On Wednesday, August 31, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, released her report on the human rights atrocities in the Xinjiang region of the People’s Republic of China. The report outlined the extent of the systemic internment of the Uyghur Muslims and other minority populations. This report had long been anticipated since the news broke in 2017 that China was forcing Uyghurs into internment camps. The U.N. report offers very little “new” information, but instead confirms the sheer brutality of Beijing’s human rights violations in Xinjiang: mass imprisonment, forced labor, destruction of Muslim shrines and other cultural centers, torture, and forced sterilization.
Many in the West were astonished by no mention of the word “genocide” from the report. The actions outlined in the report fulfill the U.N.’s own legal definition of the crime — in 2021 the U.S. Department of State determined that the crimes committed in Xinjiang amount to genocide and was joined by other counties like France and the United Kingdom. China, on the other hand, a sitting member of the human rights committee, responded with outrage to the report they viewed as blatant slander. Beijing, initially denied the existence of the camps, and had asserted they were “vocational education and training centers,” to help assimilate Uyghurs into greater Chinese society. Later, Beijing asserted that their policies in Xinjiang were a matter of national security to combat potential Islamic extremism.
Questions and Background
- How should the U.S. respond to the crimes committed in Xinjiang? What moral and material responsibility do we have to the Uyghur people?
- Should American companies be held accountable for indirectly benefiting from Uyghur internment?
- How can the U.N. hold nations that violate its own policies accountable? Is the U.N. an effective international institution?
- Why is the Chinese Communist Party attempting to eradicate their Uyghur population? What is their motivation?
There’s never a convenient time to try to stop a genocide
Josh Rogin. The Washington Post. September 1, 2022.
OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. August 31, 2022.
Backgrounder: China’s Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang
Lindsay Maizland. Council on Foreign Relations. March 1, 2021.
WATCH: Nury Turkel’s ‘No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs’
Alexander Hamilton Society Book Talk. May 31, 2022