The Conspiracies and Approaches of the Crisis Politics under

the "Containing China through Disrupting Xinjiang" Strategy of the US

Institute for Central Asia Studies, Lanzhou University

Since the government of Trump, maintaining the superior status of the US around the world, criticizing and squeezing the space of China has become the adhesive of the elites from both the Republican and the Democratic parties. Apparently, pushing a tough policy on China is being the consensus of the two parties. With this strong anti-China position in mind, the American politicians are biased to show their standpoints and ideas to China by attacking China's core interest, instigating and intervening in the secessionism issues that exclusively pertain to China's internal affairs, etc. In recent years, with the growing negative and hostile attitudes to Beijing, Washington is approaching to apply a containment strategy as its grand strategy to China. Therefore, the US government is trying to fabricate the crisis of the legitimacy of governance, the crisis of economics, and even the crisis of sovereignty on the related issue of Xinjiang to separate and subvert China.

1. The strategic motives of the US's "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" policy

It is self-evident that the US intervention in the Xinjiang-related issues is part of its grand strategy to China. Recently, under the changing nature of its perception of China, the US government substantially applies a "Containing China" strategy. In parallel to its comprehensive squeezing policy toward Beijing, Washington wantonly interferes with the core interests of China, such as counter-secessionism and the protection of the coherence of national territory. Among these interventions, the Xinjiang-related issue is the critical issue.

1.1 The changing perceptions and strategies to China

For the past few years, there were two focuses of the US's China strategy. The first point was the strategic perceptions toward China, which was about how to treat and situate China in the world. Currently, the US's legislation, administration, and academia have converged on a point, namely that China has threatened the US-built hegemony and the US-led international order. The second point was the choice of strategy toward China, which was how to contain China's development and maintain the leading role of the US globally.

With the fierce confrontations on several occasions, the Sino-US relations have undergone a significant change since 2019. This change results from the US's substantive adoption of the containment strategy to China, and this adoption action is based on the alteration of the relative strength between two states and the US's increasing negative perception of China. After the unreasonable tariffs slapped, the one-sided sanctions on Chinese enterprises and research and education institutions issued, and the groundless suppression on the technological developments of China conducted, the US government takes a step further and interferes rudely into the issues related to sovereignty and territorial integrity and national unity, which are the core interests of China.

In the June of 2021, the US Senate approved a package of bills, which was the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. This Act plans to attack the human rights and the value system of China as the primary target and conduct the comprehensive and systematic competition and containment strategy in the field of industrial development, trade policy, diplomacy, and national defense. Through this series of actions, the US intends to consolidate its hegemonic status worldwide.

1.2 The strategic choice on the policy of the core interests of China

Under the background of the containing China strategy, the US's China policy has gradually broken up with its previous strategic baseline, which was the limited and temporary interference on the issues concerned with the core interests of China, such as national integrity and counter-secessionism. Instead, Washington is trying to regularize and normalize its interferences on the core interests of China through its frequent approvals of bills on Taiwan, Hongkong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

In fact, since 2019, the US had conducted a complete interference on the integrity of China when it approved a series of bills on Taiwan, Hongkong, Xinjiang, and Tibet, which are the core interests of China. The introductions of the bills above signal the relative completion of regularization of the US containment strategy on China. These bills are designed to contain China through the issues mentioned previously. With the interferences and the agenda-setting on the security, democracy, religion, and ethnicity aspects of these issues, Washington tries to fabricate the legal basis of the sovereignty integrity of China. This strategy is a violation of the political consensus between China and the US as well as the baseline of the Sino-US

relations; it also raises a great challenge and causes considerable harm to China's core interest in the maintenance of national integrity.

On the interferences of China's territorial integrity, the US government pays equal attention to the strategic value and tools value. From a long-term perspective, there will be growing importance on the issues concerned with China's core interest in national integrity, such as Taiwan, Hongkong, Xinjiang, and Tibet. With the containment strategy, the US continuously breaks its strategic consensus with China. Meanwhile, from the aspect of Washington, this ideology and value-based tools value cannot be exchanged with alternative attacking methods. This strategy has become the US's tool to manifest its values on democracy, freedom, etc. In fact, Washington keeps on highlighting its so-called advantages to China in these fields currently. This action from the US gives clear evidence of the all-the-time pride and prejudice of Western states on the values. In addition to this, the US's containment strategy is not exclusively fulfilled with this single issue of national integrity; it conducts an issue linkage approach which renders a comprehensive, multi-issue-related network or even an alliance with other states to contain China.

1.3 The background of the "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" strategy

Xinjiang is the largest administrative district in the land area of China, and it also serves as the frontier of counter-secessionism and counter-terrorism. The situation in Xinjiang exerts great impacts on the general stability of the reform and development of China. More than this point, the peace of Xinjiang is a matter of national integrity, national unity, national security, and it is the critical part of the realization of the "Two Centenary Goals" and the great revitalization of China. Since the second central work conference on Xinjiang, all sides of the government have worked intensively on the general target of social stability and its long-term maintenance. Up to now, these works turn out to be effective. However, there are still threats and challenges from terrorism, secessionism, and religious extremism, which are obstacles to securing Xinjiang's long-term stability. Unfortunately, these threats and challenges turn out to be opportunities for anti-China forces in the US to interfere in the domestic issue of China. They carry out the "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" strategy by interfering with the Xinjiang-related issues, supporting the Xinjiang secessionist powers, and undermining Xinjiang's national unity.

2. The US's "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" strategy and the crisis politics

The main tactic of the US's "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" strategy is to instigate the Chinese central government's governance crisis, economic crisis, and sovereignty crisis in Xinjiang. These fabricated crises are comprehensively organized by the US's agenda-setting, and they serve as the main approach of the US to contain China. This containment strategy originates from the Trump government, and it will be strengthened in its ideology and international alliance parts in the Biden government.

2.1 Fabricating governance crisis in the name of the so-called human rights

There is a long-standing difference in the contents of human rights between the Eastern and the Western worlds, and the narratives from the Western world on human rights are characterized with inequality and pragmatism. Amongst the Western world, the US is a typical example of the Western human rights narratives. The US classifies three levels for its human rights narratives: self-narratives, otherness narratives, and international narratives. At the level of the self-narratives, the US labels itself as the unique leader of the

concepts of human rights and highlights that Western democracy, freedom, and human rights protection should be the lighthouse of the world. At the level of the otherness narratives, the US has an all-the-time perception that the Eastern world and other developing states can only be the followers of the Western world in terms of human rights issues. They argue that the Eastern world and other developing states are always underdeveloped, endowed with serious despotism, and the worrying human rights situation. At the level of international narratives, the US utilizes its self-narratives of human rights as the moral high ground, along with its stereotype and discrimination to the rest of the world, to interfere with other states' domestic issues in the name of human rights. This unilateral, exclusive, and hierarchical view on human rights is colored with the hegemonic ideology of the Western world.

The US's hegemonic narratives of human rights and its strategy to China have become a strategic tool of the "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" policy. On the one hand, Washington attacks the Chinese government's governance in Xinjiang in the name of so-called human rights by disregarding the heavy losses and significant threats caused by terrorism, secessionism, and religious extremism, which make all the people in Xinjiang suffer a lot with their lives and

possessions over the years. Regardless of the positive effects of Beijing's counter-terrorism and de-extremism policies on the stability of Xinjiang and the protection of the basic human rights of all the people in Xinjiang, the US government blurs the border of counter-terrorism and stability maintenance intentionally and even links these issues to the specific ethnic group or religious group incorrectly. These actions give clear evidence that the US government is fomenting strifes and fabricating oppositions with intentions. On the other hand, the US's reckless critique, attacks, and stigmatizations of the Xinjiang Vocational Education and Training Centers (the Education and Training Centers hereafter) directly negates the appeals for human rights developments from all the people, especially the minority people themselves in Xinjiang to long for the skills promotion, employment enlargement and income increase. Simultaneously, the rude actions from the US refuse the acquirements of fundamental rights for all the people in Xinjiang to receive the education of lingua franca and laws as other ordinary Chinese citizens. In turn, Washington fabricates the incorrect images that the Education and Training Centers limit people's freedom and even enslave students, which are definitely the stigmatizations and demonizations to the actual human rights developments in Xinjiang.

The US's negated and stigmatized interpretations and critiques result from both its rigidified and metaphysical ideas on human rights and its arrogance, but it also has some underlying conspiracies. Amongst these conspiracies, the cardinal target is to fabricate the legitimacy crisis of the Chinese government's governance over Xinjiang in the name of human rights. By provoking the opposition between the Uyghur people's human rights-related issues and the general goal of maintaining the security and stability of Xinjiang, the US refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the values of the Chinese government's work in Xinjiang. By making comprehensive distortions on the functions and values of the Education and Training Centers, the US further neglects the rights of developments for all the people in Xinjiang and de-constructs the legitimacy of the performance of the governance of the Chinese government in Xinjiang. This stigmatization throughout human rights, which is hyped and diffused intentionally by the US and other Western media and think tanks, especially with the contents of blames on China by some governments, has created internationally baneful influences on China.

2.2 Fabricating economic crisis in the name of the so-called "forced labor."

After the fabricated so-called "illegal governance" of the Chinese central government in Xinjiang under the name of human rights, the US further starts to issue sanctions on various internal and external economic entities of Xinjiang with the groundless label of "forced labor." These sanctions are directly related to the primary industries concerned with the development and stability of Xinjiang. They aim to inflict heavy losses to the economics of Xinjiang, which is apparently natured with anti-humanitarian thoughts. Although it labels with the so-called counter- "forced labor," it actually turns out to deprive all the people's rights of working in Xinjiang. This action is an absurd logical paradox.

Up to the July of 2021, under the name of the so-called "violations of human rights" and "forced labor," the US has included 45 Chinese enterprises and 22 Chinese institutions, which are 67 entities in total, into the "Entity List" of the US Department of Commerce; and included eight persons and two institutions (Department of Public Security of Xinjiang, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps) into the "SDN List" of the US Department of Treasury, and has further issued detention order on cotton production, tomatoes, and

silica-based products from Hoshine Silicon Industry Co. Ltd. by its Customs and Border Protection. It is ridiculous to issue sanctions on enterprises and other entities in Xinjiang in the name of "forced labor;" it is also interference in fundamental human rights of all the people in Xinjiang. Among the sanctioned industries, cotton production, tomatoes, and garments not only influence the lives of large scales of farmers but also exert great impacts on farmers' employment stabilities and income promotions. The US's unilateral sanctions or even its agitated multilaterally aligned sanctions to the basic industries in Xinjiang without any clear evidence per se are rude interferences to the basic human rights of the people in Xinjiang. These actions are, in fact, the unilaterally anti-human rights economic sanctions that are under cover of human rights. It is characterized by a strong tone of hegemony.

The more insidious part of the US's conspiracy is that the US government is trying to block and strangle the economics of Xinjiang through its industrial and supply chains under the name of "forced labor" and "violations of human rights." This containment tactic is to further create the economic crisis of Xinjiang based on the negation of the legitimacy of governance of the Chinese government in Xinjiang. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which is proposed

actively by the anti-China members in the US Congress, and the Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act of 2020 are clear signals for this conspiracy. According to the drafts of these bills, the objects of sanctions are enlarged to the other related Chinese enterprises and international companies which have businesses with the Chinese enterprises in Xinjiang. This enlargement of the scope of sanctions is intended to cut off the supply and circular chain of the industries, which are the core part of the economics of Xinjiang.

These insidious economic sanctions are designed to destroy every each way of economic development and open up of Xinjiang, which further squeezes the space of development of the key industries of Xinjiang. This is the way of the US to obstruct the social-economic modernization of Xinjiang by fabricating crises. The deeper design of these sanctions is to sabotage the general stability of Xinjiang by impeding its development, to provoke dissatisfactions, contradictions, and conflicts by fabricating economic crises. Consequently, Xinjiang would step into a vicious cycle of "recession-turbulence" and the attacks from the US on human rights in Xinjiang would be justified further. The economic crises would eventually instigate the political crises if the Chinese government's legitimacy of governance over Xinjiang could be overturned.

2.3 Fabricating sovereignty crisis in the name of the so-called "genocide."

The most critical slander of the US and the other Western States on the Xinjiang-related issue is the so-called "forced sterilization," which is used as the framework by Washington in its fabrication of the so-called "genocide executed" of the Chinese government in Xinjiang. As the bottom line of human rights protection, genocide is the most serious accusation in international law. The sideless accusation of the "genocide" in Xinjiang from the US and other Western social media, think tanks, and some political circles of the Western world have been ridiculously exaggerated to the level of against humanity.

Basically, the fabricated accusation of "genocide" framed by the so-called "forced sterilization" and "against humanity" is in lack the primary evidence. It is just a manipulated, sideless argument made by some anti-China scholars who have ulterior motives. This untenable accusation is utilized by some US and other Western politicians to attack the Chinese government. The US's "anti-intellectualism" on the related issue of the so-called "genocide" fails to cover its strategic logic under this framework of charge, which is to link the so-called "genocide" to the responsibility of protection and thereby provokes the sovereignty crisis of China over Xinjiang. In the 21st century, the

international efforts to prevent genocide have gradually connected to the United Nations (UN) concept of the responsibility of protection. The responsibility of sovereignty serves as the basis of law for the responsibility of protection. Recently, the Western anti-China camp led by the US attempts to charge China with the name of the so-called "genocide," and its implied goal is to negate the Chinese government's sovereignty over Xinjiang, which is in fact a deliberated manipulation of the fundamental contradiction between the secessionism activities and anti-secessionism efforts of the Chinese government in Xinjiang. The US, on the one side, stigmatizes and disparages China in terms of value and ideology, and on the other side, tries to subvert and decompose the integrity of the sovereignty and territory of China legally in the name of the so-called "genocide." All these absurd works from the US are to fulfill Washington's goal of "containing Chian through Xinjiang."

3. Conclusion

To sum up, the US's strategy of crisis politics over Xinjiang is deliberated with grand strategic ambition. It comes with increasingly larger threats and long-term harms to China. Since the end of the Cold War, the US had overthrown the regimes and disturbed the social orders in Libya, Iraq, and Syria in the name of the responsibility

of protection. These actions caused serious humanitarian crises and even genocides to the states mentioned above. Apparently, the US's actions per se are the sins of anti-humanity. However, its hegemonic behaviors were not accused by any other actors in the international system.

Therefore, in the current strategic background under the US's "containing China through disrupting Xinjiang" policy and the process of overall stigmatization to Xinjiang, the discourse of the US-leading Western world has detached itself from the related issue of the development and stability of Xinjiang per se, and is on the way of being a value- and tool- oriented. While the US keeps criticizing China's values on the human rights-related issue over Xinjiang, it also tries hard to negate the Chinese government's political and sovereign legitimacies over Xinjiang by fabricating various crises. The Biden government has three important points for its attitude and policies over the related issues of Xinjiang, which are "inequality highlighted," "value highlighted," and "alliance highlighted." When these three points meet with Trump's policies of Xinjiang-related issues, which are "being a strategic issue," "being a legal issue," and "being a sanction issue," it will yield extremely negative results to the development and stability of Xinjiang.

Different from the illustrations of Tibet as a utopia in the post-modernized world, a "Shangri-La" which is free from the tarnishment of the secular life, the US and other Western states describe Xinjiang as an anti-modernized "cage" which connives the violations of basic human rights and even the so-called "genocide." However, regardless of deification or demonization, this orientalized "re-colonization of spirits" make the Tibet and Xinjiang-related issues gradually be the issues of general value and political standpoint worldwide. During this process, China is shaped as an opposite side to the deified Tibet and the sinner for the demonized Xinjiang. This distortion of China puts Beijing under heavy attacks for its proper sovereignty and values, and it ridiculously makes the US stand on the moral high ground and serve as the role of the so-called Saviour.

During its strategy implementation process, the US's overall demonization of Xinjiang is characterized by the strong tone of imperialism and colonialism. In the post-Cold War era, the US-leading Western world had waged a series of wars over Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lybia. All these wars were mobilized in the name of world security and humanitarianism, which virtually aimed to fulfill the hegemonic interests of the Western world through sanctions and fightings. Under

this discourse and behavior, the long-term humanitarian crises and state crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lybia thoroughly expose the US's logic of imperialism and colonialism.

In a fundamental sense, the US's crisis politics over Xinjiang is an important part and a primary expression of its containment strategy toward China. The logic of this containment strategy is twofold. First, it uses the human rights issue as the breakthrough point and makes China as the target of moral condemnation and thereby fabricates a moral basis that renders a chance to work with the US allies and international organizations to squeeze the space of China in the international system. The practice of this tactic attempts to isolate and suppress China. Second, it tries to enlarge the gap between China and the US regarding technology, education, economy, and military. The practice of this tactic would further block the development of China through its fabrication and instigation of the domestically social crises, which would cause dissatisfaction or turbulence in the society. Apparently, this containment strategy is finally designed for strengthening the leading role of the US around the world.

本文转载自环球时报