Canadian YouTuber Daniel Dumbrill, who has more than 100,000 followers, attracted a wide attention among netizens after he discussed why Xinjiang matters so much to Western governments, particularly the US, in a YouTube video uploaded on March 19.
Dumbrill, who lives in Shenzhen, presented the reasons he thought the US and other Western countries wanted to disrupt China. First, China's economy is now set to overtake the US sooner than expected, which has made it a preferred target for cooperation with other resource-rich countries. Second, the great potential of the renminbi could be seen as a challenge to the dollar's global hegemony.
Along with that is the fact that Xinjiang has one of Asia's largest oil deposits and that it's a key doorway to China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. He said, "The question suddenly becomes, how could you possibly not expect America to take a special interest in Xinjiang and not because of human rights?"
The US and some other Western countries have imposed sanctions on China for alleged human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. "We're expected to believe that the population of Uyghurs is being eradicated," Dumbrill said. "It's a ridiculous statement whether it is in a literal sense or even a cultural sense."
"Uyghurs in China have been growing faster than the majority Han Chinese in part because they weren't subject to the one-child policy, they have 20,000 mosques built, their script is written on the national currency, the biggest star in China is a Uyghur woman who was recently signed on by LV as their brand ambassador, where Uyghur children can get into top universities easier than Han Chinese and have halal foods prepared for them in canteens and they have prayer areas on campus."
At the end of the video, Dumbrill called on people all over the world to consider the facts in an unbiased manner. Otherwise, "You're also complicit with the actual attempts by the West to oppress the Uyghurs and you're complacent for creating a world that's getting closer and closer to a war," he said.
