In Chinese Police Files, ‘Overwhelming and Horrific’ Evidence of Xi Jinping Role in Genocide

At Antony Blinken’s January 19, 2021, confirmation hearing to be secretary of state, senators pressed him about the genocide being committed by the Chinese Communist government in the Xinjiang region of China.Senator Barrasso, a Republican of Wyoming, asked Mr. Blinken, “What do you plan to do within the first 30 days to address what Joe Biden has described as a genocide committed by the Chinese Government?”Mr. Blinken assured the senator, “on the Uighurs, I think we are very much in agreement. Forcing men, women, and children into concentration camps, trying to, in effect, reeducate them to be adherents to the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, all of that speaks to an effort to commit genocide.”Thirty days have long since come and gone, making it increasingly clear that what Mr. Blinken and President Biden have done so far to try to stop this genocide has been inadequate. Mr. Blinken himself conceded, in a statement issued over Memorial Day weekend, that in the Xinjiang region of China, “genocide and crimes against humanity are ongoing.”There is an “ongoing” genocide in China, 16 months into the Biden-Harris-Blinken administration. In a May 26 China policy speech, Mr. Blinken said, “The United States stands with countries and people around the world against the genocide and crimes against humanity happening in the Xinjiang region, where more than a million people have been placed in detention camps because of their ethnic and religious identity…. We’ll continue to raise these issues and call for change — not to stand against China, but to stand up for peace, security, and human dignity.”Lovely sentiment, but in practice, it looks more like sitting down than standing up. The Biden-Harris-Blinken administration will “continue to raise these issues and call for change” — and the Chinese Communists will continue to keep more than 1 million Uighurs and Kazakhs in concentration camps.At Mr. Blinken’s confirmation hearing, Mr. Barrasso introduced into the record a 2014 statement from Senator McCain opposing Mr. Blinken’s nomination, at that time, to be deputy secretary of state. McCain quoted Mr. Blinken’s October 6, 2014, remarks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum about “our commitment to prevent genocide and hold those who organize atrocities accountable.” And then McCain said, “I wish Mr. Blinken’s words were matched by his deeds.”McCain died in 2018, and he was talking then about Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine, not China. McCain’s own words, though, are again apt.What deeds would end the genocide so that Mr. Blinken could stop having to describe it as “ongoing”?The defeatists argue that America can’t do much because of the risk of war with China. Such a war would be militarily perilous — we could lose, and China could conquer Taiwan. A war could also be economically disastrous for America, given American consumers’ reliance on Chinese-made goods.In the long run, though, the risk of war with China will decline only when Communist Party rule there is replaced with freedom, democracy, and rule of law. In the short run, there are plenty of possible additional steps America could take. Such steps stop well short of outright war: They would, though, go well beyond Mr. Blinken’s current “raise these issues and call for change” approach, which doesn’t exactly have Beijing trembling.The first move would be for Messrs. Biden and Blinken to educate the American people about what is happening. In the old days that would have meant a prime-time television address with declassified satellite images and perhaps even American intercepts of Chinese communications about plans for perpetrating the genocide. In this case, though, while additional information wouldn’t hurt, it’s not strictly necessary. Days before Mr. Blinken’s big China policy speech, a trove of speeches, images, documents and spreadsheets were released at xinjiangpolicefiles.org. The website is a project of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, whose board is chaired by the founder and former president of the Heritage Foundation, Edwin Feulner. He is a Republican, but this is a bipartisan issue; Senator Merkley and Rep. Jim McGovern, Democrats who head the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, issued a statement reacting to the release of the files.“Newly-released files from a leaked police database highlight the role Xi Jinping and other top officials had in crafting the genocidal policies employed in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and demonstrate clearly that Turkic Muslims are detained because of their cultural and religious identity and not for any specific criminal actions,” Messrs. Merkley and McGovern said. “The evidence presented is overwhelming and horrific and cannot be ignored or pushed aside by the international community.”Once the American public grasps the “overwhelming and horrific” nature of what Mr. Blinken calls the “ongoing” genocide, the path clears for other steps, including a refugee resettlement policy that would help the genocide victims who want to leave escape from China. Call it Blinken’s List.

In Chinese Police Files, ‘Overwhelming and Horrific’ Evidence of Xi Jinping Role in Genocide

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