The Hill
Date: 12/02/19
By: Seth Cropsey, Opinion Contributor

The surest marker of a nation’s preferred international order is its treatment of its own citizens. All states make ethically questionable choices, particularly when faced with acute crises — the oft-cited case of Japanese internment during World War II is a prime example. Just nations, however, are reticent to harm their own citizens in the absence of existential political threats. By contrast, the Beijing government deems millions of its own citizens direct threats to its own survival.

China is conducting a systematic campaign against Muslims in East Turkestan, combining the old East German Stasi-style continuous surveillance with ethnically and religiously-targeted internment on a scale not seen since the Holocaust.

The economic and political freedoms of Hong Kongers so threaten the Chinese Communist Party that it has deployed more than 12,000 People’s Armed Police — essentially an army dedicated to internal security — to the island, where they have waged a multi-month campaign to suppress protesters. Any distinct way of life — whether grounded in faith or cherishing individual freedom, political deliberation and representation — is viewed as an existential threat to a Chinese regime which relies on information control, political centralization and theft to survive.

Based on these grounds, Taiwan presents an even greater threat to China than Hong Kong or Uighur identity.    [FULL  STORY]