China is facing mounting international criticism over its systematic repression of Muslim Uighurs in western Xinjiang province, where an estimated 1 million people have been detained in “re-education” camps and subjected to prolonged physical and psychological abuse. But Chinese leaders remain defiant, telling the UN and human rights activists last week, in effect, to mind their own business. The stand-off highlights one of the most challenging 21st century dilemmas for western democracies: how to sustain the pretence that an increasingly totalitarian China is a “normal” country with which they can do business.
