Beijing's 'Re-education' Venture for Xinjiang Uyghurs and Canada's Official Reaction

"I'm scratching my head and wondering why Canada, which has the Magnitsky act specifically for this purpose, doesn't apply those sanctions right now."
"So, I'm here today to strongly advocate for Canada to join the United States in sanctioning the Chinese officials responsible for this [Uyghur crisis], and to hopefully expand that sanctions list so that many more people in China who are perpetrating this genocide are held responsible."
Bill Browder, U.S. financier, Magnitsky law proponent

"We did this, the Mulroney government did this [enacted Canada's Magnitsky law]. We could be working with the Commonwealth again, and with our Five Eyes partners."
"We can play a leadership role with free countries in saying we're not going to be pushed around by China any more, and we're not going to tolerate these human rights violations."
David Sweet, Conservative Member of Parliament; shadow minister for international rights and religious freedom

The Taekwang factory is among those employing Uighurs  Getty Images

China is now synonymous with visions of mass incarcerations of the Turkic Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, an entire population of millions who have been forced to undergo 're-education', slave labour, forced sterilization of Uyghur women, organ harvesting and systematic torture. Not that the treatment of Buddhist Tibetans have been much better, depriving them too of their sovereignty, arresting and imprisoning those who agitate against Chinese occupation, re-settling Han Chinese in Tibet to achieve a majority population base against the indigenous Tibetans.

The country that has embarked on a massive, mass surveillance program to identify and target all its inhabitants. Where members of Falun Gong are persecuted and imprisoned, where Chinese Christians are similarly persecuted, their churches closed down, forcing the faithful to accept Beijing's puppet Christian authority. The People's Republic of China rules its giant population with the hammer-blow of a titan's fist. Hong Kong is buckling under the weight of the Chinese Communist Party's belt now tucked firmly around the city, bringing it tightly into Beijing's breath-and-freedom-destroying embrace.

A recent subcommittee on international human rights of the standing committee on foreign affairs and international development in Ottawa has been considering what Canada could and should do in support of human rights and the plight in particular of the Uyghurs. All the weight, width and breadth of Beijing's exploitation of human rights to suit its purposes are well know, have been documented, and universally deplored. Yet despite the acknowledgement and the censure, Canada through its Liberal-led government gives no indication that it feels any obligation to hold China to basic human rights respect.

Committee member MP Sweet has the idea that a roster of Chinese officials should be sanctioned under the Magnitsky law and for the government of Canada to energetically pursue a coalition of like-minded allies to pressure and shame Beijing into standing back in its violent aggression against the Uyghurs for starters. Beijing's hostility and belligerence against its geographic neighbours over its assertions of sovereignty over disputed territories, and its claims to ownership of the East and South China Seas has not endeared it in its own neighbourhood.

Multinational cooperation doesn't appear, however, to appeal to the Trudeau government, preferring to look beyond China's infringement on the rights of other countries in the region, much less the human rights it is destroying in its own interior in its campaign to achieve 'harmony' and avoid 'splitism'. Its solution is to crush all resistance. A situation that Hong Kong knows well, and Taiwan girds itself to meet with determination against Beijing's future plans.

Note: Multiple dormitory buildings and a teaching building appear to be completely fenced in and isolated in a style that resembles other political indoctrination camps. Additionally, five small factory warehouse buildings have been constructed in the enclosed area. Source: ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre.

The Trudeau government still honours contracts with Chinese corporations either with links to the Chinese Communist Party or wholly owned by Beijing. While all other members of the "Five Eyes" cooperative intelligence group consisting of New Zealand, Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. have informed Huawei that it may no longer harbour any intention to take part in those countries' 5G upgrade, Canada remains uncommitted to informing Huawei of such a decision on its part.

Uyghur workers with Hubei Yihong Precision Manufacturing Co. Ltd on their transfer between Xinjiang and Xianning, Hubei. This photograph was taken outside of Wuchang train station in Wuhan, Hubei’s provincial capital, in May 2018. Source  Australian Strategic Policy Institute

The Liberal government committed the National Research Council to a COVID-19 vaccine partnership with CanSino Biologics which is linked to the People's Liberation Army. The National Research Council is to begin production of vaccines once the final research project in a successful vaccine is concluded. Yet the Chinese government has refused to ship the experimental vaccine to the Canadian Center for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University, which is contractually linked to CanSino Biologics. It's the kind of move that Beijing is famous for.

"It seems to me that China has completed the phase of fullscale cultural genocide and entered the extermination level of an entire ethnic group."
"The time is over for raising concerns privately with Chinese officials. Uyghurs will be erased within the span of one generation."
Mehmet Tohti, co-founder, World Uighur Congress

(Photo by Felipe Dupouy/Getty Images)