this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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I have not seen any evidence beyond some generic jail images, there seems to be no resistance organisation within xinjiang, i do not see a reason for china to do this and all the reporting is filled with non-objective loaded language like "authoritarian", "brutal crackdown", "chinese regime" etc.
compare all of the reporting from this so-call "genocide" to the actual reporting (the non-western or indie kind) from the actually ongoing genocide of the palestinians, its night and day.
then there were many predominantly muslim countries that sent officials to visit xinjiang and they came back satisfied that there was no ongoing genocide. We get more information out of the tightly regulated gaza ghetto than an entire autonomous region in china. If you want some more hard facts and recent history of the region I can dig some stuff up if you want, I don't remember most of it since it's been a while since I looked at this stuff myself.
You referred to Wikipedia as an authority earlier, so here's some Wikipedia commentary about recent developments in Xinjiang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China#Classification_of_abuses
And an article about terrorism/resistance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Xinjiang
And there's plenty of reasons for China to do this - they've long seen the land there as Chinese, regardless of the people living on it. Not to mention natural resources, extending borders, marshaling resources to fight capitalist imperialism, et cetera, et cetera....
Secondly, this is the reason I'm asking people what they think genocide is. The ICC would define genocide very narrowly, just the slaughter of people en masse based on ethnicity. Historians and academics actually have a much broader view of genocide, including cultural replacement actions like eliminating languages, displacement, and destruction of culturally important locations. Israel does all of this to Palestine, as well as the USA and Canada to native peoples.
So let's leave the rubric of "genocide" and consider what the CCP is actually doing there. It seems obvious that they want to erase Uyghur culture and replace it with Han. There can be reasons for Uyghurs to want Chinese intervention, and reasons not. But as an individualist Westerner, I consider consent to be one of the most important virtues in society, and China is radically altering (if not erasing) Uyghur land and culture without any consent on the part of the Uyghurs. In my view, it's just the same imperialism and colonialism that the West has been doing for centuries. Do you agree? What did I get wrong?
Not at all, on the contrary, I was pointed out that even wikipedia doesn't call it a genocide anymore.
Not to me, because whenever I look on xiaohongshu for uyghur content there is a lot to find there. The street signs have both uyghur and chinese letters, uyghur is taught in schools, people can practice their faith, I don't see this erasure at all. Whole-ass street festivals where uyghur people celebrate with their food and music, broadcast on a chinese app aimed mainly at chinese people.
Who is "they" in this case? The government of china underwent multiple radical transformations. I wouldn't think that the china of today has the same goals as the china of even 50 years ago. Or do you mean the people of china? I am not aware of any popular hateful sentiment towards uyghur people. Shouldn't there be a lot anti-uyghur propaganda around to rally the han chinese against the uyghurs? Granted I'm not super prolific on chinese media, I occasionally go to xiaohongshu but it would be pretty convincing evidence if there was a governmental campaign to rally hate amongst the han chinese against the uyghur people.
Why do they need erase the culture of the uyghur people to get access to the natural resources there? The extending of borders doesn't make sense to me, xinjiang is already a part of the republic? And who benefits from all this? A genocide is a massive operation, no one undertakes genocide unless they don't expect immense profits from it. E. g. during the holocaust it was companies like IG Farben, Bayer, Lufthansa, Siemens, Rheinmetall and so on. Also what was the spark that set it off? The reporting is just like, nothing prior to like 2019 or so, suddenly genocide, then some backtracking and now radio silence again.
And that's what most people understand under genocide. Also the forcible sterilisation would fall under the ICC definition but aside from that one legal opinion from like 5 years or so is there anything new on that? What about the 1 million people in detention have they been freed? Like I see these articles like this one again after a couple years now and they seem even less credible, just really bombastic flashy effects but at it's core, just some satellite images showing like 3 or 4 construction sites to prove abductions of hundreds of thousands, that's the thing that gets me. Hundreds of thousands. That's a massive massive operation, I would expect more evidence and local resistance groups and aid networks and so on...
So no genocide in Xinjiang? Or are we going by another definition of genocide?
On 1. yeah I should have clarified sorry. After the TikTok exodus I got curious and had a look
On 2. I think it was this comment that had a lot of vital background information, like e.g. that the sufi terrorist attacks that started this whole ordeal were US-backed and orchestrated. That they were doing in Xinjiang what they had previously done in Afghanistan with the mujaheddin. Other links are compiled by davel for instance here.
On 3. I had the exact opposite reaction lol. When reading Marx and Lenin I thought it such a natural way of looking at the world. I remember reading "Wagelabor and capital" I thinking that the individual observation weren't a great new insight (when demand down then price go down as well who knew?) but put together they formed a new understanding of the world. Looking at stuff like the reserve army of labor gave me a whole new perspective of the world how I relate to society etc.
Part of that is because being christian with a protestant upbringing I had to repeatedly synthesize contradictions. Evolution vs creationism being one of the bigger ones. Lately I'm on veganism vs carnism and speciesm practiced by Jesus himself which might be the one that does it in if I'm to be honest. It's of course not helped by the fact that all the churches around here are turbozionist so I feel completely estranged from what I used to consider my community. But the whole idea of holding two contradictory concepts and instead of rejecting one or the other marrying them and forming a new understanding of both was something I had already done pretty much all my life.
It completely reshaped my understanding of nazi germany for instance, from one where the nazis were evil because they just hated minorities and people who thought different, to the nazis were the evil expression of the capitalists. The reason the nazis were able to gain power is because they got bankrolled by the industry leaders and the reason the industry leaders bankrolled them is because they were reeling from the aftermath of world war 1 and because they were deathly afraid of a communist revolution in Germany akin to the ones in the soviet states. Taking it further and seeing that the holocaust was basically capitalism at work, that it was animal agriculture applied to humans, made me go vegan in a snap. It all was a smooth transition once I had to break with western media which started with the Xinjiang propaganda campaign until I was a vocal vegan marxist.
On 4. I don't know where you got that from, genocide is a material act. The liberal classifications of race and ethnicity are idealist of course but the result, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine for instance, is material reality. A hypothetical AES (emphasis on the A) state wouldn't classify people by race and ethnicity since they are idealist constructs. However people being part of different cultures is also material reality. That some people will identify as "Uyghur" while others won't and that this shapes their actions and how they relate to themselves and others is also real. There of course are genocides by states that purport to be socialist. E.g. the khmer rouge, Luna Oi has a great video about them here, but I would say that a state that takes their socialism seriously wouldn't commit a genocide, there is no incentive to.
Thanks for sharing all that. I think you and I have a lot in common, actually. I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, and never really felt close to that community. I've always felt like an outsider as well, but I think we diverge in that I identify with my outsider-ness and appreciate the freedom of individuality. But I also identify as an introvert, happier on my own or with close friends than with large groups or strangers. I wonder if there's some overlap there? Do you consider yourself introverted or extroverted?
Look at this guy. Same logic would be used to say no Native American or Palestinian genocide either.
I am sorry, but I don't buy it for a second.
I don't follow? We have way more evidence of both genocides, both of the actions, mass killings, child abductions etc., as well as propaganda campaigns to stoke hatred and fear. Neither group is very free to practice their religions and culture, facing harassment and red tape etc. I don't see the parallels at all.
I'm not looking to convince, I'm just giving my POV as asked. These were the types of questions I saw the tankies be able to answer and that's what ultimately convinced me that the whole thing is just a US propaganda psy-op. Back in like 2019-2020 I was breathlessly reading "Der Spiegel" articles about systematic rape of uyghur women in prisons and bought into it wholesale. I got flipped, so to speak, in 2023 or so. So what I'm portraying here is what people that want to "flip" me back are up against.
No proof, a psyop, you believe tankies!? Oh my God.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Hard_Campaign_Against_Violent_Terrorism
Westerners deciding to crack down on Muslims equals bad but Chinese equals good. If you think there is logical consistency with tankies you got another thing coming.
Are you surprised the world is not making a bigger deal out of Muslim suppression? Not me, par for the course.
There is almost no proof of the Native American Genocide so I guess it must have never happened. Looks like the natives are doing just fine with their casinos!
So dumb it hurts.
And then you deny the rapes!? What in the literal fuck is wrong with you.
Oh you are just playing devil's advocate as a pretend tanky!?
https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/allegations-of-shackled-students-and-gang-rape-inside-china-s-detention-camps
Sure no proof except countless stories. The thing is this is human nature. Be it detention or "reeducation" rape always goes hand in hand. It doesn't matter where in the world you are. This is the injustice of concentrating people.
See that's all I ever see from those looking to counter it, just outright smug dismissal and no actual argument. That's how they got me.
I'm sorry have you seen the reaction in the muslim world to the palestinian genocide? The only one making a "big" deal out of this so-called genocide are the countries hostile to china. And even they stopped caring about it in the past couple years.
Good lord what are you talking about?
This is how I know that you don't actually care to win other people over, or about the population of Xinjiang, you're just grandstanding, euphoric from your own intelligence. You declaring something stupid doesn't make it so. I found the "tankie" position far better researched on every topic. That's why I "joined" them. I made an account on hexbear, I post there regularly and I haven't seen geopolitical knowledge and analyses as in depth as they are there anywhere on the lib spaces. So I stayed, 3 years later and my position kept getting reaffirmed and reaffirmed by your kind.
from https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
more about the background of the atrocity propaganda from xinjiang https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
let me tell you right now before you go through the trouble of digging up more sources that I don't consider anything that Adrian Zenz has touched to be credible. The guy believes he is on a mission from god to destroy communism.
What am I talking about!? Denialism. I can show you pictures of Native Americans smiling and dancing. Can you please provide a sourced 2026 article with photographic evidence that proves that the Native Americans experienced genocide?
This is the bar tankies use and then if you do produce evidence they begin to discredit. They are not acting in good faith.
I don't care!? I am not the one using tanky talking points to dismiss human rights violation. So dumb it hurts.
Please extol tankies some more. It really shows your impartiality. I love the "your kind" as well. Openly admitting you a human rights violator apologist and a bigot is bold for sure.
Fact, China built concentration camps. Fact, China concentrated a specific population there. Fact, China violated human rights.
Please save me your tanky propaganda ramblings. You deny human experiences for your own benefit. You are a human rights abuser and apparently proud of it. This will be your tag here on Lemmy.