cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/8512380

Op-ed by Rushan Abbas, Founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs Chairperson of the Executive Committee at World Uyghur Congress; and Dean Baxendale, CEO of China Democracy Fund.

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The vocabulary of diplomacy has always struggled to keep pace with the realities of power. Today, as technoauthoritarianism reshapes global influence, Canada faces a stark test: whether its economic and diplomatic engagement with Beijing can be reconciled with mounting evidence of systemic human rights abuses, most notably the ongoing genocide against the Uyghur people. Recent public statements and testimonies have only sharpened that dilemma, exposing not just policy tensions, but a deeper moral fault line.

That fault line was laid bare during Margaret McCuaig-Johnston’s parliamentary hearing on the risks of strengthening ties with China, when MP Michael Ma’s remarks on forced labour drew justified outrage. His dismissal of credible evidence and reports, and his claim that only what can be seen with one’s own eyes should be believed, reflect a broader pattern in which economic pragmatism is invoked to downplay China’s human rights abuses. It also speaks to a broader pattern of whitewashing and propaganda efforts by the Chinese government designed to obscure Uyghur forced labour and make it harder to detect.

The federal government’s broader posture on forced labour, echoed in remarks attributed to Prime Minister Mark Carney, further complicates this landscape. By framing forced labour as a phenomenon that “happens everywhere,” Ottawa adopts this diffuse, globalized lens that, while not inaccurate in the abstract, has the effect of diluting scrutiny on the specific, state-directed system operating in Xinjiang, Tibet, and elsewhere in China.

The state-imposed forced labour system in Xinjiang has been codified into Chinese government policy. The forcible recruitment, transfer, and assimilation of Uyghurs are framed as “poverty alleviation,” with the Uyghur population having no agency to refuse government employment. In 2024 alone, Chinese government data recorded 3.34 million instances of transfers into labour placements. The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) 2024 handbook explicitly includes “labour transfers” targeting marginalized groups for forced relocation, directly addressing the Uyghur context. United Nations experts have further noted that the severity of such coercion may amount to enslavement in early 2026.

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This rhetorical positioning functions as a form of tacit relativism. By universalizing the problem, it avoids directly confronting its most acute manifestation. Notably absent from the current public framing is any sustained acknowledgment of the Uyghurs’ suffering. Instead, policy emphasis has remained tethered to economic considerations, including the strategic benefits of deepening trade ties and facilitating the influx of low-cost Chinese electric vehicles into Canadian markets. In this light, human rights concerns risk being subordinated to industrial and consumer priorities.

To understand why this tension matters, one must situate it within the broader architecture of technoauthoritarianism. The Chinese state’s fusion of advanced surveillance technologies with centralized political control has enabled a system that not only suppresses dissent domestically but also projects influence internationally.

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The Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs’ 2025 capstone project, Shining A Light On Uyghur Genocide, provides a sobering synthesis of available evidence: mass detention, forced labour transfers, family separations, and the systematic erosion of cultural and religious identity.

What distinguishes the Uyghur case is not only the scale of alleged abuses, but also the industrial integration of repression. The report details how coerced labour is not an isolated phenomenon but part of a broader state-directed apparatus that feeds into global supply chains—from textiles to technology components. In this sense, technoauthoritarianism is not confined within China’s borders; it is embedded, often invisibly, within the very networks that sustain international commerce.

For Canada, this presents a profound policy contradiction. Efforts to deepen economic ties with Beijing, whether through trade, investment, or research collaboration, risk entangling Canadian institutions in systems that contradict the country’s stated commitment to human rights. The argument that engagement can serve as a moderating influence on China’s behaviour has grown increasingly tenuous in light of evidence suggesting that economic integration, absent stringent safeguards, may inadvertently reinforce coercive practices.

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Canada’s credibility on the global stage, particularly in forums where it advocates for a rules-based order and human rights, depends on the coherence of its actions. To condemn abuses rhetorically while expanding ties that may facilitate them is to invite accusations of selective principle.

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This is why the growing public outcry over forced labour and Uyghur persecution should not be dismissed as activist excess or geopolitical posturing. It is, rather, a reflection of shifting societal expectations that governments align their economic policies with ethical standards. The case of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, who remains imprisoned in apparent retaliation for the advocacy of her sister and co-author Rushan Abbas, is emblematic of the broader pattern of transnational repression affecting Uyghur families, including Canadians, and highlights the human cost at the center of these policies.

Uyghur forced labour is not a distant issue. It is in our homes, our wardrobes, and our hands. It affects more than 17 industries worldwide and taints the Canadian market.

For Canada, the question is no longer whether this reality should inform its approach to Beijing, but how and how urgently it is willing to act.

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