Turkish journalist debunks U.S. mud-slinging at China on Xinjiang

In contrast to how it is presented in the West, I witnessed a different Xinjiang, a veteran Turkish journalist Tunc Akkoc told Xinhua recently.

He refuted the Western rhetoric of so-called human rights violations or forced labour in the region.

Recalling his nearly two-week tour in Xinjiang in 2019, Akkoc, the former general manager of Turkish daily Aydinlik, said.

"It is fascinating to explore how happy those people were.

"I have been quite impressed by the cultural liberty,'' he said.

He added that he was amazed by Xinjiang's economic and social development when seeing many modern hospitals, high-technology factories, and smart farming facilities.

The analyst, however, said the West, especially the United States (U.S.), had been using and provoking people with separatist and extremist sentiments in Western countries.

He said they used it to launch and conduct hostile political campaigns against China on the so-called Xinjiang issue.

To defame China, the U.S. fabricated fake news, employed phoney witnesses, and schemes, repeatedly accusing China under the pretext of human rights, trumping up forced labour in Xinjiang, Akkoc noted.

"In other words, this is a comprehensive smear campaign rarely seen in the international arena,'' he said.

In Akkoc's opinion, the U.S. was not eligible at all to be a human rights lecturer.

"Let's name it, the U.S. is not a democratic country. It is a country where human rights violations are very intense.

"On top of it, the U.S. has been committing crimes against humanity for decades all over the world,'' he said, referring to its invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What came after the smear campaign was that the U.S. used the forced labour allegation to justify imposing embargoes on Chinese cotton, seafood, electronic equipment, and many other product categories and imposing sanctions on Chinese companies.

Akkoc said he believed that behind all these fake news and sanctions lied were the U.S. growing anxiety over losing its status of dominating the world economy to China.

"Therefore, the U.S. has decided not to play the game by the rules,'' the analyst said.

He noted that Washington had made the world increasingly unsafe by following a dishonest and unjust path and had undermined globalisation through a series of embargoes.

"On the other side, the U.S. also shoots itself in the foot because the strategy of decoupling from the world economy will cause more damage to its economy in the medium and long term,'' he noted.