The Difficulty in Holding China Accountable for Genocide against the Uyghurs

Uyghur detainees, in April 2017. Photo source: Wikimedia

Since the Hague Convention of 1899, the protection of human rights has been a hot topic in the field of international relations. Being recognized as a vital part of development, institutions such as the United Nations and the ICC have been developed to guarantee they remain defended. Yet, China’s recent actions against their Uyghur population, a Muslim minority, is revealing a hole in the world’s ability to prosecute violations of human rights. Since the inauguration of Xi Jinping as the communist nation’s president, the Chinese administration has taken significant efforts against suppressing the Uyghur population. Countless Uyghurs have forcibly relocated to internment camps where they are being stripped of their culture and “re-educated” of their Muslim identity. Among reports include beatings, forced memorization of communist propaganda, and in extreme cases, sterilization. To make matters worse, what makes these blatant violations of human rights almost damning is that China has carefully orchestrated this “genocide” to not explicitly be a genocide, meaning that attempts to hold the Chinese administration accountable for their actions are nearly impossible.

To understand the tension between the Chinese administration and the Uyghur population, it’s essential to understand the history between the two and the Uyghurs’ geopolitical significance.

The Uyghur population has been a point of contention in Chinese society for well over a century. They are located in Xinjiang, the westernmost district of China which borders countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, whom they are more culturally similar than the dominant Han Chinese. This cultural difference is important to the Chinese administration because it complicates the communist government’s ability to control. Violence against the two ethnic groups has been on the rise since the early 2000s, where numerous instances of violence between the two ethnic groups have become frequent.

This struggle for control added with Xinjiang’s vital importance to Xi Jinping’s expansive economic project titled the Belt & Road Initiative makes the Uyghurs a target of Xi’s administration. The Belt & Road initiative is an economic project that aims to build trade infrastructure throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa to closely intertwine the continents economically to China. Xinjiang geographically acts as China’s gateway to the rest of the world, making control of the region a necessity for the Chinese administration.

The crackdown against the Uyghur minority began when Xi Jinping came to power. In the camps Xi Jinping built, there are reports of beatings, being forced to renounce their religion, and even the sterilization of women. Reports also include forced memorization and recitation of Chinese communist propaganda. According to a UN Human Rights panel, upwards of one million Uyghurs have been imprisoned in these camps.

The reports clearly demonstrate the orchestration of a genocide. Yet, what makes this extremely difficult for the international community to condemn is that China regards this as a domestic issue. After denying the existence of these camps, China admitted to their existence, designed for the purpose of re-educating Islamist extremists in an effort to fight domestic terrorism.

How does this violate their human rights, and what can be done about it? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, published by the UN in 1948 lays out an extensive list of human rights, which China reaffirmed in 1971. Article 9 which states, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile,” among many others, is the most blatant violation of the Uyghur population’s human rights.

Although there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate acts of genocide, the conditions of which this crime is occurring creates the biggest challenge in holding China accountable. The first problem is how the Uyghur population is not being physically destroyed, which technically doesn’t define this as genocide. The second issue is sovereignty. The Chinese administration has argued this to be a domestic affair, which international bodies do not have the authority to intervene on. The lack of evidence of a physical genocide further cripples what institutions like the International Criminal Court are capable of, whose main jurisdiction includes the crime of genocide. If the speculation of forced sterilization of Uyghurs is true, this is where the case can be made. The international community should make an effort to acquire hard evidence on this to authorize an ICC investigation. Without it, China cannot be condemned for the crime of genocide.

Xi Jinping’s carefully calculated efforts against the Uyghur identity have allowed China to avoid the crime of genocide while accomplishing the same goal. The international community must not remain complacent towards such an egregious act. It is imperative to find a way to hold the Chinese government accountable for its actions as to avoid a precedent being set for how nations can avoid the slippery definition of genocide while still committing it.

photo source: (source: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/09/01/china-must-give-the-un-immediate-and-unfettered-access-to-uyghur-camps/)