Uyghurs: Muslim States' Silence and the OIC

Summary

Despite UN findings on mass detention of Uighurs, most Muslim-majority governments and the OIC have praised or stayed quiet on China's Xinjiang policy, citing trade, debt and Belt and Road ties.

What it argues

1. OIC praises Beijing

   OIC foreign ministers meeting in Abu Dhabi in March 2019 commended China's "care" for Muslim citizens without any criticism, HRW reports. A July 2019 letter to the UN signed by 37 countries, nearly half Muslim-majority, defended China's "vocational training centers," per CNN. OIC delegations touring Xinjiang in 2023 and 2024 praised its "stability," "harmony" and religious freedom, according to RFA and CGTN. The OIC has repeatedly endorsed China's account rather than invoking its charter duty to defend Muslim minorities.

2. Turkey's reversal

   Turkey's foreign ministry called China's camps "a great cause of shame for humanity" and demanded their closure in February 2019, Al Jazeera reports. By late 2019 Erdogan softened his stance, citing "sensitivities on both sides," as Turkey pursued Belt and Road's "Middle Corridor," per The China Story. Turkey's single strong rebuke of Beijing gave way to diplomatic and economic accommodation.

3. Saudi Arabia backs China

   Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman endorsed China's "counter-terrorism and de-extremism measures" during a February 2019 Beijing visit, per CNN. Saudi Arabia's deputy OIC representative called Xinjiang's record "a source of pride" for China and "its friends" in October 2024, per CGTN. Saudi Arabia, home to the OIC secretariat, has consistently backed China's framing of events in Xinjiang.

4. Trade and Belt and Road ties

   All but three OIC members have signed Belt and Road memoranda, and China has canceled debts for some, per RFA. Indonesia-China trade reached $66 billion in 2018; China is also top trading partner for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which Beijing has repeatedly bailed out. Chinese investment expanded alongside the crackdown, from Egypt's Cairo light rail deal to Turkey's Belt and Road "Middle Corridor." Trade dependence, Belt and Road financing and debt relief give China leverage over Muslim-majority governments' stance.

5. UN findings, OIC silence

   A UN panel reported credible evidence that over a million Uighurs were held in "re-education camps," per Al Jazeera and Hoover Institution. The OIC's 2019 resolution praised China's "care" for Muslims with no criticism, which HRW says violates the OIC's own charter. Documented UN findings of mass detention have not moved the OIC to invoke its mandate to protect Muslim minorities.

6. Contested camps, deportations

   Turkey and rights groups call the facilities "concentration camps" where detainees are tortured and forced to renounce Islam; China calls them voluntary "vocational training centers." Malaysia, Pakistan and Egypt have deported Uighurs back to China at Beijing's request, per Hoover Institution. Governments dispute the camps' basic legal character, while some have returned Uighurs to the state accused of detaining them.

7. Indonesia's domestic divide

   Opposition figures around Prabowo Subianto used the Uighur issue to attack President Jokowi ahead of the 2019 election, Foreign Policy reports. Jokowi's government said it would not interfere in China's treatment of its Muslims, while his supporters called the issue cynical politics. Indonesian rights groups avoided campaigning on it, fearing it would reignite sentiment against ethnic Chinese Indonesians. In Indonesia the Uighur issue is filtered through domestic political and ethnic rivalries, not treated as foreign policy.

8. Staged tours, state narrative

   China arranges guided OIC visits to Xinjiang featuring staged counter-terrorism exhibits, mosques and "happy" local Muslims, per RFA and CGTN. Teng Biao and Adrian Zenz say such visits cannot show the camps and amount to propaganda that delegates then repeat as fact. China's managed tours shape the public narrative that OIC delegates then endorse.