Numerous majority-Muslim countries stand with China on oppression of Muslims

[longtimelurker]

"What's the problem?  It's not like they're being oppressed by Jews." -- paraphrasing mine.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/asia/uyghurs-muslim-countries-china-intl/index.html

[Santander]

China is doing what it has to. It knows how to assimilate minorities better than any other country in history.

[America Needs R'hllor]

I agree, but the amount of countries defending China should nontheless worry America. South Sudan has been pretty pro-Western when it was founded, so it shows the degree of influence China now has in Africa and the Middle East. The U.S. should stop descending into isolationism from one side, and stupid trade wars or neoconservative regime change attempts on the other side. Instead, it should start a way more proactive foreign policy to curb China's influence around the world with positive (or negative yet subtle) steps, like the Marshall Plan, one of its biggest foreign policy successes in history.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

China hates India, and thus the like Pakistan and vice-versa.

[TDAS04]

It looks like China has the support of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, arguably the two most important countries in the Islamic World (the one with Mecca/Medina + the one with nukes).

[Santander]

It looks like China has the support of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, arguably the two most important countries in the Islamic World (the one with Mecca/Medina + the one with nukes).

Iran, Egypt, Turkey are more important contenders for leading countries of the Islamic world than Pakistan... Pakistan's geopolitical presence is basically neutralized by India, and it's culturally a world apart from the Middle East.

[TDAS04]

In a foreign policy class I was in way back, the topic was being discussed:  Why do almost all Muslim-majority countries support the Palestinian cause to one degree or another, yet the persecution of Uighurs is met with silence?  Someone in the class asked if it was because the Uighurs were Turkic, and not Arab.  Maybe that could be one factor, though it’s not like the Arabs all like each other either.  China is powerful enough that countries realize it’s their interests to be on good terms with them.

[dead0man]

In a foreign policy class I was in way back, the topic was being discussed:  Why do almost all Muslim-majority countries support the Palestinian cause to one degree or another, yet the persecution of Uighurs is met with silence?  Someone in the class asked if it was because the Uighurs were Turkic, and not Arab.  Maybe that could be one factor, though it’s not like the Arabs all like each other either.  China is powerful enough that countries realize it’s their interests to be on good terms with them.

it can't just be about power as the US is much more powerful than the PRC.  Fear of one flavor or another?  A knee jerk hatred of the west?  Crazy idea, maybe they just hate Jews more than they like their fellow Muslims?

[TDAS04]

In a foreign policy class I was in way back, the topic was being discussed:  Why do almost all Muslim-majority countries support the Palestinian cause to one degree or another, yet the persecution of Uighurs is met with silence?  Someone in the class asked if it was because the Uighurs were Turkic, and not Arab.  Maybe that could be one factor, though it’s not like the Arabs all like each other either.  China is powerful enough that countries realize it’s their interests to be on good terms with them.

it can't just be about power as the US is much more powerful than the PRC.  Fear of one flavor or another?  A knee jerk hatred of the west?  Crazy idea, maybe they just hate Jews more than they like their fellow Muslims?

I didn’t say it’s just power.   There are lot of reasons, and yes, there is a lot of special hatred towards Jews.

[America Needs R'hllor]

In a foreign policy class I was in way back, the topic was being discussed:  Why do almost all Muslim-majority countries support the Palestinian cause to one degree or another, yet the persecution of Uighurs is met with silence?  Someone in the class asked if it was because the Uighurs were Turkic, and not Arab.  Maybe that could be one factor, though it’s not like the Arabs all like each other either.  China is powerful enough that countries realize it’s their interests to be on good terms with them.

it can't just be about power as the US is much more powerful than the PRC.  Fear of one flavor or another?  A knee jerk hatred of the west?  Crazy idea, maybe they just hate Jews more than they like their fellow Muslims?

Important note- the Muslim countries treated their Jews much, much better than the Europeans. There were almost no pogroms and definitely no holocaust, and the Jews mostly prospered. Until Israel was founded.

So it's not like Muslims have some inherent antisemitism- I think that a passionate hatred of the West, caused by both legitimate reasons (colonial oppression) and others (religious fanaticism or Arab nationalism), hits much closer to the mark. Once the JewsTM started settling in a land claimed by the Muslims and "invading" the Dar al-Islam, and once they started representing the West in the eyes of their neighbours, then antisemitic ideas rapidly started taking hold.

That's my take, at least.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

In a foreign policy class I was in way back, the topic was being discussed:  Why do almost all Muslim-majority countries support the Palestinian cause to one degree or another, yet the persecution of Uighurs is met with silence?  Someone in the class asked if it was because the Uighurs were Turkic, and not Arab.  Maybe that could be one factor, though it’s not like the Arabs all like each other either.  China is powerful enough that countries realize it’s their interests to be on good terms with them.

it can't just be about power as the US is much more powerful than the PRC.  Fear of one flavor or another?  A knee jerk hatred of the west?  Crazy idea, maybe they just hate Jews more than they like their fellow Muslims?

Important note- the Muslim countries treated their Jews much, much better than the Europeans. There were almost no pogroms and definitely no holocaust, and the Jews mostly prospered. Until Israel was founded.

So it's not like Muslims have some inherent antisemitism- I think that a passionate hatred of the West, caused by both legitimate reasons (colonial oppression) and others (religious fanaticism or Arab nationalism), hits much closer to the mark. Once the JewsTM started settling in a land claimed by the Muslims and "invading" the Dar al-Islam, and once they started representing the West in the eyes of their neighbours, then antisemitic ideas rapidly started taking hold.

That's my take, at least.

You've touched an important historical context that is often overlooked. Many Muslims saw the Jewish migration to Palestine as the extension of the European colonialism (as it's been endorsed by the British government in the Balfour Declaration). I don't want to get into "what could've been and what should've been" after 1948 here, but it did originte from "geopolitical reasons", rather than anything characteristic to the Muslim faith and doctrine (the Koran explicitly considers Jews and Christians as members of the same, wider Abrahamic family).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I agree, but the amount of countries defending China should nontheless worry America. South Sudan has been pretty pro-Western when it was founded, so it shows the degree of influence China now has in Africa and the Middle East. The U.S. should stop descending into isolationism from one side, and stupid trade wars or neoconservative regime change attempts on the other side. Instead, it should start a way more proactive foreign policy to curb China's influence around the world with positive (or negative yet subtle) steps, like the Marshall Plan, one of its biggest foreign policy successes in history.

The volatility of the U.S. foreign policy after 1989 is certainly does not generate much confidence abroad, as it's been, as you've pointed out, shifting between the extremes ("well, the commies are dead, time to tend to my own business"/"international cooperation is cool"/"rah rah somebody's about to get liberated"/"we'll tax your import so hard your head will blow"/"I guess we should start over"/"f**k you, I changed my mind" etc.) The Chinese are more consistent with their goals and use of soft power.

It's hard not to notice the U.S. kind of struggles with figure out what to do with their sole superpower status after the clarity of the Cold War ended, and now they have a serious competition again.

[America Needs R'hllor]

In a foreign policy class I was in way back, the topic was being discussed:  Why do almost all Muslim-majority countries support the Palestinian cause to one degree or another, yet the persecution of Uighurs is met with silence?  Someone in the class asked if it was because the Uighurs were Turkic, and not Arab.  Maybe that could be one factor, though it’s not like the Arabs all like each other either.  China is powerful enough that countries realize it’s their interests to be on good terms with them.

it can't just be about power as the US is much more powerful than the PRC.  Fear of one flavor or another?  A knee jerk hatred of the west?  Crazy idea, maybe they just hate Jews more than they like their fellow Muslims?

Important note- the Muslim countries treated their Jews much, much better than the Europeans. There were almost no pogroms and definitely no holocaust, and the Jews mostly prospered. Until Israel was founded.

So it's not like Muslims have some inherent antisemitism- I think that a passionate hatred of the West, caused by both legitimate reasons (colonial oppression) and others (religious fanaticism or Arab nationalism), hits much closer to the mark. Once the JewsTM started settling in a land claimed by the Muslims and "invading" the Dar al-Islam, and once they started representing the West in the eyes of their neighbours, then antisemitic ideas rapidly started taking hold.

That's my take, at least.

You've touched an important historical context that is often overlooked. Many Muslims saw the Jewish migration to Palestine as the extension of the European colonialism (as it's been endorsed by the British government in the Balfour Declaration). I don't want to get into "what could've been and what should've been" after 1948 here, but it did originte from "geopolitical reasons", rather than anything characteristic to the Muslim faith and doctrine (the Koran explicitly considers Jews and Christians as members of the same, wider Abrahamic family).

I think it's a combination of these factors. Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East struggled to find an identity and a regional order, but whatever disagreements the Arab nations had on the right order- pan-Islamic, pan-Arabic or particular Arabic- Israel violated this order. For the pan-Islamic Arabs it invaded the Dar al-Islam, the nation of Islam, and for the pan-Arabics it was declared war against fellow Arabs. Hatred of colonialism alone, while a very important factor, couldn't have been the only factor, considering the united front initially presented against Israel by all Arab nations, even those frienlier to the West (like Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia).

[PSOL]

The oppression of the Uighers has no relevance on dictatorships without antagonism to China. Why would they piss off an actor cone ting the same activity as they do at home?

I would also like to point out the rapproachment to Israel, lack of care/ death of Arab struggle and liberation, and invitation of Chinese investors are happening at the same time. State “Anti-imperialism” over there is dead.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Well as the years go by fewer muslim countries are even at loggerheads with Israel, and the intensity is dialing down, give it another few decades and it will probably be even closer to normalization. They are going to get away with it all like Northam with blackface is the best way I can put it.