“China has the right to carry out antiterrorism and deextremization work for its national security,” the Saudi crown prince said on Chinese television when asked about the Uighur Muslims. Yet international observers were not fooled. It was clear that by asserting that the millions of Chinese Uighurs were all terrorists—a claim as absurd as it was sinister—he was giving his blessing to China’s awful policies.

XREF: Connects to broader reporting on China's Xinjiang policies, Uighur internment, and international complicity from authoritarian-aligned states.

XREF: Connects to broader patterns of authoritarian states legitimizing each other's human rights abuses for political advantage, and to Gulf states' Saudi-China energy and security ties.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 172