An Updated Genocide Charge
This newly released report by the Newlines Institute in March of 2021 renews or updates the genocide charge against China, this time focusing on the state responsibilities rather than individual leaders. The conclusion is not surprising as Zenz is one of the contributors, providing numerous notes highlighting the key evidences. Like the previous report published by the Jamestown Foundation (hereafter the “Zenz report”), this 55 page document claims to be “the first independent expert application of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the ongoing treatment of the Uyghurs in China” written by (former) ambassadors, professors, lawyers, analysts and experts in international law, Chinese ethnic studies, human rights and genocide (a total of 32 contributors and consultants, all with a brief bio attached in the end).
Such a report (hereafter the “Newlines report”) certainly deserves public attention and I was no less excited than perhaps anyone else caring about the Xinjiang situation when I find it online.
Big Thunders, A Few Drops of Rain
Do you ever notice those days when we may hear loud thunders in the sky but only followed by a few drops of rain? You do not get to see them in the SF Bay areas but in Nanchang, Jiangxi where I grew up it is not unusual, especially in the hot and humid summer time. Thunders normally promise a big rain, which is good news because the temperature will be cooler at least for a short while. Thunders without rain however are only disappointment.
The Newlines report strikes me like one of those “dry thunders.” Although its format looks more professional than the Zenz report, with as many as 317 notes and citations along the way, and although the report claims upfront that “(w)e believe the conclusions are clear and convincing.” I find its limited number of verifiable evidences not convincing. As a review report, it offers little new evidence than we already know, like the Karakax List and the China Cables. It also tries to combine both genocide and forced labor accusations into one place.
What Weakened The Newlines Report
A high quality and trustworthy report requires more than separate knowledge points like international treaty on genocide. It needs to get basic facts right and then place these facts in their contexts, connected by analyses and airtight logical reasonings that can lead to solid conclusions beyond reasonable doubts. Simply put, it must convince the readers by its contents, especially strong evidences, not by its covers, titles or credentials — at least not only by those.
I did not see a case with strong, verifiable facts, nor analyses that examine facts in their appropriate contexts despite its contributors’ shiny resumes. I would give a letter grade “C” for the Newlines report, even lower than the “B-” I am willing to give to the Zenz report. The latter rested largely on analyzing the Xinjiang Statistical Yearbooks, preventing it from drawing totally baseless conclusions. The Zenz report would have received a “B” easily had it not added evidences outside the Statistics Yearbooks that were embarrassingly and verifiably wrong, such as confusing a birth control percentage figure with per mille (or per thousand).
This time the Newlines report has drawn its conclusions mostly from victims’ words, governmental documents, news media reports and citations from like-minded authors. In general, one is better off reading the Wikipedia pages covering the same topics, which are known to be more balanced, relying on authors and sources from different sides and perspectives, at least trying to be neutral and objective on the issues covered.
It is highly likely that this “independent” report never aims to be like a Wikipedia page. Instead, the whole thing smells like a CIA internal mobilization campaign paper with an implicit goal of regime change, given its focus on state responsibilities on the most serious charge of genocide. I am sure some will find the report useful and convincing, just not for my personal crusade of trying to understand what is really going on in Xinjiang.
A Quick Overview of Genocide
The Newlines report contains sections on defining Genocide, but I find this Wikipedia wage doing a better and more complete job. Starting from the Article II of the Genocide Convention, genocide is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, 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.”
But genocide can be more broadly defined than the enumerated (a) to (e) under Article II. The Wikipedia page introduced Article III to cover “(a) Genocide;(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;(d) Attempt to commit genocide;(e) Complicity in genocide.” These were not discussed in the Newlines report perhaps because its authors only wanted to discuss tangible acts in Xinjiang.
The same Wikipedia page has listed several tried cases ranging from “mass killings of Kurdish people in northern Iraq,” “Jean Kambanda became the first head of government to be convicted of genocide” in Rwanda, “As of 2018, the case relating to Darfur, Sudan, opened in 2005, is the only pending investigation that is genocide-related.”
Interestingly, both China and the US (together with Myanmar) have been accused of genocide. For the US it was by Black American, the Civil Rights Congress, while for China by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (endorsed by Antony Blinken), Canadian Parliament and finally by the Newlines report.
The Central Issue of Intent
On Page 12, the Newlines report breaks Article II of the Genocide Convention into “three constituent elements: (1) the commission of a genocidal act or acts committed against (2) the protected group and (3) with the intent to destroy the group in whole or in part.”
I believe out of the three, the “intent to destroy” takes a pivotal position. Killing a part or whole of the targeted group does not automatically make a genocide, just as killing one or several members of a racial group does not necessarily make it an act of hate crime.
To see why, ask yourself this question: Without considering intent, which country would have been most likely charged genocide most often? The answer would have to be the US, because as the de facto international cop, the US often sees the needs to bomb or attack terrorist spot(s). In an attempt of doing that it has happened and will continue to happen that some innocent civilians (of the same national or ethnic group as the terrorists) may be killed or suffered from mental illness, down graded life condition and reduced birth — from acts (a) to (d) in Article II of the Genocide Convention.
On the other hand, the Trump policy of separating immigrants’ children from their parents would fit Item (e) of “Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Keep in mind that violating (e) alone, just like violating any other single item, is sufficient for bringing the genocide charge.
By the same token, the US sanction against Iran, Venezuela and anywhere else can all be called genocide, as long as it blocks foods and medical supplies from entering the sanctioned countries for civilians and militaries alike.
In reality, the US has never been accused genocide, despite its acts causing sometimes heavy civilian casualties in the targeted countries. What saves the US from the trouble is its intent. It is not that everybody believes the US is innocent of genocide — I am sure some are fully convinced that the US is guilty of that crime — but rather that everyone knows it is hard to prove the US wants to destroy the people inside the country, in whole or in part. Its sanctions are just the means to place pressures on the rulers and the states.
The other reason intent matters, as correctly pointed out by the Newlines report on Page 36, is “the Convention’s purpose to prevent genocide and safeguard the existence of human groups before their physical destruction occurs.” This also explains why Article III of the Genocide Convention puts conspiracy, incitement, attempt and complicity related to genocide all as a part of the atrocity crime.
The Challenge of Measuring State Intent
The problem with intents is that they are often perceived as subjective mental states. On Page 35 of the Newlines report, the authors point out that since they are accusing the Chinese state, the usual meaning of subjective state does not apply. Instead, intent will be “measured by objective standards: official statements; State policy; a ‘general plan;’ a pattern of conduct; repeated destructive acts; or a strategically planned policy, manifested in actions which had a logical and coherent sequence.”
The authors also point out that “China’s official reasons and goals behind its policies and conduct targeting the Uyghurs in XUAR…have no bearing on China’s obligations or corresponding responsibility for violations under the Genocide Convention.” In other words, just because China is in a “People’s War on Terror,” Beijing has no right to kill or to inflict damages to the Uyghur in any way as listed in Article II of Genocide Convention, even attempting it per Article III.
These all sound good except one problem: If the authors wanted us to believe using government document as the objective measure of the state intent, what if those documents never talked about killing or damaging the Uyghur, only the “three evil forces (terrorist, separatist and extremist)” per Beijing’s terminology?
This is a serious problem and the way the report solves it is simple. In order to place a valid charge of genocide against the Chinese state, throughout the report the authors have been quoting words from state documents such as “wipe them out completely … destroy them root and branch,” and “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins,” or “eradicating tumors” — as if they all referred to Uyghur, when in fact they all refer to the three evil forces if you see the full contexts of the documents.
The irony is that the authors had no choice but had to take words out of the contexts, otherwise there would be no genocide case to talk about. Their way of measuring state intent using government documents acts like a handcuff to themselves, preventing them from taking anything else other than the words (or policies, behavior patterns, general plans, strategies and the like) of state for the intent, given the latter as the only objective measures of the true state intent.
It’s The Contexts, Stupid
No offense intended as I am just paraquoting a famous US presidential campaign strategy here (without the ending exclamation), we do have a better way of assessing the true state intent. It is in fact a bad idea to only rely on the state documents or behaviors for measuring its intent. A better way is to add in or to bring back the contexts related to government documents /acts (e.g., events before the Beijing documents) to get a better picture of what has been going on in Xinjiang.
Taking contexts into account is nothing but common sense, and common sense is needed in interpreting law of treaties. On Page 13, the Newlines report cites Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) that “A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.” These simple words of “ordinary meaning,” “context” and “object and purpose” provide the much needed guidance for reading the Xinjiang case right.
Terrorism Had An Early Start In Xinjiang
As soon as we take the contexts into account, we will see a big problem with the Newlines report: It gets the background facts wrong and frequently takes words and deeds out of their contexts to fit the authors’ predetermined conclusions.
Page 16 of the report offered a perfect example how the authors have the basic background fact wrong: “…in the early 2000s, during which time Chinese authorities began referring to Uyghur dissident more frequently as ‘terrorism,’ despite an almost complete absence of terrorist attack.”
This basically says terrorism was something made up by Beijing as an excuse to crack down the Uyghur. To find if that was the case, we only need to read this Wikipedia page on Xinjiang Conflicts. It tells us how early the problems of terrorism and separatism in Xinjiang started. No need to wait until “early 2000s” as the authors suggested, as the first well known terrorist incidence occurred in the Karen Township riot, which the Wikipedia called a “terrorist attack and armed conflict that took place between Uyghur militants and Chinese government forces in April 1990.”
Interestingly, the above Wikipedia page provided separate accounts, one by Chinese and another by Uyghur, of the riot. It is the latter that revealed more behind scene plotting: “On April 5, 1990, in Kizilsu’s Akto county and in the township of Barin (Baren), Zeydin Yusup, the leader of the East Turkistan Islamic Party, led a protest with around 200 men” demanding for an end to the mass immigration of Han Chinese into Xinjiang.
The attack was well documented by the premeditated entity. “The Turkistan Islamic Party mentioned the Barin (Baren) Township riot in issue 1 of its magazine, Islamic Turkistan, in an article about the region’s history. The third issue of its magazine commemorated the death of Zeydin Yusup (Dia al din bin Yusuf), the TIP member involved in the Barin Township riot.”
Another separatist and terrorist attack, this time three bomb explorations in three bus lines, came to the capital city of Urumqi in 1997. It claimed nine deaths including at least three children and injured another 28. Again, “Uyghur separatists had committed the bombings” according to the Wikipedia.
Clearly as early as 1990, terrorist and separatist attacks were not “completely absent” as the authors said. The danger was real because the attacks were motivated and premeditated by organized terrorists and separatists in the Turkistan Islamic Party, which according to this Wikipedia page, “is an Islamic extremist organization founded by Uyghur jihadists in Western China, considered broadly as a terrorist group. Its stated goals are to establish an independent state called East Turkestan replacing Xinjiang.” The same Wikipedia page also tells us that the “UN Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee has listed ETIM as a terrorist organization since 2002.”
Why Beijing Waited Till Early 2000s?
If terrorist attacks started in the 90’s, why did China start referring the attacks as terrorism in the early 2000s but not earlier like the Newlines report has said? The reason is simple: Beijing has been watching Washington far more closely than people in this country recognized, even people in Washington. Now, following the terrorist attacks in New York and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the US launched its “War on Terror” and Beijing simply followed suit.
Now, this could be read in two ways. One is that Beijing is opportunistic and even though terrorism was not a big threat in China, Beijing decided to seize the window of opportunity to crack down the Uyghur — the story that the Newlines report would like us to believe. The other possibility is that Beijing had faced terrorism for years and finally decided to join the US launched global war and do its part.
Once again, only context will tell us which interpretation is real and right. From the above section we can see clearly that the second is more reasonable.
What Happened In Shaoguan 2009?
One more story to tell that differs significantly from how the Newlines report has told us. The latter cited an original, well written report by the Guardian reporter Jonathan Watts on July 10, 2009, but then claimed that the Shaoguan incident in June 2009 was caused by “Uyghur discontent with discriminatory policies and early forms of forced migration to inland China that resulted in the deaths of Uyghurs in Shaoguan, Guangdong” After reading the original story of Watts, I find a textbook example of miscitation because Watts said nothing about “discriminatory policies” against Uyghur, nor “forced migration to inland China.” I know it because I searched those terms in the “Watts report” and it returned 0 to me. The only words I could find were “deaths” and “Uighurs” or “Uighur migrants.” Responsive authors should respect the work of others, and the easiest way to show your respect is not turning one’s own opinions into theirs, even implicitly.
What Watts did say in his report was that “As the Han have flowed into Xinjiang under the government’s Go West policy, some of its population has been nudged east by the declining environment in Xinjiang, government incentives and the lure of a modern life.” “Typically, they sign a one- to three-year contract then travel to factory dormitories in the humid, semi-tropics. Monthly pay ranges from 1,000 yuan to 1,400 yuan, on a par with local workers, but many get the additional benefit of free bed and board.”
The report also revealed some biased, unfavorable views of Hans toward the Uyghurs, which to this day have contributed to racial discrimination against the Uyghurs in China. “‘The Xinjiang people have a low level of civilization,’ said a local shop owner. ‘They ordered beer and refused to pay for it. They pushed and shoved people who passed them on the street, and they chased and harassed the girls all the time.'”
“He said there was a rumor that Uighurs raped at least two women before the factory fight. One of the women killed herself afterwards, he said. ‘The Xinjiang men weren’t punished. There is a different set of rules for them.'”
“The government denies there were any rapes, but the allegation is repeated by almost all of the 20 or so local people the Guardian spoke to, including a policeman who said the government was covering up an incident that could incite racial tensions.”
Social Stability Above Everything Else?
Reading the Watts report reminds me of my previous blog showing a story told by a Chinese overseas student in the US. He and his parents were harassed by the Xinjiang police after he uploaded to the Facebook the bloody pictures of Uyghurs beating the Hans on the streets of Urumqi on July 5 of 2009, because Beijing did not want to let the world know the true story in Xinjiang, fearing that those pictures would provoke more violence, above and beyond the reportedly 197 deaths, mostly Hans on the Urumqi riot on July 5th. This coverup effort was confirmed by this Wikipedia page as “communication black-out.”
While China frequently follow suit of the US for things, Beijing is not Washington. One of the biggest differences is that the former spends far more resources on maintaining domestic social stability, while the latter more on global stability.
In order to maintain social stability, Beijing is willing to lie, to suppress different voices from the grassroot — even when they attempt to tell the true story. The result is lost creditability of the state. My hypothesis is that Beijing sometimes is willing to give the Uyghurs favorite treatment, as long as they stop making trouble for Beijing.
Better stop here to avoid making this blog too long. Will make changes later. Have to get ready for boys’ soccer Berkeley to San Diego State at 7 tonight. I missed girls game yesterday (thought it was today in the afternoon just like the last time. Almost hit myself when I found out the date!)