washington — This week marks 10 years since Ilham Tohti, a 54-year-old Uyghur economist and human rights advocate, was sentenced to life in prison by Chinese authorities.   

For some, like Enver Can, a 75-year-old German-based Uyghur rights activist who leads an organization advocating for Tohti’s release, the fight for his release continues to this day.  

“South Africa had Nelson Mandela, India had Mahatma Gandhi, and we Uyghurs have Ilham Tohti,” Can tells VOA.  

Tohti, a former professor at Minzu University in Beijing, was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2014 on charges of separatism. He is widely recognized for promoting dialogue between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. In 2019, he was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament.  

Like Tohti, Can was born in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region where the Uyghur remains imprisoned. At the age of 12, Can fled Xinjiang with his family. In the 1970s, he moved to Germany and worked as a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty until the early 1990s.  

In 2016, two years after Tohti’s life sentence, Can founded the “Ilham Tohti Initiative” to campaign for his release. Earlier this month, Can was particularly busy meeting European parliamentarians and other groups to push for Tohti’s release from Chinese detention.  

“To my knowledge, Ilham Tohti is one of the very few Uyghurs who dared to speak up for Uyghur rights while living under the Chinese regime. He articulated his demands eloquently and clearly, framing them within both international norms and Chinese law,” Can told VOA in a phone interview.  

EU pressure continues  

In a statement released on Monday, the European Union reiterated its call for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Ilham Tohti and other human rights defenders, lawyers, and intellectuals “arbitrarily detained” in China.  

“The imprisonment of Ilham Tohti is representative of the deeply worrying human rights situation in Xinjiang,” the EU said, citing reports from U.N. bodies and the 2022 assessment by the U.N. Human Rights Office.  

Since Tohti’s arrest in 2014, concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang have worsened with significant attention drawn to the issue around the beginning of 2017, when reports of mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the region started to emerge.   

Advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been vocal about the situation in Xinjiang, with notable reports and statements escalating around 2018.  

In particular, the U.N. Human Rights Office has issued assessments and reports highlighting the situation, including a U.N. rights report released in August 2022 that detailed human rights violations in Xinjiang. China’s response has consistently been to deny these allegations, labeling them as part of a Western agenda to undermine its sovereignty and stability in the region.  

Can told VOA that the time for mere statements is over.

“Just calling for Ilham Tohti’s release is not enough,” he said. “There have been countless petitions and open letters over the past decade. We need concrete actions.”  

Can urged tougher measures against China, including sanctions on officials, visa restrictions, and re-negotiating trade terms. 

China’s defense  

In an email to VOA, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, defended the sentencing of Ilham Tohti, asserting that he is guilty of “splitting the country” and that the evidence against him is “conclusive.”  

“As a teacher, Ilham Tohti once publicly called terrorist extremists ‘heroes’, incited, lured and coerced some people to go abroad to participate in the activities of the ‘East Turkestan’ separatist forces, and planned, organized and carried out a series of criminal activities to split the country,” Liu said.  

He insisted that China’s judicial system acted strictly in accordance with Chinese law and that “China’s internal affairs and judicial sovereignty must not be interfered with.”  

Jewher Ilham, the daughter of Ilham Tohti and a human rights activist in the U.S., disputed the Chinese government’s portrayal of her father’s case, asserting that his imprisonment resulted from his peaceful advocacy for marginalized Uyghurs rather than any legal violations.  

“A normal and healthy society allows for more than one voice or opinion,” Ilham told VOA. “The Chinese government did not tolerate different opinions 10 years ago, and it is clear they still do not.”  

Family’s heartbreak  

   

Jewher Ilham last saw her father on February 2, 2013, in a Beijing airport interrogation room, where they shared their final goodbye. During that encounter, Ilham urged her to leave China for the U.S., despite the presence of Chinese authorities.

“Look at them, look at how they treat you and me. Do you still want to stay in this country? I would rather you sweep the streets in America than be treated like this here,” Ilham recalled her father’s words.  

At the time, Ilham Tohti was prevented from departing for a year-long visiting scholar position at Indiana University, and those parting words continue to resonate with his daughter to this day.  

After 11 months of house arrest, Chinese authorities arrested Tohti on January 15, 2014, while Jewher was in the United States.  

“On January 15, 2014, over 20 police officers came to arrest my father. My youngest brother was three-and-a-half years old, and the oldest was seven. They were napping when the police broke in and aggressively took him away,” Ilham told VOA in a phone interview. She kept in touch with her family and friends until early 2017, and that’s how she learned what had happened.  

“My stepmother wasn’t home because she was working away. My grandmother found out about my father’s arrest later, and she became very sick. I recently heard that my grandmother passed away two years ago,” she said.  

Eight months later, on September 23, 2014, Chinese authorities sentenced Tohti to life imprisonment on alleged charges of “splitting the country.”  

“September 23 is a devastating date for my family. My father Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life on this date 10 years ago,” Jewher told VOA. “Just like my father never stopped advocating for the voiceless, I will not stop, no matter what.” 
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Taipei, Taiwan — China’s central bank has released a series of economic stimulus plans, including cuts to mortgage interest rates and the required cash reserve ratio — the latter of which will allow commercial banks to inject $140 billion into the market — among other monetary policies aimed at reviving the housing market and stimulating economic growth.   

Many Chinese internet users applauded this initiative, but few expressed immediate willingness to buy a house. Analysts said the policies are “too late and too few,” since housing prices in China have fallen by half in some areas, leaving people wary of purchasing homes that could further decline in value.

The heads of China’s three major financial institutions — including Pan Gongsheng, the governor of the People’s Bank of China; Li Yunze, the director of the National Financial Regulatory Administration; and Wu Qing, the chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission — on Tuesday unveiled the country’s most powerful economic rescue effort since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pan said that soon, commercial banks will be advised to reduce the interest rate of existing mortgages by about 0.5 percentage points on average, and the minimum down payment ratio for second homes will be reduced from the current 25% to the same 15% as the first home. He said this policy is expected to benefit 50 million households and 150 million people by reducing the nation’s total interest bill by about 150 billion yuan, or $21.3 billion, annually.

Pan said that depending on market conditions, the central bank may consider cutting the required cash reserve on commercial banks by another 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points before the year’s end.

Most Chinese internet users lauded the mortgage rate cuts.  But no one answered affirmatively when a user under the name “Mushroom’s Second Sister” in Zhejiang asked on Weibo, “Will everyone be more willing to buy a house?” 

A Weibo user from Guangdong under the name “Chun Sheng Qi” said flatly, “No.”

Another Weibo user in Zhejiang under the name “Little Lazy Pig Little Lin Lin” said, “Is there a possibility they cut the interest rate to entice you to buy homes, and then they will increase the interest rate after a few years? They have the final say on the interest rate increase and reduction anyway.”  

A real estate analyst in Taipei told VOA on the condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity that the new policy may not help restore confidence for Chinese home-buyers, who will be less inclined to spend lifetime savings on properties amid China’s sluggish economy, which has been hard-hit in recent years by the pandemic, the U.S.-China trade war and the global economic recession.

She said that while governments around the world have been easing monetary policies to stimulate post-pandemic economic recovery in the past two years, the Chinese government has not taken action, allowing the economy to deteriorate. It is “too late” to introduce the stimulus package, she said.  

She added that China’s policymakers are still holding onto an old development model and counting on the property market to drive the economy. But China’s housing market is taking a hit from the country’s declining birthrate.  Young people who will inherit a house from elders will not invest in the housing market. Those whose families own no properties may not be able to afford one because of their financial obligations to support elders or children.  

Francis Lun, CEO of Geo Securities in Hong Kong, said the policies are “too late and too few” but are better than nothing.

He said that the People’s Bank of China should have launched them a year ago, and the scale of 1 trillion yuan is not enough because developer Evergrande alone has $300 billion in debt.  Other Chinese real estate companies also sit on billions in debt, so Lun expects China’s central bank to ease the monetary policy again in coming months.

Lun told VOA by phone that to advance structural reform, China should also “replace land sales with property tax revenue as local governments’ source of incomes… Or property prices won’t be stabilized, which will only worsen the local economy.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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MANILA, Philippines — Developing Asia is on track to grow 5% this year, supported by strong consumption and high demand for tech exports, the Asian Development Bank forecast on Wednesday, and said China was expected to roll out more economic support measures.

In an update to its Asian Development Outlook report, the ADB left most growth projections for economies in the region unchanged from its July report, maintaining its growth outlook for developing Asia at 5.0% this year and 4.9% next year.

It revised down its inflation forecasts for developing Asia, which groups 46 countries in the Asia-Pacific, to 2.8% for this year and 2.9% for next year from previous forecasts of 2.9% and 3.0%, respectively.

The Manila-based lender highlighted some downside risks to its outlook, including rising protectionism, escalating geopolitical tensions, adverse weather conditions, and a deterioration in China’s property market.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, is battling deflationary pressures, and struggling to lift growth despite a series of policy measures aimed at spurring domestic spending.

On Tuesday, China’s central bank announced broad monetary stimulus and property market support measures as authorities look to restore confidence in the economy.

“Whether that will work remains to be seen because a lot of the structural problems in the property sector remain persistent,” ADB Chief Economist Albert Park said at a briefing.

“It may take more effort and work by their government” to alleviate concerns of consumers and investors, Park said, adding “more proactive government policy would be helpful.”

Park also said the ADB was not so concerned about deflation in China as it sees prices recovering.

Last week, the U.S. Federal Reserve kicked off its own easing cycle with a hefty half-percentage-point rate cut.

“With the Fed’s 50 basis point rate cut, central banks have more space to ease, and we expect more of them to do so,” Park said.

The ADB kept its 2024 growth forecast for China at 4.8%, below the government’s official target of about 5%. Growth for 2025 is still forecast at 4.5%.

“The PRC (People’s Republic of China) growth forecast is retained despite the prolonged downturn in the property sector, on the assumption that further fiscal and monetary easing will help sustain the economy,” Park said.
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