Mike Pompeo and “The Xinjiang Genocide Determination”

May 13, 2021

On 19 January 2021, his last day in office, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, issued a “determination” that “the PRC, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang”. On taking office, Pompeo’s successor Antony Blinken immediately agreed with this view.

There is now a substantial literature supporting Pompeo’s “Determination”, especially a long report called ‘The Uyghur Genocide’, put out by two explicitly anti-China organizations, one in the U.S., the other in Canada.

There have also been several reports challenging the “Determination”. One was anonymous, by authors stating in a footnote that they feared hate mail and losing tenure, gained some support and, as one who read it carefully, seemed to me to present evidence undermining the credibility of Pompeo’s charge of genocide. Well-known and reputable scholars like Jeffrey Sachs have added their voice to this point of view. The attached Report, however, analyses “The Uyghur Genocide” and is the most detailed and scholarly report so far questioning Pompeo’s “Determination”.

One item the report cites seems highly relevant to Pompeo’s own honesty in dealing with evidence.  In a question and answer forum in Texas on 15 April 2019, he is on record as saying “we lied, we cheated, we stole” when recalling his directorship of the CIA, laughing as he did so. He’d just said the main motto of his training as a cadet was not to lie, not to cheat, not to steal. Yet as CIA director, he thinks it’s a bit of a joke to do just those things. The audience applauded him, as though they also thought lying, cheating and stealing by the CIA was just part of the deal and a bit of a joke.

For decades the United States has stirred up trouble in Xinjiang in the form of terrorism and separatism, almost certainly part of an attempt to bring down the CCP. The charge of genocide is probably indeed part of an agenda, just as “The Xinjiang Genocide Determination as Agenda” suggests.

There are serious human rights abuses in Xinjiang. However, the Chinese claim that the camps are necessary for deradicalization and educating people to overcome poverty should be taken seriously. I recommend the attached report for showing the deficiencies in the case for genocide. In his “determination” Pompeo makes a direct comparison between the CCP and the Nazis. Although such a comparison is becoming quite common in the mainstream media, I regard it as ridiculous and malicious.

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