What’s the Right Course of Action?

Speaking of the world’s worst regimes, I’m glad to see the editors of the Washington Post taking a stand on the Chinese regime’s treatment of the Uighurs:

Up to 1.1 million people, or 11.5 percent of the Uighur population between the ages of 20 and 79, are believed to be held in the camps. There they are forced to renounce the Muslim religion and Uighur language, and memorize and recite Chinese characters and propaganda songs. The “vocational training” is actually forced labor. Torture and deaths are common. Thousands of children have been separated from their parents and placed in a separate network of orphanages.

A Canadian parliamentary report issued last month echoed others in saying that “what is happening to Turkic Muslims is unprecedented in its scale, technological sophistication and in the level of economic resources attributed by the state to the project.” Yet thanks to China’s growing power, global reaction has been muted. Muslim nations have been shamefully silent, and while some Western democracies have spoken up, the Trump administration has also largely ignored the issue.

The vacuum in Washington should be filled by Congress. Bipartisan legislation that would create a special coordinator to respond to the Xinjiang crisis and prepare the ground for sanctions on Chinese officials involved in the repression failed to pass the last Congress. It should be promptly taken up this year.

even if it’s as weak sister a response as that. I’m a bit curious. If the editors had known about the German concentration camps in the 1930s and 1940s, would they have recommended a “special coordinator”?

I recognize it’s hard for them to get their heads around but the reality is that the Chinese authorities basically don’t give a damn about anyone who isn’t Han Chinese and barely about those who are. If racist, repressive, and murderous isn’t enough to warrant a full-throated condemnation, what is?

In response to their whining about “Muslim nations”, the unity of Islam has been, shall we say, greatly exaggerated. Arab countries don’t much care about anyone who isn’t an Arab and Saudi Arabians barely consider anyone who isn’t a Saudi an Arab. Anything else is just for the cameras.