Scott talks to Peter Lee about the ongoing Uyghur controversy in China. The Chinese government, he says, is trying to integrate their minority Uyghur Muslim population, as part of their larger project to urbanize and centralize China. There is growing concern, especially on the American right, that these efforts represent an outright genocide, with claims of mass forced birth control and up to a million people in detention centers. These fears, Lee says, tend to be exaggerated—though what the Chinese government is doing might be something more like cultural genocide. He stresses that it is important to acknowledge the horrors faced by many citizens of China’s authoritarian government, without using something like this as an excuse to advocate war.

Discussed on the show:

• “Peter Lee’s China Threat Report” (Patreon)
• China Matters
• Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur Birthrates in Xinjiang
• “2/19/21 Gareth Porter on the Misleading Data Behind Uyghur Genocide Claims” (The Libertarian Institute)
• “US State Department accusation of China ‘genocide’ relied on data abuse and baseless claims by far-right ideologue” (The Grayzone)
• “4/2/21 Larry Wilkerson on the Global Struggle for Power in Asia” (The Libertarian Institute)
• “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)” (IMDb)

Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US global policy. Follow his work on Patreon and on Twitter @chinahand.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Photo IQ; Green Mill Supercritical; Zippix Toothpicks; and Listen and Think Audio.

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