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It’s a mistake, says the Anglo-French legal scholar Philippe Sands, to “fetishize the names we give to acts of horror.”
A leading authority on genocide, Sands laments that the focus on that particularly fraught term draws attention away from other acts of mass atrocity. And that whether you call it “genocide” or “crimes against humanity” or something else, in his view China’s treatment of its Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang is more simply referred to as “wrong and criminal.”
Yet names matter a great deal in international diplomacy. The fact that the Trump administration officially deployed the term “genocide” against China on its way out the door this week—and that the Biden administration has endorsed it on the way in—has potentially far-reaching consequences. For one, it signifies that while the people in charge of foreign policy and security in Washington are changing, China policy is not.
A high-security facility on the outskirts of Hotan, in China's northwestern Xinjiang region.
Photographer: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump’s hard line on China is here to stay, possibly applied with more finesse by the experienced Biden team, and certainly executed in concert with U.S. friends and allies where possible.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying had nothing but scorn for the written statement on genocide by Mike Pompeo, now-former U.S. Secretary of State, as “a piece of waste paper,” and she called Pompeo a “doomsday clown.”
China has repeatedly denied that genocide is taking place in Xinjiang, accusing Western nations of hypocrisy for disregarding their own ethnic policies, such as the U.S.’s treatment of Blacks and Native Americans.
.
Hua Chunying
Photographer: Artyom Ivanov
For the record, genocide isn’t only a term for mass murder. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted by the United Nations after the Nuremberg trials) covers acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The definition also includes preventing births within the group—an allegation that’s been made against China in Xinjiang, one the Chinese government referred to with a Trump term: “fake news.”
Nevertheless, the label may very well stick. Pompeo’s nominated successor, Antony Blinken, told senators at his confirmation hearing that he also sees genocide in China’s vast western region. Businesses that hoped for a reprieve from U.S.-China tensions must now recalculate. Walmart, Amazon, Apple and other companies are already under pressure to purge their supply chains of inputs from Xinjiang in response to sanctions imposed by Trump. Scores of Chinese businesses and officials responsible for the repression of Uighurs have been targeted. They’ll now likely face added scrutiny.
It would be reasonable to expect a new round of calls by advocacy groups to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, too. On top of these pressures, look for rights organizations to question the ethics of any kind of business engagement with China.
Evidently, the Biden administration isn’t at all concerned that Pompeo and other China hawks under Trump spent their final weeks hurling thunderbolts. Another shot that struck home: abandoning all restrictions on contacts between U.S. officials and their Taiwan counterparts, a move that predictably enraged Beijing. The Biden camp then doubled down, inviting the island’s de facto ambassador to attend the inauguration for the first time with an official invitation.
Two of Taiwan's CM-11 Brave Tiger main battle tanks during a military exercise in Hukou on Jan. 19. China's state-run media called for retaliation after the Trump administration removed decades-old restrictions on interactions with Taiwan officials.
Photographer: I-Hwa Cheng/Bloomberg
While Biden is shredding as much of Trump’s legacy as possible on the environment, health care, immigration and much else, his administration is signaling that it intends to build on Trump’s approach to China.
Janet Yellen, the new Treasury Secretary, assailed China at her nomination hearing for “horrendous human rights abuses.” She also called out Beijing for “dumping products, erecting trade barriers and giving illegal subsidies to corporations.” That doesn’t suggest the Biden administration is eager to drop Trump’s trade tariffs any time soon.
On the security front, Biden’s announcement that Christopher Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will stay on leaves in place an official who calls China “the greatest long-term threat” to America’s future. And he’s committed to rooting out alleged Chinese spies supposedly hiding as professors, scientists and students in U.S. colleges and laboratories.
Mike Pompeo
Photographer: Andrew Harnik/AFP
In the case of Uighurs, says James Millward, a Georgetown University historian and Xinjiang specialist, genocide “may be a hard standard to prove even if a court can be found to take up the case.”
As to Pompeo’s motivation for accusing China of such a crime, Millward sees “hypocrisy and disingenuous, self-aggrandizing nonsense,” noting that Pompeo “opposes international legal institutions and twice actually threatened the International Criminal Court for doing its job looking into crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.”
www.bloomberg.com
A leading authority on genocide, Sands laments that the focus on that particularly fraught term draws attention away from other acts of mass atrocity. And that whether you call it “genocide” or “crimes against humanity” or something else, in his view China’s treatment of its Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang is more simply referred to as “wrong and criminal.”
Yet names matter a great deal in international diplomacy. The fact that the Trump administration officially deployed the term “genocide” against China on its way out the door this week—and that the Biden administration has endorsed it on the way in—has potentially far-reaching consequences. For one, it signifies that while the people in charge of foreign policy and security in Washington are changing, China policy is not.
A high-security facility on the outskirts of Hotan, in China's northwestern Xinjiang region.
Photographer: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump’s hard line on China is here to stay, possibly applied with more finesse by the experienced Biden team, and certainly executed in concert with U.S. friends and allies where possible.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying had nothing but scorn for the written statement on genocide by Mike Pompeo, now-former U.S. Secretary of State, as “a piece of waste paper,” and she called Pompeo a “doomsday clown.”
China has repeatedly denied that genocide is taking place in Xinjiang, accusing Western nations of hypocrisy for disregarding their own ethnic policies, such as the U.S.’s treatment of Blacks and Native Americans.
.
Hua Chunying
Photographer: Artyom Ivanov
For the record, genocide isn’t only a term for mass murder. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted by the United Nations after the Nuremberg trials) covers acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The definition also includes preventing births within the group—an allegation that’s been made against China in Xinjiang, one the Chinese government referred to with a Trump term: “fake news.”
Nevertheless, the label may very well stick. Pompeo’s nominated successor, Antony Blinken, told senators at his confirmation hearing that he also sees genocide in China’s vast western region. Businesses that hoped for a reprieve from U.S.-China tensions must now recalculate. Walmart, Amazon, Apple and other companies are already under pressure to purge their supply chains of inputs from Xinjiang in response to sanctions imposed by Trump. Scores of Chinese businesses and officials responsible for the repression of Uighurs have been targeted. They’ll now likely face added scrutiny.
It would be reasonable to expect a new round of calls by advocacy groups to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, too. On top of these pressures, look for rights organizations to question the ethics of any kind of business engagement with China.
Evidently, the Biden administration isn’t at all concerned that Pompeo and other China hawks under Trump spent their final weeks hurling thunderbolts. Another shot that struck home: abandoning all restrictions on contacts between U.S. officials and their Taiwan counterparts, a move that predictably enraged Beijing. The Biden camp then doubled down, inviting the island’s de facto ambassador to attend the inauguration for the first time with an official invitation.
Two of Taiwan's CM-11 Brave Tiger main battle tanks during a military exercise in Hukou on Jan. 19. China's state-run media called for retaliation after the Trump administration removed decades-old restrictions on interactions with Taiwan officials.
Photographer: I-Hwa Cheng/Bloomberg
While Biden is shredding as much of Trump’s legacy as possible on the environment, health care, immigration and much else, his administration is signaling that it intends to build on Trump’s approach to China.
Janet Yellen, the new Treasury Secretary, assailed China at her nomination hearing for “horrendous human rights abuses.” She also called out Beijing for “dumping products, erecting trade barriers and giving illegal subsidies to corporations.” That doesn’t suggest the Biden administration is eager to drop Trump’s trade tariffs any time soon.
On the security front, Biden’s announcement that Christopher Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will stay on leaves in place an official who calls China “the greatest long-term threat” to America’s future. And he’s committed to rooting out alleged Chinese spies supposedly hiding as professors, scientists and students in U.S. colleges and laboratories.
Mike Pompeo
Photographer: Andrew Harnik/AFP
In the case of Uighurs, says James Millward, a Georgetown University historian and Xinjiang specialist, genocide “may be a hard standard to prove even if a court can be found to take up the case.”
As to Pompeo’s motivation for accusing China of such a crime, Millward sees “hypocrisy and disingenuous, self-aggrandizing nonsense,” noting that Pompeo “opposes international legal institutions and twice actually threatened the International Criminal Court for doing its job looking into crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.”
Bloomberg New Economy: When It Comes to China, Biden is Trump 2.0
It’s a mistake, says the Anglo-French legal scholar Philippe Sands, to “fetishize the names we give to acts of horror.”
www.bloomberg.com
