McCaul Disputes The Economist’s Claim There Is No Genocide Against Uyghurs
Washington, DC – House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul is disputing the claim made in The Economist Leaders section that the CCP’s atrocities against Uyghurs and other minorities do not amount to a genocide. Below is a statement from Lead Republican McCaul as well as background information detailing exactly why these crimes amount to a genocide under the United Nation’s Genocide Convention.
“The Economist is wrong: the Chinese Communist Party is clearly committing a genocide against the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities as defined by the Genocide Convention. And while The Economist’s intentions were hopefully not to serve as genocide apologists, the CCP will certainly use their inaccurate headline to continue to excuse their genocide. Reliable international media outlets have played a pivotal role in exposing the horrors happening in Xinjiang. It’s incredibly unsettling to see one make excuses for those same horrors.”
BACKGROUND
NOTE: The Convention says “any” of the following acts constitute genocide. It does not require all of these to occur in order for a genocide to happen. The actions by the CCP meet most of them.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, of which China is a signatory, defines genocide as:
“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…
- Chairman Xi Jinping told CCP party leaders to “be as harsh as them and show absolutely no mercy” with regards to the Uyghurs.
- There has been the CCP’s clear intent to destroy the Uyghur culture and people and assimilate them into traditional Chinese culture against their will. CCP officials have portrayed Uyghurs as “malignant tumors,” compared their faith to a “communicable plague,” and said “you can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops in the field one-by-one; you need to spray chemicals to kill them all.”
“…as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
- According to detainees’ stories in news reports, newborn Uyghur babies are being murdered.
- In addition, according to detainees, Uyghurs have been disappeared never to be seen again or murdered.
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- According to former detainees, treatment and conditions in the concentration camps include “factory labor, crowded and unsanitary conditions, food deprivation, beatings, and sexual abuse.”
- The CCP has destroyed more than 100 Uyghur cemeteries and thousands of religious sites.
“(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;
- Uyghur women are being forceable sterilized and subject to forced abortions.
- Birth rates in Uyghur majority regions dropped 60% between 2015 to 2018.
- Birth rates in Xinjiang dropped 24% in 2019 alone, compared to 4.2% nationwide.
“(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
As a reminder to The Economist who noted the late declaration of the Rwanda genocide as further proof, President Clinton has referred to his failure to act during the Rwandan genocide as one of his biggest regrets.
In addition, this is not a partisan issue. The State Department has called the CCP’s crimes genocide, as has the current Secretary of State Tony Blinken, saying there was “no doubt.”
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