Collateral Damage in Sino-Arabic Cooperation: Assessing Middle Eastern and North African Silence and Complicity in the Uyghur Crisis

In his opening address at the 2014 China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, Xi Jinping explained that Sino-Arab cooperation should promote “the Silk Road Spirit” and further the realisation of “Arab revitalisation”. However, by 2018/2019 it appeared the Sino-Arabic Silk Road Spirit had increasingly become defined by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) deference to China, most notably marked by their complicity and/or deafening silence on the unfolding mass detention of the Muslim minorities across the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This chapter examines the links between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and MENA silence over the mass detention of Uyghurs in XUAR. It also examines the complicit role some MENA countries—namely Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—have played in forcibly repatriating Uyghurs to China and wider official support provided to China by MENA states at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The chapter argues that Beijing’s promised dream of “Arab revitalisation”, which is directly tied to the BRI, is part of the “rejuvenation” rhetoric of the BRI. This rhetoric has seen MENA states support Beijing’s policies towards the Uyghurs, despite the shared religious links between the majority populations across MENA, as well as educational, business and familial connections. The support for Beijing from MENA states has enabled, emboldened and attempted to legitimise Beijing’s persecution of the Uyghurs. As a result, the Uyghurs have become collateral damage in Sino-Arabic cooperation and the economic dealings MENA states have with China.