A billionaire megadonor who said “nobody cares” about China’s crimes against the Uyghur people donated $10,000 to Minnesota Democrats.
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya sparked outrage this month when he said “nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs.”
“You bring it up because you really care, and I think that’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care,” Palihapitiya said during an episode of his podcast.
“I’m telling you a very hard, ugly truth, OK?” he continued. “Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line.”
He said he’s more concerned about issues like climate change and America’s “decrepit health care infrastructure.”
Palihapitiya gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats in 2020, including $250,000 to President Joe Biden and $10,000 to the Minnesota DFL.
He also gave $10,000 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, but party leaders announced last week that they would be donating the money to charity.
The Uyghurs are a Muslim religious minority who reside in China’s Xinjiang region. An estimated one million Uyghurs have been arbitrarily imprisoned or subjected to “severe deprivation of physical liberty” by the Chinese Communist Party. They have been tortured, subjected to forced sterilization and abortions, and forced into work, according to the U.S. State Department.
“Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” the Biden administration said in a report, upholding the Trump administration’s stance.
Several other countries have described China’s actions as genocide, including Canada and Britain.
“I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs by the Chinese party-state,” said former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he agrees with Pompeo’s assessment.
“My judgment remains that genocide was committed against the Uyghurs and that hasn’t changed,” he said in January of last year.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
