The Genocide of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang is a Humanitarian Atrocity

The genocide of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang is a humanitarian atrocity, but too many on the left are turning a blind eye.

As progressives, we avow a single, self-evident principle of human rights: the rights of all people, regardless of their race, religion, gender, sexuality, or nationality, are equal and deserve equal protection under the law.

As such, we feel that the very fundamentals of democracy are attacked when former-President Trump and the GOP buy into anti-Chinese rhetoric, using xenophobic slurs and attacking the Asian community in the West. And we have good cause to be concerned about such rhetoric.

In almost all Western democracies, the already high rates of hate crimes and violence committed against people of Chinese origin have soared as a result of the weaponisation of the Covid-19 crisis and the genocide of the Uyghur Muslims.

The linked report quotes various GOP politicians who have unashamedly attacked Chinese culture, including Sen. John Cornyn, who labelled China a “culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that”, and, of course, President Trump, who labelled the novel coronavirus the “China virus” and “Chinese virus”, stoking tensions and hatred unnecessarily.

In opposing the GOP’s unrelenting and vile attacks and loaded terminology, progressives are absolutely correct. But in letting this divert our attention from and blind us to the clear and abhorrent rights abuses in Xinjiang province, we could not be more wrong.

In a May 11. letter to the Biden campaign last year, tens of progressive groups called for normalising relations with China and engaging more diplomatically. This either shows astonishing naivety about President Xi’s motivations and power, or an astonishing failure to uphold the progressive commitment to defend human rights.

All too often, this typifies the attitude of progressives towards China and the genocide of the Uyghur Muslims: either completely absent in the debate, or failing to appreciate the need for strong, decisive action against China. We cannot have a constructive relationship with a country committing genocide against an ethnic minority, just as we cannot have a constructive relationship with racists and xenophobes at home who seek to belittle and undermine the rights of minority communities.

The British left is particularly guilty: many members of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet have been exposed for cooperating and supporting China and its representatives in the UK. But this is not some uniquely British problem. Joe Biden, in explicitly calling China’s actions in Xinjiang a “genocide”, is the exception to the rule among Democrats.

Though more progressives are now speaking out, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we are still far from where we need to be. Universities and progressive academics, as well as students, are not simply not doing enough about China’s rights abuses, but are actively propagating a dangerous form of genocide apologism, blinded by their reverence for socialist principles and the disdain for free speech which has taken root in recent years.

What makes the progressive silence on the genocide of the Uyghurs so much worse is that, by saying nothing, or actively covering up and defending China’s actions in Xinjiang, we are leaving the Uyghurs with only one advocate: the racists and xenophobes in the Republican party. By leaving the criticism to the right, we are legitimising their attacks, and thus failing even to stand up for minority communities here.

We need to do more, say more, and get tough on China. We must show that we can stand up for minority communities both at home and abroad, and make good on our commitment to defend the equal rights of all.

President Biden has made this his mission. You don’t have to love him, and you can hate him if you really want. But on this point, on the black-and-white issue of the genocide in Xinjiang, there is no room for disagreement. There must be no room for apologism and apathy. There is no room for progressives to be absent from this debate.

We should be the most natural allies of the Uyghur Muslims in their struggle against their CCP oppressors. But we’re letting them down, badly.