Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions: A Campaign to End the Uighur Genocide

Global apathy plagues the international arena, as the proliferation of human rights conflicts from every corner of the globe goes unchecked. China is no exception, and in regard to the treatment of Uighurs, a Muslim religious and Turkic ethnic minority group in Xinjiang, the Chinese government has aggressively pursued an agenda of incarceration since 2014 with no legal process. This human rights abuse is internationally recognized as the “largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II.”¹ In 2016, the rate of internment was hastily escalated, with innumerable atrocities. Human rights practitioners have observed the removal of Uighur children from their families to boarding schools, around a million Uighur Muslims sent to state-sponsored camps for forced labor, the suppression of Uighur religious practices and the destruction of mosques nationwide, the forced sterilization and abortion of Uighur women contributing to a falling birth rate by over 60%, and many more “assimilation practices” culminating in what can only be termed genocide.² Despite these horrific practices, the Uighur genocide has been met with an attitude of global complacency due to China’s superpower status, allowing for the intense escalation of the conflict over the past few years. To effectively act to end these practices, the global arena should hold China accountable for its heinous treatment of the Uighur ethnic group as an international human rights crime and present a unified front through a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) approach.

Boycott, divestment, and sanctions is an approach that international actors have employed in the past to condemn states in violation of international standards. Historically, BDS was successfully used to end Apartheid in South Africa, with actions such as the banning of sports teams in global competitions, arresting South African banks from transacting internationally, and boycotting imports and South African goods.³ Currently, a renewed BDS campaign has been implemented against Russia for their crimes in Ukraine. The international community has presented a unified front of banning imports of oil and gas, with governing bodies like the European Union and G7 capping prices of Russian oil and major state and international actors like the US, EU, UK, and Canada freezing assets of the Russian president and ministers.⁴ Learning from these two examples, a similar approach can be taken in the Chinese context. Mobilizing international forces, from the individual major Western powers to regional bodies like the European Union, to sanction Chinese goods and enact formal protocol against Chinese will have significant ramifications on China, whose exports constitute around 18% of their GDP.⁵

As a major international player, China has ratified many international conventions and treaties, supporting legal doctrines that broadly affirm human rights for their people and for the global populace. However, a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) details that China’s actions against the Uighur Muslims are in serious violation of these rights, with credible allegations of “patterns of torture…forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention…and incidents of sexual and gender-based violence.”⁶ Overall, the report strongly condemns China for its deprivation of the most fundamental human rights in these “international crimes, in particular, crimes against humanity,” placing China in direct violation of international human rights laws.⁷

While this official report has only recently come out in August of this year, the international community has long been aware of China’s practices. Despite this, China has not faced any serious international ramifications for its horrific actions to deter its violations, emboldening them to continue and escalate their campaign against the Uighurs over the years. While organizations such as Human Rights Watch have continued to issue official condemnations against China’s practices while they report on the escalation of conflict, these condemnations mean nothing against the weight of China’s international power.⁸ China is on the United Nations Security Council as one of the five permanent members that holds veto power over committee decisions, allowing them to circumvent any efforts at curbing their violations by simply vetoing new initiatives.

Many international actors are worried that any serious action taken against China will have international repercussions from which it will be difficult to recover. However, by turning to previous and current implementations of the BDS movement, we can glean how presenting a unified global front in support of such a campaign can have swift and successful results. As discussed, the historic South African and present Russian examples provide blueprints for paths towards actions to be taken against China. In particular, the Russian example highlights the international climate that is created when global superpowers coalesce on a joint mission to put an end to a human rights atrocity. As of this past summer, 305 companies have completely withdrawn from Russia, with hundreds more boycotting on a continuum, varying from temporary suspensions to holding off new developments.⁹ Furthermore, the United States has “completely banned Russian oil imports,” and the UK and EU are poised to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year.¹⁰ These efforts have financially pressured Russia since the start of the war as well as sent a unified moral condemnation of Russian actions. With a concerted effort from powers like the United States and the UK, other actors that may not have a direct stake in the conflict become involved for fear of reprisal from hegemonic powers. For example, with boycotts taken on Russian goods, countries like Egypt have begun to freeze payments to Russian MIR to avoid US sanctions for dealing with Russia.¹¹ With orchestrated and unified measures taken, an international climate of condemnation can successfully be implemented.

However, if it was simply a matter of coordinated, unified action to bring down a superpower like China, we may have seen such action a long time ago. Unfortunately, campaigns like BDS have repercussions with significant consequences on participating countries. Currently, in the case of Russia, many in Europe have fears on the availability of energy, as a majority of European countries have previously relied on Russian energy. With sanctions on Russian products, there is now uncertainty on a sustainable path forward and many European countries are preparing their citizens to make sacrifices as winter approaches.

With a superpower like China, the repercussions faced from placing BDS restrictions may be even greater, a fact that has been holding many back from taking steps towards action. Many question if such action would be worth it. China is the world's second-largest economy and produces 9.3 percent of global GDP, so any reprisal from China would massively impact global operations.¹² Furthermore, although targeted sanctions have been successfully enacted in Russia, many are worried that they do not cripple a country’s economy to the degree necessary to pressure a superpower like China into halting their human rights abuses. These concerns have held back many major international players from suggesting a course of action. This is a critical concern, as interfacing with a mammoth like China will require an intricate strategy of international cooperation with many contingency plans should China retaliate. Despite the almost inevitable economic reverberations of a BDS campaign against China, such action is vital to preserve the livelihood of the Uighur community, whose human rights demand prioritization in the international community.

It is also essential to consider the global climate that we are deeming acceptable–one of inaction in the face of crimes against humanity and one that allows for genocide and the trampling of human rights. When it comes to Russian violations of international law against the Ukrainian people and “trampling on the United Charter,” there is a resounding answer to these questions in the negative.¹³ As demonstrated above, there are evidently different decision-making matrices to consider in these two cases due to China’s economic prowess. However, the complete inability to mobilize may also be symptomatic of deeper issues. It seems as though this decision is also reflective of the entrenched racial and religious discrimination that permeates our international systems and global decision-making as well as the individual attitudes that collectively form societal acceptance of the suffering of people outside the West. In this case, it is critical that we commit ourselves and our legal systems to the fair maintenance of international law and human rights regardless of country of origin.

The treatment of Uighurs in China is an international human rights atrocity that should indubitably be remedied in the international sphere with a unified enactment of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign to put an end to the genocide and affirm international human rights for all people, everywhere.

References

1. Finley, Joanne (2020). "Why Scholars and Activists Increasingly Fear a Uyghur Genocide in Xinjiang". Journal of Genocide Research. 23 (3): 348–370. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1848109. S2CID 236962241  ↩

2. Finley, Joanne (2020). "Why Scholars and Activists Increasingly Fear a Uyghur Genocide in Xinjiang". Journal of Genocide Research. 23 (3): 348–370. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1848109. S2CID 236962241  ↩

3. “Boycotts and Sanctions Helped Rid South Africa of Apartheid – Is Israel next in Line?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 May 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/israel-apartheid-boycotts-sanctions-south-africa.  ↩

4. “What Are the Sanctions on Russia and Are They Hurting Its Economy?” BBC News, BBC, 30 Sept. 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60125659.  ↩

5. Ma, Yihan. “Topic: Export Trade in China.” Statista, https://www.statista.com/topics/1456/export-in-china/#topicHeader__wrapper.  ↩

6. OHCHR Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur ... 31 Aug. 2022, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf?module=inline&pgtype=article.  ↩

7. “China Responsible for 'Serious Human Rights Violations' in Xinjiang Province: Un Human Rights Report | | 1UN News.” United Nations, United Nations, 31 Aug. 2022, https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932.  ↩

8. “‘Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots.’” Human Rights Watch, 20 Apr. 2021, https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-break-their-roots/chinas-crimes-against-humanity-targeting.  ↩

9. “Consumer Boycott of Russia, Russian Products and Russian Companies.” Ethical Consumer, 21 July 2022, https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/boycotts/should-we-boycott-russia.  ↩

10. “Consumer Boycott of Russia, Russian Products and Russian Companies.” Ethical Consumer, 21 July 2022, https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/boycotts/should-we-boycott-russia.  ↩

11. Ben Simon | AFP | Oct 31, 2022, et al. “Egypt Freezes Russian MIR Payments to Avoid US Sanctions.” Al, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/10/egypt-freezes-russian-mir-payments-avoid-us-sanctions.  ↩

12. FRBSF Economic Letter. https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/el2022-24.pdf.  ↩

13. “Statement from President Biden on Russia's Attempts to Annex Ukrainian Territory.” The White House, The United States Government, 30 Sept. 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/30/statement-from-president-biden-on-russias-attempts-to-annex-ukrainian-territory/.  ↩