Written by Zhen Tu

Xinjiang, a city in northwestern China, is home to a substantial population of Uyghurs―Turkish people of Islamic faith. In September 2017, the Chinese government began establishing “re-education camps,” which sought to severely undermine the cultural and religious identity of this ethnic group. Although the exact numbers are unclear, according to a U.S. State Department official, there are at least 200,000 and possibly up to 2 million Uyghurs living in these camps.

While human rights advocates around the world have condemned the Chinese government’s cruel practices, including lawmakers in the United States, who introduced the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act two months ago, China is still refusing to label these camps as imprisonment or even re-education camps. Instead, they adhere to the stance that the measures taken by the government are meant to protect the people from terrorism or any form of extremism. When foreign journalists took a tour of the camps, they saw specifically curated scenes of day-to-day life and heard carefully worded testimonials from inmates. One Uyghur inmate reportedly said the following: “All of us found that we have something wrong with ourselves and luckily enough the Communist Party and the government offer this kind of school to us for free.”

Given these circumstances, the Chinese government announced a new propaganda campaign a few days ago that would seek to mold public opinion, at least in China, in support of their cause. Most of these reports containing detailed statistics of the number of crimes committed in Xinjiang. Nevertheless, they also report the number of “illegal religious activities” and the high number of confistications of “illegal religious material” to justify government action. What these phrases actually mean, or how engagement in these activities is illegal, is unclear. Over the past few weeks, videos have also been gradually released as a retaliation against the barrage of vehement criticism leveled at the Chinese government.

Interestingly, many videos produced are only available to foreign audiences, suggesting that discrepancies might exist between how foreigners view the situation in comparison to how mainland Chinese are reacting. For example, the television network CGTN recently released a video titled “Are Uyghurs being tortured in China?” on Twitter, which is forbidden in China. It would be interesting to further examine how mainland Chinese are reacting, or if many people are fully aware of foreign responses to the human rights crisis.

Written by Zhen Tu

Earlier this year, nearly 500 Yemeni asylum seekers arrived at JeJu, a resort island in South Korea. At the end of 2018, only two people— journalists who put their lives at risk if they returned—received official refugee status. Even though a vast majority obtained temporary humanitarian visas, the refugees are expected to return to Yemen once circumstances in the war-ravaged country become no longer life-threatening.

The government’s failure to aid asylum seekers reveals one paradox in Korea’s current cultural and political practices: while many facets of Korean culture, such as the entertainment industry, have made a strong global impact in the past several years, a strong sense of nationalism rooted in a desire to preserve the country’s cultural homogeneity is still ingrained among many Koreans—even the younger generation. The treatment of Yemeni refugees is one manifestation of this phenomenon.

The influx of refugees from Yemen to Korea stems from years of warfare in an already poverty-stricken country. The civil war in Yemen, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths and displacement of millions of people from their homes, began when Houthi rebels from northern Yemen sought to overthrow the government led by President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Subsequently, the government was forced into exile. In March 2015, the Houthi regime faced severe pushback as Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations joined in the hopes of reinstating the exiled government. Yemen has thus turned into a battleground between the Houthi regime, backed by Iran, and the Hadi government, backed by Saudi Arabia. Ever since then, airstrikes from Saudi Arabia’s military coalitions have killed innocent civilians, ruined infrastructure such as factories and hospitals, and made it more difficult for people to receive humanitarian aid. Indeed, according to the World Food Program, sixty percent of the 29.3 million people in Yemen are classified as food insecure.

The extremely dire circumstances in Yemen have led many to flee from their home country. Around 500 of them ended up in JeJu, mostly because the island did not demand advance visas from Yemeni refugees at the time. Hardly an expected destination for displaced refugees, JeJu is renowned for its beaches, turquoise seas, and frequent sightings of newlyweds on their honeymoon. Therefore, when the Yemeni refugees stepped foot on the island, opposition was immediate and vociferous. Throughout the summer, protests erupted not only at JeJu, but also in cities on the mainland, such as Seoul. Online petitions calling for the removal of the refugees garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures. Thus began Korea’s first organized anti-asylum movement.

Nevertheless, it is important to realize that opposition towards refugees in Korea did not simply begin with the arrival of Yemeni asylum seekers. More than 1,200 Syrians who currently hold humanitarian permits still lack adequate health care coverage and access to education. Lee Il, a human rights lawyer with the Seoul-based Refugee Rights Network, states that refugee status is granted only to one percent of applicants annually, an incredibly low rate for an already developed country. Even North Koreans, who have the highest rate of acceptance when applying for refugee status, often face a myriad of challenges integrating into South Korean society.

While the idea that xenophobia is a driving factor in the treatment of Yemeni refugees holds some truth, it should be explained within the economic, political, and cultural context in Korea. Monoculturalism, coupled with a history of foreign occupation, has instilled in many people a fear of outsiders. Consequently, foreigners in Korea still make up less than five percent of the entire population today. Furthermore, because economic circumstances have worsened over the past few years, the unemployment rate among the younger generation has risen to ten percent. This explains the surprisingly high rate of opposition to the incoming refugees among those in their twenties and thirties. While 49% to 56% of the general population are against admitting refugees, 70% of the people in their twenties object to the idea.

Further fueling the resistance is the prevailing belief that a large population of Yemeni men will threaten the stability of Korean society. As one female rural worker, Oh Mi-jin, said, “If Jeju is breached, South Korea will be breached.” She resents the government for putting people like her, who often work alone in fields, in danger. While many fears may be unfounded, they stem from the country’s lack of ethnic and cultural diversity. Therefore, Esmail al-Qublani, a 31-year-old Yemeni refugee who arrived on JeJu this year, sought to defend himself and his countrymen. He explains, “We are only humans. We are refugees from a war. If they can get to know us, they will come to understand our reality by getting to know us one by one—if they want. We’re easy to make friends with.”

On the other side, criticism abounds against the government’s procedure in screening applicants and its refusal to allow more refugees to remain in the country. Choi Young-ae, chairwoman of the National Human Rights Commission in South Korea, denounced the government for acting “in an indiscriminate manner to mitigate the public sentiments” against the Yemeni refugees. Needless to say, South Korea’s current practices—or lack thereof—of granting asylum to refugees does not bode well for its status as a developed country in a world that is arguably becoming more inclusive, albeit with reluctance from some.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/yemen-refugees-south-korea-jeju-island.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/opinion/south-korea-racism.htm

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/world/middleeast/yemen-cholera-humanitarian-crisis.html?module=inline

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/south-korea-denies-refugee-status-to-hundreds-of-yemenis-fleeing-war/2018/10/17/5d554d1e-d207-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?utm_term=.fbf0529b13be

Image Caption: Protestors at a far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) demonstration carry signs with anti-immigrant and Islamophobic messages.

At the end of October, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she would not be running for reelection as chairwoman of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party. Her decision is largely due to her allied parties’ losses in the regional elections in Bavaria and Hesse. Merkel’s political party is currently in a precarious alliance with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). Disagreements over immigration policy have plagued the leaders of the three parties for many months. The internal discord is reflected in voters’ decision to leave the aforementioned parties and ally themselves with the rapidly rising Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party, which campaigns on an anti-immigrant and anti-euro platform.

The current political instability in Germany can likely be traced back to 2015, when Merkel permitted more than one million refugees, most of whom were from the Middle East, to enter Germany during the height of Europe’s refugee crisis. From that point on, many voters began to distance themselves from Merkel and her constituent parties. Working class voters from industrial areas of Germany, who traditionally made up a sizable portion of the SPD’s voting base, found themselves increasingly drawn to the rhetoric of the AfD.

Yet, the palpable support for the AfD in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt hardly fits the narrative of working class voters being drawn to the far-right party. Residents of Ingolstadt command the highest per capita in Germany. Furthermore, with a prosperous economy and relatively few migrant entries into Bavaria, it is surprising the the AfD has been able to secure such a strong foothold in that state.

Despite the comparative wealthiness of Ingolstadt, citizens fear that an influx of immigrants would lead to fewer economic opportunities, unemployment benefits, and pensions for themselves. Interestingly, two out of five residents in Ingolstadt are immigrants, many of them Muslim. Kraus von Sande, who was the AfD candidate, contends that he does not have a problem with all Muslim immigrants, citing the Turkish as a prime example of immigrants who have successfully integrated themselves into German society. However, the earlier immigrants, who came before the refugee crisis in 2015, believe that the new immigrants coming in as a result of Merkel’s immigration policies cannot contribute to the German economy. Indeed, the AfD draws the greatest support from ethnic Germans from Russia, who came to Bavaria after the fall of communism in the late 1980s. These immigrants’ support for tougher policies may stem from their discontentment with the government’s unsuccessful integration of the migrants they let in since 2015.

While supporters of the AfD believe that immigrants may threaten the economic stability in Ingolstadt, the former candidate for the CSU, Alfred Grob, argues that current economic circumstances are instilling unfounded fear in people. Increasing rents in the city, coupled with pensions that do not match the rising cost of living, have led to  “German angst.”

However, simply attributing the changing political arena to populism seems to have been premature. After the conclusion of the regional elections, the AfD is now represented in all sixteen regional parliaments in Germany. This suggests, at the very least, a quite homogeneous geographical distribution of support for the AfD. The transition of Bavaria from a historically CSU-stronghold—the CSU has governed the state almost every year since 1946—to a now AfD governed state owes more to voters’ disappointment in the CSU on immigration policies than it does to the appeal of the AfD. To be fair, the CSU has recognized its fleeing voter base and attempted to push back against some of Merkel’s more liberal immigration stances. The AfD, on its part, has seized this critical moment, effectively capitalizing on infighting among the left-wing parties.

Looking at the political situation from this point of view, it is more understandable why voters would align themselves with the AfD, especially if stricter immigration laws are at the forefront of their minds. As Beat Wittmann, a partner at investment consultancy Porta Advisors, said, “The problem is that Germans, on average, would like to have Merkel in charge but they would like to have CSU policies on immigration and that’s the problem right now.” A shift in priorities may be critical for Merkel and her allied parties if they want to halt the AfD’s increasing influence.

Bibliography

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/13/656989428/germanys-afd-party-finds-a-new-stronghold-in-bavaria-and-it-s-costing-angela-mer

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/merkels-political-alliance-hangs-in-the-balance.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/22/first-far-right-party-to-enter-germanys-parliament-in-over-half-a-century.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/merkels-in-trouble-and-the-political-mess-is-annoying-business-leaders.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/merkels-political-alliance-hangs-in-the-balance.html

http://www.spiegel.de/plus/boris-pistorius-das-ist-doch-absurd-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000158955151