They aren't? Not only is the idea of mass Uyghur slave labor atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, but the PRC is an incredibly industrialized country and as such doesn't have a need for slavery. Slavery in general is a horribly inefficient system fir anything other than agrarian production, which is why the Statesian North liberated the slaves in the south, for more wage-laboring industrial workers.

In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of "genocide." Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.

The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.

I also recommend reading the UN report and China's response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.

Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch , though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.

The lack of a theoretical and practical basis is deliberate, or the idea that Solarpunk lacks such a basis is deliberate? I'm referring to what people that consider themselves in the Solarpunk community and movement have described and recommended to me for reading.

For example, from the Solarpunk Manifesto:

Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”

The aesthetics of solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and lush, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid.

Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world ,  but never dystopian. As our world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not only warnings.

It's primarily based on aesthetics and finding potential plans for future society, not a practical means for getting there or implementing said plans, despite its insistence on doing so. This is why I say it isn't really scientific socialism, but utopianism, which has historically resulted in one-off communes that last a good while without actually challenging the status quo or spreading.

Solarpunk in practice borrows from anarchism or Marxism, without fully committing to either, and as such is reduced to its aesthetics.

I'm certainly not a scholar either, but I do think we can investigate certain statements further. Human rights abuses largely stem from class struggle and latent contradictions in society, opposing identities and possibilities, if that makes sense. Excess is a feature of all systems, and as such investigating what drives conflict and the manner of how it's resolved requires a class analysis. In other words, it isn't about size, or ideas of power, but largely resolution of contradictions.

In China, the working classes are in control of the state. However, contradictions exist, like the gap between urban and rural development, the class conflict between the proletariat and bourgeoisie, the contradiction between domestic and foreign capital, between liberalism and communism. These contradictions give rise to excess, which is avoidable suffering. However, unlike dictatorships of capital, China's socialist system is built to address these contradictions.

Rural development is being prioritized to close the gap, including expanding rail, poverty alleviation programs, and making use of urban industrial production to build up rural areas. The proletariat are in control of the state, and use it to publicly own the commanding heights of industry, keeping the bourgeoisie subservient. Foreign capital is limited in what it can actually own, and technology share is mandatory. Corruption is regularly checked, and corrupt party members expelled from the party and punished.

China, compared to capitalist countries, has a great human rights track record, domestic and foreign. It is flawed, because it is real, and more than capitalist countries its structure allows it to improve over time. This extends to areas like LGBTQIA+ rights, which are increasingly important to younger generations while the more socially conservative older generations are replaced. China systemically has a people-first structure.