Dr. Haroon Sheikh
China is, perhaps, the only country of the world that has become a victim of multi-dimensional propaganda not because of any of its fault but with the sole objective of scuttling its steady march on the road to economic progress and prosperity.
China is single-mindedly focusing on its economic development and has demonstrated its commitment, through several regional and global initiatives, to share its achievements with other members of the international community.Sustained propaganda campaign is aimed at creating obstacles in the way of its unmatched progress and development and tarnish its image in the comity of nations.
This sounds strange but there are numerous developments that confirm hatching of conspiracies to undermine economic and military strength of the emerging superpower of the world by its rivals. It is rightly said that anti-Chinese sentiments or Sinophobia are stirred up on different pretexts involving sentiments such as hatred and fear of China, its people, its diaspora or its culture.
A cursory glance over happenings of the past and the recent past would make it abundantly clear that after finding it difficult to compete with China in economic and defense arenas, its adversaries concoct stories about so-called human rights violations in Xinjiang China besides levelling allegations about intellectual rights, propaganda against Tik-Tok and WeChat, alleged human rights violations in Hong Kong, South China Sea issue and negative trade practices.
InterCP, with the support of the United States and the West has been brainwashing the people inside and outside China which is alarming.
The west has been propagating the agenda and trying to restore the missionary position online and offline, encourage Chinese citizens to go to the Belt and Road and other countries and regions for missionary work and undermine China’s policy of “The belt and road,” and separate China and countries along the road.
In 2016, InterCP expanded rapidly in China, training thousands of Chinese citizens to serve as missionaries abroad brainwashing them against the Chinese Government. The west has been propagating the Chinese abroad using religious card and the number of these people has been increasing.
China has been playing a key role for the development of countries along the Belt and Road and also play an important role for the cultural exchanges and respect the religious beliefs. But The USA and west has taken this as a weakness of China and has been recently involved in the Propaganda against China and its allies along the belt and road.
The overland ‘Belt’ involves the creation of an economic and trade corridor extending from China’s west through Central Asia, and finally to Europe.
There is need of reinstatement of the Christianity to its religious nature, and the religion should be separated from politics and should not be used as a political tool by the US and the West.
For the maritime ‘Road’, China’s development of ports and hubs across the Indo-Pacific is a key aspect of the initiative.
Purchase and construction of port facilities and associated economic zones in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Oman and Djibouti are intended to provide China with maritime access and economic benefit across the Indian Ocean. These will connect to Piraeus, Greece’s major port, which has been bought by Chinese shipping group COSCO and which will allow direct access to the markets of Europe.
Foremost among the key projects which have been promoted as focal parts of the OBOR initiative are the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Bangladesh China Myanmar Corridor.
As China has huge goodwill among the Muslim world, some Western countries and the Western media continue to harp on the theme of so-called persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with a view to tarnishing its image in the Islamic Ummah.
Chinese themselves have organized a number of visits by delegations from different Muslim countries to see the ground situation for themselves and reports of such delegations have belied claims about grave human rights violations there.
A reality check would make it crystal clear that Western media is delivering false narrative using religious card. China has made a positive religious policy for all religions and minorities protecting the legal rights and interests of religious organizations in accordance with the law.
Since 1982, a total of 88 religious organizations have been reinstated or established in the autonomous region, of which 1 Islamic association and 1 Buddhist association are at the regional level; 13 Islamic associations, 3 Buddhist associations and 1 Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee of the Protestant Churches are at the prefectural (prefectural-class city) level; 65 Islamic associations, 2 Buddhist associations and 2 Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committees of the Protestant Churches are at the county (county-class city) level.
All religious bodies independently carry out religious activities within the scope prescribed by law. All religious bodies play an important role in training, fostering, educating and administering their clergy and establishing and running religious schools, as well as in international religious exchanges.
Religious personages are guaranteed access to scriptures and other religious publications. A number of Islamic classics and religious books including the Koran, as well as religious classics of Buddhism, Christianity and other religions in various editions and in Uygur, Kazak and Han languages have been translated, published.
Normal religious activities are protected by law and all ethnic groups, regardless of their population, have the same legal status and enjoy various rights in accordance with the law, including participation in the management of state affairs, freedom of religious belief, receiving education, using their own languages, and preserving their traditional culture.
It is because of these equitable opportunities that people belonging to various ethnic groups are living in harmony and contributing to the overall wellbeing of the entire region.
Unity among all ranks of the Chinese nation has been the leading factor in achieving monumental progress by China and its people hailing from all ethnic groups are determined to continue their march forward thwarting designs of their rivals.
—PhD in International Relations, Postdoc Research Fellow based in Beijing
