Of course, I think it’s undeniable that there’s anti-Chinese racism, and it can play into attacks on China, especially from the right. The thing is, my criticisms of China are things that I hate about the US and its allies. It’s not that China is some strange, unique evil. On the contrary, they’re similar.
In another comment, you talked about how genocide requires mass killings, but I wouldn’t limit it to that (nor would the UN). And yes, that makes the US complicit. The genocide of Native Americans didn’t stop with murder, but included stealing children to “reeducate” them. The eugenecist movement sterilized women without so much as their knowledge, much less their consent—and they were predominantly Black, Asian, and Native American. The Tuskeegee experiments also left people sterilized, and that’s just part of how it ruined and ended lives. Obviously we’ve seen “Islamic extremism” used as an excuse to demonize Muslims in general, ignore material conditions that lead to violent resistance, and justify brutal repression.
We’ve already talked about evidence, and I don’t know what to tell you. You also said that you don’t trust any citation in the Wikipedia article, so that’s cutting out sources I would absolutely lend weight: the UN, the Asspociated Press, Reuters, academic journals… and if your response to the UN report isn’t “technically this would mean it’s ethnocide,” then I don’t think we’re going to have a productive conversation.
A while back, I read an article by Dara Horn about the failures of Holocaust education, and the rise of antisemitism. One point that really struck a chord with me was that Holocaust education focuses too much on the “They were just like us” angle. Jews weren’t oppressed for their similarities, but their differences. To focus on the similarities to conemn their oppression carries with it the implication that, if people are different, it’s okay, and the more different they are, the more you can justify hate and oppression.
So imagine my disappointment when I read an article of hers condemning student protests. She repeated the lie about “From the river to the sea (Palestine will be free)” being a genocidal slogan. She juxtaposed it with antisemitic attacks, implying a connection. She denied that it was a genocide, which would of course justify demonstrations. She praised cracking down on student protests in general. She mournfully talked about overlooking Harvard, disappointed that the school she went to was awash in antisemitism, and all I could think was… Harvard is still standing, Gaza is in ruins.
Is the treatment of Uyghurs the same as the treatment of Palestinians? No, not as far as I can tell. It’s just that that isn’t the threshold. The genocide of Palestinians doesn’t only slightly cross the line. And while both antisemitism and sinophobia are undeniably real, have lead to attacks and oppression, and color some of the criticisms of Israel and China, that doesn’t represent real criticisms of states, not people. And those criticisms aren’t new, they are familiar. It’s the banality of evil. It’s capitalist empires doing what capitalist empires do.
The original post claimed that anyone who doesn’t believe in a Uyghur genocide is a fascist. That’s a very specific and extreme position.
Even just redefining it as, “ethnogenocide” or “cultural genocide” is shifting the goalposts. They’re not even clearly defined terms.
If I accuse someone of murder without evidence, it’s pretty sketchy of me to then say, “Well, can you at least admit that you’ve committed some crimes?”
If we’re going to discuss a new claim that claim should also be supported by evidence. There’s extensive literature on the importance of primary sources when analyzing history or current events. Wikipedia and various media outlets can be excellent resources for initial overviews on a topic but they’re not primary sources. It’s often difficult to find primary sources, particularly for current and recent events and that just means that claims on the topic aren’t supported by evidence. These are all great first approximations but when there’s any doubt, primary sources are what ultimately count.
So what do we actually know about the Xinjiang and the Uyghurs?
We can start with the easy ones.
China includes Uyghur text on its currency. That’s a pretty cheap thing to do but it’s a pretty strange decision if you’re trying to suppress a culture. It’s easy to verify though.
China has a staggering number of mosques. They’re all over the country and it’s easy to find Halal food. Xinjiang itself has more mosques than all of Europe and North America combined. There is some controversy here. There are a lot of claims that China is actively reducing the number of mosques. China claims that it’s just doing renovations and demolishing unsafe structures. We’ve all seen what satellite pictures of destroyed buildings look like. We often get them of locations in active war zones. Why don’t we have those for Xinjiang? Mosques are also easy to see from space so we can see that they’re still there. It doesn’t prove lack of intent but it’s strange to leave all those religious centers for a culture they’re trying to erase.
Xinjian has experience multiple terrorist attacks per year for decades. This is also easily verified. It obviously doesn’t justify human rights abuses but it clearly warrants some preventative action. Every nation responds to terrorists in some way, so a critique of a particular response really should provide at least a suggestion for a better one.
China mandates quality of life protocols for inmates who are incarcerated as part of their terrorism prevention practices. We know this because it says so in the “Xinjiang Cables” which Adrian Zenz published as part of his claims about a Uyghur Genocide.
China is making massive infrastructure investments in Xinjiang. It’s a key location for the belt and road initiative. If we had any doubt we could just look at all the new construction on satellite images. The effects are harder to verify. China claims that GDP growth in Xinjiang actually exceeds that of the rest of China and independent estimates agree. It’s even harder to know how to interpret this. The negative interpretations are either that the wealth is primarily accruing to non-Uyghurs, ie Han, or that the increase wealth itself is a form of cultural genocide. The second seems patently ridiculous. A large wealth increase will obviously change a culture but not in the “genocide” direction." We don’t really know how much of that wealth is going to Uyghurs vs Han in Xinjiang but we certainly don’t have any evidence that Uyghurs are being economically harmed.
China has mandated that classes be taught in Mandarin. This isn’t disputed. It’s often cited as evidence of cultural genocide but it’s a fairly standard practice. The US is a bit unusual in that it’s one of 9 countries that don’t have an official language. While language can be an important part of cultural identity it’s also an important tool for social interaction. The reason there are so many people who speak English as a second language (or primary language in lieu of their mother tongue) is that it provides significant economic advantages. The same holds true for Mandarin, particularly for people living in China. That’s not the same as suppressing Uyghur though. You can find numerous images of publicly displayed Uyghur writing in Xinjiang.
The strongest evidence in support of human rights abuses is from eyewitness testimony. The problem is that we can’t generally verify any of it. The explanation is generally that we need to protect their anonymity for the safety of family members who are still in China. That might be true or it might not be. We can’t tell. We do have numerous Muslim leaders who have visited Xinjiang and then provided positive and public assessments of the treatment of Uyghurs. The value of confidential informants is in breaking a story, not in supporting it. That requires verifiable sources and the vast majority of the verifiable reporting supports China’s version of the situation. In this case I’m using “verifiable” simply to mean that we can check who made the claim and that they actually made the claim, not the stronger requirement of being able to verify that the claim was true.
So in light of all this, what exactly is the “ethnocide” or “cultural genocide” that China is supposedly conducting? What can we confidently point at and say, “We’re sure this is happening and it’s clear evidence of human rights abuses.”
Of course, I think it’s undeniable that there’s anti-Chinese racism, and it can play into attacks on China, especially from the right. The thing is, my criticisms of China are things that I hate about the US and its allies. It’s not that China is some strange, unique evil. On the contrary, they’re similar.
In another comment, you talked about how genocide requires mass killings, but I wouldn’t limit it to that (nor would the UN). And yes, that makes the US complicit. The genocide of Native Americans didn’t stop with murder, but included stealing children to “reeducate” them. The eugenecist movement sterilized women without so much as their knowledge, much less their consent—and they were predominantly Black, Asian, and Native American. The Tuskeegee experiments also left people sterilized, and that’s just part of how it ruined and ended lives. Obviously we’ve seen “Islamic extremism” used as an excuse to demonize Muslims in general, ignore material conditions that lead to violent resistance, and justify brutal repression.
We’ve already talked about evidence, and I don’t know what to tell you. You also said that you don’t trust any citation in the Wikipedia article, so that’s cutting out sources I would absolutely lend weight: the UN, the Asspociated Press, Reuters, academic journals… and if your response to the UN report isn’t “technically this would mean it’s ethnocide,” then I don’t think we’re going to have a productive conversation.
A while back, I read an article by Dara Horn about the failures of Holocaust education, and the rise of antisemitism. One point that really struck a chord with me was that Holocaust education focuses too much on the “They were just like us” angle. Jews weren’t oppressed for their similarities, but their differences. To focus on the similarities to conemn their oppression carries with it the implication that, if people are different, it’s okay, and the more different they are, the more you can justify hate and oppression.
So imagine my disappointment when I read an article of hers condemning student protests. She repeated the lie about “From the river to the sea (Palestine will be free)” being a genocidal slogan. She juxtaposed it with antisemitic attacks, implying a connection. She denied that it was a genocide, which would of course justify demonstrations. She praised cracking down on student protests in general. She mournfully talked about overlooking Harvard, disappointed that the school she went to was awash in antisemitism, and all I could think was… Harvard is still standing, Gaza is in ruins.
Is the treatment of Uyghurs the same as the treatment of Palestinians? No, not as far as I can tell. It’s just that that isn’t the threshold. The genocide of Palestinians doesn’t only slightly cross the line. And while both antisemitism and sinophobia are undeniably real, have lead to attacks and oppression, and color some of the criticisms of Israel and China, that doesn’t represent real criticisms of states, not people. And those criticisms aren’t new, they are familiar. It’s the banality of evil. It’s capitalist empires doing what capitalist empires do.
The original post claimed that anyone who doesn’t believe in a Uyghur genocide is a fascist. That’s a very specific and extreme position. Even just redefining it as, “ethnogenocide” or “cultural genocide” is shifting the goalposts. They’re not even clearly defined terms. If I accuse someone of murder without evidence, it’s pretty sketchy of me to then say, “Well, can you at least admit that you’ve committed some crimes?”
If we’re going to discuss a new claim that claim should also be supported by evidence. There’s extensive literature on the importance of primary sources when analyzing history or current events. Wikipedia and various media outlets can be excellent resources for initial overviews on a topic but they’re not primary sources. It’s often difficult to find primary sources, particularly for current and recent events and that just means that claims on the topic aren’t supported by evidence. These are all great first approximations but when there’s any doubt, primary sources are what ultimately count.
So what do we actually know about the Xinjiang and the Uyghurs?
We can start with the easy ones.
China includes Uyghur text on its currency. That’s a pretty cheap thing to do but it’s a pretty strange decision if you’re trying to suppress a culture. It’s easy to verify though.
China has a staggering number of mosques. They’re all over the country and it’s easy to find Halal food. Xinjiang itself has more mosques than all of Europe and North America combined. There is some controversy here. There are a lot of claims that China is actively reducing the number of mosques. China claims that it’s just doing renovations and demolishing unsafe structures. We’ve all seen what satellite pictures of destroyed buildings look like. We often get them of locations in active war zones. Why don’t we have those for Xinjiang? Mosques are also easy to see from space so we can see that they’re still there. It doesn’t prove lack of intent but it’s strange to leave all those religious centers for a culture they’re trying to erase.
Xinjian has experience multiple terrorist attacks per year for decades. This is also easily verified. It obviously doesn’t justify human rights abuses but it clearly warrants some preventative action. Every nation responds to terrorists in some way, so a critique of a particular response really should provide at least a suggestion for a better one.
China mandates quality of life protocols for inmates who are incarcerated as part of their terrorism prevention practices. We know this because it says so in the “Xinjiang Cables” which Adrian Zenz published as part of his claims about a Uyghur Genocide.
China is making massive infrastructure investments in Xinjiang. It’s a key location for the belt and road initiative. If we had any doubt we could just look at all the new construction on satellite images. The effects are harder to verify. China claims that GDP growth in Xinjiang actually exceeds that of the rest of China and independent estimates agree. It’s even harder to know how to interpret this. The negative interpretations are either that the wealth is primarily accruing to non-Uyghurs, ie Han, or that the increase wealth itself is a form of cultural genocide. The second seems patently ridiculous. A large wealth increase will obviously change a culture but not in the “genocide” direction." We don’t really know how much of that wealth is going to Uyghurs vs Han in Xinjiang but we certainly don’t have any evidence that Uyghurs are being economically harmed.
China has mandated that classes be taught in Mandarin. This isn’t disputed. It’s often cited as evidence of cultural genocide but it’s a fairly standard practice. The US is a bit unusual in that it’s one of 9 countries that don’t have an official language. While language can be an important part of cultural identity it’s also an important tool for social interaction. The reason there are so many people who speak English as a second language (or primary language in lieu of their mother tongue) is that it provides significant economic advantages. The same holds true for Mandarin, particularly for people living in China. That’s not the same as suppressing Uyghur though. You can find numerous images of publicly displayed Uyghur writing in Xinjiang.
The strongest evidence in support of human rights abuses is from eyewitness testimony. The problem is that we can’t generally verify any of it. The explanation is generally that we need to protect their anonymity for the safety of family members who are still in China. That might be true or it might not be. We can’t tell. We do have numerous Muslim leaders who have visited Xinjiang and then provided positive and public assessments of the treatment of Uyghurs. The value of confidential informants is in breaking a story, not in supporting it. That requires verifiable sources and the vast majority of the verifiable reporting supports China’s version of the situation. In this case I’m using “verifiable” simply to mean that we can check who made the claim and that they actually made the claim, not the stronger requirement of being able to verify that the claim was true.
So in light of all this, what exactly is the “ethnocide” or “cultural genocide” that China is supposedly conducting? What can we confidently point at and say, “We’re sure this is happening and it’s clear evidence of human rights abuses.”