Tibet and Xinjiang: A Case of Ping Pong Repression

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is a Wall St. Journal with an unusually good review of the PRC’s recent actions in Tibet and their relation to and comparison with developments in Xinjiang. Several interesting observations were made, including the following:

Just as earlier successful repressive measures in Tibet were then applied and expanded in Xinjiang, now cutting edge technologies applied in repression in Xinjiang are being applied and adapted in Tibet. Ping pong repression! 

The Han majority continues to have more interest in and sympathy for Tibetans than for people in Xinjiang, a point that the article properly credits Professor Robbie Barnett for emphasizing in his continuing invaluable studies of Tibet. Many of us can personally testify to this from our own anecdotal experience in China.

A good reminder of the Dalai Lama’s advancing age and the impending crisis over his succession. He seems to have been less in the public eye of late and his repeated calls for autonomy for Tibet rather than independence, which have never reassured Beijing, would ring especially hollow to the world as well in light of recent events in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. I recall the conversation about Taiwan that I had in 1964 with a Communist Party member in Hong Kong who tried to convince me that the Party would guarantee Taiwan the same degree of autonomy as granted to Tibet. That, I said, was exactly the fear that many of us had.

The article reports that the Tibetan government in exile has stated that it was originally optimistic about Xi Jinping’s assumption of power because Xi’s father “had a close relationship with the Dalai Lama," something I had not heard before. Of course, many of us have been disappointed about XJP’s rejection of his father’s final admonition to the Party to allow “differences of opinion” or risk failure.

Finally, the WSJ article refers to recent work by Adrian Zenz on Tibet, which I had not noted. He keeps giving the Party more and more reasons to try to discredit him.

What are the implications of China's lawsuit against Adrian Zenz?

By Jerome A. Cohen

U.S-based academic Adrian Zenz

Here is a recent article by Eva Dou on a lawsuit against U.S.-based academic Adrian Zenz for his work on exposing human rights abuses in Xinjiang. I assume this is a civil lawsuit for defamation. It is probably an effort to reinforce propaganda throughout the country to convince the Chinese people that foreign stories about Xinjiang are demonstrably false. Defamation can also be a crime in China. Zenz has nothing to worry about as long as he does not set foot in China, unless some effort is made to enforce a PRC judgment in the courts of a country where he resides or has assets, which could be the United States, Germany or elsewhere. In such case, he might well benefit from the pro bono services of local lawyers who oppose this form of PRC oppression. Otherwise, legal defense fees could prove costly even if, as I assume, he defeats the attempt at enforcement of the foreign judgment and the court does not require the plaintiffs to reimburse his fees.

Similarly, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew made good use of defamation suits to crush local political opponents by persuading his courts to award huge damage verdicts against the opponents. They would also have to pay court costs and lawyers’ fees, perhaps even for the lawyers who sued them! The defendants had no place to hide.

Perhaps Zenz should contemplate bringing suit outside China against the Chinese companies who seek to harass him in China if they have a presence in relevant jurisdictions. He can probably find lawyers to help him pro bono, and this would not only cause the companies to incur expense but also harm their reputations in markets of importance.

Genocide, crimes against humanity, and common sense

By Jerome A. Cohen

It is obvious that crimes against humanity and other international human rights violations have been taking place in Xinjiang. There is ample evidence from many sources, not the least of which are the Muslim people themselves. I do not think that commentators should allow the debate over whether the correct term is “genocide” to absolve the PRC from its evident abominations.

Yet, we should not allow this agreement to obscure the importance of the Genocide Convention. It should not take training in international law to make it clear to those who read the Convention that this treaty is not by any means limited in its scope to killing. If it were, there would have been no need to go beyond “killing” in section (a) to add sections (b) through (e), covering other types of harm, in the definitional provision. The PRC has been engaged in a comprehensive, multifaceted, whole of government and society campaign to eliminate the distinguishing characteristics of the Uyghur and Kazakh peoples. This grotesque and probably futile effort to convert them into Han people deserves to be condemned as the kind of “destruction” of a people that those who drafted and ratified the Convention had in mind. 

Regarding what actions countries can take, I support unilateral and multilateral denunciations in every possible forum, including diplomatic, economic, scientific, educational, cultural and sports activities, and reluctance to give favorable responses to whatever the PRC wants from other countries. E.g., it is still not too late for the EU to drag its feet on or not ratify the recent trade agreement. In protest, the US and other liberal democracies should not send participants to the 2022 Winter Olympics.

How to manage such strong protests and still make progress on urgent issues of interest to both sides, such as climate and public health, will be the challenge confronting liberal democracies. Balance is easier said than done. Yet we have to try what I have mentioned previously – The Four Cs: Cooperation, Competition, Criticism and Containment.

Suing China for Internationally Wrongful Acts?

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is an interesting, imaginative piece by Professor James Kraska, China is legally responsible for COVID-19 Damage and claims could be in the trillions. Prof. Kraska is an able and somewhat nationalistic scholar of international law and politics. He not only articulates a basis for potentially holding the PRC internationally liable for damages related to China’s cover-ups of the virus but also deals with the broader problem of how to mobilize realpolitik measures to oppose and perhaps terminate other PRC violations of international law, a challenge that keeps popping up re Xinjiang, suppression of human rights lawyers and their clients, kidnappings and other more conventional arbitrary detentions, and other misbehavior. Of course, the PRC can play at this game and seek to mobilize world pressures and sanctions against the US for its invasion of Iraq, its abuse of would-be immigrants and other mischief that might be characterized as international law violations.

Kraska quickly dismisses attempts to sue the PRC in the International Court of Justice for the simple reason that the PRC has not accepted and would not accept ICJ jurisdiction in such a case. Nevertheless a very highly-publicized effort to initiate such a case may be useful in promoting public awareness, for example regarding Xinjiang atrocities. The current suit against Myanmar because of its mistreatment of its Muslim minorities is an example. The case is far from over but the opening phase put Myanmar in the dock including its vaunted Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Cardinal Zen’s call on the Vatican to speak out

By Jerome A. Cohen

Cardinal Zen, who has done so much over the decades to alert the world to religious persecution in China and the plight of Hong Kong, has once again tried to stimulate a response from the Vatican. His op-ed in the Washington Post, What’s behind the Vatican’s silence on Hong Kong?, is the most recent effort by one of the most dynamic, feisty and far-sighted human rights activists.

This, of course, is not merely a Hong Kong issue. It makes me wonder why the Pope does not speak out about the abominations of the Chinese Communist Party in Xinjiang (or have I missed something among all the increasing condemnations from others who proclaim moral principles?). Instead of secretly, endlessly and abjectly negotiating with the Party in the hopeless cause of obtaining religious freedom in China, the Vatican might grasp the opportunity to begin the long march toward recovering some of the moral authority it has so dramatically lost in recent years.

Important leaks to New York Times on China's policy in Xinjiang

Jerome A. Cohen

 Today’s New York Times reports over 400 pages of internal Chinese documents about the policy and practice regarding Xinjiang’s internment camps. Bravo for Austin, Chris and the NY Times for a superb job.

I previously raised the issue several times whether Xi Jinping —not merely his principal henchman, Chen Quanguo — should, at least in principle, be recognized as the leading Chinese candidate for the application of Magnitsky Act sanctions by the USG. Here is persuasive supporting evidence. We have always known where the buck stops, but this is ample confirmation.

The documents also confirm how irrelevant the formal criminal justice system is in the People’s Republic of China for most cases involving people — one should say “enemies” rather than “people” — suspected of impure political conduct or even thoughts. The documents, to the extent a quick perusal permits, apparently tell little about the extent to which the formal criminal process is actually used in Xinjiang. We know that it has often been used there to handle the most serious cases, but the majority of detained persons seem to be victimized by the elaborate system of “non-criminal” administrative detentions that the PRC has perfected to an art form in various ways since the 1950s and that is mentioned here. Can one say that “re-education through labor” (RETL) was really abolished in 2013? As Maggie Lewis and I anticipated at the time, it has continued to rear its ugly head in many ways and names throughout the country.

Also note the reference to the continuing need for restrictive “transformation” education even after the hapless detainees are formally released, further evidence of what I call the non-release “release” (NRR) that has increasingly marked both criminal and administrative punishments throughout the PRC under Xi Jinping.

China’s Xinjiang Propaganda

By Jerome A. Cohen

China went through its third review in the UN Human Rights Council last November (“Universal Periodic Review”), in which many concerns about Xinjiang were raised. On Friday, the Council considered the report prepared for China (report link here). While China was able to summon many countries that have close ties to praise China’s human rights performance, such as Russia, Cuba and Iran, many countries urged China to stop its abuse in Xinjiang (including the US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Australia etc). In response, China resorted to its usual rhetoric and stated that, “the Xinjiang vocational skills education and training institutions, which had been established for counter-terrorism purposes in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, were focused on the study of legal knowledge, vocational and language skills and on deradicalization, and that they were employment oriented.”

Then the China Daily put out a report that China’s human rights record was praised by the Human Rights Council, with no mention whatsoever of the extensive international criticisms actually voiced against China. Ironically, the report features the photo of smiling Uyghur women dressed in colorful outfits (screenshot below)!

Screenshot, China Daily

This reminds me of the 1977-8 first-time visit of Ted Kennedy and eleven family members to China that I helped arrange and escort. Ted wanted very much to visit a Chinese university and make a speech that might electrify the students the way Bobby had done on a Moscow visit. In order to prevent this, our hosts were instructed by the leadership that in no circumstances were we to be allowed to visit a university. In Shanghai we were told that Beijing would be the best place for a university visit. In Beijing we were told the universities were all on holiday but that Changsha would be a good place. In Changsha we were told that it only had eight universities but that Guangzhou, our next stop, had sixteen. At that point we really protested, so the hosts arranged a visit to a beautiful hilltop overlooking Hunan University so we could say that we had “seen” it and there, in a lovely knoll, were five assorted worker, peasant and soldier “students” dressed in colorful native costumes playing a variety of musical instruments. That, of course, enabled us to say we had “met with” students! When this farce led to ridicule and the assurance to our hosts that we would broadcast their charades on leaving China, they “relented” and arranged a visit to a Guangzhou university teacher’s home that they claimed was on campus!  

Xinjiang and “re-education”

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here’s an excellent article by Sarah Cook, “The Learning Curve: How Communist Party Officials are Applying Lessons from Prior “Transformation” Campaigns to Repression in Xinjiang.”

It brings to mind earlier Chinese Communist Party efforts to transform Chinese citizens. Beginning with the start of the People’s Republic of China and especially in the early 1950s there was a genuine criminal justice effort to make “laogai” 劳改 (reform through labor or RTL) succeed in transforming those formally prosecuted by the regime. It is still, of course, the formal criminal justice analogue to “laojiao” 劳教 (re-education through labor or RETL), which started, at least under that name, in 1957 as a key aspect of the “anti-rightist” campaign. By that time, however, the efforts to impose “thought reform” on prisoners had already largely run out of steam as the emphasis of the captors shifted to conventional punishment and more realistic views of what that punishment might accomplish. 

Of course, Chairman Mao’s hopes to transform the young people of urban China and the Party’s bureaucrats into ”socialist new men and women” by shipping them off to the hardships of the countryside during the Cultural Revolution a decade later was an even grander vision destined for failure.

This long modern Chinese history makes me think of efforts in the U.S. to convert gay people into heterosexuals. It also makes me remember my brief wish to protect my first-born child against the evils of eating too many sweets by warning him: “Peter, if you misbehave again, we’ll make you eat chocolate”. But, not surprisingly, Peter liked chocolate and still does, as do I!!

Worldwide scholars' statement on Xinjiang's mass incarceration

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here's a statement [https://concernedscholars.home.blog/; PDF here] signed by a very large number of scholars and China specialists worldwide to protest Xinjiang's “re-education” camps that detain hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and Kazakhs. The statement also offers suggestions for action by governments and academic institutions around the world.

China, Xinjiang and UN Human Rights Review

By Jerome A. Cohen

Source: AP (Uyghur protesters outside the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Nov. 6, 2018.)

On Nov.6, the People's Republic of China underwent its third UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which is a peer review at the Human Rights Council of China's human rights record. Each country, ridiculously, only had 45 seconds to speak! All eyes were watching if China's mass incarceration of Muslims in Xinjiang and related repression outside the detention prisons would be criticized. Many countries did speak out, including the U.S., Canada, Germany and the UK. The only Muslim country that raised this issue is Turkey. It is shameful that Muslim countries and their regional organizations have done so little to date. The PRC cleverly lined up a large number of sycophant states to sing its praises and take time away from states that wanted to be critical. (All UPR-related documents are here at the UN's website.)

The PRC has moved relentlessly to increase its influence over the Human Rights Council while the U.S. has withdrawn from it. Accordingly, many countries, including developing and authoritarian countries that rely on China's economic ties, lavished high praise on China's human rights achievements, instead of treating the session seriously.  But there are a few other UN possibilities for condemning the PRC’s misconduct in Xinjiang and elsewhere, for example, the recent criticism of the PRC by the committee that reviews violations of the racial discrimination treaty. Other treaty review committees can also become relevant forums. The UN Working Group on arbitrary detention is another institution that quietly—too quietly—frequently condemns PRC violations against individuals..

Demands by the High Commissioner for Human Rights to send special rapporteurs to China on one mission or another have occasionally been acceded to by Beijing after very long pressure and have resulted in withering criticisms of the PRC’s dictatorial suppression. I don’t expect Beijing to allow any such scrutiny over Xinjiang soon, but it depends on how much international public opinion becomes informed on what is taking place. There are many opportunities for regional groups outside the UN to embarrass the PRC for its human rights oppression, for example, NATO, the EU and the various Western countries’ economic policy meetings. 

NGOs and academics have become much more active. As one of the organizers of the recent protest by public speakers promising to criticize the PRC for Xinjiang atrocities, I mention this in every public appearance, as do many of the over 250 China watchers who have taken the pledge. I hope there will be a multiplicity of the above efforts.

My Sept. 12 talk at Yale on “Law and Power in China and its Foreign Relations”

Jerome A. Cohen

I gave a talk last month at Yale’s Paul Tsai China Center [link here]. It’s about an hour long, and tries to contrast the differences between PRC theory and practice regarding domestic and international law. It also started with a protest against what the PRC is doing against Muslims in Xinjiang.

Jerome A. Cohen ’55, a professor at NYU School of Law and founding director of its U.S.- Asia Law Institute, discussed China and foreign relations on September 12, 2018. The event was hosted by the Paul Tsai China Center.

Xinjiang Initiative

From today’s South China Morning Post [click to view in browser]

Muslims in Xinjiang are facing human rights abuses: time for China scholars to break the silence

By Kevin Carrico and Jerome A. Cohen

Since 2016, Xinjiang’s ongoing “re-education” campaign against local Muslims has expanded into a vast system of concentration camps, currently estimated to hold nearly 10 per cent of the area’s roughly 11 million Uygurs, as well as many of the smaller Kazakh minority. Prisoners are detained not because of any crime, but because of their ethnicity, their Muslim faith, their seemingly irreconcilable difference from China’s ethnic Han majority.

Countless lives have been destroyed, as people are held indefinitely in these camps, without due process. Detainees are pressured, under the watchful eyes of guards, to abandon their religious beliefs, and sing songs and repeat slogans praising the Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping. Families have been torn apart. In some cases, they have no idea where relatives are held: people simply disappear.

At this intersection of indefinite arbitrary detention, political indoctrination, family destruction and forced eradication of customs, an entire culture is being erased. These are horrific developments that should have no place in the 21st century.

What can be done? The silence of most China specialists is disturbing, yet also unsurprising. Those of us who know China best have many reasons to rationalise not speaking out. Doing so risks the wrath of a rising power that is determinedly hostile to criticism, and that closely monitors what scholars say and write about sensitive topics. Yet, none of these reasons should be sufficient to warrant silence in the face of crimes against humanity.

To encourage greater awareness and discussion of the ongoing abuses in Xinjiang, with more than a hundred other scholars, authors, artists, and other public speakers, we have begun a “Xinjiang Initiative” – pledging to use our public platforms to speak for those who suffer but cannot be heard.

Participants pledge to use every public event in which they appear to remind their audiences that roughly a million people are being held in extra-legal internment camps, and that these detentions are solely due to detainees’ ethnicity or religion. Participants are also encouraged to share personal stories of detainees to put a human face on these inhuman policies.

If you have a public platform to raise awareness of this appalling repression, please join us. Information about the Xinjiang Initiative, how to join and a list of signatories to date is at www.xinjianginitiative.org.

Kevin Carrico, lecturer, Macquarie University, and Jerome A. Cohen, director, New York University US Asia-Law Institute

Xinjiang & the Global Magnitsky Act

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here is a terrific, comprehensive explanation from SupChina of helpful reports and articles about Xinjiang’s “re-education camps” . While China tries hard to conceal information, the materials currently available should prompt the United Nations and its human rights regime—including human rights treaty bodies, the Human Rights Council and its Special Procedures—to investigate and to condemn with confidence these atrocities in Xinjiang.

The outside of a newly built internment camp in Turpan, Xinjiang. Picture by Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Chin.

It also makes one ask: what evidence is necessary under the Global Magnitsky Act in the United States to apply sanctions not only against those who are actually carrying out these abuses, starting with Chen Quanguo, the Party chief in Xinjiang, but also against those in Beijing who are instructing Chen to do so? We all know who runs China today!

This reminds me of the time in 1964 that I had an opportunity to have coffee in Hong Kong with Zhang Guotao (Chang Kuo-tao), one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party who later split with Mao and remained in exile. I wanted to understand why Communist leaders had such mistrust of law and a genuine legal system. Zhang said that, while he did not know much about law and neither did Mao, perhaps he could give me an example that might help answer my question. In effect he then said: “If A kills B, no system would have trouble punishing A. But what if A merely tells B to kill C and B does it, how could a legal system punish A?” That, Zhang said, was probably the kind of thinking that underlay Mao’s mistrust!

The U.S. legal system usually is not troubled by such a simplistic challenge!

How to describe what's happening in Xinjiang?

By Jerome Cohen

Earlier this month, Josh Rogin wrote in the Washington Post­, Ethnic cleansing makes a comeback — in China, which provoked quite a lot of discussion, especially with regard to Rogin’s use of “ethnic cleansing” in describing China’s continuing campaign to abuse hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in “re-education camps“ in the Xinjiang region as well as other efforts to destroy the social and religious life of Uyghur communities.  

Police patrolling the old town in Kashgar, Xinjiang. Photograph: Tom Phillips for the Guardian

Should we use ethnic cleansing to describe this horrendous situation? It is important to “rectify names” (zhengming), but there are so many aspects to this repression that it is not possible to find words that can adequately encapsulate it. What, for example, about reports that large numbers of Uyghurs from certain areas are being displaced and sent elsewhere outside of Xinjiang?

I personally believe, despite the views expressed otherwise, that we should not confine “ethnic cleansing” to its past notorious uses, for what is taking place is the attempted destruction of an ethnic group. This attempt has about as good a chance of success as the attempts to “convert” LGBT people to heterosexuals, and perhaps that is where we should look for better vocabulary!  

What can be done regarding Xinjiang’s mass detentions?

By Jerome A. Cohen

I have discussed Xinjiang’s horrific detentions on my blog. There should be more investigative reporting that looks into various important questions. We do not know all the types of detention resorted to. They may include: simply lawless detentions, i.e., not based on any regulations or laws; detentions authorized by some written document even if issued only by low level police; detentions based on special legal provisions under the new Supervision Law; detentions based on the usual Criminal Procedure Law; and detentions based on special provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law, i.e., residential surveillance.

It would be difficult to convincingly argue that these detentions are consistent with the PRC Constitution if such arguments could be made before an impartial tribunal, which, of course, does not exist in the PRC. These detentions are very similar to those imposed for decades under “re-education through labor” (RETL), which, like several other notorious administrative detention procedures, finally had to be abandoned by the regime, at least in name. Yet similar detentions still take place under various rubrics such as “re-education” for drug offenders, prostitutes and their customers and political offenders who continue to be given “black jails” and other types of confinement.

We are purposely being kept in the dark about the unique, massive detentions in Xinjiang, which have confined many hundreds of thousands of closely-settled people on many specious charges. Perhaps the last time so many people have been detained outside the formal criminal process was in the 1957-59 “anti-rightist” campaign where RETL was first used.

Given the Communist Party’s domination of the judicial system, the legal impossibility of getting the courts to consider constitutional claims and the refusal of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, which, unlike the courts, is authorized to interpret the Constitution, to consider such claims, there is no prospect for challenging the Xinjiang measures domestically. It is worth noting, however, that what is being done should be understood as violating procedural rights under Article 37 of the Constitution as well as various freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, not to mention relevant provisions of China’s Criminal Procedure Law and other national legislation.

To be sure, the Xinjiang measures also violate public international law in many respects. China has signed but not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which plainly prohibits arbitrary detentions. The PRC has ratified the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Xinjiang actions are clear violations of these international treaties in many respects. Other international human rights violations can also be established. Relevant treaty bodies, such as the Committee Against Torture and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, should review the Xinjiang detentions in their dialogues with China, ask the Chinese government to provide accurate information and condemn violations in Xinjiang.

Additionally, other UN human rights agencies are the obvious fora in which to move, including the UN Human Rights Council, the UN independent human rights experts such the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and other special rapporteurs, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Unfortunately China has moved skillfully to dominate the UN Human Rights Council and the U.S. Government has certainly not risen to the challenge of effectively opposing China’s maneuvers. The departure of Mr. Zaid, the energetic and courageous High Commissioner for Human Rights, is greatly to be regretted.

Individual countries, of course, can take actions, which is why I recommend that the U.S. Government adopt Magnitsky Act sanctions against those responsible for Xinjiang, starting with Xi Jinping.

Various concerned countries can also act in concert outside the UN, for example excluding China from major economic and political meetings. It is a particular disgrace that Turkic, Muslim countries and their organizations have done so little to condemn China for what it is doing to their kinsmen.

There should also be many public protests by ordinary citizens, i.e., NGOs and popularly-inspired meetings in free countries whose people support human rights.

“In China, they call it a political camp but really it was a prison in the mountains.”

By Jerome A. Cohen

(Photo credit: AFP; the 41-year-old said she had been tricked into working in one of the camps)

Here’s a valuable AFP report on Xinjiang, China’s 'reeducation camps' in spotlight at Kazakhstan trial. There have been occasional references to the mass detention of Kazakhs as well as Uyghurs but this report tells more. It is especially interesting to learn much new information through the medium of a public trial allowed to be held in Kazakhstan despite the politically explosive nature of the charges for the country and its dictatorial government that functions under China’s shadow.

In China a similar case, IF a formal criminal prosecution is used instead of simple arbitrary detention, would usually be closed to the public on grounds of national security. In this case, by contrast, Kazakhstan held an open hearing, apparently attended by foreign media, in which the accused had the benefit of an active defense lawyer who was allowed to question his client extensively. The court, for political reasons, might have curtailed the scope of the testimony to avoid discussion of the Chinese “re-education centers” but instead properly allowed the questioning to take place in order to make clear the background of the defendant’s resort to false travel documents. The defendant, who seems to have made an excellent witness, aptly summed up the terrible Xinjiang situation when she said: “In China, they call it a political camp but really it was a prison in the mountains.” !!! 

What is happening in Xinjiang?

By Jerome A. Cohen

Here's a campaign launched by the Lantos Foundation and Uyghur NGOs. Bravo for their efforts to highlight the stunning, outrageous detention of hundreds of thousands of innocent Uyghurs in Xinjiang. But why is the international academic community largely silent about the current atrocities??? I hope that journalists are silently working to confirm the few reports that are published about what has to be the worst current abuses being committed in China, which says a lot! 

Who are the targets of the round-up? What are conditions in the concentration camps like? How long are people being held? What is the content of their “re-education”? What happens to those who are released? How many are transferred to the formal criminal process, either to “residential surveillance at a designated location” or to the regular detention, arrest, indictment, prosecution and punishment after “trials”??? What should be done to alert the world and to mobilize vigorous responses?  What are foreign governments doing in public and behind the scenes? I am proud of the U.S. Government’s very recent condemnation of Beijing’s shameful measures. Do the Turkic/Muslim countries feel no special obligation to speak out and act?