#China’s genocide and other commentary

Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs, called on the US government to respond to China’s alleged abuses of China’s Muslim ethnic minority.
REUTERS

The “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” defines a genocide — a standard, charges New York magazine’s Andrew Sullivan, that leaves “no doubt” that “Communist China is a genocidal state.” Beijing aims to “coerce, kill, reeducate and segregate its Uighur Muslim population and to pursue eugenicist policies to winnow their ability to sustain themselves.” On top of “the re-education camps,” an Associated Press report last week showed that “the regime is forcibly sterilizing Uighur women inside and outside the camps” — a glaring example of “pure racial social engineering.” Given the Beijing regime’s “genocidal obscenity,” we have to start treating it “as the rogue dictatorship it is.”

Culture critic: How To Rename Landmarks

If protesters really want to convince their fellow Americans that we should “rename landmarks currently named after Confederate generals and leaders,” they’re “going about it all wrong,” argues National Review’s Jim Geraghty. Instead of insisting that a statue or fort we “never saw as harmful to anyone” is now “morally abhorrent,” argue that we should instead honor “under-recognized, exceptional and heroic Americans,” including people of color. “Don’t erase parts of the portrait of America,” in other words — “widen it.” Unfortunately, Geraghty suspects, many of the protesters don’t really want to convince their fellow citizens but, rather, just exacerbate “the contest of wills.”

From the left: The Kamala Wiki War

One “highly dedicated” person has been “scrubbing controversial aspects” of Sen. Kamala Harris’ “ ‘tough-on-crime’ record” from her Wikipedia page, ­reports The Intercept’s Aída Chávez — right as the Joe Biden campaign is considering the ex-prosecutor for the veep spot. The anonymous user has “made hundreds of edits to Harris’ page throughout the last several months,” deleting sections about “her strong support” of prosecutors who “engaged in rampant misconduct” and her 2003 assertion that “it is not progressive to be soft on crime,” among other things. The edits have led to a “war” between the user and “other Wikipedia editors,” who noted the user seems to have pulled quotations “directly from” Harris’ “press releases and campaign literature” — a war that “the pro-Harris editor is currently winning.”

Tyranny watch: So Long, Hong Kong

With China passing a “sweeping national-security law” that “effectively criminalizes dissent,” Spectator USA’s Melissa Chen laments, it’s “time to sing a requiem for Hong Kong.” British rule had “shielded” the territory “from the disastrous consequences of Mao’s policies,” and Hong Kong has always “sought to emphasize its apartness from China.” Its “sense of cultural separatism threatens China’s overriding national interest, so Beijing designed its security law precisely to make expressions of Hong Kong’s unique identity and conceptions of self-image more difficult.” But “without its cultural and intellectual DNA, Hong Kong simply isn’t Hong Kong.” Milton Friedman was right when he declared: “Hong Kong is the bellwether. If the Chinese stick to their agreement to let Hong Kong go its own path, then China will also go that way. If they don’t, that is a very bad sign.”

Iconoclast: The Overclass Rebels

In Tablet, Michael Lind asks: “What’s behind the riots?” The answer: ­de-industrialization and urban gentrification. The departure of working classes from urban hubs like New York, Austin, Washington and San Francisco has filled these areas with the “children of the white, urban elite” — some “downwardly mobile for life,” some “ just going through the underpaid-intern phase of professional careers.” They “join the Democratic Socialists of America and engage in purges and cancellations on Twitter and move to Brooklyn on allowances from their parents. They ­demand that the billionaires be soaked to pay for socialism (translation: Mom and Dad need to increase my allowance).” No doubt, “many of today’s big-city riot ninjas will look back in the future with pride on their nights of prancing around in black leotards and spray-painting ‘BLM’ and ‘F - - k Trump’ on downtown buildings.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board