A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, posted an antisemitic tweet commemorating the Holocaust as it pertained to the Jews of Lithuania.

He did so in an attempt to cover up China’s atrocities including its genocide against the Uyghurs and other minorities.


Let's be clear, this tweet is antisemitic. It seeks not only to appropriate the Holocaust in the service of the Chinese Communist Party but to cover up China’s systemic oppression of Uyghurs, Tibetans, the Falun Gong, and other minorities.

The parallels are ludicrous.

About 90% of the Jewish population of Lithuania was annihilated during the Holocaust. Lithuania is a democracy that enshrines protections for human rights into its law. Freedom House gives the European country a 90/100, which is an excellent score. While there are concerns surrounding LGBT rights and those of other minorities in Lithuania, they pale in comparison to the repressive state that is China.

China runs concentration camps where it enslaves, rapes, tortures, and kills the Uyghurs. The communist regime utilizes forced labor of Uyghurs. Freedom House scores China just a 9/100, an appalling figure.

Communist China has no ground to stand on here. It has shamed itself and betrayed the memory of those, like my grandparents, who were persecuted in the Holocaust.

Jackson Richman is a journalist in Washington, D.C. Follow him @jacksonrichman.