I’ve been to Xinjiang and spoken to Uyghurs. They either laugh at the idea of a genocide or are horrified that such a narrative exists. The huge amount of Uyghur culture being practiced and celebrated and used as a source of internal tourism for China again suggests that no genocide is taking place.

What did happen is a deradicalisation campaign almost 10 years ago. That was to prevent the spread of fundamentalist Islam in the wake if the Arab spring, which was backed by the west, resulted in the fall of Libya and it’s current woes and the rise of Isis in Syria.

The west wanted this wave of madness to spread into Xinjiang and do to it what they have done repeatedly in the Islamic world, which is use radical Islam to topple governments opposed to US hegemony. Is it any wonder that when China fights back against this the west starts up the propaganda machine to invoke accusations of genocide.

This is the exact same playbook they used against communist Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, which resulted in the Taliban.