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Nobel Peace Prize should not be used as political tool: China Daily editorial

China Daily | Updated: 2019-01-31 20:09

A screen grab from CCTV 13 shows lham Tohti at the court in 2014.

In a move that interferes in China's internal affairs, US lawmakers from the Congressional-Executive Commission on China nominated Ilham Tohti, a jailed Uyghur teacher, for the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday.

Tohti, a former teacher at Beijing's Minzu University of China, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 for promoting separatism. But in the letter of nomination sent to the president of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, and its other members, he was eulogized as a scholar that "embodies the peaceful struggle for peace and human rights in China", and thus there is "no one more deserving of the committee's recognition in 2019" than him.

By nominating someone who has committed serious crimes by undermining peace and stability in China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the US lawmakers are trying to humiliate China.

In fact, the nomination itself runs counter to the spirit of the prize which aims to promote peace worldwide. The committee already faces a lot of criticism for handing out its laurels to some controversial figures in recent years.

This is not the first time that the Nobel Peace Prize has been used as a political tool by outside anti-China forces to meddle in the Xinjiang issue. Back in 2006, notorious Xinjiang separatist Rebiya Kadeer, the "chairwoman" of the so-called World Uygur Congress, was nominated for the same prize.

Of course, there is a big difference between nomination and actually winning the prize, but the latest move shows US lawmakers still want to send a message to the world to express their opposition to China's policy in Xinjiang. As before, their ulterior motives are doomed to fail.

The current peaceful and stable situation in Xinjiang is clear evidence that the central government's efforts to counter separatist ideology in the region are working and its policy has won widespread support from all Chinese people, including Uygurs in Xinjiang.

True, there is a stark contrast between the Chinese and Western judgments on the situation in Xinjiang. But the Xinjiang issue is complicated and sensitive as it not only involves the issue of sovereignty and human rights but also ethnicity and religion.

Hence, it is inappropriate for the US lawmakers to try and simplify the Xinjiang issue as discrimination on the part of China. Those in Washington need to take off their biased spectacles and view Xinjiang through a more objective and fair lens.

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