According to a report by the non-partisan US-based Newlines Institute, China has unequivocably violated all of these conditions. The report, titled “UYGHUR GENOCIDE: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention”, is the first independent examination of whether Chian has committed genocide against the Uighur ethnic minority.
It notes that, with government-mandated homestays (Han natives deployed to live in Uighur home as monitors), mass internment camps (under “de-extremification” regulations), mass birth-prevention strategies (forcibly sterilising Uighur women and interning Uighur men), the forcible transfer of Uighur children to state-run facilities, eradication of Uighur identity, community and community life, selective targeting of intellectuals and community leaders, China’s policies amount to an intent to destroy the Uyghurs as a group, in whole or in substantial part.
“This report concludes that the People’s Republic of China (China) bears State responsibility for committing genocide against the Uyghurs in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) based on an extensive review of the available evidence and application of international law to the evidence of the facts on the ground,” the report states.
The examination was conducted by recognized independent experts on international law, genocide, China’s ethnic policies, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
According to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a genocide constitutes any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. These include: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The report notes that under Article II of the Genocide Convention, the commission of genocide requires the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, [a protected group], as such.” “The ‘intent to destroy’ does not require explicit statements. Intent can be inferred from a collection of objective facts that are attributable to the State, including official statements, a general plan, State policy and law, a pattern of conduct, and repeated destructive acts, which have a logical sequence and result—destruction of the group as such, in whole or in substantial part.”
The report validates the US stance that China has been committing genocide—a charge China has strongly denied. The Chinese foreign minister on Monday said genocide claims “could not be more preposterous” and accused such claims of being rumours “fabricated with ulterior motives”.
“This report therefore concludes that China bears State responsibility for an ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs, in breach of the Genocide Convention,” ends the report.
In February, US President Joe Biden said China would pay for its human rights atrocities. In 2020, under President Donald Trump, the US blocked the import of certain goods from China over its mistreatment of Uighur Muslims in so-called “vocational” centres that have been dubbed slave camps.