the argument i'm going to advance against religionists that are condemning what china is doing is in the definition of control, and the question as to which means of control is more negative, overall.
see, these people will condemn what china is doing as "brainwashing", and then point to participating in the religion of islam as an act of free expression. this is an utterly ridiculous way to frame the discourse. whatever we think of what is going on, we have to begin with the understanding that islam is, itself, a system of brainwashing and control, and that these people were brainwashed into this system from the time they were born.
so, i don't want to engage in this discourse that is about statist brainwashing v religious freedom, as that is an absurd framing from the start. what we have, here, is rather a question of two different systems of brainwashing and two different systems of control. once these people get through their training with the "communist" party in china (which is anything but...), they will no doubt see islam as what it is, and wonder how they could have ever seen it differently. and, while i have a list of criticisms directed at china, i'm at least more on the side of the chinese on the specific question of religion.
if real, ideologically pure leftists were to take over the universe tomorrow and do this right, it would no doubt look a whole lot like what china is doing, except cleaned up to be a little less vicious. insofar as the focus is on undoing the religious brainwashing, i'm entirely on their side, on this - but i want to replace it with critical thinking, rather than obedience to the chinese state. so, i'm calling for the chinese to be humane.
but, that's the extent of my disagreement with what they're doing - it's a big disagreement, but it's about what to replace islam with, rather than about the process of doing away with it.
and, at the end of the day, i would consider china to be less of a threat to global peace and less of a barrier to progress than islam. so, it's a step in the right direction, however minimal and however flawed.
but, it's a good demonstration of why i'm a leftist and not a liberal, and a good purity test for the left. if you find yourself standing up for "freedom of religion" to "protect islam", you're just missing the basic plot on the left - you're failing to recognize religion as a tool of control that must be eradicated to become civilized and live freely, which is foundational to any coherent concept of leftism, and instead retreating to these liberal/conservative concepts of bourgeois rights, that are just intended to uphold the status quo of capitalist and aristocratic hegemony.