This post is being made in response to the `*discourse*` that has been going on around China and Xinjiang.
A lot of hedging on either side of this debate has to do with the definition of genocide. The whole “oh, there’s no mass killings, but maybe the situation fits the definition of cultural genocide,” and that sort of of rhetoric.
TL;DR what I’m going to try to do in this post is define genocide, what the history of that definition is and why it matters to this discussion, and show why it is not in anyway applicable to the situation in Xinjiang outside of its value as atrocity propaganda used to manufacture consent for some kind of intervention/war.
Part 1, Lets get into definitions
I’m going to be pulling a lot from the BadEmpanada video titled " The Problem with Genocide " for this part, and in the video notes he provides a good number of sources that you can follow if you want to do further reading on the history of this term.
The popular and commonly accepted definition of genocide is the mass murder of a specific ethnic, religious, or other marginalized group, in an attempt to eliminate that group. And in the popularly accepted definition, mass murder is considered to be an essential part of ruling something as a genocide or not.
The problem is that this definition of genocide is significantly altered and much more narrow from how it was originally defined. The term genocide was first coined by the polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. What caused him to become interested in defining a legal term for what we now call genocide was that he “noticed many historical instances of attempts to eradicate entire peoples or cultures, but there was no specific term for such acts. So he spent most of the 1930s trying to conceptualize a crime that would encompass them.” What he noticed is that these acts were unique in their motivation and scale, and that the group that carried out these crimes were themselves nation states, or in high offices within nation states, or were being carried out on behalf of an in the interests of the nation state or whoever was in the ruling party at the time. What this called for, Lemkin reasoned, was a law that was international in scope and could be enforced internationally, since any national law would simply be ignored by that ruling party that was carrying out the genocide.
As far as what actions would be included in the legal definition, Lemkin was very broad in defining what should fall under the umbrella of genocide. To quote Lemkin,
"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.
The following illustration will suffice. The confiscation of property of nationals of an occupied area on the ground that they have left the country may be considered simply as a deprivation of their individual property rights. However, if the confiscations are ordered against individuals solely because they are Poles, Jews, or Czechs, then the same confiscations tend to weaken the national entities of which those persons are members.
Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor."
“In the incorporated areas, such as western Poland, Eupen, Malmédy and Moresnet, Luxemburg, and Alsace-Lorraine, local institutions of self-government were destroyed and a German pattern of administration imposed. Every reminder of former national character was obliterated. Even commercial signs and inscriptions on buildings, roads, and streets, as well as names of communities and of localities, were changed to a German form. Nationals of Luxemburg having foreign or non-German first names are required to assume in lieu thereof the corresponding German first names; or, if that is impossible, they must select German first names. As to their family names, if they were of German origin and their names have been changed to a non-German form, they must be changed again to the original German. Persons who have not complied with these requirements within the prescribed period are liable to a penalty, and in addition German names may be imposed on them. Analogous provisions as to changing of names were made for Lorraine.”
“The Jews were immediately deprived of the elemental means of existence. As to the Poles in incorporated Poland, the purpose of the occupant was to shift the economic resources from the Polish national group to the German national group. Thus the Polish national group had to be impoverished and the German enrichsed. This was achieved primarily by confiscation of Polish property under the authority of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. But the process was likewise furthered by the policy of regimenting trade and handicrafts, since licenses for such activities were issued to Germans, and only exceptionally to Poles. In this way, the Poles were expelled from trade, and the Germans entered that field.”
source: Axis Rule in Occupied Europe," Raphael Lemkin 1941
And to sum up Lemkin:
“Thus, Lemkin defined genocide in terms of the violation of a nation’s right to its collective existence - genocide in this sense is quite simply the destruction of a nation. Such destruction can be achieved through the ‘mass killings of all members of a nation,’ or through ‘a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups.’”
source: Australia: A Continuing Genocide?," Damien Short 2010
What we can see from these definitions and descriptions is that there is no separation or distinction between genocide carried out via mass killings, and genocide carried out through means of “cultural genocide.” Lemkin made no distinction between these two things, and considered all of these as sufficient criteria for prosecuting something as a genocide. Methods of forced assimilation, destruction of local culture, language, national identifiers, as well as economic discrimination. Any of these actions were sufficient to rule something as a genocide on their own, with no need to be accompanied by mass killings.
At least, that is how Lemkin defined the crime, and that is the legal definition that he fought for when bringing the matter up to international bodies like the UN when he was advocating for genocide to be adopted as an international crime that was subject to UN backed intervention. Here is where definitions of genocide start to diverge.
Lemkin obviously prioritized having a criminal code for genocide that had international backing, otherwise it was unenforceable. This became a problem when a large number of UN member nations refused to sign off on any definition of genocide that included political, economic, social, and cultural marginalization of national groups as being categorized as a genocide, as well as techniques like forced assimilation of national groups to the cultural/legal/institutional norms of the dominant national group.
The reason for this push back is that UN member nations were concerned that a definition of genocide that categorized those things as genocidal could be used to prosecute their own governments for genocidal behavior based on how they treated national groups in their own borders as well as through colonial/neo-colonial influences.
Lemkin fought bitterly to keep these criteria in the “official” UN definition of genocide, but ultimately relented and accepted a definition that was much more limited in scope. This was because he needed enough nations to sign onto the declaration in order for it to be enforceable by an international body, and he figured that having a law with a very limited scope was better than nothing.
And this is where the modern definition of genocide comes from, and why “cultural genocide” is commonly considered to be a separate category rather than an essential criteria for classifying something as a genocide. It comes from a process where the criminals were allowed to define the crime, and therefore ensure that they could avoid prosecution.
This definition comes from the UN genocide convention in 1948, which limits the definition of genocide to the following:
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
(continued in the comments)
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We have a definition of genocide which makes almost no reference to cultural destruction, despite Lemkin considering cultural destruction as being a core component of his definition of genocide. He describes his involvement with drafting the UN convention in his autobiography:
“I defended [cultural genocide] successfully through two drafts. It meant the destruction of the cultural patter of a group, such as the language, the traditions, the monuments, archives, libraries, churches. In brief: the shrines of the soul of a nation. But there was not enough support for this idea in the Committee (…) So with a heavy heart I decided not to press for it.”
Part 2, why does this matter?
A lot of this conversation about how do you define genocide and what technically counts as genocide feels a lot like pedantry. “We know that genocide is bad, we don’t need to split hairs to call something bad.”
But this history is very important, and it’s important to understand both the crime of genocide, as well as all of the things that genocide encompasses, as well as understanding the motivation for why many nations would want to have a narrower definition for genocide in order to discuss how that shapes the narrative around genocide and our understanding of genocide.
So lets take a look at what crimes are being effectively buried and hidden from being prosecuted as a genocide that otherwise should be considered a genocide based off of the original, academic formulation.
America is chock full of these examples, as well as the colonial empires of the British, French, Spanish, Germans, and so on.
In no particular order, from America we have biological warfare against Native Americans, events like the trail of tears, systematically forcing native populations into “reservations,” indigenous schools designed to “Americanize” native children, paying settlers to go out and murder nearby native populations and paying for every scalp delivered. A lot of these actions would fall under the “official” definition of genocide, where members of the group were deliberately killed or physically destroyed, but those things happened “way in the past.” However, the isolation of large parts of the remaining native population into reservations which are basically slums with little to no access to economic development should absolutely be considered an ongoing act of genocide. Similarly, you have the apartheid that is American Black Codes and American Jim Crow that legally enshrined a segregated and second class status to black Americans that was ongoing and would continue for sometime afterward when the UN genocide convention was being drafted.
Some examples that were given by representatives that were a part of drafting the resolution:
Sweden noted that its forced conversion of the Lapps to Christianity might lay it open to accusations of cultural genocide.
Brazil warned that ‘some minorities might have used it as an excuse for opposing perfectly normal assimilation in new countries.’ (New countries in this context meaning settler colonial states)
South Africa endorsed the remarks of New Zealand, insisting upon ‘the danger latent in the provisions of article III where primitive or backward groups were concerned.’
Source: “Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes,” William Schabas
And then we have what is somewhat of a low hanging fruit when talking about the history of colonial regimes, which basically conducted themselves exactly in line with Lemkin’s definition of genocide. You militarily occupy a region, claim authority over the region as your colony, implement your own government and legal system that has two tiers for colonizers and the colonized, and impose that rule against the colonized and in exclusion to their own legal and social customs. And indigenous schools were a large part of enforcing this colonial rule on a social level as they were institutions that tried to scrub out any native identity and culture and enforce the colonial nation’s culture as the correct culture.
And lets take a moment to really interrogate what indigenous schools do, and why they relevant when talking about genocide, especially when using Lemkin’s definition. Indigenous schools at their core are an institution of forced assimilation. They take children and punish them for using their native language, punish them for wearing native styles of clothing, punish them for eating their traditional cultural dishes, and create an environment that creates deep shame for expressing any kind of cultural heritage. It’s a systematic process that forcibly takes an entire generation and tries to destroy any association they have with their parent’s culture, and in its place you teach them the colonizer’s language, the colonizer’s style of dress, the colonizer’s style of worship, the colonizer’s values, the colonizer’s mode of economic organization, the colonizer’s legal structure, and so on.
As a side note, this is also where the conception of cultural appropriation comes from. On its face, sharing music, styles of dress, cuisine, ideas of spirituality, and so on across cultures isn’t some nefarious thing. What makes something cultural appropriation is when you have this greater context of colonization and forced assimilation, where these national groups have their heritage forcibly torn away from them, ridiculed, and used as a signifier of “backwardness,” “savagery,” and marks them as a second class citizen, only for members of the dominant group to take that same heritage and commodify it as exotic novelties.
Part 3, Why does this context matter for talking about Xinjiang?
First, genocide is a powerful word with a lot of political weight behind it. Being able to declare something as a genocide is a powerful rhetorical tool, and is useful for manufacturing consent for war and other kinds of economic/political interventions. That’s the basis of atrocity propaganda as a tool for manipulating public opinion. Accusations of genocide and similar atrocity propaganda techniques are incredibly difficult to brush off regardless of how much evidence there is to substantiate those accusations, because any rebuttal to those accusations has a wide range of built-in “thought terminating clichés” that can be used to shut down dissent. Clichés like, “you’re just a genocide denier,” “why are you defending an authoritarian regime?” “but what if you’re wrong and we just let another holocaust happen under our noses!”
But as we’ve seen above, the official definition of genocide rejects the academic and historical context of genocide, and instead chose to define genocide in a political way. Specifically in a way that the UN nations who would otherwise be guilty of genocide could not be convicted, but that could still be used to prosecute their enemies. We see this play out all of the time not just with genocide, but in regards to human rights in general. Citations Needed has an excellent episode titled “The Human Rights Concern Troll Industrial Complex” That talks about the history of Human Rights groups and international courts almost exclusively weaponizing Human Rights violations as ways to penalize mainly formerly colonized nations in the global south, and are almost never used to punish the plethora of Human Rights abuses that occur in Western nations.
What this politicization of genocide creates is a warped conversation where events will try to be twisted in a way that can allow events to be classified as a genocide on a technicality for political purposes. That’s why you see a focus on coverage of Xinjiang focusing on things like increased access to contraceptives, because that could be twisted to fit the UN definition of “Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
But with the broader, more holistic, more academic definition of genocide, and with an analysis of the techniques of the historical genocides that definition was meant to encompass, we can get a better idea of this kind of genocide and see how the situation in China compares. First, and probably most importantly, would be the vocational schools.
What we know about these schools is that they were started in response a rash of extremist terrorist attacks in the region carried out by the East Turkmenistan Separatist movement. Many of those who were radicalized are people who were native to Xinjiang, left the region and fought on behalf of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and then returned home to Xinjiang still radicalized after ISIS was dissolved.
The stated purpose of these vocational schools is to offer populations at risk of radicalization, those who have already expressed radicalized intents, those who have participated in extremist movements such as ISIS and the East Turkmenistan Separatist movement, and those who have been convicted of crimes related to the above categories. The vocational schools have a focus on creating economic and political opportunities through job training, Mandarin language education, and with an overall focus on deradicalization and countering the narratives that are used in radicalization.
These schools are used as the primary evidence that China is carrying out a genocide in secret, with comparisons made to concentration camps and indigenous schools. But these arguments fall apart when interrogated. In historical genocides that we can compare to, concentration camps are at best a way to force a group into a status as a second class citizen, systematically remove them from higher levels of participation in government, social practice, and economic activity. At worse, they are used as part of a wider program of mass extermination. Not only do we not see these kinds of outcomes as a result of the Xinjiang vocational schools, we see exactly the opposite of what you would expect from a genocide. Those who attend the vocational schools end up with higher levels of social, political, and economic participation. They have expanded opportunities for employment and political participation, and social participation is developed through broader policies that invest in building places of worship, cultural centers, and general public development.
Similarly, comparisons to indigenous schools in colonial empires also fall flat. The kind of cultural destruction and forced assimilation carried out by indigenous schools requires at least a generation of grooming children from the moment that they reach school age until they reach adulthood, and only makes sense in a broader context of cultural suppression. The vocational schools, on the other hand, are adult education, the classes are offered in their native languages, and there’s no broader cultural suppression to suggest that “deradicalization” is actually some kind of euphemism for cultural destruction and forced assimilation. And far from being a generations long effort attempting to systematically destroy any association or connection you have with your heritage, these vocational schools were only in operation for roughly 2-3 years, with any given person attending for around a year on average, and with the last classes finishing up in late 2019.
And that idea about broader policy is the really damning bit. Genocide, cultural or otherwise, has never been a single isolated policy. You never just have concentration camps, you have an entire legal and social framework designed around promoting one national group over others. Yet in China you don’t see that pattern anywhere else. There are 55 recognized national groups that are all guaranteed proportional representation in government at both the local and national level. Cultural sites, places of worship, and the like aren’t being destroyed, on the contrary public funding is used to help build places of worship and preserve cultural landmarks. Native languages aren’t suppressed and scrubbed from public life, on the contrary public spaces are accessible by native language speakers, public signage is multi-lingual, government services are available in your native language, including the right to an education in your native language. Economic opportunities and wealth isn’t being stripped away from any of these groups, on the contrary their economic livelihood is constantly being invested in.
There is no other policy that could establish the pattern of genocide that any other historical genocide has exhibited, and therefore nothing to suggest that Xinjiang schools are actually part of a genocide as opposed to the stated goals of deradicalization through education. There isn’t even the argument that this is a stepping stone that will lead to further repression, because the program has already concluded and is considered to be a success, having ended in 2019 after the rate of terrorist attacks and extremist inspired violence dropped to zero. If this were actually some form of brutal repression instead of the education and job training it is claimed to be, then you would expect to see an increase in radicalization and extremist inspired violence in response to fierce government repression, but we end up seeing precisely the opposite.
The only reason left for alleging that there is a genocide, cultural or otherwise, or that there is a pattern of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, is that those allegations help to advance US foreign policy interests in the same way that “Saddam has WMDs” did.
And you will even have state department officials admit to this in certain company, it’s not like they’re exactly shy about their intentions. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson gave a speech that lends credence to this idea that separatist violence and extremism has been cultivated and instigated by the US specifically as a way to destabilize China as part of the strategic objectives of the US military, and weaponizing the response to extremist violence in the media in order to control the narrative is a natural extension of this kind of warmongering.