Saudi’s bin Salman mum on China’s abuse of Uyghur Muslims as he touts ties

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was all smiles in his photo ops during his visit to China, where he touted his country’s ties with the world’s second biggest economy.

Absent from the crown prince’s two-day visit to China was any mention of the brutal abuses suffered by millions of Uyghur Muslims in Chinese internment camps, labeled by many as akin to World War Two gulags.

Official press photos showed bin Salman flashing big smiles at the camera as he toured the Great Wall of China with the Chinese ambassador to Saudi Arabia by his side.

Earlier this month, Turkey slammed Chinese authorities’ systematic assimilation policy towards Uighur Turks, saying it is a "great embarrassment for humanity.”

China sees "enormous potential" in Saudi Arabia's economy and wants more high-tech cooperation, the Chinese government's top diplomat said, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began a two-day trip to Beijing.

The crown prince will meet President Xi Jinping, who has made stepping up China's presence in the Middle East a key foreign policy objective, despite its traditional low-key role there.

China’s Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uighurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45 percent of Xinjiang’s population, has long accused China’s authorities of cultural, religious and economic discrimination.

China stepped up its restrictions on the region in the past two years, banning men from growing beards and women from wearing veils and introducing what many experts see as the world’s most extensive electronic surveillance program, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Up to 1 million people, or about 7 percent of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of “political re-education” camps, according to U.S. officials and UN experts.

In August, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in a meeting held in Geneva, stated that the Uyghur individuals, who the local administrators accuse of having unfavorable political thought, in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region were held in political training centers.

The UN body’s representatives stated that up to 3 million people have been detained without any judicial decisions.

Human Rights Watch had previously announced that the Chinese government was conducting a "mass, systematic campaign of human rights violations against Turkic Muslims" in China.