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Xinjiang: staying afloat in a wave of disinformation

Despite the deliberately intimidating nature of atrocity propaganda, we have to make sure we critically assess all politically motivated claims against rivals to US power. KATE W looks at what is really going on in north-west China

We cannot ignore the drive to war against China — fear of speaking out against atrocity propaganda because of its upsetting and controversial nature will only lead to the manufacturing of consent for military aggression

AS long as communists have existed, the class we seek to topple have told lies about us. The more powerful our threat, the more extreme the lie. The more lurid and sensational the better — like the recent Netflix documentary on the Russian Revolution, which claimed that Lenin kept a 12-year-old maid in a cage while he was exiled in Siberia.

Claims that Cuba had “concentration camps for gays” and Fidel Castro was turning children into tinned food turned out to be similarly untrue, but they got their job done — providing justification for Operation Peter Pan, the Bay of Pigs invasion and hundreds of terror attacks by the Cuban exiles.

The latest red scare propaganda targets China and its autonomous region of Xinjiang. Many people will have seen statistics that refer to “one million Muslims” being held in concentration camps and various other human rights abuses — even “genocide.” It is crucial that the public are aware of where the main allegations come from and gain a picture of what is really going on in Xinjiang.




Trusting China’s account: who does, who doesn’t — and why


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