The New York Times has once again exposed itself as an organ of US special interests operating under the guise of journalism – contributing to Wall Street and Washington’s ongoing and escalating hybrid war with China with a particularly underhanded piece of war propaganda.
Its article, “‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims,” at face value attempts to bolster allegations made primarily by the United States that China is organizing unwarranted and oppressive “mass detentions” of “Muslims” in China’s western region of Xinjiang.
But just by investigating the quote in the headline alone reveals both the truth behind what is really happening in Xinjiang, why Beijing has reacted the way it has, and that the United States, including its mass media – is deliberately lying about it.
Ten paragraphs into the NYT article, the quote “absolutely no mercy” appears again – only this time it is placed within proper context. It was the response Beijing vowed in the aftermath of a coordinated terrorist attack in 2014 that left 31 people dead at China’s Kunming rail station.
The NYT would write (emphasis added):
President Xi Jinping, the party chief, laid the groundwork for the crackdown in a series of speeches delivered in private to officials during and after a visit to Xinjiang in April 2014, just weeks after Uighur militants stabbed more than 150 people at a train station, killing 31. Mr. Xi called for an all-out “struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism” using the “organs of dictatorship,” and showing “absolutely no mercy.”
The NYT – which has actively and eagerly promoted every US war in living memory – would unlikely flinch at the notion of the US showing “absolutely no mercy” against “terrorism, infiltration, and separatist,” yet it demonstrates a particular adversion to it in regards to Beijing just as the prominent newspaper has done regarding Syria and its now 8 year struggle against foreign-funded terrorism.
Despite claiming to have “400 pages of internal Chinese documents” – the most damning allegations made by Washington and indeed the NYT itself – are still left unsubstantiated.
This includes claims that “authorities have corralled as many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years.” No where in the NYT article is evidence derived from these documents to substantiate that claim.
Dubious Origins
Like much of what the US media holds up as “evidence” to bolster establishment narratives – the “leaked files” come with it doubts over their provenance, translation, and the context and manner in which they are being presented to the public. There are also the lies of omission deliberately presented by the NYT and others covering this recent “leak” that need to be considered.
The NYT itself admits (emphasis added):
Though it is unclear how the documents were gathered and selected, the leak suggests greater discontent inside the party apparatus over the crackdown than previously known. The papers were brought to light by a member of the Chinese political establishment who requested anonymity and expressed hope that their disclosure would prevent party leaders, including Mr. Xi, from escaping culpability for the mass detentions.
Regardless – nothing appearing in the NYT article is actually a revelation of any kind. China has made its policies clear regarding terrorism and separatism in Xinjiang. Like every other nation on Earth – China refuses to tolerate violent terrorism and the extremist ideology used to drive it. These policies – when presented out of context as the NYT has deliberately done – appear heavy-handed, oppressive, unwarranted, and authoritarian.
If presented together with the very real violence, terrorism, and foreign-sponsored separatism emanating from Xinjiang – the polices take on an entirely different and understanble light.
Terrorism in Xinjiang is Real, But Omitted When Reporting Beijing’s Counter-terrorism Efforts
The Western corporate media itself has even repeatedly covered deadly terrorism carried out by a minority of extremists among China’s Uyghur population. However – they do so in the most ambiguous way possible – and refuse to mention it when subsequently covering Beijing’s attempts to counter it.
For example, CNN in a 2014 article titled, “China train station killings described as a terrorist attack,” would report:
A day after men armed with long knives stormed a railway station in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 100, authorities described what happened as a premeditated terrorist attack.
The article also admits that Xinjiang is beset with “frequent outbreaks of violence,” in reference to waves of violent terrorism carried out by Uyghur separatists, but falls far short of qualifying just how bad this violence has been.
The BBC would extensively elaborate on what CNN meant by “frequent outbreaks of violence” in a 2014 article titled, “Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs?,” reporting that (emphasis added):
In June 2012, six Uighurs reportedly tried to hijack a plane from Hotan to Urumqi before they were overpowered by passengers and crew.
There was bloodshed in April 2013 and in June that year, 27 people died in Shanshan county after police opened fire on what state media described as a mob armed with knives attacking local government buildings
At least 31 people were killed and more than 90 suffered injuries in May 2014 when two cars crashed through an Urumqi market and explosives were tossed into the crowd. China called it a “violent terrorist incident”.
It followed a bomb and knife attack at Urumqi’s south railway station in April, which killed three and injured 79 others.
In July, authorities said a knife-wielding gang attacked a police station and government offices in Yarkant, leaving 96 dead. The imam of China’s largest mosque, Jume Tahir, was stabbed to death days later.
In September about 50 died in blasts in Luntai county outside police stations, a market and a shop. Details of both incidents are unclear and activists have contested some accounts of incidents in state media.
Some violence has also spilled out of Xinjiang. A March stabbing spree in Kunming in Yunnan province that killed 29 people was blamed on Xinjiang separatists, as was an October 2013 incident where a car ploughed into a crowd and burst into flames in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
While the NYT also references deadly terrorism in Xinjiang – it does so in a muted, secondary fashion, attempting to decouple it from Beijing’s motivations for pursuing polices with “absolutely no mercy” in response.
One need not imagine what would follow if such violence took place on US or European soil or the polices demonstrating “absolutely no mercy” that would undoubtedly follow not only domestically, but across the globe against nations perceived – or claimed – to have been involved.
The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. precipitated a now 20 year long “War on Terror” which has evolved into multiple ongoing wars, military occupations, and covert operations across scores of nations. The US Department of Defense’s own newspaper, Stars and Stripes, in a recent article titled, “Post 9/11 wars have cost American taxpayers $6.4 trillion, study finds,” would admit (emphasis added):
American taxpayers have spent some $6.4 trillion in nearly two decades of post-9/11 wars, which have killed some 800,000 people worldwide, the Cost of Wars Project announced Wednesday.
The numbers reflect the toll of American combat and other military operations across some 80 nations since al-Qaida operatives attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, launching the United States into its longest-ever wars aimed at stamping out terrorism worldwide.
By comparison, China’s attempts to rehabilitate extremists through education and employment is a far cry from America’s global war – in which as many have died, as the US claims China is “detaining.”
This is before even considering that out of the 80 nations the US is waging war and killing people in – the one nation from which the majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from – Saudi Arabia – has not only been spared, but is sold record-breaking amounts of US weapons and hosts US troops to protect it from regional states it openly attacks with legions of armed extremists espousing the same toxic ideology that motivated the 9/11 hijackers.
The US Sponsors Xinjiang Unrest
Worse still, the US has been repeatedly caught jointly-sponsoring the very strain of extremism allegedly behind the 9/11 attacks in its various proxy and regime-change wars beforehand and ever since.
Not surprisingly, there is also evidence that the US is fueling the violence in Xinjiang itself as well as recruiting extremists from the region to fight in US proxy wars abroad – most notably in Syria. These militants are then returned to China with extensive experience in terrorism.
US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America (VOA) in an article titled, “Analysts: Uighur Jihadis in Syria Could Pose Threat,” would admit (emphasis added):
Analysts are warning that the jihadi group Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in northwestern Syria could pose a danger to Syria’s volatile Idlib province, where efforts continue to keep a fragile Turkey-Russia-brokered cease-fire between Syrian regime forces and the various rebel groups.
The TIP declared an Islamic emirate in Idlib in late November and has largely remained off the radar of authorities and the media thanks to its low profile. Founded in 2008 in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, the TIP has been one of the major extremist groups in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011.
The TIP is primarily made up of Uighur Muslims from China, but in recent years it also has included other jihadi fighters within its ranks.
Uyghur recruits have been trafficked through Southeast Asia where – when discovered, detained, and deported back to China – are followed by protests from the US State Department.
When Thailand refused to heed US demands that Uyghur recruits be allowed to move onward to Turkey – where they would be armed, trained, and sent into Syria – a deadly bomb would detonate in Bangkok killing 20. The bombing was linked to the Turkish terrorist organization, the Grey Wolves, co-sponsored by the US for decades to augment NATO’s unconventional warfare capabilities.
The US government’s own National Endowment for Democracy (NED) openly funds fronts operating out of Washington D.C. espousing separatism with the NED’s webpage detailing its funding of these groups even including the fictional name of “East Turkestan” used by separatists who reject the official designation of Xinjiang which resides within China’s internationally-recognized borders.
The inclusion of the term “East Turkestan” implies US support for separatism as well as the very real, ongoing deadly terrorism demonstratably used to pursue it.
And more than just implicitly supporting separatism, US government support in the form of NED money is admittedly provided to the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) which exclusively refers to China’s Xinjiang province as “East Turkistan” and refers to China’s administration of Xinjiang as the “Chinese occupation of East Turkistan.” On WUC’s own website, articles like, “Op-ed: A Profile of Rebiya Kadeer, Fearless Uyghur Independence Activist,” admits that WUC leader Rebiya Kadeer seeks “Uyghur independence” from China.
WUC and its various US-funded affiliates often serve as the sole “source” of allegations being made against the Chinese government regarding Xinjiang. As the US does elsewhere it lies to fuel unrest in pursuit of its geopolitical agenda, allegations regarding Xinjiang often come from “anonymous” sources based on hearsay and lacking any actual physical evidence.
The US State Department’s “Radio Free Asia” network even maintains a “Uyghur Service” which pumps out daily accusations aimed at stirring domestic tension within China, and smearing China’s image internationally. RFA allegations are uncritically repeated by other Western corporate media networks in an attempt to bolster the impact of this propaganda.
US Gaslighting on a Global Scale
The US through its policies and propaganda – including this most recent NYT article – accuse Beijing of “repression” for responding to very real, admitted, and extensively documented deadly terrorism plaguing China.
At the same time, the US pursues a global war spanning 80 nations and resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands, destroying entire countries, and displacing or otherwise destroying the lives of millions.
While citing “terrorism” as a pretext for its global aggression, it is simultaneously fueling the very armed extremism it claims it is fighting against. This includes the very real terrorism the NYT attempted to downplay to maximize the propaganda value of its “leaked files” story – despite other Western media networks covering this terrorism for years.
Not only is this US policy disjointed, deceitful, and deadly – it is incredibly dangerous. It is essentially a low-intensity version of what the US has been doing in Syria and had previously done in Libya leading to the North Africa nation’s destruction.
It is all but a declaration of war against China – not through direct military intervention – but through armed proxies, propaganda, and a deliberate, concerted effort to sow instability, division, and strife across Chinese society.
Coupled with economic warfare aimed at crippling China’s economy – Beijing finds itself a nation under siege. The fact that it has not responded to this very real, demonstratable existential threat with a fraction of the violence and global-spanning destruction the US has employed to fight its fictional “War on Terror,” is the best proof of all that the dystopian authoritarian regime the NYT tries to portray Beijing as – is as fictional and nonexistent as journalism is at the NYT’s office.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.