The treatment of the Uyghur people of Xinjiang Province under Chinese rule is a major talking point in diplomacy. There is a more nuanced view.

Dan Steinbock is a widely published international commentator and the founder of the Difference Group. In mid-2021, he published an extended, systematically detailed review of the American initiation of a genocide accusation directed at China, entitled: Playing Genocide Politics: The Zenz-Xinjiang Case. It begins by making two key points. First, the case made and intensified by a willing Western media relies to an extraordinary degree on a single, remarkably unchallenged source, the German researcher Adrian Zenz. Next, this flimsy, amplified case mocks real genocide survivors.

Steinbock builds a detailed argument linking Zenzs Victims of Communism group with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations founded by Nazi Germanys Minister of the East, Alfred Rosenberg, in 1943. The dot-joining explaining the Zenz debacle highlights the roles of a wide range of like-minded Sinophobic organisations including the Jamestown Foundation, the Turkish Grey Wolves, varied US-supported Uyghur groups and the CIA.

Steinbock concludes with comments based on the recent work of Jeffrey Sachs and William Schabas: The charge of genocide should never be made lightly. Washingtons rejection of top legal experts for a far-right, ultra-religious crusader is a frightening precedent. When the word genocide is exploited without a solid legal basis, the very designation is politicized and diluted.

You can read the full report here.