In one of his last acts as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo stated that the Chinese government’s extrajudicial internment of 1.8 million Uyghurs, the torture and forced labor of Uyghur detainees, and the forced sterilizations and abortions of Uyghur women, amounts to crimes against humanity and genocide.  Hours later, in his confirmation hearings, President-elect Biden’s secretary of state nominee Antony Blinken agreed with Pompeo’s designation of genocide.  Immediately, the U.S. press heralded the bi-partisan nature of this genocide declaration.

But genocide is not just about the acts committed; it also requires government intent to physically or biologically destroy the group.  See Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”) (emphasis added).  By declaring genocide, the U.S. government could easily get bogged down in this required element, an element that even Pompeo left out of his declaration. Nowhere in his statement does Pompeo assert that the Chinese government had an intent to physically destroy the Uyghur people. 

That is why Pompeo’s declaration that the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang province amounts to crimes against humanity is more actionable, and has been for the past couple of years. Like genocide, crimes against humanity include acts that attack the very soul of a people and its culture: murder, extermination, torture, arbitrary detention, forcible transfer of a population, rape, sexual violence, forced sterilizations, apartheid. But unlike genocide, these crimes do not require an intent to biologically destroy.  Instead, acts that constitute crimes against humanity merely need to be part of a widespread or systemic attack directed at a group, with the perpetrator’s knowledge that his or her acts are part of this larger attack.  In looking at Pompeo’s declaration of genocide he states that “we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs.” In those words, he seems to mistake the element of crimes against humanity for genocide.

This isn’t to say that the crime of genocide is not occurring in Xinjiang nor that such a declaration is inconsequential. It certainly carries meaning and should. But the U.S. must ensures that it acts on these declarations and not just get caught up in a war of words with China and its allies, something that could more easily happen by solely focusing on genocide.  In fact, the United Nations, through a 2005 Resolution signed by all 193 member states, requires countries to respond similarly to both genocide and crimes against humanity. For both, states have a duty to “protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” and must “use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means.” See ¶¶ 138-39.

To fulfill this obligation to protect, the U.S. must step up its efforts.  Pompeo’s statement, while full of important policy pronouncements, provided no new courses of action. Similarly, Blinken’s suggestions on how to respond – ensure that we don’t import cotton picked by forced labor and guarantee that we don’t sell surveillance technologies to China – didn’t break new ground.  Instead, the U.S. should be advocating a liberal asylum/refugee policy for Uyghurs. 

More obvious, the U.S. government needs to start discussing boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and encourage allies to do the same.  How can the U.S. send its athletes to compete in games hosted by a country engaging in crimes against humanity and genocide?  To do so would render Pompeo and Blinken’s statements today hollow words and would embolden the Chinese government – and all governments – to continue genocidal policies.  The last time we ignored the genocidal intent of a host country – Berlin, 1936 – six million Jews were murdered by the governing party.  The 2022 Winter Olympics are a little more than a year away.  In fairness to our athletes, these discussions must begin now.  Also, making these discussions public now, might save some lives in Xinjiang. 

But the U.S. cannot go this alone, either boycotting the 2022 Olympic boycott or fulfilling its responsibility to protect. Only a multilateral response can defeat crimes against humanity; no individual country has ever been able to end a genocide. The U.S. must re-engage international institutions including re-joining the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body where has been dominated by China since the U.S.’ 2018 withdrawal from the Council.

Genocide is a bold word. Those words need to be followed up with bold action.  Failure to do so only weakens those post-World War II international institutions and treaties the Biden Administration has promised to uphold.  It also means that Uyghurs will continue to suffer while all we did was play word games.

2020 was going to be a good year for Josh Chin.  He had just become Deputy Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal’s Beijing Bureau, had been awarded a prestigious New America fellowship, and received the Gerald Loeb Award for international reporting.  His was a career on the rise; a long way from his start as a freelancer.

On February 19, 2020, Chin, in his new role as Deputy Bureau Chief, sat in a waiting room at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Chin’s boss was on the other side of a closed door, meeting with Ministry officials to discuss whether the Ministry would delay renewing one of their staffer’s soon-to-be-expired journalist visa.  Two weeks prior, The Journal had published an op-ed entitled “China the Real Sick Man of Asia” and the Ministry immediately responded, lambasting the author for his arrogance, prejudice and ignorance.  Chin and his boss were there to convince Ministry officials not to retaliate against their colleague.

When his boss emerged, Chin waited to hear his colleague’s fate: renewed credentials or delayed visa.  Neither his boss told him.  Instead, the Ministry had decided to expel Chin and another colleague along with the staffer.  Even though Chin’s journalist visa was still valid, he had five days to pack up his life of 13 years and get out.

Since 2012, the Chinese government has used its power over the journalist visa process to censor foreign news outlets.  For the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party, the media exists to serve the Party.  “[L]ove the party, protect the party, and closely align [] with the party. . . .” President Xi Jinping told the government-run People’s Daily during a visit to their offices in 2016.  To keep foreign journalists in line, the Chinese government has used harassment, surveillance, visa delays and visa downgrades according to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.

But for the United States, the press is viewed as central to our democracy, its freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1785.  Because of this bedrock principle, the U.S. government has been hesitant to retaliate against Chinese journalists in response to the Chinese government’s provocations.  But enter Donald Trump, a president who constantly attacks the press.  For Trump, rolling back press Chinese journalists’ freedoms was not a hard choice.  Instead, it corresponded perfectly with his effort to undermine the press, an institution crucial to our democracy.

Trump is not the first president hostile to the press.  John Adams signed into law the Sedition Act of 1798 which criminalized the publication of “false, scandalous or malicious writing” about the federal government.  Richard Nixon privately maintained an “enemies list” and illegally surveilled certain reporters.  The Obama Administration prosecuted 11 government employees and contractors for revealing classified information to the press.  But Trump’s treatment of the press is different and more nefarious to our democracy.  It’s “a systematic effort to de-legitimize the news media as a check on government power,” University of Georgia media law professor Johnathan Peters told the Committee to Protect Journalists last month.

The day Chin was expelled from China, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the Chinese government’s actions, stating that “[m]ature, responsible countries understand that a free press reports facts and expresses opinions. The correct response is to present counter arguments, not restrict speech.”  But on March 2, 2020, the State Department limited the number of journalist visas issued to Chinese state-run outlets to 100, effectively expelling 60 Chinese reporters.  The Chinese government responded with more severe sanctions: the expulsion of U.S. citizens employed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.  Not long after, the Trump Administration issued its most punitive sanction yet: downgrading every Chinese journalist’s visa to a three-month term from a previous unlimited time period, regardless of whether they work for a Chinese, state-run news outlet or The New York Times.   The Chinese government has yet to respond.  But expect it to similarly relegate U.S. journalists to a three-month visa or expel all U.S. journalists from China.

The Trump Administration’s tit-for-tat diplomacy is a far cry from Pompeo’s “correct response.”  Instead, it mimics Beijing’s tactics: restricting speech through the journalist visa process.  The United States, once the international champion of freedom of the press, is following the lead of an authoritarian, one-party state.  But this should not be a surprise.  The Trump Administration’s treatment of the domestic press the past three years reflects its authoritarian bent.  Trump repeatedly tweets “fake news” about news stories he doesn’t like and has called the U.S. media “the enemy of the people.”  The White House revoked CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press credentials after Trump told him he was a “rude, terrible person.”  Trump’s re-election campaign has sued three major media organizations for libel in cases considered “long shots.”  These are all pages from Beijing’s playbook, a playbook where the media is subservient to the ruling party.

Some of Chin’s last articles from China were on the emergence of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan.  His reporting from early February, as well as that of his fellow, expelled colleagues, exposed the pandemic nature of COVID-19: hospitals overrun with patients; front-line medical workers dying of the virus; mortuaries unable to process the massive number of dead.  Their reporting foreshadowed what we would see on our shores a few months later.  Even with the Chinese government hiding early facts about the novel coronavirus, U.S. reporters were able to find – and report – the truth.  But this truth is an impediment to the Trump Administration’s narrative that China’s lack of transparency prevented it from recognizing the severity of COVID-19.  So while the Trump Administration publicly laments the Chinese government’s restrictions on U.S. reporters, it has to know that its retaliatory tactics means that there will be even less U.S. reporters in China.  But this may be precisely what it wants.