[pessimizer]

Exactly. This is the period when Muslim ethnic groups like the Uigurs were being rounded up on any pretense to be reeducated into not wanting to be separatists anymore (often with no indication that they had anything to do with separatism other than their ethnicity.) Seeing the VPN pop up was more than enough of an excuse. Calling it a "genocide" is 99% propaganda, but it was obviously a sinofication meant to get rid of separatist identities and cultures, and a horrible injustice. In the beginning, they were inspired and immunized by the US's anti-Muslim fervor during the GWB invasions (we were not only not criticizing, but probably even sharing intelligence with China.)

[l3mure]

> In the beginning, they were inspired and immunized by the US's anti-Muslim fervor during the GWB invasions (we were not only not criticizing, but probably even sharing intelligence with China.)

Yeah, seems to be overlooked quite a lot since it's convenient for the US narrative lately.

> Starting in 2002, the American government detained 22 Uyghurs in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. The last 3 Uyghur detainees, Yusef Abbas, Hajiakbar Abdulghupur and Saidullah Khalik, were released from Guantanamo on December 29, 2013, and later transferred to Slovakia.

> None of the Uyghurs wanted to be returned to China. The United States declined to grant the Uyghurs political asylum, or to allow them parole, or even freedom on the Naval Base.

> A May 2008 report by the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice claimed that American military interrogators appeared to have collaborated with visiting Chinese officials at Guantánamo Bay to enact sleep deprivation of the Uyghur detainees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_detainees_at_Guantanamo...

[matchapples]

Why do you say it's 99% propaganda?

"sinofication" sounds a lot like "eliminating the existing culture" which sounds a lot like genocide. Genocide is more than just murdering everyone like in some of the most well known cases like the Holocaust -- it includes elimination of an ethnic group by any means possible, including "nativification"

[ineptech]

I understand where you're coming from, but -cide implies killing.

[ImPostingOnHN]

the "cide" in genocide refers to destroying

for example, a cultural genocide refers to destroying culture, e.g. Uighur or Muslim culture

[woooooo]

Would you say the choice of the word "genocide" here is because it's the most accurate description of what's going on?

Or is it chosen for rhetorical/propaganda effect without too much concern for accuracy?

[mayormcmatt]

Not the person you're responding to, but it is an accurate description of genocide under its current meaning as defined by the UN (probably the most authoritative body on this kind of matter).

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

What the Chinese are doing there is covered under Article II, c.

If you are being pedantic by holding fast to the literal Greek translation of "geno" and "cide" then, well, this is simply not the complete modern meaning of the term.

[ineptech]

There is no authoritative body on the definitions of words. More generally, if genocide can mean "not killling, but very bad" then it is not much use except as an epithet - a negatively-loaded bomb to be lobbed in partisan debates at people who you think are doing something very bad. Virtually every controversial policy could be described as, "Causing serious bodily or mental harm to" some group.

[woooooo]

That article IIc pivots on the key phrase "physical destruction".

Look, internment isnt good either, why dig in your heels on the most loaded possible word?

[dirtyid]

It's absolutely not. There's a reason US propaganda under Pompeo had to manufacture and launder reports with tortured legal interpretation to try to get the genocide label to stick but couldn't because there's no intent to destroy, hence useful idiots trying to be pedantic and argue how enforcing family planning reflect intention even though that applied to Han majority, or mass (temporary) internment / inflicting "pain" somehow equivalent to physical destruction while population continues to grow.

Modern definition of genocide at UN explicitly wouldn't categorize what PRC is doing in XJ - cultural genocide - because members, especially west went out of their way to ensure cultural genocide would have little legal ramifications, otherwise Canada would have been sanctioned to death for self professed cultural genocide a few years ago. Incidentally the entire reason Pompeo tried to propagandize genocide label was because it would trigger diplomatic ramifications at UN. What the PRC is doing in XJ is cultural genocide, and bluntly that’s permissible thanks to lobbying from the west.

The entire manufactured genocide narrative is so retarded because if PRC wanted to, they could just... commit genocide. At PRC scale they can wipe out the 12M Uyghurs in a few weekends on the cheap instead of wasting trillions of RMB trying to sinicize them.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Would you say the common, accurate usage of the term "cultural genocide" to refer to what the term refers to, is a bigger or smaller problem than the actual cultural genocide itself?

[DiogenesKynikos]

"-cide" is a suffix that means "to kill," as in:

  * suicide
  * regicide
  * fratricide
  * insecticide
  * pesticide

It comes from the Latin word "caedo," which means "to kill." The phrase "cultural genocide" is not the same as "genocide," and indeed the legal definition of "genocide" expliticly says that destruction of a culture is not genocide.

Using the word "genocide" to refer to something other than mass murder - and then falling back to the claim that "genocide" doesn't mean mass murder - is just playing rhetorical games.

[KptMarchewa]

Of a nation or ethnic group.

[mistermann]

> Why do you say it's 99% propaganda?

I suspect because of propaganda.