You are absolutely correct on the sources. This is why I don’t take any reports by westerners on Xinjiang at face value and, specifically, laugh at both the numbers they pull out of their asses and the more outrageous claims of what’s being done to 新疆人. (Similar to the bullshit that the 法轮大法 spouted about organ theft in Chinese hospitals. They made the mistake of naming one I could visit in person and check their claims … and not a single claim checked out. Not one. Beginning with the claim that the hospital was doing the organ theft in their basement. Peculiar, given the hospital didn’t have a basement.)

That being said, while the government here (yes, here) is nowhere near as apocalyptically comic book evil as it’s portrayed in western media or by its western opposing governments, it is by no stretch of any kind of imagination benevolent. It’s just run by people smart enough to take the long view: that understand you can’t keep your tight grip on power if people get so fed up with you that they’ll gladly suffer mass deaths as long as someone gets their hands on your throat.

And that’s where my other disbelief kicks in. “Vocational training program” sounds far too fucking wholesome for what these places likely are. I rather doubt they’re death camps. I don’t doubt they’re labour camps (insofar as American prisons using prisoners paid a pittance are labour camps; I suspect that’s the model in use). And I’m pretty certain that any “vocational training” is purely a side effect of the jobs they’re forced to perform in what is, essentially, prison. You know, the same kind of “vocational training” that prisons for profit in the USA provide.

That being said, going back to “nuance”, there’s a reason why this is happening and while not every person in the labour camps is there justly, I’d wager most of them are.