Liars and loudspeakers: the making of the Anglo-American media’s “Framing China, Defaming Xinjiang” series

A woman dressed in black, sniveling about her grievances and indescribable agony, comes out to the world in front of the media--a move that is guaranteed to incite public wrath and pity. If the accuser is repeatedly carried into the spotlight without any solid proof, however, she may eventually wear the public’s patience thin and risk losing all of the initial newsworthiness. But if the accused is… wait for it… China, then purporting to represent truth in reporting need not matter anymore in the eyes of the Anglo-American media.

So long as the accuser has a Chinese appearance, used to live in China, and is able to tell a “good” story (all while sobbing into the camera lens), she can certainly pass the audition for any anti-China “show”. With their casting call having been met, you are now about to witness the making of the “Framing China, Defaming Xinjiang” series, directed and produced by the Anglo-American media, which tells the story about a lie, a complete lie, and nothing but a lie. 

Meet Qelbinur Sedik, Tursunay Ziyawudun, and Zumret Dawut, the regular cast of the series and frequent guests on the BBC, Guardian, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and other Anglo-American media outlets.

A quick glimpse at their gloomy portraits below news headlines will naturally entice the unsuspecting to click on the links to their depressing “stories”. Following the links, readers will find that they happened to “escape” to America or Sweden after “being raped”, “corralled in camps”, or “sterilized”. They happened to be spotted by “empathetic” news producers and reporters who have been eager to churn out their exclusive pieces “revealing a place without ever been there” or earth-shaking news items “turning the place upside down to find ‘weapons of mass destruction’”. They happened to spin yarns that rehashed the mendacious, manufactured report concocted by Adrian Zenz , a so-called scholar who has spared no efforts to translate his Sino-phobic sentiments into fraudulent and fabricated reports on Xinjiang.

Related Reading: Anglo-American institutions are leading anti-China campaign with false accounts of repression in Xinjiang, a special report found

Zumret Dawut

This is not Zumret Dawut's first time defaming China's “Pair Up and Become Family” program, a policy that has been well received by the people of all ethnic groups. She claimed that she was served pork at a relative's home. In fact, the relative she referred to was the pairing relative of her elder brother Abduhelil Dawut, namely Zhao Qilin. The meal was prepared by Zhao's mother, who is herself an ethnic Hui and a practicing Muslim, someone who only eats halal food. It was not possible for her to have provided a "pork meal".

To promote the unity of different ethnicities in Xinjiang, China has implemented the “Pair Up and Become Family” program in which some 1.1 million officials have paired up and made friends with 1.6 million local people, treating each other like family members. The program aims to enhance communication and interaction among different ethnic groups in Xinjiang, which is beneficial to the public. The officials help local people explore ways to shake off poverty and address difficulties in their lives, such as access to medical services, job opportunities, and education. The program has enjoyed great popularity among people in Xinjiang.

Tursunay Ziyawudun

As the only one who claimed to be a “victim” of “gang-rape”, Tursunay Ziyawudun is now a famous star in the Western media’s sensational reports, which have only focused on amplifying her “heart-wrenching experiences” with no intention to verify the truthfulness of her claims. It is easy to see that Ziyawudun’s so-called testimonies are inconsistent when comparing reports of her story, having told different versions of the purportedly same narrative. For instance, in the BBC report, Tursunay claimed that her earrings had been “yanked out,” causing her ears to bleed. But in the BuzzFeed report, this part was described as the police asking the woman to take off her earrings.

Qelbinur Sidik

Qelbinur Sidik is an up-and-coming star of the “Framing China, Defaming Xinjiang” series, and has repeatedly revealed her “unbearable memories” of the Xinjiang vocational education and training centers in an attempt to earn tears of Western audiences. Rather peculiarly, her seemingly credible accusations regarding the centers were all stories told by her “trusted colleague” , with no one able to verify their veracity.

No matter how sensational their stories might be, nothing can change the fact that their stories are inconsistent and full of loopholes. Even their loyal sponsors, the Western media, have admitted that all these claims were one-sided and unable to be verified.

Their distorted accusations have also infuriated trainees from the vocational education and training centers as the made-up stories have insulted trainees’ efforts and achievements while at the centers. Many graduates are speaking out about their real-life experiences in order to refute the rumors.

The same few cast members that have played leading roles in some of the Western media’s “defaming Xinjiang” show are often paired with Adrian Zenz’s inane “report” on Xinjiang, which, according to an article co-authored by American historian Gareth Porter and Max Blumenthal, an investigative journalist, is filled with “flagrant data abuse, fraudulent claims, cherry-picking of source material, and propagandistic misrepresentations”.

Alas, the same Anglo-American media, who have done little more than stand aloof during vicious conflicts in the Middle East, while propagating partisan propaganda to deflect from chronic crises at home, are deploying a whole arsenal of falsehoods in exerting their moral pressure on a country who they have presumed to be guilty. Their persistent blackwashing of China, propped up by hackneyed accusations and their ready-to-use, always-the-same “victims” alongside the Xinjiang charlatan Adrian Zenz, is nothing but a sad joke that they somehow have found worth repeating over and over again like a clown laughing out loud at a solo circus show that fails to draw an audience.

Facts will bear out that the teary-eyed actresses' accusations about Xinjiang were a mere matrix of lies consisting of fabricated experiences, cherry-picked evidence, and one sensational performance. There is no doubt that this farce will be played again and again with the same cast who is trotted out to tirelessly weep about their "miseries", however incongruous their narratives may be. Such an exquisite performance can easily mislead Westerner audiences whose rational faculties have been drown out in an air of sadness cooked up by veteran screenwriters and professional actresses. Hence, most people will pay no heed to the inconspicuous reminders --there is no evidence to prove their claims, claims that have been buried in a vicious tirade against China, having automatically filtered out any authentic voices from Xinjiang. When all is said and done, tragedy can produce more tears and pull at people’s heartstrings more than any other human sentiment.