On his way out of office on Jan. 19, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a determination that China “has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.” Nobody in the U.S. policy community seriously disputes that atrocities are occurring in Xinjiang—but some analysts have zoomed in on the term “genocide.” Sometimes it seems to be a way of trying to force policies back toward the failed engagement of the past rather than confronting what’s happening in China and rethinking policy accordingly.
This debate over terminology has high stakes. It’s not just how Washington engages, competes, and cooperates with Beijing but also about how the United States understands China’s policies and intentions and how they manifest on the ground. The United States, however, cannot have a successful China policy if it is not grounded in a realistic assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambitions and methods—and the atrocities that have resulted because of them.
