Enes Freedom v Xi Jin Ping

Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove

Guest

Episode Summary

As we approach the 2022 Winter Olympics, it’s clear that the Chinese President wants the world to focus on China and sports - and not its record on human rights. In 2020 the US State Department accused Beijing of cultural genocide against its Uygher population. Former MI6 Chief Richard Dearlove explores how China is fighting to control the narrative, and the tactics Beijing uses to influence the West.

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Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Mcfarlane: Welcome back to One Decision. I'm Julia McFarlane. We're talking to NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom of the Boston Celtics and discussing his extraordinary human rights activism. Freedom cuts a lonely figure in the world of sport for taking on Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party's track on human rights. A newly minted United States citizen as of last December, Freedom has been making full use of the First Amendment to the consternation of the Chinese government and even his colleagues in the world of basketball and sports. From his Free Tibet trainers he's worn on the court in Madison Square Garden to his social media posts calling out sportswear giant Nike for its business dealings in China, Freedom has been making a name for himself off the courts as well. But at what cost? Let's bring in Sir Richard Dearlove, former chief of MI6, Britain's secret intelligence service, for his thoughts on our interview and the plight of Uighurs in China. Richard, what is the history of this so-called autonomous region of Xinjiang? It's China's biggest province. It shares a border with a lot of Central Asian countries like Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and many of the people living there have perhaps more in common with those Central Asian countries than with people in Central China. So what is the history of that region and why is it so troubled?

ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE

Dearlove: Essentially they're Turkic people with, you know, Turkic civilization and Turkic culture, so they're Muslim. I mean as far as I understand it's a relatively moderate form of the Muslim religion, but you know civil society in that area is organized along, or has been organized along traditional lines, not along you know lines dictated by the Communist Party of China, and therefore you have this sort of cultural clash. I mean it's a little bit like Tibet, you know, where up until there's been extensive immigration from Han Chinese, the Han Chinese are not the sort of dominant ethnic group, or not the dominant influence. As far as one can understand, and I'm sure we've all read extensively about it, you've got large chunks of the population in re-education camps, and therefore the separated families, children in sort of party schools and separated from their parents, I mean forcible eating of pork, for example, in the re-education camps as part of this sort of program of minimizing Uighur culture. And I suppose really it's a push to destroy the particular ethnicity of the region. I mean one sees many many historic examples of this, I mean probably the most terrifying, the worst examples were in Soviet Russia by Stalin, and whole populations were moved and dispersed in order to break down local identity. I think what's interesting about Chinese domestic policy is that the Communist Party will allow a certain level of criticism, will allow a certain level of local identity, as long as it doesn't, as it were, threaten the organizational primacy and prominence of the structures that, as it were, control the country, which are party structures. And you see this being played out you know in other parts of China as well, anything which is organizationally threatening. I remember, I mean some of my professional contacts with the Chinese, which is a different example but it's relevant to this particular context, talking to the Chinese and they were neurotic about the Falun Gong organization, because Falun Gong is ideological, it's conspiratorial, it's highly organized, it actually contains many elements which are rather similar to the origins of the Communist Party, and this sort of competing ideological and religious influence, and that certainly is I think one of the reasons why you know they're trying to pull the Uighurs away from their Turkic roots and change it into a classic Chinese society.

Mcfarlane: Right, and you rightly pointed out these detention centers, and we don't know exactly what goes on in these camps. China refers to them as re-education camps, which are in use as part of a de-radicalization program that they're running on. But we know from Chinese whistleblowers and family members of people who've been detained there or people who are linked to people who've been detained there, they've recounted horrific stories of forced labor, torture, systematic forced birth control, and a litany of other alleged abuses. How much do we know of what's going on there? And, you know, we've had the US government making a determination that what was happening in Xinjiang essentially amounted to a cultural genocide. Why hasn't that made really the international shock waves that it should have, given how often we keep saying never again?

Dearlove: Well I think it demonstrates the ability of the Chinese to, as it were, dominate and influence the international narrative. I mean the evidence is stacked against the Chinese official version, but they do have an official version, and I mean I think that pattern is repeated in a number of other places, number of other countries. I mean China has, I can give you a stack of examples, not least the pandemic. The Chinese narrative has been the dominant narrative, and there's a reluctance even on the part of our own scientists in the West, to criticize and attack the Chinese version of events, which I think we know is heavily influenced, heavily constructed, heavily oriented towards the way that they want this issue to be perceived. I mean the Chinese are well organized to make sure that their version of events is the dominant one. I think what the international community needs in relation to this area probably, you know, is a UN inspection team to go in there and see what's going on. But of course the Chinese almost for sure are not going to allow that.

Mcfarlane: Well that's exactly what the Australians were asking for to investigate the source of the pandemic. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison wanted independent investigators to access Wuhan, and the Chinese reacted incredibly angrily to that, and in many ways sort of punished Australia.

Dearlove: Interference in their internal affairs, and they will not brook, you know, that sort of intrusion into areas where they don't want to be subject to scrutiny. But I mean I think there's so much evidence now emerging in the public domain about the way that the Uighurs have been treated that you could argue that the Chinese are losing control of the story.

Mcfarlane: It seems that in this obviously China is desperate to keep its grip on its narrative, both at home and overseas. It seems that China wants the world to respect China, to leave it to its own affairs, to take it seriously. But it doesn't seem really to want the world to make friends with China, right? I mean, they have this massive propaganda machine around the world, trying to solidify this narrative you speak of. You have these very assertive ambassadors who you will see vociferously defending the Chinese government on cable news, on the Sunday shows. And you have this Christine Lee figure in the UK, who you mentioned, who was the center of that MI5 warning about agents of the Chinese government seeking to influence lawmakers and policy to be more China friendly. What is it exactly that they're trying to do here? How does China want to engage with the world on its own terms? Because it doesn't really seem like Beijing wants the world to be friends with it, right?

Dearlove: Well actually this is a very interesting issue, I mean I think that you know China's position has shifted very significantly over the past five years, since particularly Xi Jinping's leadership has become predominant, and you know he looks as though he's appointed for life or near life term. You've mentioned the phenomenon of what they call the wolf warrior diplomats, who are very aggressive about, you know, shouting down criticism of China and reacting, you know, very badly to it. But I mean China at one point, if you go back five years or more, was rather successful at soft diplomacy. And you know it wasn't in the position where it started to sort of violate international agreements and behave in an autonomous manner. I mean you could argue, and I mean I've heard it argued, that in a way you know Xi Jinping, has he lost the plot? Because whereas the world had quite a benign attitude towards China and was prepared to tolerate some aspects of its behavior, I mean suddenly you have got many countries you know forming up now to form almost a sort of front, not to take China on, but just not to accept their version of events. You know I often wonder, you know, whether Xi Jinping isn't in the process of overplaying his hand. I think there will be many officials, senior officials in China, who question, well of course not publicly, but in their own minds what's going on, because China is basically losing friends, it's losing influence, it's becoming more isolationist. I think there will be aspects of, as it were, judgment within the leadership of the People's Republic of China, who are saying you know, has Xi Jinping actually got this right? Because you know we're in a confrontational situation with the United States, what benefit does that bring China? Nothing except aggravation and trouble. Where a bad relationship deteriorating with Australia, a very important trading partner. Certainly a poor relationship with many countries in the EU getting worse. Confrontational relationship with India, and a poor relationship with Japan as well. And this was not the case if you look back. Look at the attitude of the British government, you know, when Cameron was Prime Minister, you know, the UK's policy was, you know, make friends with China, we're going to have a special relationship with China, we're going to be a privileged trading partner. Look how misguided that looks today.

Mcfarlane: You are hinting at pinning this change in Chinese strategy with the arrival of Xi Jinping. I wanted to ask you, he is a man on a mission, right? He wants to radically transform China. Some experts say what he wants to do is return the country to its former status as the world superpower when, during the Ming dynasty, it was incredibly wealthy due to a boom in trade. It was arguably the world superpower back then. And so for Xi Jinping, to bring it back to the business of sports and the Olympics and the Winter Olympics, as they're getting underway. For Xi Jinping, hosting the Olympics and other such global events, that's part of that mission, right? It's part of the soft power strategy in his mission.

Dearlove: Yeah I agree, of course it is, and that China hosts these events you know brings great prestige within China to the leadership. But of course you know they're going wrong. Look what's happening you know to the Winter Olympics, I mean we might be reaching a point reasonably soon whereby teams actually start withdrawing and refusing to compete. I mean we haven't quite got that far, but you know there's going to be no official delegations, okay, that doesn't sort of stop the games, but it certainly detracts from their status. We're in a situation where many countries are recalibrating and reconsidering their attitude and their policy towards China.

Mcfarlane: What's going on with Beijing's strategy? You say that hosting the Olympics and these global events is important for Beijing's international prestige, and how it's regarded by the international community. How can you account for the inconsistency with the Chinese Communist Party wanting to be an Olympic host country? Remember the Olympic charter has, you know, the host nation must commit to upholding human dignity and all sorts of, and the preservation of human rights. How can Beijing want to put on a spread like the Olympics and, you know, talk about sport crossing borders and uniting nations, and then at the same time, as you rightly point out, the crackdown on human rights protesters, you know, Hong Kong students, and the way it silences its critics, the way it treats people like Peng Shuai, who all she did was speak out about an alleged assault that happened to her?

Dearlove: I think it shows that the Chinese want the world to be the way it wants it to be, and they're not really prepared to compromise. So they want the prestige, they want the admiration, they are a coming superpower whether we like it or not, but at the same time it's on their own terms, and their own terms are going to be largely unacceptable outside China. So there will, I mean I think China will face at some point an existential crisis about this identity that it's pushing very hard, and we'll see. But, you know, communist parties are never quite what we imagine them to be from the outside.

ENES FREEDOM AND THE COST OF SPEAKING OUT

Mcfarlane: I just want to ask you about Enes Freedom. You know, he is, of course, incredibly outspoken about China's human rights record. He's acknowledged that he could be dropped from the league, that he probably will never get any big name sponsors. He says that's a price that he feels is worth paying in order to speak freely about all of these injustices that we've mentioned. Are you worried about his safety? Do you think he's fine to keep speaking out like this? Mind you, given he's also a target for President Erdoğan, of being originally Turkish, Erdoğan is perhaps more of a problem.

Dearlove: I mean the Chinese do not have at the moment the sort of reputation that the Russians have had for rubbing out troublesome dissidents, and you know historically the Russians have always dealt severely with those that they consider their own, you know, so you can start with Trotsky in Mexico, and you can have, you know, I could pull up many other examples. I think that the Chinese are very good at sort of silencing critics through manipulation of their circumstances. And of course the NBA as a franchise is massively popular in China, particularly when the first Chinese players appeared in NBA teams. You know Enes Freedom puts on a pair of shoes that says Free Tibet, and within twelve hours the Boston Celtic games have been rubbed off the schedule.

Mcfarlane: And his name is blackened out, his name is censored on, you know, this is exactly...

Dearlove: How the Chinese you know are going to react to that. I don't personally believe he's in great danger, physical danger, from the Chinese. They'll just try to rubbish him and rubbish his career. Remember that the Turks have put out I don't know how many arrest warrants against Enes Freedom. And I think if he ended up in a country which had close relations with Turkey and an extradition treaty, he might find himself on a plane traveling back to Ankara. I think the Chinese are wary of touching people of other nationalities who criticize them other than trying to silence them and put them out of business.

Mcfarlane: Do you think it all comes down to when you surpass a certain amount of money, when you are so rich, when your business or your industry is worth a certain amount, a certain figure, that all rules of international law do not apply, and you can basically do what you want. And governments just, they can accuse you of genocide. They can accuse you of crimes against humanity. But when your business is worth that much, you are able to act with impunity.

Dearlove: Well, I'm not sure I'd get quite that far, and of course, you know, you give that example, and then one immediately thinks of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, you know, which were a sort of showcase for the Nazis, and the world you know voluntarily participated, maybe after the event, well you know, later on of course deeply regretted the extent to which you know it had been a platform for the Nazi regime. I mean I think it would be unfair to put it quite as bluntly. I mean governments are sensitive to these issues and understand them. I don't think they become mainline politics, except I mean they are politics in themselves. What I mean is the sort of cancellation or the, you know, suppression of these events. It doesn't happen unless you're in a really profound and deep crisis.

Mcfarlane: But I mean, the Biden administration, the United States government accused Beijing of cultural genocide, and all President Biden has done is just said he doesn't want his diplomats to go to the Olympics. He could have gone way further. He could have announced a full boycott of the Olympics. He's still sending his athletes there. When the State Department is saying, don't bring your phones, don't bring your laptops because of, you know, cyber surveillance, all the kind of biometrics that athletes may face. President Biden isn't really sending a strong message with a diplomatic boycott of Beijing, less than just a year after the government said that it was committing genocide.

Dearlove: Absolutely, I mean I agree with you, but I mean I think what I would say is that you know the US policy towards China as a debutante superpower, or whatever you like to call it, isn't fully formed. I mean I think there's a certain amount of asking of questions, consideration, you know, to how far the United States should go at the moment in confronting China on many of these issues. I mean the key issue probably at the moment, you know, is the future of Taiwan. The future of Hong Kong has been, as it were, the catalyst, but the future of Taiwan is more profound. Now if the Chinese do at some point undertake an amphibious invasion of Taiwan, then I think one would see you know an escalation, a huge escalation, you know, in global attitudes towards China led by the United States.

Mcfarlane: What does that entail though, escalation of attitudes? Is that more sort of words of condemnation, or do you think they would be compelled to do something in a physical sense?

Dearlove: That's a difficult question to answer. I don't think that you can prevent probably a serious Chinese invasion of Taiwan. But the consequences for China could be dire. You could certainly do all sorts of things like blockade their ports. I mean there are all sorts of responses that you could make after the event. But is the West going to go to war with China to protect the independence of Taiwan? It's going to do everything but. I mean similarly, is Europe going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine?

Mcfarlane: Can I ask one final question just on Enes Kanter Freedom? And I just wanted to hark back to that day back in 2017 in Washington, where a group of Turkish, segue slightly because he's Turkish, a group of Kurdish protesters, some of whom were American students, they were protesting as President Erdoğan was meeting with the then President Trump in the White House. And you had maybe half a dozen people were beaten up by Erdoğan's bodyguards. And at the time, there was a huge amount of outrage that the Trump administration was seemingly turning a blind eye to the fact that American citizens and protesters were being assaulted by Turkish agents on American soil, as they were exercising their constitutional right to protest. And then the charges of assault were actually dropped against all of those agents the following year. What happened there? And do you think the same could happen now under the leadership of Joe Biden?

Dearlove: Well, I think what I would say is that incidents and individuals don't make policy. And that's a really hard and tough thing to say. But what you have to bear in mind is the importance of Turkey's relationship as a member of NATO and its geopolitical position in Southern Europe between Russia and the Mediterranean. And I mean as awful as it sounds, you know, you don't make policy around these sorts of incidents, you can't. Maybe you can handle the incidents differently, and I'm pretty surprised the way that the US didn't sort of follow through. But actually interestingly a similar thing happened during Xi Jinping's visit to the UK where some Chinese protesters on the Mall got manhandled by the police, and there was a pretty sour follow on after that incident.

Mcfarlane: I mean my question is how worried do you think Enes Kanter Freedom should be about Erdoğan coming after him? I mean, he's issued more than 10 warrants for his arrest, and if he continues to speak out against the Erdoğan regime, could he see himself being a Fethullah Gülen? The regime target him the more he speaks out, do you think?

Dearlove: Yeah, I mean, you probably don't remember this, but the head of the PKK was abducted from Africa by the Turkish secret service, and has since, I mean since he's been in the Turkish prison, okay that's a terrorist organization. But I mean certainly the Turks have the military and intelligence capability to act beyond the law in various places, and I mean someone like Enes Freedom I think is physically more threatened by Erdoğan and sort of Erdoğan's henchmen than certainly by the Chinese. I mean he's very aggravating to the Chinese, and you know they're probably working as we speak, you know, to prevent his NBA career from thriving. Do you think it matters at all that he's a US citizen? Oh yeah, well I mean, well he is a US citizen and that does make it, but as I've said individuals don't make policy by and large. I say by and large because there are exceptions, but you know if you look at this Iranian British lady who's been locked up in Iran, you know, to what extent should that dictate the UK's Iranian policy? And I mean you know there's no question that the Iranians are holding her in order to pressurize the British government over this supposed unpaid bill for defense equipment that goes way back in time. I think these cases, which depend on individual incidents, are very very hard to sort of calibrate into a wider government policy. And I mean Freedom, I think Freedom, if he's going to have any problems, they come in his direction from Turkey. As long as Erdoğan's in power anyway. Maybe Erdoğan will lose the next election.

Mcfarlane: That's it for this episode of One Decision. I'm Julia McFarlane. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode and get in touch. What decisions have impacted your lives and your part of the world? We would love to hear from you. Find us on Twitter. Our handle is at one decision pod, and we're on Facebook at one decision podcast. See you next time.