I am skeptical though that many people, especially those in the position to make influential choices, especially those who have profit tied up with China, will do anything other than see it and nod.
The Washington Post ran the op-ed "China’s attacks on Uighur women are crimes against humanity” almost a year ago. [1] Foreign Policy magazine ran the argument "China Must Answer for Cultural Genocide in Court” in December last year. [2] The Atlantic ran a piece headlined "Saving Uighur Culture From Genocide” a week ago, too. [3]
And I think ’see it and nod’ is about right. We can’t say we didn’t know, we just decided there were other things that we prefered to be doing than stop it.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/21/chinas-at... [2]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/03/uighurs-xinjiang-china-... [3]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/10/ch...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/china-insists-...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/17/think-of-your-...
Edited to add: This statement is political, but the genocide against Uyghurs is political too, and if we want to hold our leaders accountable to doing something about it, we need to acknowledge facts. Trump had previously indicated he wasn't interested in letting such matters interfere with trade talks. https://www.axios.com/trump-uighur-muslims-sanctions-d4dc86f...
- He refers to the Wuhan Virus as the China/Chinese Virus (CCP is trying very hard from distancing themselves from responsibility; they won’t even let us into Wuhan to investigate).
- He started a trade war with China, which has forced companies to move their manufacturing to Vietnam, India, Mexico, Taiwan, etc. (Biden admittedly said he would end Trump’s China tariffs, but the many companies that already left are unlikely to return), and even high end tech such as the iPhone is starting to get assembled outside China as well.
- He was the first US President to speak directly with Taiwan's President since 1979.
- He made the largest arms sale to Taiwan in the past few decades.
- The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was signed under his administration.
- The TAIPEI Act was signed under his administration.
- Meng Wanzhou was arrested under his administration (which dragged Canada into it because China decided to arbitrarily arrest Canadian citizens).
- China Mobile was blocked from offering services in the US, citing national security risks.
- Huawei was blocked from using Android and chips with US tech (which will effectively kill their mobiles once their stock runs out).
- Huawei was blocked from building 5G networks (USA paid other nations to block them as well).
- Hong Kong’s special status was revoked.
- Universal Postal Union agreed to let countries raise postal rates after Trump threatened to leave - this means you’ll no longer be able to buy cheap junk from Aliexpress (and resellers like Wish) at no shipping cost (the receiving country was previously forced to deliver the products for free, even if you brought some toy for 10 cents).
- Trump is pushing for WTO to drop China’s developing country status.
- TikTok and WeChat (likely with more to come) would’ve been blocked by now if it wasn’t for judges temporarily blocking the bans.
China’s GDP growth in 2019 was also the lowest it’s been since 1990, and 2020 will be even lower. And China’s reputation around the world is at an all-time low (because all over the world then everyone is discussing everything Trump says, and he often attack China).
Also, China’s behavior is nothing new. The only thing that’s new is the fact that we finally have a president that for whatever reasons decided to turn them into his enemy. If EU and the rest of the world had any interest in standing up to China then they could implement their own tariffs, give 5G contracts to their own nation’s companies, etc. But they, just like the Obama/Biden administration, have no interest in doing so.
Right now, to the extent that they're conditioned on anything at all (and I'm going to refrain from a broader critique of Trump's goals and methods of negotiation here), they're conditioned on trade balance, intellectual property, currency manipulation, 5G, and the like. Some of these are worthy objectives, some not. But at the end of the day, they do nothing for the Uyghur population if Trump says to Xi, "do whatever you want with the Uyghurs, I don't care; I just want you to buy more of our stuff".
For leverage to work on issue A, you actually have to say (and follow through on): "If you do A, I'll do X, and if you don't do A, I'll do Y." If you replace A with B, you can't expect any traction on issue A.
I'm very anti-Trump (being a brown guy it's hard not to be) but his China policy is much better than any of the last several Presidents'. That said, I wish he had more of a human rights mindset and less of a money mindset. You can bet that if some aspect of the trade balance hinged on the Uighurs, he'd be advocating for it.
American corporations are beholden to China’s massive market and Biden is beholden to American corporations. It is far more likely that Biden capitulates to China than puts any economic pressure on them.