Transcript
0:08
Yet another month, yet another story on Xinjiang.
This week I read a story from a respected American magazine on how somehow weaker labour is being hounded into working for Chinese fisheries here in Shandong province.
0:31
Now we know that the region of Xinjiang has attracted global attention over allegations of human rights abuses by the Chinese government.
And when the United States government in early 2021 formally designated China’s actions in Xinjiang as genocide, there has been a significant rise in these kinds of stories that claim mass detentions, forced labour and cultural erasure.
1:06
In Xinjiang’s largest ethnic group, the Uighurs, Xinjiang is home to about 25 million people and if the international media were to be believed, over 1,000,000.
Weighers and other Muslim minorities have been detained by the state in reeducation camps under the guise of combating terrorism and religious extremism.
1:36
But that is not what we are seeing on the ground in China.
The reality is vastly different from the picture painted on our media screens.
To discuss the situation in Xinjiang, I invited fellow teacher, researcher and traveller from Colombia, Fernando Munoz Bernal, to the podcast This week.
2:02
Fernando was exposed to Shinjang as part of his documentary project that visits all parts of China and having spent five months there, he is in a better position than most to talk about Shinjang.
2:19
This is the first of a two-part interview.
In this episode, we delve into history and context of what happened in Xinjiang.
Well, join the conversation as Fernando introduces himself and his relationship with Xinjiang.
2:39
Hello Mark, thank you for having me.
My name is Fernando Munoz and I’m from Colombia.
I’ve been living in China since the year 2000 and in the year 2021 I decided to semi retired and me and my wife decided to travel around China.
2:56
We’ve been to a lot of parts in the east and we’ve been in the West this year.
But for what’s the matter of today’s video, we’re probably going to be talking mostly about Sinjang.
I spent more than 140 days in Xinjiang going to more than 40 locations and driving more than 15,000 kilometers self funded in my RV.
3:22
My.
Electric vehicle that pulls an RV trailer, which is another issue that a lot of people find interesting.
Can you actually drive an electric vehicle in Xinjiang?
And the answer is yes you can.
Um, and during my time in Xinjiang I saw many things that I have documented and that I’ve posted on social media and videos and Twitter or X that.
3:46
Well.
Give a better idea as to what really is taking place in Xinjiang.
What took place and what is the reality on the ground.
Visa V The perspective that has been presented to us by social media, politicians and pundits from the West.
4:05
When they discuss Xinjiang and things couldn’t be more diametrically different.
So yeah, that’s what we’re going to discuss in this show, in this interview, that and many other things.
So I want to thank you, Mark, for the opportunity to share my experience traveling in Xinjiang and yeah, sharing my, my thoughts and what my lenses can capture.
4:28
So thank you for having me.
So how did you and your wife end up in Xinjiang?
And was there anything you found particularly different about it?
I have been living in China since the year 2000.
I ran a series of language training centres until earlier last year.
4:51
Sorry, late 2021 when we decided to shut down the business and given that I wasn’t going to be working me and my wife, we decided to go out and start traveling around China.
The idea was to.
5:09
And like put together a documentary for 2024 about China October 1st, 2024 and give China kind of like a present having visited every province and region in in the mainland.
5:28
So that’s what we got started um so last year we because we are working with a very specific.
Setting.
We have a trailer and we have an EV that pulls a trailer.
5:45
So we decided to start the first year on the East Coast because the infrastructure for charging EV’s is a bit more developed in that area we’d heard about projects to.
Develop it way more in the West, but those were like.
6:04
In the future, so it is at a desert on the East Coast, UM.
Order from Guangdong, where I have lived all this time, and um, we went all the way up to Shandong and giggling and then came down the centre of the country.
6:20
Um, but for this year 2023 we started then going towards the West.
We spent a few three months, I think in Yunnan.
Don’t know if you can hear the fireworks.
6:37
They’re celebrating the national holiday.
Yeah, yeah, good sound effects, so.
Yes, indeed.
So from there, we went up through Sichuan relatively quickly because we wanted to get to Xinjiang early in the year because it gets really, really hot in the summer in the southern part of Sinjang.
7:02
So we wanted to get there as early as possible so that we could do the desert area.
And he would not be too hot.
And then do the northern part of Sijang.
During summer, which is not so bad and it’s more it’s bearable, there’s another aspect that was important is that there is this highway in Shengyang called the Duku.
7:29
That it’s only open a few months a year because of the high altitude and the and the snow and it’s very beautiful terrain, but very difficult terrain.
So, yeah, we were looking at timing our arrival to Xinjiang.
7:45
Early April.
And we had planned three months, but it was just so, so much to see, so much to shoot is so big Sinjang that we ended up spending 5-5 months there.
So we’ve been on the road for now.
8:01
It’s well now it’s October, so a year and 22 months more or less.
We’ve been on the road 22 months and.
I started making very beautiful videos, very lengthy videos with lots of beautiful shots and drones and whatnot and music.
8:21
But then I realized that the logistics of moving around, shooting, trying to find people to talk to and editing and posting was extremely difficult.
So.
I decided to just focus on getting.
8:38
The the the shots that I wanted for the documentary, getting the footage that I wanted and Justice Post some very simple things with my phone I travel with.
High level equipment with cinema cameras and special microphones and things like that.
8:56
Um, so that’s what I do for now.
I’m not posting most of the content of most of the footage yet.
I’m going to reserve that for the documentary that will be released in 2024 October 1st.
But what I post on social media, on YouTube, or sometimes on Twitter is just what I just capture with my mobile phone.
9:17
But I guess that most of the people have found a lot of interest in my coverage of Xinjiang.
So it’s it’s something that I think is important for people to to see from our perspective.
9:36
Because a lot of the things that people see from Shinjang are are what the government wants you to see.
So you’re saying people were particularly interested in Shandong?
Yes, yes, more interested once you get to sinjang and you start to show a certain normalcy.
9:57
People, people are interested in that.
They’re like oh, so you’re in Xinjiang, you’re spending time over there and and then they start asking you questions about what it is like to travel.
Right.
So the security issues the the the freedom to to shoot on all those things.
10:15
So you start just making comments and making posts on on on social media thing like this is, this is what I see.
This is how it is.
This is how it’s.
It’s actually taking place.
So yeah, it it’s kind of like political without being political.
10:34
I don’t know if if that makes sense.
It’s just showing the reality that I see through my eyes, through my, through my phone basically as to what Xinjiang is today.
And of course there is a vast difference with what Western media shows and and I understand why there is a difference.
10:55
Um, just recently there was a new.
A video and article written by ABC Australia about a tour that the journalists were given of Xinjiang.
And that’s the thing.
11:10
I mean when media goes to Sinjin, they want to show them.
Was the best that Shinjang has to offer, right?
So a lot of the performances and a lot of the places, everything is prepared for them.
And is very different from what tourists see.
11:29
From what I see from what Chinese tourists see from.
Whoever wants to go this Indian?
Can see, um, there’s also been a lot of things in the news saying that they are they’re trying to stop travel firms from actually bringing people to Xinjiang.
11:50
They think that they’re going to manipulate things and then you cannot see what what they don’t want you to see, what the government doesn’t want you to see.
And my my reply to everybody, like you don’t need a travel firm, you don’t need a tour guide.
12:05
Just get you visa, flight tour, chi book your hotels, rent a car or get a driver and just.
Xiang is open to anybody.
Change is, oh, there’s there’s only a couple of areas where you, you and any other Chinese person needs to get a permit and those are like border areas.
12:27
Xinjiang borders 8 different countries.
So it’s it’s it’s, I don’t see that as unusual, particularly with the history of Sinjang.
So yeah, if anybody wants to come to Scindian.
They can just get on the plane, get a visa and and and and see it.
12:46
They don’t need travel firms, they don’t need travel tours.
There’s no special permit or anything like that, and you’re free to go everywhere and anywhere.
Now there are a bit of differences with the rest of China.
One of them, for example.
13:03
It’s a law in China that whenever you travel as a foreigner, you need to register.
Um, your?
Temporary residence with the police, right?
That’s the law anywhere.
The thing is that in other parts of China that is not normally enforced.
13:20
If you stay at a hotel, the hotel does that automatically for you.
You don’t need to worry about that.
But if you are, I don’t know, staying at a friend’s house or or renting a place, you have got to register within 24 hours with the police station.
That’s that’s the norm, although it’s not enforced in most places around China.
13:41
But he’s young is different.
And Xinjiang, it is enforced for for foreigners you need to register and given that we’re traveling in an RV, it’s a little bit more.
It’s different.
We don’t stay in hotels very often.
Every now and then we do to do laundry or to just take a very long hot shower.
14:01
But um, the most of the times is just.
We we park in in either RV camps, but that’s not the same as our hotel.
So we need to do the registration by ourselves or in parking lots.
We stayed in parks and places where we don’t need to pay for for our stay, but staying there, we need to make sure that we go to the police station and say, hey, here’s my password, here’s my registration and this is where I’m staying.
14:28
So that was different, but is within the norm of what China expects A foreigner to do when they come here.
That’s different from the security checks.
That’s like your temporary residence per registration, but the security checks were different.
14:49
I had the opportunity of going to Sinjang in 2021 and we rented a car, me, my wife on a friend and we went out to see the the cotton farms.
It couldn’t have been more than 50 kilometres and they were more than 10.
15:08
Police checks in 2021.
Um, that can be a little bit annoying, particularly for foreigners, because while residents in Chinese people with their ID card, they can just.
Read it and and get the visual identification and that’s it they go.
15:30
But for us, we, our passports, everybody has a different kind of passports.
Don’t have chips, some don’t.
So it’s all manual.
So having to get a little car and explain where you’re from when you came here and all these things.
So in 2021 there was a little bit.
15:47
Annoying.
Now in 2023 UM.
We found that the number of checkpoints is.
Very, very little.
Basically, they are.
At the exit of highways.
16:05
Um.
And that’s it.
Basically, you go from one city to another and.
Just on highways and also got the Cold War dolls or or national freeways right.
Anyway, when you’re going from one place to another, there’s a checkpoint at the entrance of the city.
16:25
Not when you leave the city, when you enter the city, when you enter a different town, When you enter a different.
County.
Right.
So that’s where there are checkups and that was a huge difference from 2021.
16:40
So the other thing is that.
They have installed now.
Um.
Cameras that actually do facial recognition really, really well.
So the local people who have registered their biometrics with with authorities, they’re driving and all they have to do is roll down the windows, look at the camera.
17:06
And they hand their IDs and poop is an instant match it takes.
A second and off they go.
So that was, that was really, really different.
Again, for me as a passport holder, it was different.
17:21
I actually had to get off the car, go to the, go to the police station that’s in this at the exit of the highway, right off the exit of the highway and show my passport.
We already knew exactly what they wanted.
They wanted to know three things.
17:38
Called the one at your.
Info page They wanted to know the last time that you entered China for me there was pre COVID and they wanted to see your visa.
That you had a current visa.
So basically what we did to make things easier for ourselves, just make copies of all those 3 pages.
17:59
And and wherever we arrived, we just handed it to them and they would kind of like, corroborate that, OK, this is a real copy.
This is, yeah, this is what it is.
And we were done in. 2 minutes.
So we figured out that there are ways for for us to to make things easier.
18:22
So that was that was the difference from 2021 and it’s something that is different from many parts of the country you don’t see.
Checkpoints when you exit a highway in Guangdong or when you exit a highway in.
Shandong, however.
18:41
And this is interesting.
You do that in you none.
Yunnan also borders several countries, some of them with some issues like Myanmar and is the same.
There are checkpoints in Yunnan in the border areas.
18:58
So it’s interesting because it’s not Only Xinjiang is areas where.
People The passage of people from one country to another.
Could happen illegally.
So they use this technologies to to identify.
19:16
Who doesn’t belong there?
Who?
Who hasn’t registered who?
Who’s.
Who’s not in the system basically.
So it’s it’s a mechanism that’s very effective in in in sending alerts when they find somebody who hasn’t come to the region through the proper channels and that is not something that the West.
19:41
Well, it is something that the West can actually really defy very easily, all Big Brother, blah blah.
And this is, this is what they’re doing.
It identifies.
Wiggers and whatnot, No.
Identifies whoever hasn’t been registered, whether he’s Wigger, Kazak, who, any way, any minority or any.
20:00
Even hunt people, It doesn’t matter.
Once you’re registered, you’re registered.
And these surveillance cameras actually work that way, The work to prevent, uh, illegal people from entering and and to send an alert when when they detect somebody.
20:23
Now another thing that I’ve found interesting and unusual was that every single street light has a as a sign.
It has the police number, which is 110 here in China, but every one of them has an identification number.
20:45
And this is true all over Syria.
So 001 and 11476, whatever.
There’s this, thousands of them.
And what this is used for is whenever there is an incident, which there hasn’t been one since 2017, thank God, then people can actually call the police and say hey there’s something taking place at 54376.
21:15
That number gets input and cameras get to work to find what is it that’s taking place who is involved and and and they have a very easy way to to pinpoint the well, the operation that now is going to be required when somebody complaints or when somebody informs authorities of of some kind of incident.
21:40
So that was peculiar.
I haven’t seen that in other parts of China but it’s just safety is safety for the people.
It makes people know that if anything happens, something can be done.
22:00
So given like the whole Shinjang thing that the world knows about or or the perceptions of what’s being reported, what’s your understanding about what happened in Shinjang?
22:16
What did happen or not happen and where Shinjang is now relative to that incident or those incidents are non incidents?
Well, Xinjiang suffered from terrorism for many, many years, more than 20 years.
22:40
There’s there’s an interesting thing is there there were extremism.
There were extremists and and radicalized people who wanted to separate or wanted to pose there interpretation of Islam and extremist interpretation of Islam in Tijuana and they also wanted to separate.
23:05
They wanted to to turn it into E turkistan.
So then went on for quite some time.
And when they started getting more violent, it became, it became something that the government handle in a way that I I understand why they didn’t make it very public.
23:33
But that fell on the lap of Western media and politicians.
So they had a history of, of terrorism attacks.
There’s, there’s hundreds of people, thousands of people were killed, wounded, hurt, with bombs, with, with getting stabbed.
23:56
But the general Chinese public didn’t hear about it.
The vast majority of Westerners never heard about it. 2009 2013 2014 The Chinese government kept it on the wraps for a very simple reason.
24:20
They didn’t want the rest of China to look at Islam in a bad way, or to to look at the Uighurs in a bad way, or to look at seeing Joan in a bad way.
They were trying to deal with it in the most quiet way possible.
24:41
So that led to when things started to change and they started talking about what they had to deal with for several years, decades, like, well, you’re making this up.
This doesn’t add up.
24:57
Why is it that the world hasn’t heard about this since it’s been This has been taking place for so many years, and that’s where you can understand that there’s there’s a discrepancy between what they were trying to do and what the West expected them to do.
25:16
Now, if you’re having the situation, why haven’t we heard about it?
Other people heard about were the 2009 situation in Cumming for some of these extremists started just slashing people at the train station.
25:32
Those were Uighurs.
The the situation in town men where they drove a car with ISIS flags and whatnot just running people over.
So there were only like a few instances that people had heard about.
But there were many, many cases of small bombs and and and and stabbings and attacks like that that were taking place that were just kept under wraps, and they were dealing with it as best as they could.
26:05
I perhaps the the thing that change how the government was handling the situation and the whole population of Xinjiang and China woke up so to to to what was going on and what needed to be done was the assassination of the Imam in Kashgar in 2014.
26:33
This is an imam that was a a very moderate Muslim.
There are moderate Muslims as there are moderate Catholics or moderate Jews.
Do you know what I’m saying?
There are there are people in in in the Catholic Church who don’t follow the scripture to the tee to the point Catholics for example are not supposed to mix fabrics.
27:02
I don’t know if you know that but they’re not.
I don’t know the English word they they don’t know you 21 talks about that.
So on extremist with see somebody mixing clubs and say like hey you’re a Sinner you’re this you’re that and and they’re going to take action on things like that.
27:21
Catholics are not supposed to eat shellfish.
Catholics do so.
Extremism is the issue.
The interpretation of the religion and the imposition over others who are not that radical, who are not, who don’t follow the scripture to that extent was creating conflict and that’s what happened with the imam people.
27:52
So like if if this can happen to an imam, to somebody who is respected in the community, in Islam, in in the city, it could happen to anybody.
So that was a wake up call for a lot of people and that’s when you could see the the implementation of security measures and and everything that started taking place.
28:19
Now was that widely reported that the imam the death of?
Because I do seem to remember after I came to China and it would have been 2013 or 14. 72 in Shinjang.
28:37
So was that known to the public?
Did that the government sort of.
Ali learned about it later.
I don’t know other people out there because I wasn’t really following Xinjiang for many, many years.
Only when I started to hear these things and being in the mindset of OK, Western media is not always very straightforward when it comes to China.
29:02
I became interested in Xinjiang and that’s when I told my wife in 2021, let’s go.
And we just bought tickets and went, um, so I wasn’t aware of that situation in 2014, but it definitely is the beginning of China implementing very strict measures in the area.
29:24
The first one was border border security.
The border is very difficult to secure because it’s so long, there’s so many countries and the terrain is extremely difficult.
29:40
It’s very Rocky Mountains.
High altitude is very easy for, well, bad people to come in or go out easily.
And Xinjiang is enormous.
So once they come in, it’s very easy for these individuals to hide in rural areas and just keep doing the indoctrination that they’re doing, etc etc etc.
30:05
So securing the borders was one of the most important things, heavy police and military presence and surveillance capabilities.
So we need to know who’s coming and going.
So that’s I I I I tell people, let’s say for example, that you’re in a classroom and a mobile phone is stolen.
30:36
Now, if you are the person in charge, maybe you’re a teacher, right?
How do you find that phone?
You could do one of two things.
You could go for the things that you know the the the people that you know who are not the nicest people.
30:55
But then that would be profiling.
If you ask Paul and Peter open your backpacks because we need to see what’s in them, then you’ll be profiling.
So what is the other way to do it?
Everybody has to open their backpacks, everybody opens their school bags and we’re going to find a phone.
31:14
So that’s the mentality of registering everybody, getting the biometrics of everybody.
Everybody had to get their photo taken and get the fingerprints and their phones, and they needed to know.
31:30
They needed to find who the bad people were.
Now, is that an infringement on people’s rights, people’s privacy?
That’s a discussion for people that I’m a much higher level, but in a simplified version of what I just explained in a classroom, that’s what you would do.
31:54
This is the only way for you to find out who took the phone.
Oh, it was actually Mark.
It was not.
It was not Peter by the profile.
Or you don’t.
You are the profile or you get everybody on this database on this registration so that we know who you are, what you do, how you do it.
32:16
And and and that’s what took place.
That was the other thing that took place.
So yeah, it also is obvious that this is going to rub off negatively on the bad people and also on good people.
32:38
There are innocent people who might not agree with this, who who might not appreciate what this is hoping to do.
Now that initial resistance to what the government wanted to do, it’s very possible, is very possible that people were vocal about it and they did not appreciate the the necessary steps to bring back safety and peace.
33:14
Now Fast forward seven years, right and and you see people.
This is what I what I what I see when I when I talk about Shinjang is people are happy.
33:32
It’s not touristy tours or government.
No people are generally happy.
People are living in peace.
Save and and they appreciate it.
So when when they look at what they had to go through in order to get where they are now, perhaps there’s a bit of acceptance and understanding that well that had to be done.
34:00
Were there other possibilities?
Perhaps there are people who who say, oh, but we need to investigate and find out whether this was an abuse or this was a violation of human rights.
34:16
And I tell these people, when China implemented the different measures in Xinjiang, they did what they thought would be the best thing, the best solution to their problem.
34:43
Could there be others?
Of course, but I don’t think that criticizing what China did is going to be embraced by the Chinese government.
I remember Pakistani Prime Minister from the time Imran Khan telling the American media that Xinjiang in China’s is China’s internal matter when he was quizzed about the Uighur problem.
35:13
And now that I think about it, I don’t recall countries like Saudi Arabia saying anything either.
I am wondering did any Muslim leaders have any problem with Xinjiang?
There’s there’s a a couple of things to say.
35:31
Number #1 is that I don’t think the Chinese are willing to discuss the measures that they took.
They took their measures that they thought were the best possible.
35:46
This is what needs to be done.
Um and and and that’s that.
So yeah, I I I don’t think that the Chinese government is going to be openly discussing the measures and and and justifying it to to to the general public.
36:04
I do believe that a lot of the experts and the representatives of the Muslim community that have visited Xinjiang have been told all the truth.
This is what took place, this is what happened and this is what we did and This is why we did it.
36:20
And they walk away understanding what China tried to do, what China has accomplished.
None of the these majority Muslim countries has any issue with Xinjiang.
36:40
The only countries that have an issue with what took place in Xinjiang, the measures to bring back safety.
Other countries that have been killing, killing Muslims for decades, they didn’t care about the Muslims in Afghanistan.
36:57
They didn’t care about the Muslims in in Syria.
They don’t care about the the Muslims in in Libya.
They just they don’t care about them in Iraq.
But the one singing Jiang, yes, those those we do care a lot.
We do worry about those.
37:13
So you got to look at things from that perspective.
The Muslim leaders that have visited Shijian, they understand the situation.
They have been explained and shown the reasoning, the logic that that the reasons for what they did and they walk away with an understanding of what had to be done and how affected it has been.
37:39
But within all of this and every time I talk about this, every time I make a video about this, I always tell people look, in a situation like Xinjiang that endure terrorism, do you think it’s possible that there was abuse?
38:03
Do you think it’s possible that a police officer just flew off the handle and and and did something daddy shouldn’t be done?
That’s likely.
That happens all over the world it it’s it’s true.
38:22
So is there a possibility that that took place easy, Jan, in the heat of this war against terrorism?
It’s possible.
Remember that there were high level scholars.
38:40
They were members of the police force who were actually separatist extremists and terrorist supporters.
So the what happens when a police officer finds out that this person was actually betraying them?
39:00
Is it possible that they flew off the handle?
Absolutely.
I’m not.
I’m not saying that that that’s not a possibility.
However, was it policy?
Was it systemic?
39:17
Was it endemic?
There’s zero evidence that that’s true.
Is it possible that, as I said earlier, some people did not want to be part of this?
Taking the photos and registering your biometrics?
39:36
Very possible, of course.
Now, did it become an effective measure in bringing back safety?
Yes.
So there’s there’s, there’s discussions to be had about India, but you cannot start having an honest discussion about these things.
40:01
When you’re coming just guns blazing and attacking and lying and twisting the stories and and just that’s not going to be entertained by the Chinese government.
That’s not going to be entertained.
I think that the people that have come here as Muslim leaders and and and scholars that had had the opportunity to understand, they walk away with a clear understanding of the situation.
40:32
I’m just looking at it from from the outside.
I’m not a journalist.
I don’t have an inside informant.
I don’t.
I no zero.
My body of work has been documenting daily life, but I’m talking as a reasonable person, a person with two fingers of a brain and two working brain cells, trying to explain the logic behind things.
41:01
Um, so let’s say, for example, that they were abuses, right?
Let’s say that there were abuses.
What makes us think that the government didn’t punish those officers?
41:21
Ah, because we haven’t heard about it.
Remember that we didn’t even hear about the terrorist attacks for decades.
So if the government did not tell us about the bad things that these terrorists were doing, do you think the government is going to tell us about the corrections that took place when policemen or military or whatever made mistakes and abused somebody?
41:49
No.
So the fact that we haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened.
And I loved this latest issue with all these NGOs calling for the the release of this particular scholar or this particular person or this because they have been unfairly detained or unjustly detained or whatever.
42:16
And as time goes by, we find out that those people actually were terrorist supporters.
The best case to show you that was Elam Totti.
He was an economist and a scholar, and recently this video that has come out of him actually indoctrinating his students from the classroom supporting the terrorists.
42:49
Same Elam tote that these NGOs and pundits and whatnot claimed that he was innocent and unfairly like.
So I made a video and I said, like, look, when China imprisons somebody is because there are reasons.
43:09
The fact that you and I don’t know what the reasons are doesn’t mean that there aren’t.
And China will not react to pressure.
They will come out with the evidence when they’re good and ready.
You don’t like that?
43:25
Well, you’re going to have to deal with that.
But the fact is that they have been able to prove and show to people what took place in Xinjiang, what people did and how they worked and operated.
43:41
So yeah, it’s not, it’s not as open as people would want it, but you go back and look at the different things that they have shown and like, hey, there’s reason here.
Hey, there’s just clear evidence that these people were doing bad things and they deserve to be in prison.
44:03
So, yeah, it’s, it’s is is that situation where China has to deal with what is expected of it from the West and what China is willing to do in terms of transparency.
44:22
They did what they thought had to be done.
And the discussion, whether there was an abuse or not is something that the Chinese probably don’t want to participate in, particularly when they can now say look how it worked, because that’s what I see going to more than 40 locations in in in five months, small places, big places, villages, towns, counties, all around.
44:57
What you see is people going about their lives in harmony, in peace with safety, being prosperous and and and coming together as a as a as a region and as a country.
45:14
There’s there’s something that a lot of people don’t understand when when you talk to Chinese, sorry.
When you talk to Chinese people in Xinjiang, they’re actually very appreciative.
They appreciate how the rest of China comes together whenever there are issues in Syria, for example, when there are sanctions on the tomatoes in Cjam, when there are sanctions on cotton in Xinjiang, when there are sanctions on solar panel industry in CJA, when they’re when they’re all these issues imposed by the West based on very flimsy evidence, what do the Chinese do?
46:01
They just go overboard and start consuming Sindian products and cotton, Sinjang fruit, Xinjiang everything and and they they compensate for the losses in trade, the unfair losses in trade that had been in infringe on on the people of Sinjang.
46:27
And they appreciate that summer after summer there are just millions of people from around the country that go there to spend their money, to buy things, to learn things, to do.
46:47
You know what I’m saying?
And that idea of China has our back.
The rest of China has our back.
You can actually feel it.
You can actually feel the appreciation of of the tourists that people who go there, wow, they’re welcome because they have their backs every single campaign.
47:09
And you see it on social media here in China up this is made with Senjan cotton.
Oh, and people prefer the one that’s made with Xinjiang cotton as opposed to the one from wherever.
There is that reaction in the in the Chinese population to support Jinjiang whenever there are attacks in the West.
47:33
And this is something that few people know about or or or notice when they when they talk about Sinjang, when they see Xinjiang.
So my experience going there is people are people are happy, people are fine, people are people are able to appreciate.
47:52
That’s what they had to go through.
They might have not approved of it or or or might have not been a pleasant experience, but today they can see the fruit of of the things and the measures that were implemented.
48:10
And as I said before, don’t expect China to accept being questioned, particularly when the result is so positive.
Well, that’s so that’s really interesting.
So the West puts these sanctions on Xinjiang with the idea of protecting the people from Xinjiang and then change the rest of China responds by.
48:34
Filling, you know, filling in the replacing the original customers from the West with other Chinese.
So they’re supporting Xinjiang more than ever probably and brings the country together more tightly.
48:51
Yeah, that, that, that symbol, that symbol of the pomegranate fruit is something that you see all over Xinjiang and and the symbol is, as the seeds are tied together and make this very delicious fruit that’s grows all over.
49:07
It’s Indian.
That’s how they see themselves, like the unity of every minority and every different ethnic group coming together and sticking together and seeing all the challenges and all the issues through together.
49:25
So pomegranate is a very important symbol in singlet.
I discovered this message when I was there.
Thank you for joining us for the first part of the special interview with Fernando Munoz Bernal.
