Telling Tall Tales - (Studies in Political Economy of Global Labor and Work) by Barry Sautman (Hardcover)

About the Book

A counter-narrative that challenges Western claims of a genocide in China's largely Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang, assertedly based on prevention of births and forcible transfer of children, this work shows that the negative narrative of Xinjiang is a political stratagem.

Book Synopsis

Many claims of genocide do not present a prima facie case of the intent to destroy a group, let alone show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They are a stratagem to enhance the claimant's position in an inter-state or intra-state conflict. Claims about China's Xinjiang are not based on the mass killings associated with genocide, but on birth limits for minorities in 2017-2021 that featured practices China's Han majority experienced for decades, plus brief family separations of a few minority children. These assertions impel Western sanctions and incite anti-Chinese sentiment but are empirically unsupported and degrade the concept of genocide.

About the Author

Barry Sautman, JD (UCLA) LLM (NYU), PhD (Columbia University), a political scientist and lawyer, is Professor Emeritus at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. He does documentary and fieldwork-based studies of China's ethnic politics, as well Africa/China interactions.