Yes and it usually, but not always, ends up leading to more conventional genocide.

Yes, I know. I fully expect that to happen. :(

I think a few things are different. This is much more organized and it's happening post Cultural Revolution. That was a time of economic failure and there was a lot of anger the government of China was able to channel into its population in order to quell any dissent and the quashing of minorities rights and cultural traditions was abated as the country drew away from Mao's more insane policies after his death.

Number two, the scope of this is very large. We are talking about a MILLION people disappearing into enormous complexes. The decision to automatically lump in Muslims as being a threat that requires total destruction of their culture is a fairly recent one. It's upping the ante at a time of significant economic progress. China is scared that Islam could lead to terrorism on a major scale and experiencing a paranoia that it really hasn't experienced in decades and that really is very crucial and an abrupt sea change in how handle religion.

"in how it handles"

Oh and if you want something really depressing, read this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide

It was one of the first major genocides, by an emperor who ordered the extermination of an entire people over 300 years ago. A few rebels had declared independence. His response was to kill everyone. Emperor Qianlong is not a well known name in the pantheon of genocide, but he was just as insanely evil as Hitler or Stalin.

And just think, you didn't even know his name. I figure in the future, by 200 or 400 years from now, no one will read about the names Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Xi Xinping.

Funny thing is that the American genocide against native Americans isn’t taught in American schools and is considered a “controversial” and “revisionist” view of history.

It’s so poorly discussed or taught that no one gets any blame for it, as though it were some random accident.

And to this day they live on reservations with their rights or opinions being secondary to white politicians and oil/mining companies.

stars for solro

I think there's a de-emphasis on the genocide in America but it's also more complicated than just genocide. Disease was accidental, and it killed 90% of the native population over time due to there being no immunity (the smallbox blanket story was a myth that got blown up on the internet so now everyone believes it's true.)

The actual establishment of government sanctioned genocide was gradual. Hitler actually based his initial designs of concentration camps on Indian reservations in America. Death from hunger was slow and sporadic but effective in nullifying the population even further. However it wasn't until gold was discovered in California that the government brutally killed off the native population in a campaign that was, for the time, unique and previously unheard of. The government released ex prisoners and mercenaries into California and paid a dollar a head. Murder became a commodity as lucrative as hunting for gold itself. They would actually bring heads in on poles to government offices and they would pay eventually up to $5 a head. Entire villages were massacred or if they were lucky, merely enslaved.

Of course, most of the white people that came to California didn't know how to survive in the wilderness there and a majority starved to death so the textbooks really don't go into detail on the intense suffering that took place throughout most of the push West. Because yay patriotism?

I'm depressed now.

Well, we could always go have another throwdown in Afghanistan if it comes down to a proxy war. ANA v Taliban would be an interesting study in truly porous asymmetrical warfare.

China certainly has been ramping up its economic and military threat power although in regards to the integrative sphere of influence, any country can see through the thin veneer it holds up. You can see that in the way that only the really terrible, horribly needy countries that would never say no to free infrastructure have given way and capitulated to their OBOR doctrine.

While we've been complacent and happy to ignore China for the last 50 years, they're playing the long game against established, well-practiced adversaries. I just wonder if they're going to be able to do what they need to do domestically in order to do that.