Beijing rejects Blinken’s remarks as ideology-driven lie, urges US to stop disinformation, meddling

Global Times: In his remarks on the 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom on May 15, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of committing “genocide” against predominately Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang. What’s China’s response? Wang Wenbin: The remarks by the US side lack factual basis and distort China’s ethnic and religious policies. These remarks are entirely driven by ideological bias with no respect for truth or rationality. We do not accept it and categorically reject it. The Chinese government protects citizens’ freedom of religious belief in accordance with the law. People of all ethnic groups in China are fully entitled to the freedom of religious belief as prescribed by law. In China, there are nearly 200 million religious believers, over 380,000 clerical personnel, about 5,500 religious groups and over 140,000 places of worship registered for religious activities, including about 24,000 mosques in Xinjiang alone. The “genocide” allegation is nothing but an egregious lie propagated by the US side. During the past 60-plus years since the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was established, the region’s economy has grown 160 times. Its Uyghur population expanded from 2.2 million to about 12 million, and average life expectancy there increased from 30 to 74.7 years. Xinjiang enjoys social stability, economic development, ethnic solidarity, religious harmony and rising living standards. In recent years, more than 2,000 government officials, religious personnel and journalists from over 100 countries and international organizations have visited Xinjiang. After the trip, they spoke highly of the region’s stability, development and prosperity, and expressed understanding and support for its counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts. People with insight in many countries, including the US, have shared the true picture of Xinjiang and spoken up for justice in an objective voice. Despite these facts, the US has kept peddling disinformation about Xinjiang to use it to contain China and find a pretext to keep China down. The international community can see this clearly. We urge the US to face up to and reflect on its own problems, respect the facts and truth, stop applying double standard, and stop using the so-called human rights, religious and ethnic issues to meddle in China’s internal affairs. The attempt of using the so-called human rights and religious issues to hold back China’s development is doomed to fail. __________________ ShanghaiEye focuses on producing top-quality contents. Nobody knows SHANGHAI better than us. Please subscribe to us ☻☻☻ __________________ For more stories, please click ■ What’s up today in Shanghai, the most updated news of the city ■ Amazing Shanghai, exploring the unknown corners of the city, learning the people, food and stories behind them ■ What Chinese people’s lives are like during the post COVID-19 period ■ Views of foreign scholars on China and its affairs ■ Foreign faces in Shanghai, people living in this city sharing their true feelings ■ Mini-docs showing why China is the country it is today __________________ ☎Leave us messages if you have any suggestions or questions! Thank you!