Double standards

An article in last Sundays Sunday Times has been playing on my mind for the best part of a week. The article concerned the Chinese authorities clampdown on "Islamic Terrorism" to ensure they maintain control of Xinjiang, an "autonomous region" region of the Peoples Republic of China rich in oil and minerals. Interestuingly Xinjiang borders on that other benighted autonomous region of the Peoples Region of China, Tibet - invaded in 1950 and all opposition often brutally supressed since then. The Sunday Times article points to many dubious practices being undertaken by the Peoples Republic of China's authorities including "The same human rights abuses that exist across China - forced labour for peasants, children trafficked to slave as beggars, girls lured into sweatshops - deepen political tensions here and turn young men to violence. " and "“I was in the People’s Armed Police when the rebellion broke out in ’97,” said a burly Chinese driver, who proceeded to give a vivid and satisfied account of this barely known massacre.

“For a while we lost control,” he said. “The insurgents got into an armoury, killed our men and seized the weapons. There was chaos. We brought in the army - they changed into police uniforms - and then we got even. The central government ordered us to crush them without any hesitation. Believe me, we did. “We lost a few people but we killed - I don’t know exactly - thousands of them. These people know our strength. We taught them a good hard lesson.”"

This article is interesting for several reasons, first it shows how a brutal clampdown on Islamic terrorism is reported when it is not being done by the US or Europe or more to the point how little it is reported. Second it shows how the threat of Islamic terrorism is being faced in other parts of the world outside of the "Western World". Thirdly this is an almost unheralded article, it is an article in the normally totally pro Republic of China, Rupert Murdoch owned Sunday Times that is semi-critical of the regime.