The Daily Sabah had this week reported US President Joe Biden having called the genocide of Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region a “different norm”.

Biden had made the statement in spite of the State Department’s condemnation of the atrocities in the camps. The condemnation by the State Department had followed reports that highlighted methodical rape and torture of women detainees at the hands of police and guards.

On Tuesday evening Biden spoke about a conversation with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, whom he said was focused on maintaining a “united, tightly controlled” China. Biden added as the leader of the US he had to speak out against Beijing’s aggression in Hong Kong, as well as “what’s he’s doing with the Uighurs in the western mountains of China.” He added, “Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow.” Critics have subsequently accused him of attempting to tone down China’s horrific abuse of the Uigher population in the camps.

The Daily Sabah reports that a strategic adviser for former US President Donald Trump, Boris Epshteyn, called Biden’s remarks “horrible.”

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, meanwhile, had in January requested that Washington be “prepared to act, as well to impose costs, for what China is doing in Xinjiang, what it’s doing in Hong Kong, for the bellicosity and threats it is projecting towards Taiwan.”

Given Joe Biden’s friendship with the President of China, it remains to be seen what action, if any, the US will take against the atrocities taking place against China’s Uigher Muslim population in their motherland.

Umm Muhammed Umar