French writer Maxime Vivas and his book Ouïghours, pour en finir avec les fake news. Photo: Courtesy of Maxime Vivas

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday gave a "thumbs-up" to French writer Maxime Vivas for his courage to reveal the truth and debunk lies about Xinjiang. 

Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the foreign ministry, said at a press conference that he believes more and more "men of justice" such as Maxime Vivas will stand out to tell truth on Xinjiang to the world and expose Western lies.

As Vivas said, he has suffered from public pressure and even threats for presenting the real situation in Xinjiang. Wang said he gave Vivas a thumbs up for his courage and hopes more people support Vivas. 

"Rumors will eventually fall through, and we believe that more and more people will understand and realize the real situation in Xinjiang," Wang stressed.

Vivas said in recent interviews that he has suffered from harassment and abuse on social media after he wrote a book titled Ouïghours, pour en finir avec les fake news (Uygurs, to put an end to the fake news). 

Based on his two visits to Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2016 and 2018, Vivas wrote the book, in which he described his observations regarding Xinjiang's anti-terrorism efforts and the region's development, and analyzed the relations that the US National Endowment for Democracy has with the separatist World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and some nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW). 

In the book, Vivas disclosed that there are no concentration camps in Xinjiang based on his own experience there, and that the so-called "genocide in Xinjiang" is totally nonsense.

He shone light on how these organizations colluded in concocting and spreading "genocide" accusations against China's Xinjiang. The book was published late last year in French.

Wang cited the South China Morning Post which said in an opinion article on April 14 titled Xinjiang: what the West doesn't tell you about China's war on terror, that "It is actually quite remarkable that China has been able to rein in terrorism, an intractable problem anywhere in the world, without inflicting as much collateral damage. This point never seems to be made in the torrent of outrage pouring from the Western press."

Wang noted that articles describing the real situation in Xinjiang have also been published on The Gray Zone website in the US and Australian Alert Service, which is the weekly publication of the Australian Citizens Party.

Global Times