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Chinese state media on Thursday howled in outrage at the latest Western media expose of human rights violations in East Turkistan, claiming the regime of concentration camps and forced labor for the Uyghur Muslims is actually a “Disney-like resort.”
The “Disney-like resort” comparison is a bit awkward because the actual Disney corporation controversially thanked Communist officials in Xinjiang for their cooperation in filming the live-action remake of Mulan in 2020. This unlovely bout of boot-licking did little to help the film in China, where it bombed among audiences who found its version of the Mulan legend facile, unconvincing, and unfaithful.
The target of the Chinese Communist Party’s umbrage was a Wednesday article by Agence France-Presse (AFP) entitled “Beijing Sells Troubled Xinjiang As a Winter Sports Paradise.” The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Province (XUAR) is the official government name for East Turkistan.
The article blew a whistle on China’s effort to develop the winter sports industry in Xinjiang into a “$157 billion powerhouse,” a scheme that necessarily involves preventing visitors from noticing the brutal re-education camps and truckloads of Uyghurs getting dumped at Chinese farms and factories to work as slave labor.
China’s plan to create a winter wonderland in Xinjiang evidently involves pouring money into huge ski resorts for domestic audiences, pumping out propaganda that says none of the happy skiers and snowboarders can see any oppressed Uyghurs anywhere, and then using the sanitized image of the province to attract foreign customers.
Putin once again is the voice of reason on the global stage as he calls out the mainstream media for war mongering.