A 'genocide' that is increasing the population of targeted group

It is regrettable but true that genocides have taken place throughout human history. They have wiped out many ethnic groups, nations, and sects from the face of the earth. The massacre of Native Americans left millions of indigenous people dead.

According to some estimates, as many as 100 million Native Americans died from diseases that Europeans brought to their land. Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, the US continued to kill the remaining natives.

One of the most horrific genocides is the Holocaust. The Nazi government in Germany exterminated the Jewish population from Europe during the Holocaust. The Nazi-run concentration and mass extermination camps killed about six million Jews.

During the period, the Nazis also exterminated other ethnic groups, including Slavs, the Romani, and even the mentally handicapped. The Nazis killed more than 16 million people before World War II came to an end in 1945.

The death of Rwandan President Habyarimana ignited the spark for the Hutu majority to lash out against the Tutsi minority resulting in the barbaric Rwandan genocide. Then, extremist Hutu groups killed around one million Tutsi across the country in only 100 days.

History proves that genocides happened in various countries for different reasons, and the targeted populations have been massacred. The wholesale killings are fairly common in genocides. Thus the words "genocide" and "mass-killings" have been used interchangeably.

But now we have a situation where we are seeing a "genocide" that has killed nobody but helped the growth of the population of the targeted ethnic group. This ethnic group is the Uyghur in Xinjiang of China.

The US and its allies have long been spreading the lies of the genocide of this ethnic group in Xinjiang, but the Uyghur population has constantly been growing for decades. As far as I can remember, former US secretary of State Mike Pompeo first used the term "genocide" against China.

Just one day before the Biden administration took office, Pompeo said that China was committing genocide and crimes against humanity in its repression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. Though Pompeo came up with the accusation last year, the US and its allies have long been working on creating a suitable pretext of making the allegation against China.

Therefore, some like-minded Western politicians and their favorite media are running a propaganda war over Xinjiang. As part of the war, they are disseminating one after another fake news of concentration camps, mass detentions, mass surveillance, human and labor rights violations, genocides, crimes against humanity, forced birth control, etc.

However, many delegations of the Organization of Islamic Countries, UN Human Rights Commission, journalists, diplomats, religious leaders, and politicians have debunked the propaganda by visiting Xinjiang and witnessing the situation on the ground by themselves. They have also praised China for the vast development and poverty eradication in the region.

Just as the devil would not listen to the scripture, so too the US and its allies never take into account the actual situation on the ground in Xinjiang. They never pay heed to the accounts of the aforesaid official eye-witnesses. They are still declining all rational points and evidence. Nothing can stop them from running the propaganda of genocide in Xinjiang.

Their outright lies have naturally been debunked as the truth can never be suppressed. Many experts and analysts have dug out the truth behind the Western propaganda stories. The population of the Uyghur community in Xinjiang speaks volumes of their real conditions. Everyone knows if the accusations of genocide are true, the population of the group would decline.

But the fact is that in the four decades between 1978 and 2018, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang has increased from 5.55 million to 11.68 million, accounting for 46.8 percent of the total population of the region.

The latest census data released by the regional statistics bureau said that the population of the Uyghur rose by 1.62 million, or 16.2 percent from a decade ago, to more than 11.62 million. The Uygur still stand as the majority, with 44.96 percent of the overall population of Xinjiang.

Over the decades, not only the population has increased, but also people's education levels have considerably improved, and population mobility and the urbanization development level have grown, the statistics bureau noted.

Education attainment has increased in the region, with people receiving a better education and more years of schooling. The number of people with a university or college education rose to 16,536 per 100,000, from 10,635 per 100,000 in 2010, which was 1,069 more people than the national average.

With stable socio-economic development in Xinjiang in recent years, the region has attracted talents and investors to work or start a business, ensuring a steady growth of the local population. As a result, abject poverty has bid adieu from the region forever.

In 2020, the per capita disposable income across urban areas of Xinjiang stood at 34,838 yuan, posting an average annual growth of 5.8 percent during the past five years. In rural areas in Xinjiang, it was 14,056 yuan, up about 8.3 percent each year over the same period.

Given this information, questions have arisen as to what type of genocide has happened in Xinjiang where the population has witnessed a fresh rise. Many wonder how Xinjiang continues to post vast economic growth and socio-educational development if there are any crimes against humanity in the region. They have raised the question whether the "genocide" is helping the Uyghur population grow in Xinjiang.

Md Enamul Hassan is a news editor and broadcast journalist at China Media Group in Beijing.

The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.

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