Link: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-idea-of-the-uyghur-genocide-and-the-realities-of-xinjiang/

Of Mosques and Men

Early into the campaign against China, scholars such as Zenz began to accuse the government not of genocide per se, but of “cultural genocide”—namely, the crime of erasing the cultural world of a people. Two accusations should be taken seriously: first, that there is a population decline amongst the Uyghurs and second, that there is an attack on mosques in China. According to the 2020 Chinese national census, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang grew from 10 million to 11.6 million, an increase of 1.6 million over the past decade. The data offered in the census show that the Uyghur population grew at 1.67 percent per year from 2000 to 2020, a growth rate double that of other ethnic minorities in China. With the poverty eradication program in full swing, it should be expected that this growth rate will not be maintained as families with higher incomes often choose not to have many children, and so it will be likely that the growth rate will decline. This is a normal process in human history known as the demographic transition. By 2020, poverty rates had fallen sharply in XUAR, Uyghur life expectancy has increased, and overall data on education and health has improved modestly but certainly improved. On the issue of attacks on mosques, there is very interesting data. According to the last official Chinese government source (the State Council white paper of 2016), there are 24,800 venues for religious activities in Xinjiang (and out of those, 24,400 mosques); this compares to fewer than 2,000 mosques in the 1980s. Leibold’s Strategic Policy Institute released a report in 2020 saying that 16,000 mosques had been damaged or destroyed, with only 15,500 still standing. This report was based largely on analysis of satellite imagery. Since the Australian report is largely without details, it is difficult to go mosque by mosque to verify its claims.

However, there is another interesting demographic detail that should be considered. There are 813,000 Muslims in Australia, and there are around 600 mosques in the country, which means that there is a mosque for 1,355 Australian Muslims. The Muslim population in XUAR is roughly 13 million (11.6 million Uyghurs), and, using 2020 data, with 24,400 mosques. This means that there is a mosque for every 533 Muslims, and, with the alleged reduction to 15,500, there is a mosque for every 839 Muslims. In both cases, the density of mosques in China’s XUAR is greater than in Australia, and in Australia there have been a spate of attacks against mosques, as well as campaigns to prevent mosques being opened (the most famous being the Bendigo and Ballarat mosques in the state of Victoria). No report about these atrocities came from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. In the United States, in constrast, attacks against mosques and prevention of the building of mosques have become normal, with elected officials on the record with statements against Muslims and particularly against Islam in the United States. No report about these atrocities has come from the Jamestown Foundation.

Wang Hui, who teaches at Tsinghua University, has argued that ethnic governance in China since the Reform and Opening period of 1978 has undergone a process of “depoliticization,” in which ethnic relations have been recast as problems of administration, development, and security. Political questions that involve historical difference, institutional pluralism, equality, and trust amongst peoples have been set aside. For Wang, ethnic relations cannot be reduced to technical problems — to poverty, insufficient integration, or extremism. Structural inequalities are obscured by this approach, which fails to see the political implications involved in ethnic relations: dialogue is necessary to build trust in a diverse country, and ethnic unity cannot be secured through technocratic management but only through recognition of cultural difference and substantive equality. This is a fundamental point, namely, that even though the development strategy has lifted millions of Chinese minority groups out of poverty, the lack of understanding and the lack of trust across populations must be dealt with politically. What this will come to mean in practice is not easy to imagine.

Wow. The response in this article to the evidence of forced sterilisations of Uighurs in this article is really, "ah but what detractors fail to take into account is that it's worked so well".

This community really has an apt title.

Uh, no. That was in no way their response.

You seem to have been spammed by the 'bad china' propaganda campaign. All bad stories about the enemies of the US, China, Russia, Iran etc, are being manufactured. The US Epstein class creates these stories to manufacture consent - anger - towards someone they want to attack and control. "Uighurs" and most other dramatic stories from any of these countries are either pure fantasy or exaggerated wildly to anger people in the West. US are currently running a war against first Russia, then Iran, all to try and control China's rise, and manufactured anger & hate legitimizes the violent actions from the Epstein class against competitors in the world. These wars were planned many years ago through 'both parties' in the US, so they are permanent foreign policy despite who is president, or which administration is in charge.

You don't have to agree with those causes - you can make up your own mind when you see how these campaigns are run, and start to see the clear opinion altering effects on ordinary people following mainstream corporate information feeds. Propaganda - like marketing - works, but on an entire population.

There is no evidence of forced sterilisations, fuck off

I guess you didn't read the article you posted. Because this is the response to the publically confirmed forced sterilisations section:

What is rarely mentioned in Western reports is the international support China has received on its Xinjiang policies. In July 2019, ambassadors from thirty-seven countries sent a joint letter to the President of the UN Human Rights Council commending China’s “remarkable achievements in the field of human rights” and noting that “safety and security has returned to Xinjiang” with “not a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang” in three consecutive years.

Ergo, it doesnt matter because some other states say it's great because there's fewer terrorist attacks since the sterilisations and other genocidal policies were applied.

Blocking this comm because it's just more propaganda - and not even thoughtfully examined, just accepted at face value.

Peace.

Didn't read??? Are you saying that not a single terrorist attack equates to forced sterilization or something??? What the fuck?

You believe that the US and our lackeys, who have been indiscriminately killing millions of innocent muslims around the world for decades, are a more trustworthy judge of the situation than the majority of muslim nations on earth? Be serious

Just lying at this point

Ergo

"It doesn't say what I want it to, so I'm just going to rewrite it so it does"