The Xinjiang hoax should have been the easiest thing to debunk ever. The primary source is a deranged German 'journalist', the NGOs are wallpaper flimsy and don't hold up to basic inspection, and forced labor database has pictures of Andy Lau and Jackie Chan in it.
Meanwhile Xinjiang itself is a huge hub of tourism for domestic and international travelers, it's a business and transit hub, and every major clothing retailer and automotive company had offices there. China expended a huge political capital to invite the UN inspectors there, Arab world leaders there, and even pushed for them to draft a 37-country letter to praise and defend the security practices there. Not to mention sponsoring journalists and online social media promoting the region.
What is the result? The situation became worse and worse— it went from "reeducation" to "cultural genocide" to "forced labor" to "actual genocide". Many big companies pulled out of Xinjiang, US impose trade war level restrictions with impunity, the UN regularly condemns China for minority repression, and most Muslims believe China is just as anti-Muslim as the USA.
The Xinjiang hoax is now so ubiquitous in the world, every teenager in the West and Middle East knows about it. The US does not need to spend a cent to continue propagating it.
This is literally weakest Western propaganda campaign vs strongest national Chinese effort.
There are many reasons in addition to China's submissive response that caused this. Western Europe and Middle East are completely controlled by Israeli backed media outlets. The Middle East region do not do business or come into contact with Chinese often. Unlike them, China's main business partners in ASEAN, Africa, Americas, know inherently the accusations are false because they know it is not the Chinese way of doing things.
Honestly, the best response for China is to ignore and carry on business as usual. Impose counter sanction if needed but don't need to explain. If China did not bring the UN human rights inspector to Xinjiang or appeared in court for UNCLOS, none of this would have escalated. These humiliations are all self-inflicted.
