Aside from praising Beijing’s governance system, Khan also repeated Pakistan’s support for the Chinese government regarding its policies in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang province….reports Asian Lite News
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has termed China’s one-party rule a unique model of governance that is an alternative to Western electoral democracies.
Khan made the remarks in Islamabad as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary event on Thursday. “Until now, we had been told that the best way for societies to improve was through Western democracy. However, CPC introduced an alternative system and they have beaten all Western electoral democracies in the way they have highlighted merit in society,” Pakistan PM said, as quoted by The News International.
Khan said a society only succeeds when it has systems in place for holding the ruling elite accountable and ensuring meritocracy. “Until now, the feeling was that electoral democracy is the best way to bring leaders on merit and hold them accountable. But the CPC has achieved much better without democracy. Their system for sifting through talent and bringing it up is better than the democratic system.”
Also Read
Aside from praising Beijing’s governance system, Khan also repeated Pakistan’s support for the Chinese government regarding its policies in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang province.
“Our interaction with Chinese officials, that version of what is happening in Xinjiang is completely different to the version of what we hear from the Western media and the Western governments,” he said on Thursday.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of China’s genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Pakistan has said it believes in Beijing’s version regarding the treatment of minorities in the region.
ALSO READ: TALIBAN RESURRECTION: The Ghost Of Osama Haunts Pakistan
Pakistan Prime Minister, who projects himself as the champion of Islam or a crusader against Islamophobia, has turned a blind eye to the Chinese atrocities against Muslim minorities because of Islamabad’s “extreme proximity and relationship with Beijing”.
Xinjiang is a province in Communist China where an estimated two million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been detained since 2016. They are believed to have been placed in detention centres across Xinjiang.
Many former detainees allege they were subjected to attempted indoctrination, physical abuse and even sterilisation. However, China regularly denies such mistreatment and says the camps provide vocational training.
“Because of our extreme proximity and relationship with China, we actually accept the Chinese version,” Dawn quoted Imran Khan as saying.
Prime Minister Khan’s selective outrage against Islamophobia has time and again has received a lot of criticism.
When it comes to China’s treatment of Muslims, Imran Khan has remained mum since he assumed the office as prime minister of Pakistan.
Recently, in an interview with HBO Axios, when he was asked about his outspokenness about Islamophobia in Europe and the US but total silence on the genocide of Muslims in Western China,” he replied, “This is not the case, according to them (Chinese authorities).”
China has been globally rebuked for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps to undergo some form of forcible “re-education or indoctrination”.
Over the past four months, the Canadian, Dutch, British, Lithuanian, and Czech parliaments adopted motions recognising the Uyghur crisis as genocide. (ANI)
ALSO READ: SPECIAL: Woes of Sindh to Shake Pakistan’s Fragile Ecosystem
