Today NPR is running a heartbreaking story “‘My Family Has Been Broken’: Pakistanis Fear For Uighur Wives Held In China” about the Chinese government taking children away from immigrant parents and putting them into Chinese orphanage schools that are “meant to raise the children in Chinese culture” without allowing the children to see their parents. Chinese officials are also separating wives from their husbands and detaining them. This is all an attempt to force residents of China to see things the Chinese government’s way.
Here’s a sample of what happened to one Pakistani father who married a Uighur mother (a Chinese citizen) and who was then harassed by Chinese authorities. His wife was imprisoned in an internment camp. Then:
He couldn't get the right permits. His mobile phone was blocked. Chinese authorities refused to renew his visa. He had to return to Pakistan. On his last day in China, in August 2017, he drove his children to school.
"I told them, 'I'm going to Kashgar for business,'.... I'll come back in two weeks and I'll bring you some toys," ... knowing he would not be able to keep the promise.
Remembering this, Javeid bursts into tears. He has never spoken to his children again.
Javeid’s children are now living with his wife’s relatives, and he has to pay bribes to keep them out of detention as well.
This NPR story is about immigrants from Pakistan, a neighbor of China that relies on Chinese largesse and does not want to offend its powerful neighbor by complaining about this sort of mistreatment. There is a similar situation with other Chinese neighbors, such as Kazakhstan.
And I was thinking, hmm, where have I heard this sort of story before? Isn’t there something like this going on somewhere closer to home? Something about a powerful nation run by a xenophobic administration, with weaker neighbors?
But NPR didn’t tell me. It said nothing about the Trump administration’s ongoing detention of immigrant children, in which the US government is keeping children away from their parents. Not one word. And they aren’t running any other stories about this today either, as far as I can tell.
Is this NPR’s subtle way of trying to reach Trumpists with hard hearts who continue to support the US practice of detaining children and keeping them away from their parents? Or is NPR simply too scared to cover our ongoing tragedy, because they’re worried about backlash from Trump and the Trumpists? Inquiring minds want to know.