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by mef51 2449 days ago
The international response to this has been bizarre, and several majority Muslim countries consider this an 'achievement':

"In July 2019, 22 countries including U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Canada, Japan and Australia signed a joint letter to the UN Human Rights Council urging China to close the camps in Xinjiang.[27][110] In reaction to this, 37 countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, UAE, Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Nigeria, DRC, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Palestine have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC praising China's "remarkable achievements in Xinjiang."[0]

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps#Re...

2 comments

I find it pretty remarkable (and scary) that the international community is much more comfortable calling out the USA on human rights abuses than it is China (e.g. the world pretty uniformly opposed moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem).

It goes to show how much you can accomplish foreign policy wise by being completely intolerant of any criticism (assuming you are armed with a sufficiently large stick and a people unified enough to wield it consistently).

The Jerusalem UN vote reflects views about the disputed status of Jerusalem rather than anti-Americanism.
Many of those majority Muslim countries have been or are currently in civil wars between Muslims. None of them would be considered bastions of human rights in how they treat their own Muslim population. It's not bizarre at all that they value good relations with China over the rights of random Muslims.
Yeah I figured it must be about keeping happy relations with China, but it stills feels a little excessive to actively support the camps instead of just keeping their mouths shut and not signing the letter. Perhaps China pressured them into signing so that they could specifically act like Muslim countries supported them. It's disturbing