That's How Sisi Helped Quench the Chinese Dragon's Thirst with the Blood of Uyghur Muslims

Egyptian regime president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has long imitated his predecessors in Egypt’s rule with many positions, but he follows in the footsteps of Gamal Abdel Nasser when he supported communist Yugoslavia despite conquering Balkan Muslims, with Sisi repeatedly declaring his support for the Chinese Communist Party despite Beijing authority’s repression of millions of Uyghurs Muslims.

Sisi described the Experience of the Chinese Communist Party as a "miracle" and wished, during his own congratulations to party leaders, that it should be studied and used at all levels. 

In the footsteps of the controversial Communist Party in its unilateral authoritarian policy, and the horrific human rights violations against Muslims and opponents, the head of the Egyptian regime wants to walk.

That assumption comes in particular, and the nature of its association with the Chinese regime, at the level of the security services, the military and the economy, necessitated significant concessions, most notably when he handed over Uyghurs al-Azhar students to the Chinese authorities, who deliberately isolated and tortured them.

This time, however, his congratulations to the Chinese Communists, which are unusual in their formulation and implementation, have brought several connotations and questions about their causes and the nature of their output.

 

Warm Congratulations

On state television of the Arab Republic of Egypt, and all the sites and channels of the Presidency of the Republic, Sisi delivered a special speech on July 1, 2021, to congratulate the ruling Communist Party of China on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. 

"It is my pride to extend my congratulations to you and through you to the friendly Chinese people on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party," Sisi said, noting Chinese President Xi Jinping, secretary general of the Communist Party of China.

"That great political edifice that successfully led China gave it full independence, established the structure of the modern Chinese state in 1949, then led it and continues to this day with a wise policy," Sisi said.

He continued to praise China's ruling party's policies: "It was able to achieve the Chinese economic miracle that propelled Beijing to the ranks of the major powers as an international power that reflects the greatness of Chinese civilization and inspires from its history a driving force for modernity."

"The Chinese experience is a success story that many seek to study and benefit from," Sisi said.

In his speech, he pointed to what he called an anachronism that the first national congress of the Communist Party of China in 1921 coincided with July 23."

He pointed out that it is "a history dear to the Egyptian people as well because on this same date the Egyptian revolution in 1952, which laid the foundations for the orientation of the modern Egyptian state and the elimination of colonialism in Egypt, and supported all liberation movements on the African continent"

"Egypt was the first Arab, African and Middle Eastern country to recognize the People's Republic of China and the achievements of the Chinese Communist Party and establish diplomatic relations with it," he said. 

 

Unfair Precedents

Egypt's regime chief's rapprochement with the Chinese Communist Party has angered a wide range of the Muslim world, particularly as Chinese party leaders acknowledge the existence of special concentration camps for Uyghurs Muslims on April 19, 2021.

The Washington Post reported on the extermination of Muslims in northwest China's Xinjiang Province, asserting the Communist Party of China's responsibility for arresting more than a million Uyghurs Muslims and other Muslim minorities in Chinese torture camps.

The newspaper then revealed Chinese crimes by "destroying hundreds of Islamic mosques and cemeteries," as well as "forcing Muslim women to stop having children and sterilization, and forcibly taking children from their homes to state-run schools."

"Those who raise a beard or refuse to eat pork and wine are punishable by imprisonment," it said, adding that "the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to erase the culture and the entire Muslim people." 

The British newspaper The Independent has reported on a new chapter in the suffering of Uyghurs Muslims in a report issued on May 7, 2021, which outlined the actions of the Chinese communist government of Xinjiang against millions of Muslims in the region.

"Under the weight of official policies, the future of Islam seems fraught with danger in Xinjiang, a rugged area of snow-capped rocky mountains and arid deserts bordering Central Asia," it said.

"Dozens of mosques have been demolished, and the number of worshippers is declining, according to local residents," it said. 

"Through strict laws imposed on Chinese Muslims about their faith, children only know who the Holy Creator is, but they cannot be given detailed religious knowledge," it said. Only after they reach the age of 18 can they receive religious education on their own volition."

All these tragic acts and reports of the suffering of Uyghurs Muslims were overlooked by Sisi, and he went on to publicly celebrate the Chinese Communist Party, which is primarily responsible for the violations. 

 

Uyghurs Extradition

The Sisi regime, in Egypt, has gone beyond formal rapprochement to contribute in a fundamental way to increasing the suffering of Xinjiang's Muslim minority.

That's when he signed a security agreement with China on June 19, 2017, between the Egyptian Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China, represented by former Interior Minister Magdi Abdel Ghaffar, and the Chinese side was represented by Public Security Minister Shen Zimin.

On July 5, 2017, 16 days after the signing of the security agreement, Egyptian police arrested a number of Chinese Muslim (Uyghurs) students studying at Al-Azhar, at the request of the Chinese authorities, in preparation for their repatriation. 

"Egypt should not deport Uyghur’s students to China, as they are being prosecuted and tortured," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the organization's Middle East director. 

On July 7, 2017, the New York Times confirmed that Egyptian authorities had deported at least 12 Muslim Uyghurs al-Azhar students to China.

 

Suspicious Relationship

Sisi visited the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing on December 24, 2014, months after taking office, and declared from the party headquarters that the experience was worth considering, that he was in favor of the party's "one China" policy, and that he would seek broad strategic relations with Beijing. 

On September 2, 2018, Sisi made his second visit to the Chinese Communist Party Academy and Museum, an institution that trains officials and prepares communist leaders for the country's top positions. 

Sisi then addressed the academy's leaders, students and Communist Party leaders, and expressed admiration for the academy's role in training China's political elite and government cadres.

On that visit and from inside the communist stronghold, Sisi launched a sharp attack on the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The vacuum created by the Arab Spring revolutions, filled by some religious currents known as political Islam, sought to take advantage of the opportunity to gain power and take power, without regard to the importance of preserving or falling the national state," he said.

 

Comrade Sisi

On July 5, 2021, opposition writer Salim Azzouz published a sarcastic article entitled "Comrade Abdel Fattah al-Sisi."

"The last thing I expected was for Egyptian General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to have communist aspirations, in a country whose security services still have anti-communist sections, he surprised us by celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, calling it a great political edifice!" he said.

"There's something behind this celebration, and Sisi wants to send signals to the White House that if he misses the U.S. incubator, he may ask for containment even in China," he said.

The Egyptian dissident added: "He tried this escape when Obama did not react to him properly, by traveling to Moscow, amid a roar of supporters clapping for those heading east to remind the people of the greatness of the soil, and there was a forced summons to Nasser, and presenting Sisi as his natural extension!"

On December 5, 2019, German researcher Susannah Schroeter, director of the Center for Research on Global Islam at Goethe University in Frankfurt, wrote about the relationship of Middle Eastern regimes to China.

She spoke in the section on Egypt, which stated that it "does not criticize China's treatment of Uyghurs" because of economic relations first, and secondly to the existence of a tyrannical rule, criticized by Western governments for violating human rights, which opens closer relations with China, which does not care about such files.

 

Repeated History

Dr. Mohammed Abu Zeid, a professor at Al-Azhar University, spoke of Sisi's congratulations to the Chinese Communist Party, despite his crimes and violations against Muslims, and said that "history repeats itself."

Abu Zeid, likened Sisi's relationship with China's communist regime to that of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to communist Yugoslavia, under Joseph Tito during the 1960s. 

"Egypt reaped only the ruin and loss at all levels, when it over-rights Muslims, and the political and military defeat came during the setback of 67, and the communist world, specifically the Soviet Union, did not support it in full and in detail," he said. 

He said: "The wonder, as I witnessed this period in Egypt, is the complete conformity of events, Abdel Nasser approached the communist Tito, who persecuted Muslims in Yugoslavia, put them in separate prisons, prevented them from practicing their rituals, and changed Islamic names and identities.

"There have even been accounts that the Egyptian president handed over a group of wanted security personnel to the Yugoslav communist regime at Tito's request." 

"Sisi continued on the same path, ignored the Uyghurs cause, and even handed over al-Azhar students to bloody Chinese communist rule, in a shameful incident, in full view of the Muslim world." 

"Egypt is the beating heart of Arabism and Islam, and it cannot be isolated from its nationality and religion, even if it enters dark eras and soon returns, it is sick and does not die," he said.