This week saw the head in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, largely culpable for the destruction of local culture under the mass securitization, roundups, and internment in Xinjiang. He is also guilty of similar offenses in Tibet, a formerly independent state invaded and annexed by the PRC, when he headed that region.

North Korea is also facing famine, amidst the rapid nuclearization of the totalitarian state. This has led to US criticism of the pushes within democratic South Korea to end the formal state of war with the North, all while Kim continues to amass a growing nuclear arsenal while his people starve.

Meanwhile in Myanmar, troops are alleged to have rounded up a group of dozens of civilians and massacred them before burning their corpses in an escalating civil war within the country as the military junta loses control.

The old UN definition of 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:

  1. Killing members of the group;
  2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

while fitting to describe what is taking place in Xinjiang with active cases of forced sterilization, internment in concentration camps, is still problematic to define what is taking place in Myanmar, where many of the victims are political dissidents but share ethnic heritage with the dominant Bamar group, or in North Korea, both of which would be better labelled cases of political genocide. Both have seen the systematic persecution and extermination of civilians, meant to purge the state of dissenting views.

Regardless of definition, it is worth highlighting the clear crimes against humanity taking place in the two states, even while Intel apologizes for offending China, simply for referencing sanctions against the region

Besides multinationals and international organizations such as the IOC, many in the media have been playing softball on the issues suggesting that the Xinjiang crisis is a mere interstate dispute with unclear facts, with Bloomberg bemoaning companies, “getting caught up in a geopolitical spat between two global powers,” rather than acknowledging criminality.

The evidence that there is an existing genocide taking place is incontrovertible, with the label applied for years to the crimes, before later being repeated by multiple officials from both American administrations, Republican and Democrat.

Within time, there will be a reckoning for those firms and people responsible for the cultural destruction, internment, and execution of the victims of these crimes. Before that date, those abetting the crimes of these regimes should think clearly about the value of their material or political gains, versus their eternal legacy as accessories to genocide.

 

Staff writer: Ari B

References:

https://www.axios.com/report-clear-evidence-china-genocide-uyghur-muslims-3c50f075-89c8-47c2-9506-9433e7d5a51a.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-23/chinese-pop-star-cuts-ties-with-intel-after-xinjiang-revelation?srnd=premium-asia

nytimes.com/2021/01/20/world/asia/china-genocide-uighurs-explained.html

The Xinjiang Crisis is Real – China’s War on Reality

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/myanmar-dozens-killed-in-alleged-military-massacre/ar-AAS95nR

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3161048/xinjiang-party-boss-and-us-sanctions-target-chen-quanguo-leave

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/35-gop-reps-warn-north-korea-must-denuclearize-before-peace-agreeme-or-there-will-be-disastrous-consequences