It’s the politics, stupid: China’s relations with Muslim countries on the background of Xinjiang crackdown

Abstract

ABSTRACT The goal of this paper is to present an explanation of why the Muslim governments largely abstained from even bringing up the Uyghur case with China, while the Rohingya issue provoked official condemnations by the governments in many Muslim countries. Although economic factors are most often consulted internationally, this article puts forward political factors as sufficient to explain the Muslim governments’ responses to the Xinjiang issue – primarily the domestic politics, and secondarily seeking of strategic alternatives to balance the West. In the context of hybrid political regimes in many Muslim countries, the domestic public opinion played an important role in deciding whether the government would address the issue. Effectively only Turkey presents the case where the public pays attention to the Uyghurs, and the government felt obliged to raise the issue at least to some extent.