Why Chinese repression in Xinjiang could be belt and road's stumbling block

A police state full of brutal reeducation camps in Xinjiang will merely provoke a terrifying backlash - and the Belt and Road will be among the casualties

Nobody pretends the People's Republic of China is an entirely benign power, least of all its leaders in Beijing. Yet, even by the standards of what continues to be a remarkably repressive state, the stories that are emerging from behind the Great Firewall about the crackdown on Xinjiang’s Uighur Muslim population are deeply disturbing and deserve more of the world’s attention.

The one country on earth which should best understand the danger and futility of such efforts has reportedly set up “re-education centres” across the length and breadth of its largest province, where political prisoners are instructed to repeat mantras