The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2019 17 50 Years Ago Illustration by Parr in the July 1969 Foreign Service Journal . bill was passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in late May. The Uyghur American Meshrep Group, which visited Washington in late May to lobby U.S. officials, claims that as many as two million Uyghurs are in prison camps in China’s Xinjiang province. A May 22 New York Times investiga- tion found that China is developing sophisticated programs for surveillance of Uyghur citizens in Xinjiang. “It is a virtual cage that complements the indoc- trination camps,” the Times reports. “The program helps identify people to be sent to the camps or investigated, and keeps tabs on them when they are released.” Speaking at the June 6 World Uyghur Congress in Washington, D.C., Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs David Ranz said: “As these abuses are progressively brought to light, people will pressure governments to respond and to stand up for universal human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Chinese Defense Minister Rebukes U.S. at Shangri-La Meet C hinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, speaking during the May 31-June 2 Shangri-La Dialogue in Sin- gapore, issued a “stern rebuke” to the United States over the ongoing trade war with China and tension over Taiwan and the South China Sea, CNN reported on June 2. Wei told delegates that Beijing “would not yield an inch of territory” and that any foreign interference would be doomed to failure. He criticized the United States over its Taiwan Relations Act, a 1979 law that permits Washington to provide defensive weaponry to the island. “How can the U.S. enact a law to interfere in China’s internal affairs?” Wei asked. In an unusual acknowledgment of the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989, Wei said that the Chinese government “was decisive in stopping the turbulence” in 1989. Those protests were “political turmoil that the central government needed to quell, which was the correct policy,” he added. “As for the recent trade friction started by the United States, if the United States wants to talk we will keep the door open,” he said. “If they want to fight, we will fight until the end.” Speaking at the conference a day ear- lier, Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan challenged China to adhere to a “rules-based order” to gain the trust of the international community. The International Institute for Strate- gic Studies, a British think-tank, launched the annual Asia Security Summit, known informally as the Shangri-La Dialogue, in 2002. The dialogue brings together defense chiefs from 28 countries.