The ongoing mass atrocities in Xinjiang are a dramatic watershed here, and in this light, the incident above all exposed the widespread hypocrisy in failing to speak to those responsible. Instead, there is a ritualised, compartmentalised side-show of ‘human rights’ involving lower ranking figures, which looks increasingly like a PR cover for European politicians who are ever more beholden to China economically, but trying to appear firmly principled both in the mirror, and to a wider audience, including the pretence that they still hold on to democracy and respect for human dignity as basic values.
