KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 — An unnamed diplomat reported his misgivings about China’s “re-education” centres for its Uighur Muslim minority to Putrajaya but the findings were allegedly buried to preserve ties with the superpower, the New York Times asserted today.
In an article titled “China Wants the World to Stay Silent on Muslim Camps. It’s Succeeding”, the US newspaper claimed to have reviewed the Malaysian envoy’s unpublished report and said it contradicted China’s insistence that attendance at these camps were voluntary.
It alleged the Malaysian envoy to be one of two diplomats whose unfavourable findings have emerged to challenge China’s narrative of its Uighur issue.
“Delegates could actually sense fear and frustration from the students,” the NYT quoted from the report that the envoy allegedly wrote after his December visit with a dozen other diplomats from mostly Muslim nations.
“China may have legitimate reasons to implement policies intended to eliminate the threat of terrorism, especially in Xinjiang. However, judging by its approach, it is addressing the issue wrongly and illegitimately, eg preventing Muslim minors from learning the Quran.”
The NYT asserted in its article that the report was never published due to Malaysia’s desire at the time to repair ties with China that became strained after Putrajaya cancelled two pipeline projects and had been renegotiating the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL).
The ECRL was eventually resumed after China agreed to lower the project’s price and take on half the operation costs once the line is active.
The paper also purported that Putrajaya was banking on the Asian economic giant to increase its uptake of Malaysia palm exports amid a global slowdown and depressed commodity prices.
China is also consistently one of Malaysia’s main investors and trading partners.
“The US$100 billion in annual bilateral trade is enough to focus the minds of Malaysian policymakers,” Shahriman Lockman, a senior analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur, told the NYT.
“China is too big a market to lose.”
Malaysia has a complex relationship with China as the two are closely linked by trade but also locked in a protracted regional dispute over maritime borders in the South China Sea.
