My dismissal of the supposed “genocide of Russians in eastern Ukraine” doesn’t come from sources denying it, it comes from the sources claiming it not providing compelling enough evidence that it’s happening. To me, individual testimonies aren’t enough to determine there’s a genocide, and that’s really all the evidence available in the case of Xinjiang pointing towards genocide.
The Uyghur minority was, firstly, excluded from the single child policy precisely because they were a minority, and in this period acquired the majority status in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. A wave of ISIS related terrorist attacks stroke China in the 2000s and early 2010s, and the government reacted to it by doing a big reeducation campaign in the Xinjiang province which, with its significant Muslim population, was the region where most attackers came from.
This reeducation, mostly consisting of vocational training (also linked to the Belt and Road initiative going through Xinjiang, and the development of the region), was compulsory for many. In the west this looks morally abhorrent, but to Chinese people, it’s not so strange a concept. Many Chinese people spend their teenage years in boarding schools in which they study from 9 to 9 and in which they sleep, so living in an education center isn’t that big of a deal in many Chinese people’s opinion.
As of 2022, the reeducation campaign finished, the camps were closed, and life returned to normal in Xinjiang. Even western state sources like BBC confirmed the closure of the camps, of course with their rhetorical “but at what cost / what’s next”.
The “evidence” of genocide, as per the International Amnesty inform (the most trustworthy source in my opinion), again consists of “anonymous interviews”. I don’t doubt there have been cases of police abuse (ACAB after all), but extending that to the definition of genocide is hurtful to people suffering actual, demonstrable genocide such as Palestinians.
Lastly, I’ll respond to this:
what you mean by material evidence - things like photographs or 1st party accounts?
Essentially information that can be falsified in nature. Pictures can be proven to have been taken at a location and time and to be unedited. Data (such as that of the Ministry of Health of Gaza) including names and identification of actually demonstrably existing people. What I don’t consider material evidence are things that aren’t falsifiable, such as testimonies (especially anonymous ones), reports of the type “it seems/it has been seen”…
My dismissal of the supposed “genocide of Russians in eastern Ukraine” doesn’t come from sources denying it, it comes from the sources claiming it not providing compelling enough evidence that it’s happening. To me, individual testimonies aren’t enough to determine there’s a genocide, and that’s really all the evidence available in the case of Xinjiang pointing towards genocide.
The Uyghur minority was, firstly, excluded from the single child policy precisely because they were a minority, and in this period acquired the majority status in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. A wave of ISIS related terrorist attacks stroke China in the 2000s and early 2010s, and the government reacted to it by doing a big reeducation campaign in the Xinjiang province which, with its significant Muslim population, was the region where most attackers came from.
This reeducation, mostly consisting of vocational training (also linked to the Belt and Road initiative going through Xinjiang, and the development of the region), was compulsory for many. In the west this looks morally abhorrent, but to Chinese people, it’s not so strange a concept. Many Chinese people spend their teenage years in boarding schools in which they study from 9 to 9 and in which they sleep, so living in an education center isn’t that big of a deal in many Chinese people’s opinion.
As of 2022, the reeducation campaign finished, the camps were closed, and life returned to normal in Xinjiang. Even western state sources like BBC confirmed the closure of the camps, of course with their rhetorical “but at what cost / what’s next”.
The “evidence” of genocide, as per the International Amnesty inform (the most trustworthy source in my opinion), again consists of “anonymous interviews”. I don’t doubt there have been cases of police abuse (ACAB after all), but extending that to the definition of genocide is hurtful to people suffering actual, demonstrable genocide such as Palestinians.
Lastly, I’ll respond to this:
Essentially information that can be falsified in nature. Pictures can be proven to have been taken at a location and time and to be unedited. Data (such as that of the Ministry of Health of Gaza) including names and identification of actually demonstrably existing people. What I don’t consider material evidence are things that aren’t falsifiable, such as testimonies (especially anonymous ones), reports of the type “it seems/it has been seen”…