By: Matt Schrader
China has a serious together with worsening Islamophobia problem. While relations betwixt China’s Muslim minorities together with its Han bulk receive got been fraught since 2009’s deadly inter-ethnic riots inwards the far western metropolis of Urumqi, recent years receive got seen the normalization of online detest speech communication directed at Muslims. The rising of Islamophobia within Communist People's Republic of China is a production both of regime action, together with of the government’s failure to act. Commentary on the recent decease of a prominent Muslim leader inwards the western province of Qinghai highlights the extent to which the province of affairs has deteriorated, together with suggests the ways inwards which China’s warped online discourse could blunt its efforts to laid upwards influence together with win friends inwards countries across the Muslim world.
The Death of an Imam
On July 16, Ma Changqing (马长庆), a prominent imam together with a leader amongst the Muslims of China’s far western province of Qinghai, passed away at the historic menstruation of 83 (Xinhua, July 19). Ma was equally good a fellow member of the Communist People's Republic of China People’s Political Consultative Congress (CPPCC), a consultative legislative torso used yesteryear the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to understand, engage with, together with co-opt those parts of Chinese monastic tell non nether similar a shot Party control. Ma had a brief brush with national notoriety inwards 2014, when, during a CPPCC plenary session, he failed to stand upwards during a 2nd of quiet meant to commemorate the victims of a fatal knife laid on yesteryear homegrown Islamic terrorists (China News, March 10 2014).
Although it afterwards emerged that Ma may receive got failed to stand upwards because of age-related infirmities—he reportedly attended the session inwards a wheelchair—the supposed slight was neither overlooked nor easily forgotten yesteryear many inwards Communist People's Republic of China (Wen Wei Po, March 7). When tidings of large crowds tending Ma’s funeral to pay their respects began to spread on China’s internet, a disturbing proportion of responses contained shockingly blunt detest speech.
“Filthy swine … it’s practiced he’s dead!”, read one. (The Islamic prohibition against pork makes squealer references 1 of Chinese Islamophobes’ favorite forms of insult). “Go run across Allah, together with pick out some of your followers with you!”, said some other (Weibo, June 18). Another netizen, reacting to videos of crowds at the funeral, said, “Are those 200,000 [Muslims] people? They appear to a greater extent than similar fourth dimension bombs to me.”
Ma was, yesteryear all accounts, a compliant fellow member of the party-state structure. That netizens would laid on him together with his swain Muslims on such slight grounds reveals the aeroplane to which the CCP’s sweat to postage stamp out Islamic terrorism inwards China’s far due west has turbocharged latent xenophobic tendencies.
That sweat has seen hundreds of thousands of Uighurs—a Muslim minority group—rounded upwards together with interred inwards “reeducation camps” meant to purge them of “extremist” behaviors (China Brief, May 15). It has equally good increasingly affected the Hui—China’s other large Muslim minority—despite Hui communities having co-existed peacefully amongst China’s Han bulk throughout the province for hundreds of years (AP, Apr 10 2017). At the same fourth dimension it has ramped upwards this sweat of coercion together with control, the CCP has singularly failed to publicly condemn Islamophobic rhetoric engendered yesteryear province media’s style to associate China’s Muslim minorities with terrorism together with extremism (Asian Journal of Communication, March 28).
Fostering Islamophobia
This shortfall exists because, inwards the CCP’s eyes, the existent result is non the undue harshness of its policies, or Islamophobia amongst China’s Han majority, but rather the inability of some of China’s Muslims to hew to acceptable, state-sanctioned, “modern” expressions of Islamic faith.
Even specialists on Islamic civilisation publicly toe this line. For example, at a high-level Sino-Arab dialogue final twelvemonth Xue Qingguo (薛庆国), a professor of Standard Arabic at 1 of Beijing’s top universities together with secretarial assistant of the Communist People's Republic of China Standard Arabic Literature Studies Association, delivered a speech communication inwards Standard Arabic on “Extremism together with Islamophobia” to officials from sixteen majority-Arab countries (Baidu Zhidao; Hongse Guxiang, September iv 2017). In his speech, Xue lauded the achievements of Islamic civilization, together with admitted that “Islamophobia has gotten some traction inwards Communist People's Republic of China inwards recent years”. But he placed the blame for this squarely on Chinese Muslims themselves, condemning those who would “distort a civilization that produced pregnant advances inwards all fields of scientific endeavors, a civilization steeped inwards humanism, into a bulk of trivial minutiae close beards, veils, together with clothing”.
Xue’s speech communication is emblematic of a party-state that preaches ethnic unity, but abhors whatever self-reflection that could hold upwards interpreted equally criticism of the political party line, or equally back upwards for greater political autonomy for China’s minorities. The employment is exacerbated yesteryear the agency the CCP’s online censorship apparatus functions.
China’s censors pick out their cues from political party leaders, scrubbing the mesh of views that leaders observe unacceptable, promoting those they espouse, together with leaving untouched those close which leaders receive got expressed no opinion. The party-state’s failure to strongly condemn Islamophobia thence places anti-Islamophobic voices at a disadvantage inwards world debate, since a song defense forcefulness of China’s Muslims could equally good hold upwards read equally implicit criticism of the government’s failure to verbalise out on their behalf. And since CCP leaders brook no criticism of their hardline policy towards Muslim minorities, all but the most anodyne expressions of back upwards for China’s Muslim citizens receive got a hard fourth dimension gaining buy inwards wider discourse. By the same token, the censorship bureaucracy interprets top leaders’ failure to condemn vile expressions of Islamophobia equally a tacit sanction for their existence, allowing Islamophobic views to circulate to a greater extent than or less freely, together with to become largely unchallenged.
The Real Time Bomb
While China’s domestic politics offering petty prospect for change, external factors could concord out to a greater extent than hope. If China’s handling of its Muslims minorities caused its ties with Gulf countries to deteriorate, it might, for example, prompt the CCP to rethink how it shapes Earth conversation roughly Muslims—for China, the Gulf is an of import marketplace position for weapons, together with an of import supplier of oil.
But despite the worsening province of affairs inwards China’s far west, at that spot is petty indication that Gulf rulers or their publics volition plough against the PRC. Gulf countries late rolled out the welcome mat for Xi Jinping during his tour of the region, together with were to a greater extent than oft than non positive towards Xi’s telephone band for Communist People's Republic of China to serve equally a “keeper of peace together with stability inwards the Middle East” during a speech communication earlier the Arab League—suggesting a possible willingness on Xi’s part for Communist People's Republic of China to pick out on a larger safety role inwards the part (South Communist People's Republic of China Morning Post, July 10).
However, if the United States’ sense is whatever guide, a superpower’s deepening interest inwards Middle Eastern politics tin complicate ties with the Muslim footing inwards unexpected ways. For China, the existent fourth dimension bomb may non hold upwards the agency it treats Muslims at home, but how that handling is perceived abroad.
Matt Schrader is the editor of the Jamestown Communist People's Republic of China Brief. Follow him on Twitter at @tombschrader.
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