I bought up the topic of Uyghurs with my Chinese friend. She had no idea what I was talking about.
How much do you know?

I believe they are a Muslim minority in China who have been discriminated against for eons.

Not a thing. I didn't even know there was a word like that, until just now.

China puts them in death camps.

A nomadic Turkic people, with the largest known population
currently living in Kazakhstan.

Bingo.

I was surprised that Chinese citizens had no clue about the concentration/death camps and persecution, but it makes sense to hide their dirty secrets in case there is an uprising against the Government.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071

Oh they know about it. It's just not discussed. Just like the treatment of blacks and native peoples is not readily talked about in other countries like the U.S., Australia, and yes, N.Z..

It is well known internationally how the Uighur Muslims in China are treated.

What I find troubling is that Biden has basically dismissed the genocide against the Uighur population in China, dubbing the mass internment a “different norm”.

During a CNN town hall after Biden had talked with Xi Biden said “If you know anything about Chinese history, it has always been, the time when China has been victimized by the outer world is when they haven’t been unified at home,” Biden began. “So the central — well, vastly overstated — the central principle of Xi is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China. And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that.” In other words there must be forced unity.


Who is it that has talked about unifying the United States?????

Point taken. That is extreme unity though in China though.

My friend is a bit of a rebel when it comes to some things. But I can understand her cautiousness mentioning anything online. She said everything is monitored.

Insist Communists bear true witness to their own Constitution before we can believe them about a Commune of Heaven on Earth.

Article 4 All ethnic groups of the People’s Republic of China are equal. The state shall protect the lawful rights and interests of all ethnic minorities and uphold and promote relations of equality, unity, mutual assistance and harmony among all ethnic groups. Discrimination against and oppression of any ethnic group are prohibited; any act that undermines the unity of ethnic groups or creates divisions among them is prohibited.

And? What is your point?

That's what their constitution says, but is that how it's actually applied? By the accounts we have of Uyghurs who've been detained in re-education camps, many of whom were lured back to China on false pretense after immigrating elsewhere to avoid persecution, and detained without trial for months or years on end, it doesn't seem that the PRC are actually all that benevolent to all ethnic minorities in their country.

In a similar vein, look at the US Declaration of Independence which talks about life, liberty and the pursuit of freedom. Most of the founding fathers were slaveowners, and slavery persisted for a hundred years after America gained its independence. They talked a mean game about liberty and justice, but whereas in one breath they talk about freedom and kindness to your fellow man, in another breath they enslaved people and committed genocide against the indigenous population. The content of that document contrasts against how they treated other people in reality. Who they saw as people was contextual.

Just because the PRC have a statement about how no ethnicity is discriminated against, it doesn't mean they follow that law. And with how obtuse they are with how they treat the Uyghur people and the re-education camps they have set up in the middle of the desert, we have no way of determining whether they're abiding by that law or not. China is one of the least transparent nations in the world, both to the outside world and to human rights groups like Amnesty International - in an ideal world we could take the word of law as gospel, but we've heard so much from Uyghur survivors of these camps and we've witnessed the PRC deny the existence of those camps before branding them "re-education camps" for terrorists and criminals and downplaying how many there are.

So yeah. It's messed up, in a just world we'd have measures in place to prevent the persecution and mass incarceration of minority groups, and we should stay vigilant as to how the Uyghur population are being treated in China. Because if people don't keep an eye on them today, there might not be any of them tomorrow.