Obviously, exposing state surveillance and oppression is a good thing. However a lot of western media and commenters conflate this by adding their own propagan

Obviously, exposing state surveillance and oppression is a good thing. However a lot of western media and commenters conflate this by adding their own propaganda twists into their message, either surreptitiously (being anti-Chinese and using "freedom" as an excuse to attack China) or perhaps innocently without realising it (ignorantly, thinking their are really about "freedom" and not realising their own prejudices). This unnecessarily inflames the situation and a more balanced message would have worked better without triggering the sensitivities of very nationalist people. > The Uyghurs are not ethnically Chinese but live in China’s so-called autonomous Xinjiang region. The region’s name suggests the Uyghurs have autonomy and self-governance. "Chinese" is not an ethnicity, you probably meant "Han Chinese" as the ethnicity. Saying that Uyghurs "are not Chinese" is like saying Northern Irish people "are not British". Of course this is going to piss people off, pro-Chinese Uyghurs included. Indeed many of the Github comments are about accusations to split China, and of course if you go into Northern Ireland and talk about how all those people are "not British" you will understandably get the same sort of accusation, that you are trying to split up a nation. Indeed the pro-British Northern Irish call themselves the "unionists", the very word the direct opposite meaning to "split". The naming of the region as "autonomous" is also historical and unrelated to the current surveillance and oppression (which is appalling) but to say this in your second paragraph makes it sound like there is some conspiratorial connection. The region in fact does have more legal autonomy than the other provinces of China.