We should stop meddling in Chinese internal affairs.
Not everything that happens inside a country is an internal affair. We are not in isolation from each other. Things that happen in China impact us and things that happen in Pakistan impact China.
When we had terrorists running up and down the country, China was rightfully concerned, as it may impact their security. Both Pakistan and China were concerned about ISIS in Afghanistan.
The reality of the situation is there is a very significant Muslim population in the world who consider each and every Muslim as their own. Our population also has many such people. The enemies of China are busy painting China as a country which is attacking Muslims and Islam, so that they can use sentiment to use proxies to damage Chinese interests abroad.
We have a HUGE investment in this. If CPEC projects are attacked be islamist militants, there will be a time where Chinese companies will stop investing. We are heavily invested in the success of that project. Our enemies would like nothing more than to see it fail.
The Pakistani state has always been about real politik, we work with even our own enemies where it suits us (like America), we certainly wouldn't think twice about working with China because of it's religious matters. Unfortunately the state doesn't have proper control of it's people, or it's borders. This leaves us fertile to foreign agencies operating here and funding groups like Al Queda, PTM, ISIS, TTP, BLA etc.
It is because of our own weakness we have to get involved in what is technically an "internal affair". We have to be seen to be looking out for our fellow Muslims, we have to give the Chinese claims of this all being fake, some credibility. If we don't the propaganda will take hold and we only need a few hundred people to be convinced enough for it to have a huge negative impact on CPEC.
China has a larger global interest in this too. For years and years the only Chinese presence outside it's own borders was in nations it was culturally and ethnically similar too. Today that is not the case. OBOR has a lot of Muslim partners and the west has it's islamist tools like ISIS/Al Queda close to all Muslim countries.
The west will use it's islamist proxies to destabilise OBOR in places like Pakistan, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Indonesia etc. China understands this, now it is time for the people to start understanding this. The Muslim countries are politically and ideologically complex and confused. This has been exploited by the west to play them like puppets for decades. China now wants to have a presence in these nations, so they must be wary of western designs against them. The globalisation of the Uyghur issue, is one of the main prongs of attack.
I think it’s a gr8 step and being a TLP supporter i’m proud that this govt had the guts to take this step.
We are Muslims first and then we are Pakistanis... China is an ally but not over the repression of our Muslim brothers. I understand that at this juncture in time, China is our ally but who knows abt the future?
Even China believes that Alliances are temporary but interests are primary.
Brother, I like you was also concerned about this issue. I was not sure wether China was indeed persecuting Muslims, or wether they were fighting an insurgency. The fact our government has gotten involved with help allay fears of the common man and build stronger relations between us.
Personally, the fact that such thing has been made public, I expect it to be a joint decision by the governments of China and Pakistan. As i've mentioned in my other posts, I think the west is trying to paint the Uyghur issue as something it is not, in order to stir anti Chinese sentiment in the Muslim world and to destroy economic opportunities for multiple Muslim countries and for China by using that sentiment to deploy it's dogs like ISIS and TPP etc.
I personally have family in China who have never had a problem living there as Muslims.
