The latest episode of NPR’s “Planet Money” was interesting to me and touched upon issues I’ve been thinking on a lot. Stuck In China’s Panopticon has a genetic angle. The Chinese government seems to be identifying and tracking Uyghurs with genetics. Or at least has the capability to do so. That is, in part, thanks to the work of Kenneth Kidd.

If you have read this weblog for a long time, or are a geneticist, you know who Kenneth Kidd is. You may have used his Alfred database. Though Wikipedia states that Kidd has been doing science in China since 1981, the podcast suggested that Kidd’s work under scrutiny dates to 2010.

That’s important. Because the reality is that the Chinese government did not need this late sampling to genetically identify Uyghurs. The HGDP data set has 10 Uyghurs already. People had been publishing on the pop genetics of the Uyghurs for more than 10 years by the time Kidd did his sampling. Alfred has 94 Uyghurs. This is better than 10, but for forensic purposes of ethnic identification, it’s probably superfluous.

In 2008 two Chinese researchers had already published a population genetic analysis with a bigger sample size than the HGDP. Kidd is not on the author list, so I don’t think he was involved.

Basically, Uyghurs are a group that will show admixture between various East and West Eurasian ancestry components many generations ago. This was already known before 2010. Only a few groups within China, such as Kazakhs, are even close to similar in their profile.

There is one area where I think Kidd’s work may have been pushing the frontier a bit: doing genealogical matching on diverse Uyghurs. Though I can’t imagine you could get more close relatives, the greater geographic diversity would probably implicate many more pedigrees.

Ultimately I don’t think the big picture is about Kenneth Kidd. Yes, forensics, genetics, and the Chinese government give many Americans nightmares. But thousands and thousands of scientists in America do work in China, with China, or are themselves of Chinese origin. American researchers develop technology that is later used in China to clamp down on various dissenters from the regime in an authoritarian manner. American consumers purchase goods and services that power the Chinese economy. American researchers collaborate with Chinese researchers and have indirectly furthered Chinese institutions such as the Beijing Genomics Institute.

I think we need to be honest that this implicates all of us in a globalized “just-in-time” world economy. Do the reporters interviewing Kidd use iPhones made in China?

And, it even goes well beyond China. In general, I think the United States is a force for good. But, as the world’s current superpower we have done some nasty things. Our democratically elected presidents, all of the recent ones, have sent people to their deaths for the good of the world (so they thought). We have intervened in nations and caused massive destruction and death, even though we meant well. Many non-Americans have a deep suspicion of our nation because of the dark shadow that it casts in certain circumstances.

There are bigger questions about power, morality, and individual responsibility and culpability that I wish we’d address, rather than focusing on a single researcher. Especially when I don’t think Kidd’s work was nearly as necessary and essential as the media portrays it.

1+