The 2010s were a big decade for the concentration camp. The practice was out of vogue in major powers for a time, but by last year the US, China, and India were all choosing to hold people together in detention for indefinite periods without trial. The particulars of each case are different, but there are overarching questions that connect each: Why do states choose to put people in camps? What do they hope to accomplish by thrusting civilians into indefinite limbo under often brutal conditions? And if the cruelty of the camps is itself the purpose, how do states manage the public opprobrium that we might assume would follow such actions? In the next two editions of Deep Dive, we’ll dig into the latest research on mass detention and state decision-making to better understand the concentration camp’s return to prominence.

Of the three cases mentioned above, China’s camps are by far the largest and most developed. In an effort to repress Muslim ethnic minorities — especially Uighurs — in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China, Chinese authorities have detained between 1 and 3 million people in nearly 1,200 camps since 2017. In a recent article in International Security, political scientists Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Myunghee Lee, and Emir Yazici tried to figure out why China turned to concentration camps when it did, rather than continuing with the time-honored state approach of simply disproportionately policing ethnic minorities.

Most media coverage of the Chinese camps depict them as the result of domestic pressures within China. Uighurs became more politically active in the late 2000s, and in turn, the early 2010s saw China demand greater assimilation from ethnic minorities across the country. As those competing interests came further into conflict, the narrative goes, the Chinese government escalated its political repression dramatically under the guise of national security concerns.

In their review of Chinese policies, public statements, and leaked internal documents, Greitens et al. found a fair amount of evidence for the dominant narrative. They also, however, found evidence of a change in the government’s understanding of the security situation in Xinjiang that, they argue, helps explain why the camps arose when they did and have not been reproduced in other parts of the country. Between 2014 to 2016, Chinese officials came to believe that Uighur populations posed not only the threat of internal division they had long feared, but also an external threat stemming from potential connections between aggrieved Uighurs and violent international jihadi  organizations.

For example, Greitens et al. write, “In late 2015, references to ‘infection’ in people’s thinking began to appear in [official government] discussions of Xinjiang. The party secretary of the region’s Justice Department, Zhang Yun, explained that approximately 30 percent of Xinjiang’s population had been infected by religious extremism...” while other official estimates using the same “infection” rhetoric put the number at around 20%. Those numbers roughly reflect the proportion of the population that have been singled out for “reeducation” in the camps.

These connections with foreign jihadis, some real and some imagined, became the main target of Chinese policy in Xinjiang in 2017. In addition to internment and reeducation, newly announced policies sought to break contact between China and the Uighur diaspora and remove the possibility of free international communication in Xinjiang. The growing Chinese concern about terroristic “contagion” explains both the thrust of these policies and the fact that they have not so far been applied to China’s many other ethnic minority groups.

The impulse to isolate an entire ethnic group in response to a perceived threat of terrorism is hardly new among states. However, China’s internal justifications for its actions in Xinjiang under the rubric of a global struggle against international Islamist terrorism offer a sobering reminder of how far the tone set by the United States after 9/11 has reverberated in the world.

Paula Dupraz-Dobias checked in on Juan Guaidó’s stalled campaign to overthrow the government of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Maduro’s hold on power has only grown in recent months, but the Trump administration signaled renewed effort on Guaidó’s behalf by hosting him at the State of the Union address. The US is reportedly now considering sanctions against companies doing business with Venezuela’s national oil company, including Russia’s Rosneft.

Katherine Harvey examined Saudi Arabia’s contradictory signals to the US about Iran. The Islamic Republic is the kingdom’s greatest rival, and in times of relative calm, Saudi rhetoric about Iran in Washington is often bellicose. When the US escalates its own tensions with Iran, however, it is often the Saudis quietly asking American officials to pull back from the brink. Harvey argued that this pattern is informed by Saudi Arabia’s experience with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, who the Saudi government pressured Washington to confront for years. By 2003, that pressure had gotten out of hand and led to an American-led regional war that hurt Saudi Arabia much more than Hussein ever had.

Patrick Winn tracked the spread of coronavirus into Thailand, where 32 cases have been confirmed. Thailand is a major destination for Chinese tourists, and some Thai tourism workers have already fallen ill. Tour guides, souvenir sellers and others expressed concern about how they could do their jobs in crowded tourist sites while abiding by the World Health Organization’s recommendation to remain 3 feet away from any strangers, but few have stopped showing up for work. For now, at least, economic pressures outweigh viral fears.

People who consume breathless, sensational, patronizing American media coverage of African politics have taken a great deal of joy in speculating how the current state of American democracy looks through the same lens many American outlets apply to Africa. After the Iowa Caucus debacle last week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa Program did one better — they actually asked a range of leading African journalists for their caucus analysis. The results were fascinating, both as an outside view of American politics and as a source of payback for American mistreatment of African stories. As Ugandan reporter Ronald Kato wrote, “If this had happened in Africa, the Americans would have pointed out ‘African’ inefficiencies as the root cause. But democracy is a destination that we all aspire to.” In other words, bless America’s heart.

An all-time literary street harassment clapback.

Weapons manufacturer trade shows consistently produce some of the wildest, most cringe-inducing live entertainment you’ll find anywhere, but this may set a new standard.

Department of Justice public affairs officers often struggle with a core tension in their jobs: On one hand, they’re communications professionals who want to use the occasional joke to make their press releases interesting. On the other hand, they’re feds, a group obsessed with literalism and famously standoffish toward the whole concept of humor. Last week, Northern District of Texas public affairs officer Erin Dooley threaded that needle brilliantly, and we salute her.

Anyone who can provide Critical State with a physical pin or magnet of the goose image here will receive free, yet-to-be-determined Critical State swag. We need it.