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By Jeff Kao, Raymond Zhong, Paul Mozur, and Aaron Krolik
June 23, 2021
Recently, the owner of a small store in western China came across some remarks by Mike Pompeo, the former U.S. secretary of state. What he heard made him angry.
A Uyghur store owner criticizes the U.S. State Department’s declaration of genocide in Xinjiang. He says his experience in an “education and training center” removed his “religious extremist thoughts.”
A worker in a textile company had the same reaction. So did a retiree in her 80s. And a taxi driver.
Pompeo had routinely accused China of committing human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region, and these four people made videos to express their outrage. They did so in oddly similar ways.
