony and go crazy, and eventually perish. This is the fate of American hegemony.
Xu Guixiang: Now watch the video about how Frederick Pieruzi, the author of the American Trap and former Alstom executive exposes the long arm jurisdiction of the United States.