Lots of artificial pseudo-frenzy recently over Chinese treatment of Uiyghurs (pronounced "weegers"), a mostly Muslim group of around 12 million people who live in northwestern China. There have been calls of genocide, and it does seem true that China has been waging some kind of campaign against these people for some now. This screed is NOT a defense of China's actions. Far from it.
However, the recent vote in the Canadian Parliament calling China out for genocide in this case smells like political theatre on the part of the Conservative Party of Canada. More virtue signaling, if you will, and here's why - please, convince me I'm wrong, if you can.
First, the Uiyghurs are Muslims. Forgive me for pointing this out, but Muslims have been a target of the right for years. Basically since 9/11, if not before. They have all been lumped together as suspected terrorists, their mosques have been targets of shootings, one Conservative Party leadership hopeful suggested bringing in a "barbaric cultural practices" snitch line and I've seen many comments from right-wing conservatives insisting that Sharia Law is about to become part of the Criminal Code of Canada.
My point is this: The Right, and the Conservative Party in particular, doesn't really care about Muslims. They've made that abundantly clear over the years. So why the concern now for an obscure group far away in a corner of another country?
It is well-known that China has been increasingly acting like an international bully. One only has to remember the 2 Canadian hostages taken by China following the arrest of the Huawei financial executive in Vancouver some two years ago at the behest of the USA. But that's only one recent example.
For about 70 years, the island of Taiwan has been effectively independent from mainland China. For all of that time, though, it has been careful to avoid mentioning that defacto independence for fear of angering China. China views Taiwan as a renegade province and has vowed to wage war if Taiwan makes any movements toward asserting its independence. Kowtowing to Chinese pressure, NO Western democracy has established diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Not the USA, not Canada, not any country in Europe. We trade with Taiwan, but there is one concept we will NOT dare mention, and that is Taiwanese independence. Why? Because China and our trade with China. We want cheap consumer goods and we will not deliberately piss off the country that supplies us with those cheap goods.
What most people might not know is that Taiwan is the source of almost ALL the semiconductor chips that are used around the world. There are two main manufacturers, TMC Semiconductors and Samsung, both centered in Taiwan. There is one Samsung manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas, but, as we've seen recently, Texas is a Republican-run state that can't even keep the lights and heat on during a sustained cold snap and a bit of a winter storm.
Because of the virus pandemic affecting global supply chains, there is currently a shortage of semiconductor chips, a fact that is already affecting parts of the economic recovery in the USA. These days, there are very few items that don't contain these chips. As almost everyone knows, they are found in everything from cars to consumer electronics. And they're almost ALL made in Taiwan, a part of the planet that China views as its own territory, a view that it has threatened to support with military action if necessary.
So why this recent flurry of angst over the Uiyghurs in China but not over Chinese aggression over Taiwan, or, for that matter, long-standing Chinese aggression against the people of Tibet and the recent clamp-down in Hong Kong? I think the answer is crystal clear. The Conservative Party of Canada sees an opportunity to engage in some political theatre, an opportunity to hopefully embarrass the Liberal government, and to do it with NO economic consequences and perhaps only minimal political risk of retaliation from China. The CPC sees this as a no-cost bit of virtue signaling at the expense of their political rivals. It has little to do with the Uiyghurs or the Olympics or Chinese aggression. It would be nice if it did, but I don't believe it does.
Prove me wrong.
