My comment was in reference to Canada where 50% of foster care is Indigenous kids who represent 8% of population with associated skewed stats in terms of abuse and incarceration. Meanwhile gov virtue signals about reconciliation. System can be rigged against targetted minorities while celebrating them. Almost as if by design.
> it's not comparable,
Full designation of XJ is Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), modelled after Soviet oblasts which grants minority extra autonomy (and other AA privileges) relative to other PRC administrative subdivisions. Uyghurs at historic population peak and growing even with depressed birthrate via enforcement of family planning. Traditional customs are celebrated, it's heavily pushed / virtue signalled in state propaganda. The new securitization layer is reflection of systemic prosecution in North America where some minorities just happen to be disproportionately represented in jail/programs because the laws were tweaked to fit certain interests. It's the same playbook, whereas PRC interest involves actually integrating minorities whereas interests in west continues to be marginalizing them.
>When you say Native American are undergoing a cultural erasure comparable to the one in China
I'm more saying Uyghurs are finally undergoing cultural erasure comparable to Indigenous peoples in North America. PRC is playing catch-up. Uyghur culture was spared from hard colonization due to logistics until recently. Manifest destiny across Taklamakan Desert too difficult until PRC gained wealth, same with Tibetan plateau. Current PRC repression is merely kicking Uyghurs down to where Indigenous North Americans are now at - sinicizing Uyghurs to the same level North American indigenous peoples have already been westernized. The fact that huge percentage of Uyghurs need to be thrown into reeducation centres to learn Chinese, whereas Indigenous peoples in NA's lingua franca is English shows how much PRC still needs to erase/reprogram. Also sinicization =/= become Han, it's Uyghurs with Chinese characteristics, who will follow Islam with Chinese characteristics (WIP), not imported Salafism. They're not making Uyghurs buddhists. Nor Tibetans atheists. But autonomous regions has to at least direct cultural development in ways that mesh with the country as a whole. What US has already successfully done with history of different repression instruments to coerce restive populations into the melting pot. Literally the model PRC wants to emulate vs previous salad bowl / multicultural oblast model with relatively hands off minority policy. What Canada alleges it is but isn't.
PRC is trying to squeeze 100+ years of western cultural genocide in one generation, without the literal genocide. 10 years from now, PRC would be perfectly content with having english speaking Uyghurs practicing historically tame branch of Islam and mope about their loss of culture and marginalization. Aka, become harmless. But since there's 12+ million of them concentrated in a single region, the sights are set a little higher. If they're lucky they'll get a few mid tier southern cities that will remain predominantly Uyghur, Uyghur patronage networks will get rich of resource exploitation, folks with 1/32 Uyghur with use it to get affirmative action perks for entrance exams etc. PRC is straight up copying western model, but with less blood spilled using modern tech and greater state capacity. North America is just further along the process.