At any other time or in any other country, the incarceration of as many as 2m people on the basis of their religion would be a global scandal of epic proportions. But the relative indifference of the world to the plight of the Uighur ethnic minority and other Muslims in the western Chinese territory of Xinjiang is a sign of Beijing’s rising power and its ability to control global discourse well beyond its borders.
In recent interviews with the Financial Times, the leaders of Indonesia and Pakistan, the two most populous Muslim-majority countries, feigned total ignorance of the situation in Xinjiang. In both countries there have been public protests over Xinjiang and government ministers have publicly condemned the situation there. But Joko Widodo, the recently re-elected president of Indonesia, and Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, used strikingly similar language to deflect questions and avoid even oblique criticism of the Chinese government’s treatment of Muslims.
“I don’t know about Xinjiang?.?.?.?I don’t have the imagination for that,” the Indonesian president told me recently.