Bolton: Trump Told Xi to 'Go Ahead' With Uyghur Detention Camps

What happened

In The Room Where It Happened, published in June 2020, John Bolton writes that Xi Jinping explained to Trump why he was building camps in Xinjiang. The Associated Press, which obtained an advance copy, reported that this happened "at a summit in Japan in 2019, with only interpreters present." "According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which he thought was exactly the right thing to do." Bolton adds that another official said something similar, "which meant we could cross repression of the Uighurs off our list of possible reasons to sanction China, at least as long as trade negotiations continued" (NPR). The book also alleges that during a bilateral meeting at the June 2019 G20 summit in Japan, Trump asked Xi to buy American farm products, stressing 'the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome' (Business Insider; BBC Mundo).

NPR reported that roughly 1 million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities had been "detained without trial, subjected to 'reeducation' and other harsh treatment," and that Trump had been generally silent in public on the subject. Trump called the book "a compilation of lies and made up stories." Pompeo said it contained "a number of lies, fully-spun half-truths, and outright falsehoods," without addressing this allegation specifically (Wikipedia, citing contemporary reports).

On June 17, 2020, the day the excerpts appeared, Trump signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which he said "holds accountable perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses such as the systematic use of indoctrination camps" (NPR). On January 19, 2021, his last full day in office, Pompeo declared that China "has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs." The Guardian reported that the administration had not made the declaration earlier "because of concerns of its impact on trade talks."

Legal analysis

The principal crime. Human Rights Watch concluded in April 2021 that the Chinese government's conduct in Xinjiang constitutes crimes against humanity, including mass arbitrary detention and persecution. The US State Department went further and determined genocide. Neither finding is a judicial adjudication. The underlying conduct is well documented, but it is not the subject of this entry.

Complicity (Art. 25(3)(c)). Aiding and abetting requires assistance that has a substantial effect on the commission of the crime, given for the purpose of facilitating it. Taken at face value, Bolton's account describes approval expressed in private by a foreign head of state. Nothing in the sources fetched shows that it changed what China did, or that the United States provided any material help. "Encouragement" can in some case law amount to abetting, but only where it substantially contributes, and that is not shown. The crime type is none, and the conduct does not reach the Art. 53(1) "reasonable basis" level for complicity.

The duty to prevent. Under Article I of the Genocide Convention, the United States undertook to prevent genocide. The US government itself later found that genocide was occurring, and the Guardian reported that the finding was delayed for trade reasons. Telling the perpetrator to "go ahead" is the opposite of prevention. But the duty is a state obligation of conduct, assessed against what a state could reasonably do, and the sources do not show what a different approach in 2019 would have achieved.

Strongest defence argument. The account rests on Bolton's recollection of what an interpreter told him. Trump denies the book's account, and Bolton had an interest in selling it. In practice, the administration signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, later sanctioned Xinjiang officials, and made the genocide determination. The defence goes to evidence, and it is why this entry stays at reported and the lowest grade. It does not explain why the genocide determination waited for the last full day in office, or answer the Guardian's report that trade concerns had held it back.

Why this grade

Significant. If accurate, the head of state privately endorsed the mass internment of an ethnic and religious minority while US policy on it was held hostage to trade talks. The evidence is a single account, given at second hand, contested by the person it describes, and it shows no material US contribution to the crimes. It therefore cannot support a complicity characterisation or a higher grade. A future corroborating account, for instance from the interpreter or from the official Bolton mentions, or evidence that sanctions were withheld because of the conversation, would justify review for major. No international crime is plausibly in play on these facts, so the entry carries no warCrimeClassification.