Hello and welcome to the program of our us politicians are sending one of their strongest ever warnings to china over the crackdown on what got people more than a 1000000 of the muslim ethnic minority have been imprisoned in what leaders describe as Vocational Training camps. The government says inmates are there voluntarily to renounce socalled extremist parts but Rights Groups label the radio cation camps in chains young province in western china as prisons and part of a Systematic Campaign they say to strip the muslims or their identity and culture the u. S. House of representatives agrees it overwhelmingly passed a bill demanding the camps are closed and communist Party Administrators sanction for human rights abuses china is condemning the proposed law and is retaliation adrian brown has more from hong kong at 1st chinas government denied their existence but then last year state television released pictures of what were described as Vocational Training centers where ethnic muslim weekers are learning new skills in the remote Western Region of should jang. Human Rights Groups estimate that more than a 1000000 week isnt being held in what they describe as a 21st century good leg where inmates of being brainwashed and forced to renounce their religion now the United States house of representatives has decided its time to act it voted overwhelmingly to call on President Donald Trump to apply sanctions against senior chinese officials the bill which refers to arbitrate detention torture and harassment still needs to be approved by the senate and the president before it becomes on wednesday Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson read a lengthy prepared statement accusing washington of a random smear urging it to correct its mistake made. The relevant bill to liberally slanders the human rights situation in china and jang and blackens chinas efforts to eliminate extremism and crackdown on terrorism it will definitely have an effect on china a u. S. Cooperation in important areas it is just a week since trump signed another contentious bill into law that is also raising tensions between washington and beijing on another front hong kong. Where antigovernment protests are almost into this 6 month the hong kong human rights and democracy act has been welcomed by protesters there because it means the city special trading status with the u. S. Will now be dependent on a yearly review the law could also be used to punish officials deemed to be suppressing freedoms in retaliation china has halted american warship visits to hong kong and sanctioned several nongovernmental organizations it is unclear what all this means for the other big point of friction between china and the United States right now their trade war analysts warn that the odds on there being an agreement before christmas have now been lowered after president from warned there was now no deadline for a deal and on wednesday china also said it doesnt have a deadline for a deal now either adrian brown greenside school. Lets bring in our guests max professor at Georgetown University specializing in ward and chinese history who joins me here in the studio all see yeah jersey is a lecturer at the university of duress in albania has visited camps in. In august and joins us by skype from albania as capital tirana and to mark is Senior Research fellow at the center for china and globalization he joins us from beijing welcome to all our guests max the the wording of the proposed bill is very strong and these are why as president to impose sanctions on members of the chinas political b row is this a new escalation of the or by the strained relations between china and the United States of america yes i agree this is a serious escalation i think of. The kind of. In tensions between United States and china. Do you think that the chinese reaction will be stronger. Are they going to reciprocate or do you think they will just be confined to cosmetic or symbolic gestures like visas freshens visa bans speaking as a historian i have to say i think that were in uncharted territory right now im frankly not sure how the Chinese Government will respond to this escalation by the United States its possible as theyve indicated so far that they may take measures against u. S. Diplomats and other u. S. Affiliated non nongovernmental organizations that are trying to operate within china its also quite possible that they may take action against american academics and american universities that have programs within china thats one big personal concern myself also youve recently been to the camps invited by the Chinese Government china says that those camps are purely visual voluntary rida cation give us your impressions about what you saw there well my 8 years before visiting this comes as the saying. I never imagined that china do what it is doing at president s that after my visit i visited shinjiro between 16 to 25 oberst. And during our visit we visited cities at lectures community. And among other sui busy times during our visit we found out that this iraq thing. As good chinese scream but their presence disarm Us Detention Centers where muslim rulers they are they can prove their homes and the only crime they have committed so far and they found out from interviews that i made with the people of the Chinese Government presented to us their only crime was believing in god believing. And reaching our vehicles or watching videos that are related to their culture or religion so in my opinion these are not Training Centers chinese. And for people who have seen maybe viewers or you want to know that the chinese teachers who are in these centers they failed to prove to me these are schools of peace that socalled coming centers people are so forcefully take them and sounding ok. The pressure is piling up against china what do you think would be beijings next move a tit for tat for example well i think beijing its been china and the Chinese Government has been very consistent very clear very predictable in its response. You know the bedrock principle of the trainees government is respect for starwood and you know i think the message has been pretty clear that the full view of the very serious interference in chinas sovereignty so given that however. I think the response today needs to be the. Other gaffes that we are in uncharted territory ready here and perhaps an. Approach that makes it very very difficult to respond good to talk about trade were d talking about. Domestic issues other issues as well either by law or. Must this this has different layers were talking about the human rights and google and this is what has problem to the strong reaction from the United States of america but it also has an economic unga which is the entry im trade agreements which was supposed to be signed any time now do you think that this undermines the chances for that trade deal to be signed i think that your your your implications of your question are probably correct that its really hard to imagine u. S. And chinese negotiators reaching a deal anytime soon on major trade related issues although to be perfectly frank before congress began moving on this bill it was also hard to imagine Real Progress on entre negotiations and some respects im quite sympathetic with some comments made by the guest in beijing the United States has not had a very coherent set of policies and approaches to either trade or human rights in china so when they if i was to put myself in the position of of a Chinese Government official im really not sure how i would respond to the u. S. Actions because theyre very unpredictable and its and its very difficult to know what the americans will do next. Youve been to the camps and youve posted your videos youve written about your experience over there how do you explain that the muslim world has been so far so far silent about what was happening to the witness the problem in the most important is that 1st from dictatorships. To the east or are countless let us say we do not have the freedom of speech and we do not have that of the democratic debates that we have in the west and never the master we have a number of counties have reacted to each state we have turkey for example and we have a great democracies from the state. Asia to malaysia where its you Society Organizations are acting against it but then when it comes we have many of the countries which are the more corrupt you and then when it comes to their relation with china they do not want to upset china because and i think the United States which goes through many of these companies with the amounts about democracy who are rights and what have you the chinese they have no such ethics in chinese are in france or dictators and mainly specially are the china because china supplies them with them. Which must serve equipments and that there are silly to expect some dictatorships where in the oppressed their own people and their own are and their own leaders in prisons and to expect these people to talk with china why you are doing exactly this thinking we do i dont think that we should expect something that andy i mean the chinese narrative has been constantly challenged by International Observers here or by its activists the data that was leaked over the past few weeks that shows that people there a lockdown they are a security they are punished just because of their muslim beliefs what is next for china then. Well i think its important to clarify here whats going on so. I would say that if you go to any population detained people for whatever reasons they would say theyve done nothing wrong. Then ill use the us as an example we look at the United States with one of the largest absolute number of people incarcerated d and one of the highest per capita as well we could argue that a lot of these that are incarcerated for nonviolent d crimes like drug possession some as trivial as Marijuana Possession and say this is a violation of human rights but on the other hand if we accept this idea of nation states that they have the sovereignty to make their own laws in the course they want yes any country we can point out and say well what theyre doing is wrong we dont like it but i think if we accept this idea of sovereignty i think this is the main issue at work here. Although to all the suffering to should not all say i think you feel like you want to say something. Yes i just want to respond to andy i mean when hes right and when he talks about the summer in china. But i think hes comparison between what the United States does well and must incarcerating its own people and to mention the position of the opposite said i she there are 10 p. No comparison between what china is doing and what the United States is doing the people that i interview in there when see county Vocational Training center which hes actually this people who were not criminal just people they were sent to these concentration camps all meek or reaping the coup or so i mean yes we can be as much as we want critical of the united doesnt hurt but what china is doing these primaries you know people who are look out in peace concentration comes only for praying to their god or me for asking their mothers to pray to god only for going on the internet and watching news stream evangelical videos so in few words what good chinese authorities are doing. Is that they have declared an illegal religion the chinese authorities after that were im sure. They are thinking she is a military occupy prominence or people who have used it cian john didnt think that theyre in afghanistan when the americans you may get it you see military and Police Presence and if you read the text that i mean people she should marry galatians authorities and you will see that the refuse have declared any sign of islam to be extremism and according to the standards youve got for be china were to. The middle east all the muslims of the middle east would constantly comes and knocks at least good when it comes to the question of chinas sovereignty and the argument thats been put forward that china has the right and responsibility to practice and implement whatever laws it sees fit that may be true but whats happening in syndrome is entirely extra judicial this is happening outside of chinas usual criminal justice framework its also important point out its even happening outside of chinas traditional laogai or thought reform infrastructure this is an entirely new system infrastructure set of policies which have been developed since 2009 they were implemented only in 20162017 but this is a new system thats been developed in order to tackle the the deeper underlying issue with which is ethnic separatism so to some extent the question of islam and chinas current assaults on public piety or public representations of islam or to visiting mosques is only a superficial aspect of whats happening here in 20092008 the Chinese Government and chinese policymakers chinese academics suddenly realized in the aftermath of enormous street violence. That the whole story theyve been telling themselves about the Chinese People as a multiethnic state a multiethnic people there was harmonious all part of sort of big and little brother as part of one family they realize this rhetoric was had failed and they were chinese policy makers were shocked in 2009 to see that there were enormous parts of the of People Living in the borderlands who did not feel chinese right and so in the last couple years what the Chinese Government is really trying to do is to transform the way that people in the borderlands think they really want them to think and to identify right off the bat as chinese they dont want to be any possibility that People Living in these regions can identify with other places or with alternate forms of identity look if the if the people in syndrome happen to be catholic i do think that the Chinese Government would be implementing similar types of policies to eradicate catholicism in syndrome now since the war on terror began in 2001 its been very useful for the Chinese Government to adopt islamophobia credit this plays well in an International Marketplace that plays well in chinas domestic marketplace but for decades if not centuries before the Chinese Government has been very reluctant to engage in islamophobia types of policies and has had very constructive or relatively constructive policies towards religion which have tolerated to give an assortment of space even for public religiosity but the reason theyre tackling religion now is not because they havent a priority fear of islam its because they have a much deeper fear of ethnic separatism both in sin john tibet mongolia other places and the clearly china is failing to win the hearts and minds of people in the wigan and failing of the same time to sell its narrative to the international community. Do you think that the chinese are willing to make any concessions well im not sure i would say sailing so as our guest just said i think he made very valid points but perhaps overstating it. In that yes ethnic separatism clearly is a concern for china so i think our guest was absolutely correct in saying that there was perhaps a shock at least a recognition that some things needed to be changed would guarding progress separatism and in addition i dont think the the description of this as a fight against religious extremism and then youre on the sunny effect is meant to find earlier efforts the jump in here because they justify this field of ethnic separatism does it justify putting over a 1000000 people in a more than time going. Well i would again maybe question your description of that as a modern day if we look at the creation of new institutions look at the United States with the creation of the department of Homeland Security some of the measures that it took some of them quite violent against other countries as a reaction to terrorist attacks so if we look at it in that concept. I dont think its true that which line is on have there been casualties perhaps abuses i would almost not join the mustve been any large scale your crowd on duty i mean you could have a. Football. Contest 30000. 00 or the likelihood is someone would die someone would get hurt and that just a lot. So i would question that. Is this is a quote unquote gulag i think it is also to address the issue which is create chinese identity yeah so that that i see it went nuts i think its important for me to add at this point to that i also personally travel to sin drawing in 2018 i was there during ramadan and i personally witnessed the fact that you could not enter a mosque any more that people were not able to observe the fast that all religious establishments including Christian Churches buddhist establishments had been closed during this period and i spoke with people who are building the camps and i spoke with security personnel at multiple levels within the senate john weaver autonomous region and the language that they used was that of political reeducation this is not about Vocational Training it was just simply not about vocational written training it was about trying to eradicate people senses of difference from the chinese majority population and villages i visited neighborhoods every inch of a room see the capitol were empty of leaders and they were not they had not gone on vacation all see youve been very critical of of the back of your trip to the well the Chinese Government the other people would tell you that we had better taste than centers have existed in different parts of the world including of the muslim world where authorities had to tackle the need to combat extremism exactly and when i went to. I was expecting the chinese authorities to use this sort of kooky sugar preening centers to i mean did you not utilize terrorists and suicide bombers. And people with extremist ideas but as a matter of fact it was not true as much rightly mentioned what the chinese are doing now they have declared a war on move to culturalism they do not want to tolerate diversity anymore in china and that i think that the the problem in china is not only the so called concentration comes or of the must Detention Centers but are even other points is the Chinese Government is doing to or she john number one we have must organization we arent chinese thank you our parts of china in order to destroy the ethnic balance over there. And number 2 who is a some a chinese a few shots told me when i was in cheetah who were very critical of their government but they could not speak up because of course they were afraid and he told me they bring us from other parts of china here but they forced us if youre to spend one month we we groups dont sleep in their homes thank you so what the chinese are doing they have penetrated even the home so we where you no longer can have a privacy even though if you are not a religious at all even if you accept to drink alcohol and to eat for men to renounce your religion you steal are not safe in shia and if you are not a thank you one chain link you also the government is going to bring somebody to leave with you on your wifes unfortunately were running out of time next item and all say yes izzy and to mark i really appreciate your presence today thank you. 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