To the list of all the genocides of the last hundred plus years – Armenia, the Ukrainian famine, the Holocaust, Cambodia, and Rwanda – another entry should be added: the genocide of the Chinese Uighurs.

According to legitimate international researchers and tribunals, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is currently committing cultural and physical genocide against the Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang province. This population, both ethnically and religiously a minority, has been surveilled by the Chinese government, placed into ‘re-education camps,’ and forcibly sterilized. These deeds fall directly under Article II of the United Nations Convention on Genocide: China is both “causing serious bodily or mental harm” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births” within the Uighur population, “with intent to destroy” it. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government is denying all claims of atrocities. To their credit, many Western governments, including the United States, have properly labeled these abuses as genocide. Now they must act accordingly.

Unlike the genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, and more recently in Iraq against the Yazidis, the perpetrator, China, is a nuclear power that cannot be deterred through military intervention. Yet, there are several ways that the United States can impose significant costs on Beijing and make it harder for China to continue committing these crimes against humanity.

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