By Austin Maho (Ph.D.)
Xinjian region in China is one of the 5 ethnic autonomous regions in China. The region consists of numerous ethnic groups with the Uyghurs said to consist 45% of the population.
Xinjiang is often in the news but mostly for the wrong reason. The dominant narrative often fits western media propaganda.
There is a deliberate attempt to stir the debate to human rights issues while ignoring the substantive issues of security and sovereignty of the Chinese state to deal with its own internal security challenges.
To the credit of the Chinese government, it has substantially crafted a homegrown solution to separatism and violent extremism that has defied solutions in most parts of the world.
From 2012 to 2016 China probably experienced the worst form of violent extremism and separatism in its recent history. Incidentally, virtually all the cases were linked to the Uyghurs of Xinjiang region of China, who are also the largest group of ethnic Muslim in China. Xinjiang shares borders with eight countries including Pakistan, Afganistan, Uzbekistan, countries with a large Muslim population. These countries are battling homegrown terrorist groups within their countries, which often spill into the Xinjiang region of China.
A chronicle of terrorist and violent attacks in China from 2012 to 2016 is revealing. In February 2012, an attack in Yencheng killed 24 while clashes in Bachu killed 21 people including 15 police officers in Kashgar.
According to China’s main news agency, Xinhua, in July of 2014, 37 civilians were killed by a gang of extremist armed with knives and axes in Shache county. Security forces were to kill 59 attackers in a mop operation that followed.
In September of 2014 Xinhua news agency also reported that a series of bomb blast killed 50 people in Luntai county in Urumbi, while on October 4, Uyghurs armed with knives and explosives attacked a farmers’ market in Xingjiang, killing 22. In November 2014, 15 were killed in Shache County while 11 of those killed were Uyghurs.
All these killings were linked to extremist Uyghurs groups within and outside China. From 2012 to 2016 about 542 deaths and 682 injured are attributed to violent extremism in China.
Evidently, this was a tipping point, for a government that sees violent extremism as an evil that should be wiped out as a result of its destabilising effect on social stability, economic progress and national security.
The Chinese government’s war on ethnic separatists, and Islamists in Xinjiang province with its “strike hard” campaign should be seen in this context.
China has adopted a policy of carrot and stick in handling the crisis in its Xinjiang region. The approach adopted by China is bottom-up and focuses on mobilising the strength of the citizens in countering extremism.
As part of the comprehensive approach to the problem, the Chinese government has set up vocational training centres across Xinjiang region, with the primary objective of skill acquisition, de-radicalisation and re-integration into the Chinese society.
These training facilities has however been denounced by the West, especially critics in the United States who describe these camps as concentration camps and accuses the Chinese government of human rights violation. They view these camps as holding facilities for indoctrination where the occupants are denied of all rights.
In the face of Western propaganda against its policy in Xinjiang province, China has undertaken a lot of push back as a way of countering the narrative. In July this year, the Chinese government invited Vladimir Voronkov, the under-secretary-general for counter-terrorism, to Xinjiang on an assessment visit. He is the highest UN official to have visited the region.
Aside the UN top Chief, China has also opened its doors to journalists and other foreign officials, to demonstrate that it has nothing to hide. They have been invited into Xingjiang training camps and many of them have expressed satisfaction with conditions irrespective of concerns raised by US officials who ironically have not visited the facilities themselves.
It is noteworthy that there have been no violent attacks in China since the setting up of these camps. The training camps have become a workable solution to an indigenous problem, which can become a model to other parts of the world who are facing the problem of extremism and terrorism. Besides China has always insisted that these facilities are purely for skill acquisition and reintegration into society. The participants are not held against their will as they are free to go in and out as they please during the course of their study.
The logic to this philosophy is simple, rather than use the enormous power of state to crush violent extremism and dissidents why not engage a policy of ideological reorientation and in the process equip the Uyghurs, with useful skill, integrate them into the mainstream of Chinese society and make them valuable to themselves and others.
How can the West question this approach which has shown itself to be a practical solution to a problem that has remained intractable in other parts of the world? If the Chinese government has confronted the problem with its full military might the West would have had more grounds to criticise the Chinese government by now for human rights violation. China has chosen to use soft power instead to deal with the problem and the outcome is self-evident.
Nigeria has a lot to learn from how China has nipped in the bud violent extremism in its country by using soft power. Helping those who are susceptible to indoctrination to acquire relevant skills, reorientation and reintegration. These are the corner stones of the Chinese model. No matter the criticism against the Chinese homegrown solution to violent extremism the result shows so far that it is working.
Violent extremism is one problem confronting the Nigerian state for which it has not been able to craft a comprehensive policy that would remove the oxygen that fuels extremism in the country. What we have succeeded in doing so far is to react with military force which has often aggravated the problem rather than abating it.
However the Chinese model has been able to prove to the global community that violent extremism can be eradicated through the twin approach of wielding the stick and at the same time offering a carrot. China has through, education, reorientation and reintegration dealt with a problem that many parts of the world are still grappling with.
In view of the above, it is certainly not out of place to recommend that Nigeria should as a matter of urgency understudy the Chinese model as one way of curbing and addressing the problem of violent extremism in the country.
