NEW YORK, NY Nov. 19 (DPI) – The New York Times this weekend published the contents of leaked emails of Chinese Communist Party officials seeking to “re-educate” the Muslim Uighur minority in recent years, a blockbuster disclosure likely to set back China’s global ambitions and influence.

Though it was not clear how The Times obtained the leaked emails – from US intelligence or from disgruntled Chinese bureaucrats themselves – the disclosure is a triumph for digital-age American journalism, which has had few successes piercing the information monolith in China, Russia and other authoritarian countries.

The disclosure too was treated as big news in the western media, although it’s unlikely to have any real impact on China’s tightly controlled internal affairs. The Chinese government, as The Times report points out, justifies its actions by asserting national security concerns and claiming it’s merely confronting Islamic terrorism.

Still, China has global ambitions these days in Africa, Asia, South America and the Pacific, and reports of concentration camps seeking to re-educate the ethnic Uighur minority in the western Xinjiang region of China will breed much greater mistrust of the regime around the globe. The disclosure could even impact how Beijing chooses to crack down on the Hong Kong protesters.

The Wall Street Journal opined on the leaked emails today, and its readers expressed astonishment. Among the most popular comments:

Why is the rest of the world still trading with that regime? Why is the US still trading with that regime?
Xinjiang.
Hong Kong.
The South China Sea.
Intellectual property theft.
No market access.
Economic extortion.
The list goes on and on. 
Worst of all, they have brainwashed 1.5 billion people into hating the US. 
It’s time to start treating that regime like the pariah it is. Continuing to make the CCP rich is crazy.

The protesters in Hong Kong seem to be the only one standing up to the totalitarian government. They should be supported. Shame on the NBA for picking profits over peoples freedom.

But some readers on NYTimes.com who identified themselves as Chinese defended the actions:

I believe that the Chinese government has implemented the necessary procedures to control terrorism and extremism. As a Chinese, I support the government. Western governments should learn from it, not bomb or kill so many Muslims.

Though not all supported the policy:

I am a citizen of PRC (not by my choice) and a Han Chinese. I am so ashamed of the crimes committed by the CPC regime and the widespread racism towards Uighur Muslims. I think that we Han people are now bearing a similar sin to the Aryans, for what is happening in Xinjiang right now has no difference to the crimes committed by the Nazis to Jewish people. They are equally sinister and disgusting. I would sincerely apologize to the Uighurs who are going through this ordeal. And the CPC dictators and their supporters definitely do not represent we Han people. Real Han people, those with a conscience, definitely stand with the Uighurs and feel guilty for the crimes committed by their people.

This is mass enslavement. A perfect example of Totalitarianism as described by Hannah Arendt; “the human masses sealed off in them (concentration camps) are treated as if they no longer existed, as if what happened to them were no longer of any interest to anybody, as if they were already dead”.