China and the Uighur Genocide

In a call with European foreign ministers on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ...

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In a call with European foreign ministers on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he would begin steps to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that was abandoned by the Trump administration. Today’s guest, Tom Josclelyn, thinks a series of upfront concessions to Tehran before the country’s leaders even come to the negotiating table would be an unwise foreign policy move for the Biden administration. “I’ve taken to calling it ‘servile diplomacy’ because it is very much from a submissive position,”Joscelyn tells Sarah and Steve. Tune in to hear our hosts’ take on China’s ongoing genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang, and the latest rocket attack on a U.S. airbase in Iraq.

Show Notes:

-“Biden Administration Formally Offers to Restart Nuclear Talks With Iran” by Lara Jakes, Michael Crowley, David E. Sanger and Farnaz Fassihi in the New York Times.

-“Biden dismisses Uighur genocide as part of China’s ‘different norms’” by Emily Jacobs in the New York Post.

-“‘Genocide’ is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang” by the Economist.

-Tom Joscelyn’s Vital Interests newsletter.

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  1. Dan Currell

    Re Olympics, it’s a replay of 1936, and the best book on 1936 is called Nazi Games. It lays it all out. Same drill, different century.

    Let’s keep in mind how bad relations are between Canada and China - and between Sweden and China. Canada has a hostage issue with China. Sweden has many issues with China and is the only country yet to expel Confucius Institutes wholly from their borders. This is the *winter* Olympics, so - Canada and Sweden, and perhaps with them the Nordics more broadly, are a really big deal.

    That said, PRC would love to collect some medals in Beijing, so a boycott of geopolitically small- to middle-power countries that tend to hog all the winter medals could be a very positive development for the feelings of the Chinese people.

    Re Uighurs, The Economist’s position was not described accurately in the podcast. They stated without any support that the Xinjiang camps are “not slaughtering people”. That’s the problem - if we disagree with them, we would need to focus on that claim. I disagree with them, but would be interested to know why they take the view they’ve taken - they have reported pretty well on the issue. There is evidence of killing. Not enough evidence? Or not enough killing? I can’t tell what they think.

    Second, they say that we must keep dealing with China, and if we declare a genocide, then we can’t keep dealing with China. Or we will, and that diminishes the power of the term. Again I disagree with them, but that was their primary argument after assuming away mass killing, and it wasn’t made clear in the show.

    The real problem - and again, I’m on board with Ottawa’s move - is that in fact the world clearly *will* continue to deal with China, and that sets the precedent that China can do whatever it wants, up to and including genocide, and expect the world to continue to trade with it, allow PRC to lead UN committees etc.

    All of which is a nice setup for their walk onto the beach in Taiwan circa 2035.

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    Jason Gibson

    wow what a great idea.............the dispatch rom-com........I think it would be a high school teen comedy................

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    WKDawson

    Really appreciate the frank discussion. I felt almost entirely on the same page. I wish the politicians responsible for making these decisions would listen to this kind of reasoning.

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    JP Hunerwadel

    As for the Dispatch RomCom, Jonah clearly *would* be the class clown; David French should be the teacher...

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      GW

      Jonah had better up his game- Stirewalt might become the Lewis to his Martin!

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  5. Laurie

    Thank you for this podcast. After listening, I am motivated to learn more and do more about China. I appreciate Sarah's thoughtful comparison to Rwanda. This is a different era with different leadership, but America is still America, and if we couldn't muster the political or societal will to stop the Rwandan genocide, how will we help the Uyghurs when there is so much more for us to lose now?

    Also, to Tom Josclelyn it didn't seem to matter whether we called this a genocide or not. In a Frontline documentary about Rwanda from over 20 years ago, it was stated that an administration's actual naming a violence against a people as "genocide" meant the administration was required by law to act. So Clinton's people at the State Department would literally refer to the violence as "acts of genocide" at press conferences. As the slaughter continued for one hundred days, one reporter asked, "How many 'acts of genocide' does it take to make a genocide?" When the bloodshed was over President Clinton went to Rwanda and said "If only we had known..."
    Lord help us to do better this time...

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  6. Ragnar

    Seems to me that Tom Josclelyn shredded Sarah in this interview...and she appeared to get pretty testy about it on several occasions, and he just kept shredding her. Anybody? Example, when Sarah posited that the Soleimani assassination was "disproportionate", etc...he jumped on her perspective hard.

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    MarqueG68

    Sarah did a commendable job trying to play devil's advocate with Joscelyn, but ultimately couldn't force him to agree to there being any positive read on the Biden administration approach. At this point, I wonder if there is a logical positive end that someone could seriously debate with Tom. Because I have a feeling the only place the debate would end for the Biden-Obama side would be where the Obama boosters always ended up: accusing their critics of just wanting war because, you know, anyone who disagrees is a soulless, blood-thirsty, war-mongering baboon...or something.

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    1. Marcie

      I completely disagree. Her devil's advocate was "They are smart people, so why do they disagree?" Seriously? I can google more answers than that. This podcast is not bipartisan by any means. I get better info from Consortium News.

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    2. Icarus213

      Yeah, from people like Matt Duss and Robert Wright, I've heard the defense of the Iran deal as basically the view that Iran just wants to be a normal country like everyone else, and we are being excessively mean to them, which is what is causing them to act badly. If we just extended a gentler hand, they would act better. It's a combination of ignorance of history and naivety about the Iranian regime.

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      Adicesa14

      I agree. What is the logic of the Obama/Biden approach to Iran? None is ever given.

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  8. Icarus213

    At 13:11, Sarah: "Steve, I want to move to China."

    Big missed opportunity there for a snappy joke, guys. Just saying.

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    1. Ragnar

      There wasn't much levity in this piece. I felt it was very confrontational between Tom and Sarah...

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    2. Ted

      I thought the exact same thing!

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    Victor Clairmont

    Ok so Thomas just wants a coherent strategy for the Middle East. If we are going to pull out, just pull out if you are saying so. If you are staying with minimal presence, then justify your position for being there. Got it.

    China, and the communist party in particular, is grade A evil. No longer communist, it has morphed into a fascist leadership that takes all it can from the free market, spreads actual Asian supremacy in the ethnic Han culture, imposes its Eastern Imperialism not just in the Pacific, but around the world through trade in Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean, and is a genocidal regime.

    If there was ever a time to acknowledge the second Cold War we are in, it’s now. And the current administration, needs to both in rhetoric and action, come down hard on foreign policy for this.

    And we are fighting this Cold War, while being 28 trillion in debt.

    Finally, omg why on earth is Sarah, Thomas, and Steve all injury buddies? It’s like they all stepped on a bomb and blew out their knees together.

    Like omg Sarah your injury what on earth....

    Thanks for the podcast!

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  10. Teddy41

    Clearly Mr. French would be the assistant principle. I think that's the natural progression for youth pastor to trying just a little too hard to be cool school administrator. Sarah is clearly the slightly nerdy girl who wants to be more popular but maintain her integrity in the process. I'm thinking Rachel Leigh Cook in "She's All That." Jonah is clearly the class clown who also hides his copy of "The Road to Surfdom" under his comic book collection.

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      Jason Gibson

      i thought "she's all that" as well............imagine Sarah starting to come down the stairs and "kiss me" by Sixpence None the Richer starts up. It works mate!! There's a classic movie to be made

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