I was looking up footage of the ICE LA thing the other day and about 2/3 comments are just "HELL YEAH! THIS IS WHAT I VOTED FOR! KICK THESE CRIMINALS OUT!"
Holy shit 
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Raw population numbers is a terrible argument, but relative population numbers is not. If the percentage of the total Chinese population that is Uyghur is increasing over long sustained periods of time, then that is indeed evidence against ethnic cleansing and genocide. As is China exempting the Uyghurs for years from the one-child policy, there's literally a stronger case that China ethnically cleansed the Han majority than there is for Uyghur genocide when looking at the population numbers and policies.
Palestinians for example, despite increasing in total population during certain periods (not since Oct 7th, 2023 though - now we have a total population decrease) has been decreasing in relative population in Occupied Palestine since the nakba. Thus you could determine ethnic cleansing was happening by just looking at the relative populations.
That's still not a great metric of ethnic cleansing. Relative populations of white people in Canada are decreasing, does that mean there is ethnic cleansing of white Canadians? Of course not. The same also goes the other way: an exploited group's relative population increasing does not mean they are not exploited. Population levels are not on their own a very useful metric for trying to understand whether a group is being oppressed.
There are much better arguments to use that are clear indicators of oppression/systemic violence, since population on its own is not inherently correlated to racial discrimination. It's so much more effective to point to, as you mention yourself, the exclusion of ethnic minorities from the one-child policy, or the increase in life expectancy, the elimination of absolute poverty, the increase in health care, cultural/religious protections, civic engagement, etc in Xinjiang (or other regions with large minority populations) to dispel myths about Chinese targeting/elimination of minority populations.
I would say a decrease in relative population is not enough to positively confirm ethnic cleansing is happening (just one indicator), however an increase in relative population is sufficient to dismiss any claims of ethnic cleansing or genocide.