There are very strong connections between the genocide occurring against the Rohingya and what we are now moving to call a genocide against the Uighurs. We know that at an international level, China has been one of the strongest forces precluding strong Security Council action being taken with respect to the Rohingya situation, such that, even after the International Court of Justice delivered a very strong provisional measures decision supporting the rights of the Rohingya, the Security Council was unable to even put forward a statement supporting implementation of these provisional measures, because of the blocking role of China.
China is also invested, through the Belt and Road Initiative, in projects in Rakhine State, which is where the Rohingya population and the genocide against them is occurring. China is also directly economically invested in the persecution of the Rohingya.
Chinese officials have also made comments linking the supposed threat of Uighur terrorism to the supposed threat of Rohingya terrorism. Discursively, we also see very strong connections in the way that narratives about the terrorist threat supposedly posed by extremely persecuted Muslim minorities, who are far more the victims of extreme state violence than the propagators of violence.... We see very strong connections in the way these discourses are being deployed.
Thank you.