Prof praises CCP leaders, dismisses Uyghur Muslim crisis as Australian propaganda

Professor of History at New Mexico State University (NMSU), Ken Hammond, appeared on the YouTube channel ”Friends of Socialist China” earlier this month to praise the legacy of Chinese Communist leader Zhou Enlai. Hammond has also said that stories of Uyghur genocide or detention camps in China are “propagandistic” and caused by rumors from Australia.

Hammond praised Zhou for his legacy of “the five principles of peaceful coexistence” of “mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference by states in each other’s internal affairs, what’s called equality and mutual benefit ... and simply the concept of peaceful coexistence.” Hammond asserts that these principles are still practiced in China.

[RELATED: ‘I felt like I was being escorted to a slaughterhouse’: Uyghur survivor recounts CCP brutality to students]

According to the CIA, China has engaged in numerous cyber security attacks, and conducted various forms of intellectual property theft, internationally.

Hammond continued by saying that these five principles are supposed to “promote the idea that countries that have been exploited, oppressed by imperialism; they should have mutually beneficial and trustworthy relationships with one another.”

Zhou played a part in the rise of the Chinese Communist Party and was one of Mao Zedong’s closest advisors, as recounted by Hammond. 

This is not the only material about China that Hammond has produced. 

In a separate video interview conducted with the organization Pivot to Peace, made over a year ago, Hammond denied that genocide was happening to the Uyghur Muslim population, calling the notion “propagandistic.” 

Pivot for Peace describes itself as an organization that “believe[s] in the fair and open communication of information about China, its economic, social, and political affairs, free of the biases and distortions which dominate much of mainstream media in the United States.”

Pivot to Peace is reportedly funded by the Progress Unity Fund, which also controls other left-wing groups. 

Hammond added that alleged photographic evidence of detention camps holding millions of Uyghurs in China “is one of those things that the Australians - the Australian Strategic Policy Institute - likes to put out.” Hammond claimed this is “clearly not true” and “thoroughly debunked.”

Hammond was also one of the Confucius Institute (CI) directors at NMSU from 2007 to 2015. NMSU reportedly shut the Institute down in 2020 because of funding and low enrollment.

[RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Contracts reveal US universities ‘must’ accept CCP’s ‘assessment’ on ‘teaching quality’ at Confucius Institutes]

Campus Reform has reported extensively on the Chinese Communist Party’s influence over CIs and their mass shutdowns across the country at colleges. 

Many agreements between universities and the CI Headquarters “gave the Chinese Communist Party a level of control over the curriculum taught” at the various CIs, according to previous Campus Reform coverage.

All relevant parties in the report have been contacted for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.