u/YallidaritySiempre - originally from r/GenZhou
Consider what “forceful assimilation” is and whether it actually works for whatever goal is trying to be accomplished. We don’t have to pretend every State is a rational actor but what exactly would be achieved by punishing people for…not being Han Chinese I guess?

I’ll take you come from the States since you mentioned NPR. When places like NPR, Buzzfeed, or the Economist try to discuss the “question” at hand, it’s absurd that there isn’t presentable evidence readily available for perusal. For example headlines about a company “operating in an area ‘sanctioned by the U.S. government’” is not an endorsement or validation of the govt’s position. Simply reporting the truth, that the US govt has a designation on the area…sort of like they had a terrorist designation for the East Turkistan Islamic Party which operates in the area (and suicide-bombed Kabul last November) up until the year 2019…when I assume they discovered some form of geopolitical leverage that comes from attempting to stir up internal strife as well as publicly damage the US’s so-called “enemy number one.”

There’s an inherently pro-American bias to media b/c that’s what society is propagandized for, but from a strictly (and I hate this word) realpolitik view…is it not sensible that the world’s current preeminent superpower - which is facing its own domestic issues - is more invested in maintaining its geopolitical throne and thwarting all rising powers by any means necessary?

If you’ve read through the reports that arise every 2-3 months, they’re genuinely not very convincing. Each story seems to point back to the same handful of “reports”, mostly made by a crackpot who hadn’t visited the region, testimonies from people that have changed, and constant “anonymous sources.” At this point, I can’t even get the exact story straight: is it a ‘cultural’ genocide so they “adapt” and live for the evil Han Chinese? Forced assimilation b/c ‘the evil CCP can’t stand non han culture’? Or is it a literal genocide where there are undoubtedly millions (?) of bodies that had been killed and then…hidden away from view but just never captured by any verifiable sources? Or is it mass imprisonment and surveillance for slave labor because somehow China needs more economic assistance despite that concept being anathema to a state that’s raised the living standards of hundreds of millions of people?

The US has pulled all these sleights of hand before, and we know the government will lie to achieve whatever goals it has. Whether it’s gathering witnesses to lie to congress, pretending there are WMDs present to destroy and control other countries, or simply to detract from domestic issues. All goals are in service of US supremacy.

1200 visitors from more than 100 countries between 2018-2020 didn’t find much. Perhaps the great US spy machine, one that is active domestically and abroad, has all the evidence to level the claims it wants and simply doesn’t want to share the information…but I’ve heard that before and when it came down to it the US did what it wanted, the human cost be damned. The US will fluster and bluster but as an organization they can only do so much in an official capacity without annoying their largest trade partner and so they rely on “independent” media to influence public opinion in the favor they find acceptable.

If you’d like, a group from Italy took a stab at deciphering the region. Italy itself was not one of the 23 signatories to the letter to the UN claiming some sort of genocide to be clear but it’s still an independent institute.

I’m open to convincing evidence—and the most convincing evidence I’ve got is that the US has a certified record in not giving a shit about things like human rights or the truth when they’re in the way of an objective, so when they US pretends to care about that it seems necessary to hold reservations.

https://eurispes.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/rapporto.en-xinjiang_2021.pdf

Here’s retired colonel Lawrence Wilkerson speaking about Xinjiang in 2018 at the Ron Paul InstituteIgnore the title of the video

I also acknowledge abuses can occur on an individual level, since no human-to-human interaction is without prior experiences and even prejudices. There’s a decent chance someone who is from Xinjiang or a surrounding province could come in with bias against a certain ethnic or religious group, especially after the deaths of dozens of people as recently as 2014 in rounds of terrorist attacks. Someone upset to this day about these events shouldn’t be able to work their way into law enforcement or official administration to settle a vendetta, but I don’t deny it’s possible.