GEN A 2020 Asia Society Switzerland Matteo Bernasconi

Fleeting Shadows:
Uighurs’ precarious position in Southeast Asia
Amongst Covid headlines, a news from Malaysia largely went unnoticed: The
Southeast Asian country announced it wouldn’t extradite ethnic Uighurs - an
extraordinary step in a region otherwise unwelcoming to the Muslim minority;
not wanting to risk its vital economic dependency on the big neighbour.
Mass-surveillance, mass-detention, sterilizations, forced labour, razed mosques… – the list of human
rights violations committed against the Uighur Muslim minority in China’s Xinjiang province of is long
and well-documented, thanks to academics and journalists like Megha Rajagopalan, whose visit to
the Gen A program back in April inspired this article.

The relentless persecution of a whole ethnic group has triggered various waves of refugees. In the
90s and mid-2000s, these refugees fled via Central Asia. Later, when these states established close
security cooperation with China, the paths diverted south towards Southeast Asia; via Myanmar,
Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, towards the final destination Turkey (Zenn, 2014). Malaysia played an
important role as node of this underground journey of thousands of Uighur refuges from 2010 to
2016 (Chew, 2020). Southeast Asia was a transit zone.

Southeast Asia should however also prove to be uninviting. New arrivals were either detained for
illegal immigration or sent back directly. Philippines, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia have all joined
global calls defending Chinese actions in Xinjiang (Demetriadi, 2020). Cambodia, today the closest
ally of China within ASEAN, deported 20 Uighurs in 2009, while Laos deported seven in 2010 and
Myanmar 17 in 2011 (Demetriadi, 2020). In 2015, Thailand released 172 Uighurs to Turkey but also
deported 109 back to China, a move which met international criticism for violating the principle of
non-refoulement (Brennan, 2018). Even Vietnam, usually an archenemy of China, ejected 21 Uighurs
in 2014 (Abuza, 2015): “Returning Uighurs and dissidents is an easy, low-cost way to curry favor with
Beijing” (Abuza, 2015).

Apart from economic dependencies, political systems, which are generally not very democratic in
Southeast Asia and have poor human rights records, certainly also play a role. China has leveraged on
its economic weight to force the region to comply (Chen, 2020). Added to this is the principle of
national sovereignty and non-interference, which resonates strongly throughout ASEAN due to its
own colonial past. “Beijing’s message that countries should not meddle in one another’s domestic
affairs likely resonated with the leaders” (Chew, 2020).

Thailand’s deportation triggered bombings in retaliation; making Malaysia more cautious in its
approach (Rist, 2018), while others saw their view of the refugees confirmed: The Chinese discourse
of a terrorist threat to which the Uighur refugees were blanketly subjected was adopted by the
Southeast Asian countries’ political leaders (Costa, 2016).

While the Mekong region is Buddhist, one would expect a more conciliatory attitude from Malaysia
and Indonesia, the two Muslim dominated countries - neither of which were however welcoming
either, emulating a muted response throughout the Muslim world.

Under the Najib government from 2009 to 2018, Malaysia deported at least 29 Uighurs back to China
based on an information sharing scheme (Bermana, 2017). Religious brotherhood played a
subordinate role in contrast to the economic development paradigm. Since 2009, China has become
Malaysia's largest trading partner and one of its largest foreign direct investors, especially in key
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business sectors. Within Asean, no other country reached the same bilateral trade volumes (Strangio,
2020). In addition, China came to the rescue of PM Najib Razak in 2016, when Najib's position was
shaken because of the 1MDB scandal: Kickbacks from large Chinese investment projects were
intended to patch the debt hole of the looted sovereign investment fund (Rist, 2019) – deeply
entrenching the (personal) dependency.

When Najib was spectacularly voted out of office in 2018, Malaysia’s foreign policy changed. In
October, the new (and old) PM Mahathir Mohamad had 11 Uighurs released to Turkey (Ma, 2018) – a
U-turn which angered China. As in the South China Sea, Malaysia has been trying to sound out the
limits of its national sovereignty.

Changes in Uighur policy have however mainly come due to domestic politics rather than
humanitarian principles (Coca, 2019); in order to appease a rising Muslim faction. Both Indonesia and
Malaysia have an unease past with tedious race relations, with political leaders playing the race card
and fomenting the anger of the masses before elections. Short-lived protests against China erupted
for example in Indonesia in December of 2019, shortly before the Presidential elections (Karmini,
2019).

In light of a significant domestic Muslim-Malay opposition, Mahathir tried to position himself as a

protector of Islam, vocally speaking out against Muslim persecution. In December 2019, he organised
the KL Summit together with Turkey, Iran and Qatar, which challenged Saudi Arabia's claim to
leadership (Kumar, 2019). He also tested relations with China and put the projects from Najib’s time
on hold. But even under Mahathir there was no complete reversal of policy, because economic
dependencies were too great, plus Mahathir an old-time opponent of the West. During his first term,
Mahathir had been the main driver of a non-ideological rapprochement policy (Strangio, 2020). Now,
controversial Chinese projects were relaunched after an evaluation. The realist Mahathir bluntly
pointed to China's dominant position as an explanation for the muted response to the Uighur issue
(Silence, 2019).

With the fall of Mahathir’s government in February 2020, foreign policy returned to the principles of
quiet diplomacy and good relations with the superpower China. Surprisingly however, in August,
Malaysia confirmed a ban on deportation of Uighurs to China; the first such public statement by a
government in Southeast Asia (Hamid, 2020). However, the announcement came at low volume, in a
written parliamentary response by the Prime Minister’s office. The government, consisting of a
coalition of Muslim-conservative parties, could probably not afford a renewed change of direction.
Similarly, the political risk of such a declaration was within limits; the number of Uighurs left in
Southeast Asia is small. In Thailand and Malaysia, they live mostly under the radar, without
documentation or refugee status (Chew, 2020). Since the tightening of restrictions in China itself,
new movements of refugees are nearly impossible. Similarly, only a few Uighurs, mostly
postgraduate students, remain in Malaysia (Chew, 2020) - the promises of protection are “too little
too late” (Ward, 2019).

This welcoming attitude of Malaysia is in stark contrast to Indonesia, where in October three
suspected ‘terrorists’ were deported to China – a few days before Pompeo's visit where he publicly
denounced China and called on Indonesia not to look away from Uighur suffering. The pragmatic
President Joko Widodo is dependent on Chinese investments, given the huge need for infrastructure
projects in Indonesia (Zoll, 2019). In addition, the Indonesian government has its own problems with
separatists in Papua (Chew, 2020).

This general attitude towards China and hostility towards the Uighurs will not change in the future -
when, in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which signifies a deep economic crisis for Southeast Asia,

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China's role as a driving force for economic recovery becomes even more significant. In Malaysia,
China is already entrenched in key economic sectors (Bhattacharjee, 2020), and in the third quarter
of 2020, China is back to be the leading FDI source ahead of Singapore and Switzerland (Kaur, 2020).
Countries like Indonesia and Singapore are already courting Chinese tourists. Chinese vaccine
diplomacy also plays a role.

Nobody can afford to upset their main trading partner. With regards to public statements on the
situation in Xinjiang, Southeast Asian countries should therefore not be expected to join. A silent
pushback like Malaysia is only possible to a limited extent, as the internal and external costs need to
remain in check: Since the statement in August, there has not yet been any Chinese reaction. This
low cost is also apparent when compared to the approximately 100,000 Rohingya in Malaysia,
against whom rigorous action has been taken since March.

Malaysia will probably not become a place of refuge in the future. Safety is not guaranteed: the
chances are too great in this unstable country that the Uighur policy will change again. And the long
arm of China reaches as far as Malaysia; with cyber spying (Reuters, 2019) and harassment being
documented (Chen, 2020). Uighurs’ hidden presence in Malaysia remains small, silenced by Chinese
economic superiority. Southeast Asia has other concerns. The Maxime of development takes
precedence – not only for governments, but also for its populations – despite widespread distrust of
China’s role.

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