We have an office here in Florence.

Thank you for your brilliant presentation.

In the question of Xinjiang and the Uyghurs, the U.S.

State Department and various British actors are saying that there has been genocide.

Whilst the leading scholars of the law of genocide, they say that there is no evidence, there is no proof, and that the U.S.

State Department should stop using this classification unless it produces the proof.

By making use of such classifications as genocide and crimes against humanity, one also generates feelings of blameworthiness and that there is a threat from the Chinese government.

What are your thoughts on the way the U.S. and British actors use human rights terminology, the human rights narrative, and soft international law in the contest which you refer to between the United States and China?

Well, it's part of the information warfare that makes it very difficult for us sometimes to know what to believe and what not to believe.

I first accompanied Lee Kuan Yew to Xinjiang in the year 2000, just before I stepped down as Prime Minister.

It's okay.

That's not Xinjiang. I was surprised when I went there to find that road signs were in Roman characters, in Chinese characters, and in Arabic characters.

So I asked accompanying Chinese officials, I said, when did that happen?

I would say Mao Zedong wanted it.

In fact, when the Communists took over, they restored the names of many places to their Uyghur names.

But of course, the Chinese attitude is, you are a minority, you threaten me politically, I smash you.

Like they did with Yakut Bey in the 19th century, the Qing dynasty.

But if you don't threaten me, then I'm very generous to you.

In fact, I treat you better than Han people.

So the population policy never applied to the Uyghurs, and that's why there are many more Uyghurs today in proportionate terms than Han Chinese and any other group.

So there's certainly no physical genocide.

In 2001, August, I went back to Xinjiang, the trade delegation, and I went into Kashgar.

In Kashgar, I saw women in Central Asian burkas, which is a whole basket put on top of their head.

I was shocked.

I asked Chinese officials, they said, why do you allow this?

They said, no, it's a custom.

When I was in Urumqi, they took me horse riding.

I can't ride a horse to save myself.

So they said, no, don't worry.

A young girl or boy will hop behind you, a Kazakh, and they'll gallop the horse, and it was very exciting.

I tried to speak to her in my poor Mandarin.

She could not understand me.

So again, I asked the Chinese, I said, why aren't you teaching them Chinese?

They said, no, they're nomads.

We leave them alone.

They did not realize then, it was two weeks before September 11, that the Salafis had been working on their mines.

And from 2010 to 2015, there were a spate of terrorist incidents in China, to a point where the Han people in Xinjiang had to arm themselves.

I also knew this from my cousins in China, who used to go to Xinjiang, and then during that period, they say it's no longer safe, and now they're all over Xinjiang again, because peace has returned.

So this whole story, that there's genocide in Xinjiang, to me, does not reflect what's happening there.

Yes, they have been draconian in making sure that Salafi influence is controlled in China.

But all countries, including Singapore, face this problem.

And it's interesting that no Muslim country today has condemned China on the Xinjiang policy.

But when I was cruising in Croatia, someone told me what an Italian professor in Chengdu said.

It's quite interesting, take it in the right spirit.

He said, the Americans are not known to love Chinese, they're not known to love Muslims, but somehow they love Chinese Muslims a lot.

So that's my answer to your question.

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