In a Landlocked Region

When Canada’s House of Commons denounced the Chinese Communist regime as guilty of genocide, in February 2021, it became the first legislature anywhere to do so. But others are paying close attention to China and its ruling party. Indeed, as the world’s finest athletes gather in Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics, many countries are on a journey of discovery — about that party’s actions and the great moral and political challenges they present.

One Canadian scholar, Darren Byler, is helping to guide that journey, with two recent titles that make an outstanding contribution to both public awareness and critical scholarship. The books cover much the same ground for two different audiences: while In the Camps is quite short and intended for the general reader, Terror Capitalism is a longer work, richer in theory and technical terms.

Their publication roughly coincides with two other major landmarks in the world’s developing reaction to what’s...