BuzzFeed News identified 268 newly built compounds by cross-referencing blanked-out areas on Baidu Maps with images from external satellite data providers
Pretty cool. Trying to hide the facilities made them easier to find.
Very interesting. I've always wanted to tinker with satellite data for various research projects. Though one issue I generally have is that I've always found that the applications I imagine require data with more frequency than the free services like Google Maps provide.
Does anyone know of any good satellite data providers with more frequent (somewhere between bi-weekly and daily) data?
I understand much of this is dependent on the nature of the project to determine what kind of satellite imagery you would need, different spectrometers at different UV ranges, different swathes, etc. but for now we'll just say something similar to the images in the article here.
CCP always does such bad propaganda thing. Ironically Everything it tried to hide was always exposed fairly quickly, things it doesn’t hide turns out to be less known
The point of bad propaganda is your submission to it. Once they can get you to accept and then repeat the obvious, ridiculous lies, they have a foothold in your mind.
It’s disgusting that nothing will be done because everyone is addicted to cheap goods from China. If we cannot break free from current economic arrangements even after the pandemic, we will never be able to do so.
Manufacturing is entrenched in China. Before you can threaten China, you need to have a backup plan. Otherwise, it’ll call your bluff, like it’s doing already.
I don't see their comment as hopeless, but more as a necessary shift of target. We can demand all we want, but as long as we can't survive without them, we have no leverage.
Punish businesses for violations in their supply chain and make them move production back home. Only then can you start demanding.
Orange Man tried to skip the first step and you see how well that worked...
Because trade agreements are simply the wrong target. Even without a trade agreement with China, companies would still use Chinese parts if it were cheaper.
Through things like blatant tax evasion, countless privacy violations and the like, companies have shown that they value money over absolutely everything, including the law.
We can put whatever we want in the trade agreements and it won't matter. But if the companies are held accountable for their supply chain through high fines and things like even license suspensions, they will work to solve the problem because it's in their interest.
> It’s disgusting that nothing will be done because everyone is addicted to cheap goods from China
I think it's better to shift from that, directly to not letting people (particularly those with means) to make excuses for using PRC goods when it would be almost as convenient to use goods from anywhere else.
It's a start, compared to just letting people say “oh well, guess I'll just give in completely”.
Boycotting "Made in China" labelled products is not effective enough. How would you motivate large population groups to engage globally? Politicians and democratic countries should force China to stop torturing their own citizens based on religious or ethnic affiliation.
Luckily, customs officers do not believe product labels, they have more reliable sources of information like port of departure. I guess, this documentation also could be faked, just hope it's not that easy. Vietnam is a competitor and adversary of China, they would try preventing "hijacking" of their products
It costs money and political capital to stop a country from doing anything, and politicians won't do anything that doesn't benefit them. As an example, nobody cared about the Kurdish genocide in Iraq until the US wanted to invade them. Ironically, while the genocide was happening, the US was allies with Iraq.
Force it how ? Countries cannot go at an all trade war. Us consumers need to reshape thw market. And most of us happend to be very pro human rights but we are just convinced into believing that nothing we as individuals do matter.
By sanctioning responsible government officials and businesses related to the concentration camps.
Currently, the US secretary of state is lobbying in Europe against Huawei and their 5G networks. The same thing should happen whenever there are massive human rights violations.
Going down that route would backfire hard, unless you want to go openly for different laws for different people.
I.e. how would you convince European citizens that it's right to sanction Chinese businesses that profit from prison labor, but wrong to sanction US businesses that profit from prison labor?
Or ignore those Europeans ... how do you convince US citizens of it? Sounds like they're quite angry about the domestic problem right now.
The Uighur people are imprisoned solely for being not in the right/approved (i)religious and ethnic group. It's like if Germany decided to imprison or expel Romanians because they're mostly orthodox East Europeans.
Yes, that's the argument, but I'm sure that the CCP will say that it's not accurate and they're imprisoned at a much higher frequency than other groups because of their behavior, not because of their ethnicity or religion.
The problem becomes more obvious when you look at incarceration rates in the US. Of course, the US says "that's not racist, they just commit more crimes". And we (as in "Western societies") tend to believe that because the alternative is uncomfortable. There's a pretty vocal movement in the US that disputes that claim and alleges that the fact that wealthy and powerful people profit from prison labor is responsible for a) the rate of incarceration in general and b) the differences in incarceration rates.
I don't know whether they are right, but once you start going down that route, you better be prepared to walk for a while. If you don't (that is if you treat the Chinese behavior different from US behavior), you're going to do more harm than good, I believe, because people will understand that your talk of human rights is just a weapon in economical/political/military conflicts, and not a principle you believe in.
The CCP can try painting whatever picture they like. It's obvious from many angles that they're building concentration camps where people are forced to prison labor, organ harvesting and brainwashing. And then there are regular prisons.
The whataboutism you're trying to push into the discussion isn't leading anywhere. I'm sure you'll find plenty of opportunities to discuss the US prison system, but this isn't one. Here we have people who have wronged nothing being labeled as extremists and then put into concentration camps.
I don't see this article mentioned anything on organ harvesting. Please don't spread rumors. Even if the target is CCP doesn't give you the righteousness to assume without evidence. And "everybody knows that" is not a qualified evidence.
Just buy less. Western consumerism gave China it's power.
Have a leader who the world believe he acts in good faith regarding ideals, and not busy subverting ideals for game and profit.
Smart conclusion, but if you take it a bit further you'd realise that it's way easier to make businesses stop buying from china through the power of one small group of people (the government) rather than trying and failing to get 300 million people to stop buying things.
I am not agreeing or disagreeing. I do think if you explained your idea further, you'd get your point across better. Not everyone has read Nietzsche in the original German.
This is similar to the presumption of innocence. You can believe someone acts in good faith initially. Yet, if they don't, you should turn against them immediately to protect yourself.
This is rather obvious. We can all just choose to be a little more resourceful. Its amazing how far little changes like these can take us when deployed at large scales.
Short version as I understand it - there was a little bit of Islamic terrorism a decade or so ago. China decided to address it by basically wiping the entire religion and culture out of existence. Thus why they call them "deradicalization" and "re-education" camps. Their PR story is that they're trying to take "suspected Islamic radicals" and reeducate them to "integrate into mainstream Chinese society".
In practice, this seems to mean that if you're the wrong religion and so much as breathe funny, off you go to the camps, where you will be basically tortured and brainwashed into adopting Han Chinese culture.
When I was traveling around Xinjiang about two years back it was obvious something was going on.
In Korla everyone getting off the train had to submit to a retinal scan, presumably so authorities know all the ingress and egress into town, going to a park involved going through a checkpoint. To get into any train station at all involved 3 levels of checkpoints, the first checkpoint started before you got to the plaza before the train station, so checking in took about 3 hours. In Kashgar the old city had checkpoints at every corner. The entire province only had 3G, the moment you cross over from neighboring Gansu your China Telecom signal dropped from 4G, so sending videos or even pictures is very difficult even on weChat, if you try to do it through a VPN the experience is even slower.
Some checkpoints were vigilant, but in my experience most were just bored. One checkpoint basically forgot to check my ID because I was seated all the at the back of a van. Young Uighur men or woman sometimes with a Han standing around or sitting at a chair with a desk in the middle of the street, writing down the names of everyone who crosses his "stand".
What surprised me the most was that most of the guards manning the checkpoints in towns, highways, at gas stations (which involved a full car search in order to pull into) were Uighurs themselves. I get the impression you basically went to jail or joined the security apparatus, a modern variation on a old Chinese strategem of using barbarian to fight barbarian I guess.
The whole experience changed my perspective on human beings in general. At the end of the day, when I got back home the only conclusion I could come to wasn't even about China or Chinese, if we look at the long span of human history the only thing I can arrive at is human beings in aggregate have a high tendency to do shitty things. Goodness exists in individuals but as soon as we have to appeal to the common denominator of a group or groups more often then not being a piece of shit is the easiest and most expedient.
Unrelated to the article content: is there any way to “escape” from full screen maps embedded in a webpage? I scrolled down to the map of detention facilities and found that I could no longer return to reading the article because every interaction with my screen just manipulated the map.
I agree wholeheartedly. Let’s discuss this along with lifting collective sanctions imposed on Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela.
That is a form of collective punishments that starves civilians.
I’m very cynical about the outrage re: those “re-education” sites. Not because they’re benign but because nobody bats an eye when America commits similarly heinous acts. It seems like a convenient deflection tactic.
Nope. Ban on hi-tech products and weapons do not affect starving civilians in any way, this is solely responsibility of ruling dictators. Exactly like it happened in Russia, in response of banning hi-tech from exporting to Russia, our authorities imposed ban on importing food and medications.
Yeah, I understand but the background is weak. The majority does feel happy that the outcome was less violence and it doesn't affect them but the question should always be, at what cost.
I think OP was not contesting those acts on China were riots, but rather ironically implying that the acts by BLM/Antifa are riots - despite certain media mostly referring to them as 'peaceful protests'.
Karl Marx on religion
“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.“
A popular song:
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
The CCP is simply following a core tenant of communism. From the perspective of the ideology, they are freeing people from religion.
A much more important quote, a warning about accepting new ideas that too few heed today as always:
“Let us keep our minds open, by all means, as long as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of the forces which mould the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your brains fall out! There are still things in this world which are true and things which are false; acts which are right and acts which are wrong, even if there are statesmen who hide their designs under the cloak of high-sounding phrases.”. — Walter Kotschnig November 8, 1939
Chinese oppression of the Uighurs is not really a religious issue. Yes, the Chinese authorities would be happy to eradicate Islam because it is part of some Uighurs' identity, but China has cracked down on secular Uighur movements as well. There were even Uighur communists who were anti-religion, but still imprisoned in China or forced into exile in Turkey or Europe because they insisted on using their own language and not assimilating to the Han.
It is clearly about religion. Read the UN report or the first sentence of the linked article:
“China has secretly built scores of massive new prison and internment camps in the past three years, dramatically escalating its campaign against Muslim minorities”
On a separate issue, the CCP is also rounding up trouble makers, and people that refuse to follow along and learn Mandarin would definitely qualify.
The "Muslim minorities" line is a trope used in Western media for the last couple of decades, especially in the wake of more interest in the Muslim world following 1990s and early 21st-century Islamist terrorism, but it obscures the fact that many Uighurs are non-religious or outright anti-religious. China is pleased at this "Muslim minority" angle that the Western media and NGOs use, because it can spin oppression of the Uighurs as a crackdown on Islamism. However, as I said, religion per se is not the issue here. The problem for Beijing is that Xinjiang has been too independent-minded, because the Uighurs (unlike most of China's minorities) only came under Han domination recently.
Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Hui Muslims in Xinjiang are subject to the same policies; the thing they have in common with Uyghur Muslims is that they're, well, Muslim, and that Kazakh and Kyrgyz speak Turkic languages.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Xinjiang is Shohrat Zakir, an Uyghur politician and (of course) Communist Party member. Being non-religious or anti-religious is a good way for Uyghurs to make career in service of the Chinese state.
I also doubt that Uyghurs are somehow more independent from Chinese rule than other people in China, especially with respect to history, considering the supporting role of Uyghur troops in the genocide of Dzungars (who used to live in modern Xinjiang) by the Chinese Qing army.
What Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Hui Muslims have in common with the Uighur here is that they are fellow minorities from Xinjiang who were also subjected to Han domination only recently. Moreover, the Kazakh population is often seen as a fifth column due to a titular republic for their own people being located right next door.
Citing Shohrat Zakir is disingenuous. In the Soviet Union it was common for people to point to members of the ethnic minorities placed in official roles and say "See, there is no discrimination or oppression”, and the exact same phenomenon holds for contemporary China though it is much less talked about. But those ethnic-minority bureaucrats or politicians invariably made compromises: they did not particularly insist on using their own language in officialdom or defending the rights of their ethnic kin to do the same, and when they did publicly use their native language it was merely in the service of propaganda initiatives directed by the central government. But those Communist Party members who have insisted on the dignity of China’s minority languages and called for resisting Han assimilation have, as I said, suffered persecution for it.
The Uighur definitely have been independent-minded. Regardless of military collaboration with the Qing, the average Uighur would not have had so much exposure to Han culture and language until recent decades.
Yes, that is why Lennin and especially Stalin were made into godlike figures. Mao is a prophet/father of the china also painted as infallible. And lets not forget about North Korea... ummm Peoples Republic that is Celestial Dictatorship.
Marx was rolling in his grave when 'communism' was implemented across the world's nations.
No, it matches the "it's not true capitalism" of the extreme-right libertarian in being absolutely true according to the ideology that they follow. It's not an excuse, but something you can verify by reading the thinkers they follow. If I change my name to "Mr. Real Democracy," people who believe in democracy aren't forced to take responsibility for my crimes.
The "everything I don't like is communism" isn't even extreme right, it's the entire right. It has nothing to do with beliefs, it's a pretense to use violence to suppress political disagreement. It's akin to the "everything I don't like is fascism" of the woke liberal.
Religion is mainly used as opium for the masses
China puting people in concentration camps is evil, but has nothing to do with religion. Also the CCP days as ideological communism are long gone. And pretty sure Marx wouldn't condone any of the stuff you are implying.
See, easy, kept my mind open, and my mind didn't fall out.
That isn’t related to the point I am trying to make, and it isn’t an appropriate discussion on HN as it will only burn in flames.
Let me try again:
Idea - Religion is suffering. In a better world religion is unnecessary.
CCP - We are creating a better world by ridding it of religion.
Reality - Organized religion is a major threat to governments and their narrative.
The situation is that the CCP has high sounding ideals from Marx and other communist works. Reality is that religion is a threat to their power. That a narrative that rounding up these troubled people and re-educating them is necessary for the better world to happen.
This outrage is good, but I am simply pointing out that what is happening in China shouldn’t be surprising. The ideas of Karl Marx are only dangerous because people accept ideas without critical thought, and others use his ideas to further their own real agenda under such cover. It’s all straight out of ‘Animal Farm’.
It's important to realize that Xinjiang is a colony of China. China took over Xinjiang in the past few hundred years; historically, kingdoms there were independent. Sometimes they had tributary relationships, other times they were allies of the Chinese kingdoms. Colonialism takes many forms and Europeans don't have a monopoly on it. The Uyghurs have rebelled many times and even formed short-lived states, the last before the Mao era. What was a territorial annexation has taken on ideological (the Chinese state demanded ideological adherence in art and politics just like in the rest of China ), economic (Xinjiang is rich in mineral resources), and settler-colonial (Han Chinese have been moving into Xinjiang in large numbers) aspects.
In "the past few hundred years" the US took over the American continent and cleaned up exceptionally well.
In a world of global competition singling out Xinjiang as a colony while ignoring how China's biggest military threat is literally built on top of colonial conquests isn't a fair comparison. Where is the line that makes Xinjiang a "colony" while New York isn't? Is the US going to magically move its navy back to its side of the Pacific and stop waving it menacingly around China's oil shipping routes if China carves out Xinjiang and Tibet?
I'm explicitly trying to draw a parallel between other colonial states and China. This isn't absolving other colonial states in any way.
The colony-empire relationship is a just a node along the gradient of territory and domination. The relevant thing here is the continued persecution of the Uyghur minority and the annexation of territory, and continued resistance. It's similar to Kashmir under India, Palestine under Israel, and East Timor under Indonesia.
No country's history is entirely pretty. This is about addressing what's happening right now. China is actively working to crush Uyghur culture under their boots right now. This very story is about how they're actively building more "reeducation" camps. American isn't doing anything remotely as bad right now.
Imagine how much positive impact Bezos could have on this if Amazon led the way on identifying China’s reliance on western money to continue funding cultural genocide. He could spend have of his money on this and still have $100,000,000,000 to play with.
The CEO of Amazon doesn't have a bank account with $200B sitting in it. His net worth is his ownership of Amazon. And Amazon, minus the human rights arbitrage scheme that delivers us megatons of goods manufactured by disadvantaged people, is worth not very much.
John Oliver recently made a episode on the subject (China & Uighurs: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17oCQakzIl8
The Communist Party of China (CPC) are running sinicization and antireligious campaigns of ethnic and religious minorities. The totalitarian and authoritarian countries don't make good neighbors. China will be making inroads into Taiwan soon if the world does not act.
To those that believe that they would not have turned a blind eye during WWII to the systematic extermination of Jews, the current generation has been given a similar challenge. Where is your cancel-culture now? How will our children think of us?
I don’t understand what the ‘cancel culture’ comment is supposed to mean.
There are a million tweets condemning China’s behavior... way more than the number of tweets targeting people who are ‘cancelled’
The difference is that tweets can effect a regular person’s life, and they are ‘cancelled’. China doesn’t care. A company will act to fire a single person who behaves badly because of consumer pressure; it doesn’t cost them much and is good PR. Stopping doing business with China is a lot costlier, so they don’t give in to the same consumer pressure that they would for an individual employee.
The different outcome doesn’t mean there is some hypocrisy amongst the people tweeting their support for ‘cancelling’ someone.
It just means that tweets aren’t that powerful for real change.
A really good "code smell" for political bullshit is when a person or idea is simultaneously an ineffectual loser and a grave, powerful, insidious force. Closely related to the notion that the leader is simultaneously both a powerful winner and a powerless victim.
"cancel culture" here is both powerful and dangerous enough to bring down Western civilization, yet so laughably weak it cannot even pretend to solve real problems.
I first heard this idea articulated in Umberto Eco's article on Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism [0,1]. First link is the abridged list. The second is a full feature article.
From Point #8
"by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak"
The part that usually completes this idea is that the person or idea only has power because people give it to them. So the person in itself is not powerful but they are given power.
>A really good "code smell" for political bullshit is when a person or idea is simultaneously an ineffectual loser and a grave, powerful, insidious force.
I've read that somewhere.
By the same "heuristic" anti-Trump talk is "political bullshit", because he is said to be simultanously a buffon/ineffectual loser and a very powerful insidious force.
But of course such heuristics are themselves usually selectively applied to opinions which those applying them already agree are "political bullshit".
this is an obviously bad analogy. trump is clearly a moron, and also holds the most powerful position in the world. those are not contradictory in any way.
Cancel culture means boycotting public figures or companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. You are talking only about tweets but those have little to do with it.
Boycotting China is definitely possible, simply stop buying their goods. Vote with your wallet! If enough people do this then it will definitely have an impact, possibly even enough to bring about some real change.
Maybe if companies in the USA and Europe would stop building stuff in China it would work. Why is the burden on placed on individuals when corporations and governments actually have more power in this process.
I personally blame corporations and governments in Europe and the USA for the issues with China. They put money above everything.
> Boycotting China is definitely possible, simply stop buying their goods.
How would you even know which products have raw materials that come from China? You will be hard pressed to find something that doesn’t have parts made in China, and even harder pressed to be able to figure that out.
A 100% boycott of China is difficult, especially if you were to try to boycott things that were made elsewhere but have a lot of Chinese stuff in their supply chain. But even just boycotting what you can is a positive step.
You can also support political action that takes concrete steps against China for these atrocities, rather than supporting them. There are real differences in political stances here.
You don't need to feel utterly powerless because you can't solve the problem 100%. That's always true anyhow, but especially true of something of this magnitude. It's OK; literally nobody expects that. You can take what steps you can. You are being joined by many other people.
I often think about it that way; if I'm moved enough to action because of this particular belief, then the odds are pretty good that many other people are as well. It is the actions of that group that will matter. If that group all individually concludes that their individual actions are meaningless, then the whole group will do nothing. So I choose not to act on the belief that my individual actions are meaningless.
(Essentially an argument based on superrationality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality It is obviously false that the rest of the world is entirely superrational... but it is also false that they are 0% superrational. Often too much time is spent on the irrationality of human beings... a lot of people seem to have a model of them in which they are insane crazies who never make a sane decision, but if you take that model seriously everyone covered by it would just die. Humans are often quite rational. They just really, deeply suck at explaining why they are doing what they are doing, but the actual actions are often quite rational when understood in the correct context.)
I thought cancel culture referred to the practice of reporting someone's postings and getting them taken down or even banned by the platform. It also includes doxxing people and trying to get them fired from their jobs because of their online postings.
>Boycotting China is definitely possible, simply stop buying their goods.
You'd find out that 90% of "their goods" are what you consider yours and other third party goods... Even BMW's are largely made there from what I've read.
There's limited set of countermeasures we can impose on China. I joined "Boycott Made in China" initiative, I promote it in my LinkedIn, and I literally check "Made in" tags in the mall during shopping, and I do not buy any Apple products, until I see them implementing their project on moving production from China to India and Vietnam. However, I understand how terribly it is "not enough". Countless politicians and businessmen without moral compass keep dealing with China. Harward President cancelled human rights conference to please Comrade Xi during their meeting. Greed and cowardice rule the world, and nothing drastically changed since pre-WWII times.
What else we, the people, can do to confront the evil, in the world where life of a nation, reputation of the whole country and principles of people who supposed to maintain peace all have a price?
Well, US greed gave China this power. Cancel culture have nothing to do with this.
There were a lot of left leaning voices in the ninetees warning against the trajectory of globalism.
The sell out of US manufacturing was done by people with money, not the people who dislike racism (and show it in a weird and harmful way).
Or just another case of made-up US exceptionalism ("oh, how braver we are than those others for saying no to China now"), after the US corporations/market had profited from cheap Chinese manufacturing and sweat shop labor for years, and takes the high moral ground only now that "coincidentally" has an economic problem and wants to stop all the outsourcing.
Meanwhile, all this talk of "global moral cowardice" was hardly there for hundreds of instances of the US doing all kinds of shit to third countries throughout the 20th and 21st century with bi-partisan agreement and the public hardly caring...
China is shitted upon for those detention camps (and rightly so). Meanwhile, over a million muslim deaths have been directly and indirectly (e.g. pharmaceutical and food shortages) caused by the Iraq embargo/invasion alone [1] (one of several), and people talk about China as if their shit doesn't smell...
For example, Australia won't even withdraw special trade relations with Hong Kong now that the PRC is compromising the whole point of that status, the U.S. went ahead and did so.
Isn't that just because the U.S. has strategic and economic interests to put pressure on China (and otherwise could not give less ducks about democracy, morals, or Hong Kongers for that matter.
Especially since they don't have and historically didn't also have any problem with all kinds of dictators, right wing governments, etc. (from Suharto and Pinochet to UAE), as long as they were allies.
The thing about the Hong Kong annexation is that the same thing that threatens Americans' moral preferences is also bad for business; it doesn't actually matter why you value Hong Kong's legal sovereignty, because the stakes are the same.
> A 2017 study in the British Medical Journal described "the rigging of the 1999 Unicef survey" as "an especially masterful fraud".[12] The three comprehensive surveys conducted since 2003 all found that the child mortality rate in the period 1995-2000 was approximately 40 per 1000, which means that there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after sanctions were implemented.
You seem to forget that the Iraqis liked Saddam which is the only reason he stayed in power. Did they care about the genocide of the Kurds? I think not.
If you really want someone to blame, blame France, England, and Russia for arbitrarily drawing up countries after WW1 without considering that people in the middle east wouldn't overcome their nationalism and racism which would lead to continuous conflict.
No, I actually didn't fully read the paragraph I linked to, thought it would mention the same numbers I've read before from several sources. I now see that the entry in Wikipedia actually includes some later dispute on those numbers though!
Still, there's a big toll from 4+ invasions, bombings, destabilizing countries stable for decades, etc., even if the 500K number mentioned for Iraq at that period doesn't stand up. For example it's not disputable that we have had millions of regugees from these regions as a result of the invasions...
>If you really want someone to blame, blame France, England, and Russia for arbitrarily drawing up countries after WW1"
Oh, I absolute blame those. But also anyone later who meddled, grabbed resources and exerted influence (strategic, trade, etc.) while paying lip service to "democracy" (the modern "white man's burden").
>without considering that people in the middle east wouldn't overcome their nationalism and racism which would lead to continuous conflict.*
I'd not say it happened "without econsidering". Rather "capitalizing exactly on that this will happen, and making sure with subsequent meddling and stiring that it will". The classic old British Empire "divide and conquer" modus operandi...
As evident from my other comments I don't like CCP one bit. But while we criticize oppression, Muslim extremism which triggered this oopression shouldn't be pushed aside either.
Tibet is equally oppressed under CCP's boots for many decades now but nobody seems to be bothered.
I don't think that is the case. Media is biased but I am not sure why Media wants to exaggarate atrocities on Muslims but convinently skips atrocities on other ethnic group mostly by the Muslim extremists.
I understand all Muslims are not involved but what stops Media from highlighting the atrocities of Muslim extemist group. Plenty of these groups exists but barely reported.
I am not sure if this is because of White guilt or Media houses are scared of Charlie Hebdo like scenario.
I genuinely believe this is getting less publicity because it's impossible to cover in the traditional way: there are very few first person sources and it's impossible to go there and film. Whereas unlimited media from the US domestic conflict is available.
I would be more concerned about challenges like these in my local area, i.e. the west (millions refugees living in tents as a result of western wars, for profit prisons, children refugees in border camps, etc). if we can't solve it in our own countries, what chance is there to solve it in china through twitter.
Some of us don't have much power. I denounced it online several times, that's all I can do.
People like Lebron James, who thinks of himself like a freedom fighter, when he criticized China he ended up saying he was misinformed and he wasn't educated about the issue.
He loves the money coming from China more than anything else. I want him to be reminded by this. He put his millions before human lives, just like some nazi collaborators did.
> I denounced it online several times, that's all I can do.
You can do more. Write your representatives. Call their offices (both Democrat and Republican), and buy fewer Chinese products, even it costs more money.
Please keep in mind I'm not criticizing you here, just saying you could literally do more if you wanted to.
I do get annoyed with people who "complain online'. That's just a waste of time. Call your representatives. They will respond to thousands of phone calls from constituents saying "do X".
For some reason we think Facebook is our democracy, not our elected representatives.
Let me clarify: I believe it's a waste of time if we're also not complaining to our elected representatives.
If 10,000 people read this article and got annoyed, and then we made 10,000 phone calls, things would happen. If 10 people pick up the phone... not so much.
> Call your representatives. They will respond to thousands of phone calls from constituents saying "do X".
What do you say to people who don't really believe this? I don't think I'm the only one who looks at the political scene (and much of "reality" as it is projected into our brains through the media) and thinks it's largely theatre. Kayfabe.
Oh sure, you can surely find discrete examples of where the system worked as advertised, but are these examples actually representative of the overall truth?
I can't shake this feeling that if I (or most any other person from this forum who has worked on large, complicated projects with many interconnected moving parts) was tasked with managing the affairs of this planet, the organization and means of communication/documentation would not look anything at all like what we've seen with our very eyes, for many decades.
How does a person sort out what is actually true anymore?
> What do you say to people who don't really believe this?
Nothing really. They've lost faith in democracy and have given up on the country. What else is there to talk about? If you have no faith in the system and don't want to participate then I'm not sure what you want or you're expecting.
I would add that if voting/protesting isn't enough to feel like it's "doing something" there is always the option of fixing things from within. I know that's a bit of a fairy tale idea for many, and few seem to have the convictions to actually do so once they are in a position to, but that doesn't mean that YOU, dear reader, would fail the same way.
Seriously, run for city council or something. Fix the bugs the same way you would an interconnected system: find where things (money, proposals, solutions) drop out, find where things are miscommunicated, optimize, upgrade, and secure the edge systems that directly interact with the client (the people).
It might take a lot of effort and people doing this, and many many years, but I think it is a more viable long term solution than waiting for things to magically get better enough that you feel like a vote will suffice.
"Democracy" is a principle - our current implementation of it is but one of many possibilities to go about it.
Democracy (in general, and our rather arbitrary flavor of it) is only one form of governance, is there some reason we're bound to this approach? Nothing else shall be considered?
> and have given up on the country
This is speculation - it is not possible to know the thoughts, dreams, intentions of other people with accuracy.
> If you have no faith in the system and don't want to participate then I'm not sure what you want or you're expecting.
I believe I want something similar to what the BLM protesters believe they want, who are also displeased with the outputs of "the system" as it is. I'm weary of the "my way or the highway, reality is what we say it is" approach to "Democratic" governance theatre.
There's a huge difference. China needs the west to keep buying their stuff. China had a huge economic development thanks to the money from the west. They don't even have to care about their internal economy as long as billions and billions flow in from the west.
Now, if we change that by let's say moving factories back home or to Africa, they'll be in trouble.
If you're a Chinese citizen, first of all you don't have a voice. The CCP owns the country, they make the rules, and economically they don't have the upper hand. That's why the only thing they do is threaten any foreign official who won't submit to them.
> China needs the west to keep buying their stuff. China had a huge economic development thanks to the money from the west. They don't even have to care about their internal economy as long as billions and billions flow in from the west.
This seems... economically confused. Billions flowing in from the West reflect the fact that China's internal economy is strong. If it fell apart, no money would flow in.
It means that the productivity of the Chinese economy, and thus the ability of the CCP to siphon off some of that for things like building mass detention facilities, is dependent upon foreign demand. It is doubtful that China has enough domestic consumption demand to keep everyone gainfully employed if foreign demand dried up. But it’s hard to say what would actually happen.
> and thus the ability of the CCP to siphon off some of that for things like building mass detention facilities, is dependent upon foreign demand
Way off the mark. You could have an economy on par with North Korea and build those facilities. China's economy is 100+ times larger than it needs to be to build the facilities they're building in Xinjiang. If you rolled their economy back to 1990 on a GDP per capita basis, they could still get it done with zero problems. Concrete, barbed wire, guards, guns and slave labor are most of the necessary ingredients. The most primitive of nations have what's necessary to do it.
It depends on a lot of factors such as who and how many see your posts, how much you consume and how much you boycott etc. If you’re alone the impact is small but if others are starting to follow suit the number goes up fast and the voice becomes stronger.
It is easy to think the impact is nill and that’s exactly how the opressor wants you to think, no wonder the divide and conquer is a strategy that works. But every movement starts off with a few who believe they make a difference and eventually it picks up a critical mass
Let me contrast that with something: opening a dialogue outside of an echo chamber.
For example, a woman of Han descent who had her purse snatched by a Uighur kid talked about feeling nervous and clutching her bag when she passed someone on the street. Instead of lecturing her about systemic problems as a first resort, I started by finding common ground: her experiences as a Chinese woman studying abroad in Japan, and the systemic racism she experienced.
The ally training skills I learned in the US were helpful. The more typical high-minded condescension, in contrast, tends to be counterproductive in my experience.
Yeah... I hear you and I think there’s a valid point here, but let’s not draw false equivalencies. Mass forced detention of entire ethnic groups is not comparable to systemic racism. One can argue that the US is systemically racist but we did elect a black president.
==He loves the money coming from China more than anything else. I want him to be reminded by this. He put his millions before human lives, just like some nazi collaborators did.==
All of this could be said about our current President and his family. He has far more power than LeBron James, maybe we should hold him accountable?
Who cares? Lebron James and yourself are both adults capable of taking stances and acting on them regardless the actions and behaviors of the president of the US.
To play devil's advocate: the west is now in a soft Cold War with China. Given China's opaqueness, any media report about China has to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially considering how the media has acted as the mouthpiece of the state in the past (most notably in the entire Iraq WMD fiasco).
So while I certainly don't doubt that China is oppressing its minorities, I'm also loathe to believe every media report about it.
I know this isn't a popular opinion, but very objectively, western media does not have a track record of being truthful when it comes to Cold War opponents.
What a weird take. Every administration before our current one appeased China despite their obvious human rights issues. This is the first admin to challenge the issue.
The weird take is going after LeBron James like it is his job to conduct international diplomacy, while giving Trump a break on his personal Chinese business interests.
If all he did was to not speak up, your argument is totally valid. But the truth is he actively tried to silent others by saying Daryl Morey was "misinformed and not educated on the situation", when nobody asked for his opinion about the matter.
First off, Trump’s foreign policy on China is working as their economy contracts. Or do you want an invasion?
Second, Lebron can do much to educate himself on China, as he’s already an activist in other areas, and he has millions of followers. But it looks like he’s educated himself on who pays his paycheck.
Lebron is free to say and support whatever he pleases. We’re all free to stop listening, stop watching and stop buying what he’s selling.
Actually, in a strange way LeBron James has way more power than Trump in regards to cultural pressure that can result in change. Trump has been using this issue as an excuse to ramp up pressure in the south china sea among other things, but people don’t believe him to actually care.
Hes been quoted, by one of his own hires, as telling the Chinese that they're "doing exactly the right thing" so people are right to think he doesnt care.
Thank you for your whataboutism. OP brought up Lebron James because he likes to publicly moralize about how certain lives matter and ignores an actual genocide in the country keeping him paid.
Should we spend more time on LeBron James' hypocrisy or the President of the United States' hypocrisy? One is the most powerful person in the world, the other is a basketball player. Focusing on LeBron is just another red herring to distract.
Even Islamic countries that should traditionally be sympathetic to the cause of Uighurs turn a blind eye to it e.g. even Pakistan does not mention it because of their close relationship to China. If Nations are scared you can imagine how difficult it will be for individuals, even if you may think they have a lot of power.
> I denounced it online several times, that's all I can do.
You can talk to your representatives about it. You can start actively boycotting Chinese-made products (not so easy, I know). You can donate to NGOs such as the UHRP (Uyghur Human Rights Project). You can follow them on Twitter.
It's not like Lebron James will solve this either, so don't blame it on him.
A positive view would be that you could say that even the NBA needs to "pick it's battles" and can't do all of BLM, HK, Uyghurs, etc.
A more grim view would be that in the end companies will do what's best for them. Currently It's in the NBA's best interest to support BLM since it affects their base. HK, Uyghurs, etc. doesn't really affect them and fighting a battle for it doesn't help them in anyway.
It sounds like you may not be aware that the NBA has been actively and specifically blocking criticism of China. It sounds like currently they've reversed that policy on at least what custom jerseys they'll print, but only after a lot of pressure. The NBA is not neutrally "permitting" their players to protest things if they happen to want to, they have taken an extremely active role in what political actions are and are not allowed, and anti-China protests have consistently been on the "not allowed" side, by the league. The NBA, as an organization, is not a neutral; they have chosen sides.
I am well aware of the NBA's actions. The specific question was about an NBA player, which would be the NBA Players Association, not the league itself. They work for the league, in the same way many of the companies HN Readers work for do business in China.
I’m voting and campaigning for politicians that I might disagree with on 99% of all issues for the sole reason that they’re willing and capable of standing up to China.
For reference, my views are aligned with Sanders but I’d vote for Trump solely based on his actions towards China.
I’d also say boycotting Made in China and companies kowtowing to China isn’t as difficult as people say. You might not be able to boycott it 100%, but it’s not that hard to find alternatives to 90+% of the products.
I am! It was a horrible mistake and I'm glad he's gone now. But to be clear, Bolton did the vast majority of his damage during the Bush administration.
His trade war is hurting China a lot - companies are being forced to leave due to the high tariffs, Chinese companies are suffering (for instance, Huawei not being allowed to use Android, banned from using chips with US tech, etc.), TAIPEI Act and Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was also signed under his administration. He’s the first US President to speak directly with Taiwan’s President since 1979, he made the largest arms sale to Taiwan in the past few decades, China Mobile were blocked from offering services in US, Huawei is being blocked from building 5G networks (even paying other nations to block them as well), TikTok and WeChat likely to be banned from the App Stores as well (hopefully worldwide), he keep reminding people that the Wuhan Virus originated in China and that they’re responsible for the pandemic, China about to lose the developing country WTO status, HK special status revoked, etc.
There’s really not a single person who’s done more to stand up to China than Trump has. Just look at China’s reputation today compared to 4 years ago.. the world is finally starting to wake up to the dangers of the CCP. And I really don’t care what his motives are.. I know he probably couldn’t care less about the Uyghurs, but his actions towards China are helping the hundreds of millions of people currently and about to suffer from the CCP.
I wouldn’t assume he doesn’t care. He is human don’t forget. I do wonder how much the tougher stance towards China is specific to this administration. Can we know that a different administration would not have acted similarly. Maybe not the willingness to increase taxes on trade quite so aggressively, which is odd coming from a republican but the results have been encouraging with the American economy hitting record highs despite his much vilified trade war.
CCP’s atrocities are nothing new.. the only thing that’s new is that we finally have a couple of leaders that are beginning to stand up to China (such as USA and India), and Trump’s actions are forcing other nations hands.. for instance, Canada got dragged into it when Meng Wanzhou was rightfully arrested, to which the CCP responded with arbitrary arrests of Canadians in China.
Biden went on record saying he would end Trump’s China tariffs, and we can also see how little the EU and other western countries are doing to stand up to China (and how little Biden did during his 8 years’ vice presidency)..
Having to fall back into unsubstantiated hyperbole like "worst president in history" and "screwing the country" probably doesn't help to win anyone over.
Trump's character flaws, faux status as a successful business mogul, a conservative, a champion of the Republican party, a racist, ... is left to the reader. (A hilariously easy task with some time and Google.)
What I wanted to address was the single issue of China garnering votes for Trump's second term. JFK is famously quoted for this: "...Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,..."[1] America didn't become the world's top economy by being anti-globalist. We manufactered things, we exported things, we embraced international trade. We pioneered the transistor, created silicon valley, and created an environment where enterprising foreign nationals could come with their ambitions and build companies that ultimately would employ Americans, enrich stock holders, and create jobs. But ... now Trump and his administration is slowly closing the US off from immigration of persons and businesses and ideas. How many of the worlds future Fortune 100 companies are in the minds of PHd students or researchers that given this new visa situation will think twice about incorporating in the USA? Just look at the businesses created in the first and second tech booms and ask how many founders were foreigners.
Regarding the foreign reserve currency and Chinese military might. I guess I am more bullish on that not changing anytime soon. The US spends far too much in propping up the military industrial complex that it would take generations of incompetent presidents to ruin that lead. That being said it's very disconerting for Trump to be so cozy with our enemies, to openly praise North Korea (could be a policy of appeasement or just keeping one's enemies closer than his freinds... i dunno) and to give exuberant praise to Putin, etc., and to disregard intel from his own agencies, to badmouth the FBI and the CIA, to bilk the government into paying himself by staying at his own properties, golfing practically his whole presidency, praising white supremacists, ... all of this is forgiven because he's "hard on China". HAH!
To think that President Xi isn't 10 moves ahead is to be truly ignorant.
>Most job losses ever? Or highest deficits ever? Or highest unemployment rate ever?
>Does that win anyone over?
How can you blame Trump for that when the unemployment rate was the lowest in over a decade before 2020, and the job losses / fall in unemployment was due to lockdowns he didn't support? Overall the unemployment rate is much better in Red states, which have weaker or no lockdowns: https://www.aier.org/article/unemployment-far-worse-in-lockd...
Getting the blame is part of being the country’s chief executive. There are two main categories here, economy and health. We are performing worse than Europe on both accounts (higher death toll and higher unemployment rate). Does that tell you we are doing something wrong as a country?
I think it's a bit unfair to blame him for the unemployment rate having gotten so high, but it is fair to blame him for how long it has lasted. If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now. Most jobs could have come back, especially if we had done something like furloughs like the UK did. Instead, it got completely out of control entirely due to his incompetence.
Unemployment being higher in locked down states makes sense. But the flipside of that statistic is that daily deaths in red states are reaching new peaks now while they've flatlined to lows in blue states.
>If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now.
Then why haven't the Blue states that have been locked down for months gotten back to normalcy? Like California and New York? Why hasn't Melbourne gotten back to normalcy? Almost nowhere that prevented a first wave by shutting down has managed to avoid a second wave.
A single percentage point difference in unemployment data versus versus thousands of deaths. And comparing dense European countries to rural red states. Your data is devastating to your point.
Blue states can't go back to normalcy since diseased red staters can still travel freely within the country and ruin it all over again. Also because Americans are too stubborn to mask up for the privilege of normalcy.
Places like Australia have gone back to normalcy(+masks) now. Japan can pack a train full of people(+masks).
Yeah, I’m afraid so. I wish liberal politicians were willing to stand up to China, and I try to encourage them to do so. But at the moment I’m unfortunately stuck supporting people like Trump.
At the end of the day it boils down to how much damage is Trump and other conservatives able to inflict compared to the CCP. I’m pro immigration, privacy, eu, choice, police-reforms, etc. my views are very much aligned with what you see in Scandinavia.. but at the end of the day, I see CCP as the greatest threat that the world is facing, and I feel voting against all my beliefs to help stop them is a necessary sacrifice.
Technically, having started no new wars, makes him one of the best presidents in history (as a non-American, that's the most important dimension of any US presidency.)
(Caveat: I think US entering WWII was justified so I don't blame FDR, and also given that Bush & Obama attacked so many countries, it's hard to find another country to invade, so arguably Trump had an easier job... but still. Good job!)
I'm a lowercase independent—for the life of me, why did the Democrat party choose the worst candidate of the lot two campaigns in a row?
Biden has tons of baggage. If he had an (R) next to his name and nothing else in life different he’d be getting creamed for all his previous policies, stances and quotes. In addition, mentally he’s not lasting four years of intense presidential demands.
In 2016 Clinton was Bush heavy (or comparatively Bush would be Clinton lite)
There’s something terrible about the primary system and it’s not obvious how to fix it. It is ostensibly more representative than the system which came before it, but honestly it seems in the past 20 years to have delivered extraordinarily low quality candidates for both parties more often than not. It’s not clear what the solution is though.
Counterintuitively primaries are more democratic now compared to before when backroom dealing often had more sway.
Maybe what's happening now is that early on in primaries enthusiastic voters vote for fresh kids, then as things progress more seasoned voters vote for more established candidates but by then most good established candidates have dropped off and we’re left with the second bests and hangers on.
Kind of a paradox of choice in the political arena.
>>>So China’s so big of an existential threat that you’ll let one of the worst presidents in history have another 4 years to continue screwing the country?
How screwed do you think the entire country will be if the Chinese continue their naval expansion unchecked[1][2], defeat us in a conflict, and de-throne the USD as the primary unit of exchange for energy resources?[3] What do you think happens to the US economy if we can't print the world's reserve currency like Monopoly money anymore?[4] Those are all far bigger, long-term strategic problems than the executive overreach we might experience with a President who's a rude narcissistic strongman....and almost no-one else who has campaigned for President or VP has even paid The CCP Problem lip-service (Biden started barking as if he was anti-China only in mimicry of Trump, arguably).
Why have you decided to boycott Chinese products? There's a billion people there, and most of them have nothing to do with the government. They just want to sell toys or computers or whatever it is, in order to be able to eat.
I don't boycott Apple just because the country they are based in (according to the note in the box) has committed some crimes over the years.
And in the US people at least ostensibly have the right to choose their own government, AND there's a culture for large corporations to lobby government directly.
You'll find the same people who want to boycott Chinese products are ironically also quite good at keeping us aware that people in China can't really speak their own minds.
Also, at what level should the boycott happen? Should I just boycott Californian luxury electronics manufacturers? All Californian firms? All US? The world is a tangled web, why is the political map the one whose lines you use?
The nazi Germany had millions of citizens too, just like you and me. People who wanted to live a happy and fulfilling life.
We're not talking about bombing them. We're talking about economic boycott and economic sanctions.
What else do you have in mind? How do we act against countries that commit crimes against humanity? Do we just stand and watch because they have millions of good citizens?
Economic sanctions should be directed at leaders. I don't see much use in random people boycotting random things from China, having much effect on the leaders.
I guess it may have effect if you tell your favorite seller on Aliexpress, that sorry, I will not be buying anymore stuff from you, because XYZ. But just stopping, means nothing. Sends no discernible signal to the other side, and just increases economic suffering, which while it can lead to revolutions, only probably when it hits some extreme level. Just look at Syria, massive sanctions, people can barely eat, currency is spiraling to hyperinflation, and they still have not toppled the corrupt asshole in charge. And I doubt having to spend half a day just figuring out how to get something to eat helps in any way. In fact corrupt asshole in charge is using the sanctions, to rally his supporters.
Sanctions against leaders don't work if they don't have their assets in the west. Chinese officials wouldn't give a fuck about it.
And besides that, we're in an economic against them. Actually, they are in an economic war against us. We can't do business in their country freely but they can make their own companies here or buy the ones we already have with the money they are making from manufacturing our stuff. Nope.
Clearly government is involved. When did a government of somewhere last express their displeasure at China's government for this? If they've done it, they must have buried the news. If you don't think a public rebuke will help anything, what do you propose?
If you don't think that it will help, don't do the wrong thing for the right reason. That will only clear your own conscience.
Let's not do things that harm the wrong people. Is not buying a toy from China really going to help anything? You'll put some toy guy out of business, but is he gonna lobby government to stop the prison camps?
Are you quite aware of how much blood is spilled when China goes through political turmoil? Aside from the world wars, a huge chunk of the top 10 bloodiest conflicts in history are Chinese internal conflicts.
You're asking people who understand very well that standing up for a new government is going to be extremely costly.
In the meantime, you want to deprive them of work.
Do you have a source for the ten bloodiest conflicts? Not saying you’re wrong just curious. Tiananmen Square and maybe some cultural revolution moments come to mind. But I also haven’t studied much Chinese history, which is why I’m curious.
Why won't 350 million American citizens do something about their own government first, before engaging in moral grandstanding in respect to other countries? No, this doesn't mean just getting rid of Trump - the entire political spectrum is complicit in millions of deaths every decade.
US calls itself a "Democracy", so you're supposed to be more empowered to make a change than an average Chinese citizen.
You're asking a very tricky "what if" question and implying a better result without evidence.
There are only 3 countries with the potential to become superpowers in the modern age -- USA, Russia, and China. Hegemony by one of the three is inevitable.
It is up to YOU to provide proof that Russia or China would be better choices.
President Roosevelt said "speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." The US foreign policy has gone very far with that idea. A large military then economic pressure is what led to the collapse of the USSR. The same tactic has kept North Korea, Iran, and other despotic countries at bay for decades.
Today, Trump and Biden both have endorsed a similar approach to China. Build up the military presence around China and pile on economic pressure until they collapse (trying to walk the fine line to avoid war).
Unlike the US, China and Russia/USSR have killed tens to hundreds of millions of their own people. Do you really think there would be fewer deaths if China or Russia were the dominant power? If they're willing to kill their own so casually, they're going to be even more barbaric with foreigners.
I'd ask again, do you have any proof that the alternatives are better?
I don’t know if that’s fair to Lebron. The man does a ton of good off the court that I think he’s a good enough guy to not value money as much as you paint him for it. I mean why would he be so willing to give of his own wealth if he was so driven by money? What is more likely is that the NBA pressured its biggest star because they have ambitions in China bigger than Lebron.
How is that comparable to Jews? jews were tortured killed and their personal properties were robbed. Do you see anyone in this article got the same result? Where does you sense of self righteous coming from?
We invaded Nazi Germany in response to their own invasion. Nobody is willing spend their effort to stop genocide unless they have another motive. For example, I only hear about the Rohingya genocide when people use it as an argument to break up Facebook.
> To those that believe that they would not have turned a blind eye during WWII to the systematic extermination of Jews, the current generation has been given a similar challenge. Where is your cancel-culture now? How will our children think of us?
I agree 100% with what you say. But if you are from the USA, you may better not say it.
It is just impossible for a person from the USA not to sound ridiculously hypocritical when criticizing China. You are the greatest war-mongering country in the last few generations! If you are from the U.S.A., it is more realistic and effective to work on stopping your country killing people abroad.
Not that anything that you say or suggest about China is wrong. But this century will not be remembered only by the Chinese genocide of the Uighurs, but also by the north-american aggressive and murderous imperialism.
Yes, if there's one thing the Uighur people desperately need right now is people outside China cynically exploiting their suffering for petty axe grinding about young people ("current generation") and "cancel culture".
I am of Indian origin but grew up in China. If you want to know how its got to this state I can tell you my point of view. Back in ~2007 I saw the first brush of Uighur Han tensions. My family and I were stuck in a traffic jam in a very crowded market place. We were in car with a driver. At some point my mom, who used to be a journalist, spotted a pickpocket. This pickpocket was armed with a knife and was going about pick pocketing people. There was a police patrol around, however it was clear that he was trying to steer clear of trouble with the pickpocket. When my mom saw this her inner indian-journalist/activist was immediately re-awakened. She was about to open the door and take on the negligent police and pickpocket. At this point our driver immediately locked the door and told her to stop. He explained that the man was an Uighur and the police just did not want to run in to his gang. Later on we learnt that many Uighurs would leave their home towns for second and first tier cities in China in the hope of finding work. However due to linguistic and cultural barriers they would inevitably be unable to find work and hence fall to other ways to make money. Unfortunately when you are a minority if one person of you're kind does something wrong, your entire minority comes under scrutiny. There was a point in time when news of mass stabbings by Uighurs was becoming a weekly phenomenon. The one sited on Wikipedia is a stabbing at train stations, but I remember some which even involved children in kindergartens and pre-schools. Naturally, the local population will expect something. China may not be a democracy but their government has a social contract with the han majority to make sure they deliver. All of this was happening around the time that Xi was slowly taking the reigns from the then president Hu Jin Tao. Xi's rise was not particularly clean and his establishment of "anti-corruption" bureaus was most certainly a good way of him to get rid of opposing politicians. To prove his metal he needed to act. One of the things that was evident was the Uighurs needed "education" so they could work. For all purposes, the average Chinese would back this (heck even I would think that it'd be a good thing to help disadvantaged people come out of poverty). The only problem with "education" in China is that its not always what the rest of the world would consider humane. As a child, I had a piano teacher would beat me if I played the wrong notes. When my parents found out they of course flipped shit and immediately fired her, but I'm pretty sure other children were subjected to similar treatment and their parents would support such treatment. It is only very recently that the average Chinese parent actually started to consider child abuse by teachers as wrong. Hence it was not difficult for the CCP to recruit a group of people who sincerely believe they are doing social work to design, build and run these camps. To add to the fire you of course had western media which would report terrorism acts that were predominantly muslim (seems like american media thinks white shooters are not terrorists but anyone muslim is, and yes, Chinese do read western media its not North Korea). Hence the local Chinese also would be lead to believe that stamping out Islam is what the rest of the world supports. Towards the end of the stay there were a few times that the police stopped myself and my dad because we looked Uighur, but once we told them we were foreigners they became very jovial and let us carry on with our work. I don't know how cancel culture will solve this. In fact I don't how the world will solve this without causing more divides and hurt to an already very polarized world. But I do know one thing, it is important that we remain kind to one another irregardless of race, language or religion.
It’s almost like more than one country can do horrible things. Who’d have thought? It doesn’t make the situation in China any better to point out that other countries have also done bad things.
Ehh, don't you think that actually makes it worse?
I don't know about you, but even if the government does not have a legitimate democratic mandate, it still has a larger say than a foreign country. Especially if you consider that the USA isn't exactly a shining example of a functioning democracy.
Even the "million people" detained statistic is incredibly misleading. When you look at the original actual paper that conducted the investigation, it's about the total people who were ever detained, most of which are released after their mandatory reeducation is complete. However, western journalists intentionally make it sound like 1 million people are currently being detained.
Whenever BuzzFeed or any news company talks about ICE detention or US prisons, they make it very obvious when they talk about current people being detained and the total population that had been detained.
First of all, China didn't kill a million muslims.
Second, discrimination or racism is never right, but the arguments related to Xinjiang prisons are being used to drum up popular support for a [cold] war against China. We have a duty to speak out against our leaders, so that we can prevent tragic mistakes being made.
How many Muslims did China actually kill? I mean, what's happening in Xinjiang is obviously very concerning, however I don't think anyone has ever produced any evidence that a literal genocide is happening. Mass incarceration? Perhaps. Brainwashing? Maybe. Genocide? Highly dubious.
> How many Muslims did China actually kill? [...] I don't think anyone has ever produced any evidence that a literal genocide is happening. Mass incarceration? Perhaps. Brainwashing? Maybe. Genocide? Highly dubious.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II:
“genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
“Mass incarceration” with children forcibly transferred to boarding schools run by people outside of the group and “brainwashing”, together, seem to qualify for (b), (c), (d), (e), even if (a) is missing.
Just to address the comment above (it has been flagged and I can no longer reply directly). This is not a debate of America vs China. This is a debate of morality. We should not reserve judgement only for "bad guys". The reason China gets a free pass on this is because they are economically valuable to other countries. Chaining up pregnant women is bad, by all nations at all times.
I think that regarding free pass the US get it all the time. Look at the Iraq war, I think that only western country that had to suffer consequences was France with the Freedom Fry silliness. Moreover in the US almost everybody is proud to have fight this war...
We in Europe should be more vocal about what US and China think they can do to the rest of the world without consequences. China is an awful country, we just have to look at what they did in Tibet, for the last 40 years... there is nothing new.
European country are currently doing nothing and this is despicable, my country being the worst, we just discovered that Chinese police officer are invited here to identify potential Chinese to send back to China... the moral standpoint is very weak, and only facts matter.
> European country are currently doing nothing and this is despicable, my country being the worst, we just discovered that Chinese police officer are invited here to identify potential Chinese to send back to China... the moral standpoint is very weak, and only facts matter.
I spot this demagogic argument from pro-Chinese position all the time: "they committed some crimes, so we have a right to do the same". Following that logic, they easily can justify their genocide with providing Holocaust as an example: "we just imprison and torture people, we do not burn them".
Yes, also impoverished and displaced several million people.
Consider the impact of all the regime change operations undertaken under the patronage of the United States in countries like Iraq, Lybia, Syria and Yemen, as well as devastating effects of economic sanctions on Iran, Syria and other nations.
What's happening there is despicable. But to the best of my knowledge there's no extermination. There aren't hundreds of thousands being shot or gassed.
It looks more like a "cultural genocide", the kind we saw exercised against the Tibetans.
I understand the emotions over this issue, and I don't think the holocaust is beyond comparison, but in this instance the comparison falls short.
Re-education camps with high death rates are very common in the CCP's brief history, so it seems like they're just rehashing what they've done before but this time on the Uighers.
From what I know most Germans weren't aware of what was happening in the camps until after the war. They would have known there were people being taken away. Most genocidal governments don't publicize it as that. There is almost always a cover story. When there is a systematic removal of people from there homes, we mus assume the worst. Because a government with such widespread and systematic oppression, unrestrained, rarely restrains themselves.
I doubt it. Even in the 40s, with no internet or cell phone cameras, even back then most governments knew about the holocaust as early as 41-42. There were evidence from concentration camp prisoners who escaped, and probably other kinds of evidence...I mean it's kinda hard to hide exterminating millions of people even if you're super efficient and organised.
The stories we hear from China are despicable, but again - they suggest cultural genocide, not actual genocide.
Can you cite that? My understanding is that the concentration camps weren't known to exist until the Allies stumbled onto them whilst advancing across Europe. In many camps the Germans had attempted to destroy them just hours before allied troops arrived, in an attempt to conceal what had been happening, but were interrupted by the high speed of the advance after D-Day. If everyone knew they wouldn't have put these camps far into the wilderness and forests, they wouldn't have tried to destroy them as they fled, and the allies wouldn't have been surprised by what they found.
As for Germans knowing, they were subject to Nazi censorship. Some of them had their suspicions for sure. I saw a quote once from a woman who said of course they knew about the camps. When asked how she knew, her reply was: because that's exactly the sort of thing Hitler would have done. So she didn't really know, just suspected based on past behaviour, which is different.
So definitely were known before liberation. As for the date, could be that I was wrong and it was 1943, and not 1941 (However, as soon as 1941-2 some 1.5 million Russian jews were shot to death, was there zero evidence of that?)
It's also possible some governments had evidence but refused to believe such monstrosity could take place, or were just helpless / reluctant to do anything. Hell even these days some people refuse to accept what happened there.
Obviously the Germans didn't know who knew what and tried to conceal. And obviously American / Russian soldiers who liberated the camps were surprised. Does that mean Churchill / Roosevelt were surprised? Also - was it really such a shocker? Jews were starving to death for years in Ghettoes prior to extermination - surely the local population had an idea the jews fate wasn't great.
Hmm, the article about Vrba says he escaped in April 1944 but it took months for his report to be published. Meanwhile the Soviets encountered their first concentration camp around July 1944 time as well. So it sounds like his report came out more or less concurrently with the Soviets discovering Madjanek.
The page does say that there were previous reports, but one was only in Polish. The other apparently did end up with the British and American governments, but that's a long way from most governments knowing. And even when the allies started discovering camps it was censored for a while, supposedly to avoid upsetting people with missing relatives. So I guess the information hardly travelled far, and not outside US/UK war offices.
The Independent article seems to be conflating different things. Jews started fleeing the Nazis even before they fully assumed power. The comments about the Empire being full are presumably related to that. Wanting to indict Hitler for war crimes hardly required knowledge of concentration camps, so I'm not sure it provides so much evidence.
I guess there's surprise, and then there's formally knowing. I referenced a German woman who said she "knew" but what she meant was she wasn't surprised when she learned. I guess that was how a lot of people reacted.
Interesting links though, thanks. I learned some new things about WW2 today.
This piece is also interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_bombing_debate
So there were definitely evidence of what was going on.
The allies were getting their asses kicked till U.S joined the war so I'm not sure there was much that could have been done...
> she was detained a third time and spent three months in a cramped prison cell with 60 other women
> She said nine women from her cell died during her three months there.
Of course that's only one sample. But if that is near the true death rate being applied to 1 million people (and soon more) then it's clear that this is genocide.
As mentioned elsewhere what’s happening here is not extermination like the Holocaust but it’s also worse than Japanese internment that everyone denounces as having been a very bad thing...
Yet, companies continue doing business and in some cases abetting the policy.
Some of these companies will be the IBMs and Fords as well as the Wolksvagens and Thiessens but it’s pernicious and people don’t notice. But in retrospect years hence it will be stark.
"Japanese internment that everyone denounces as having been a very bad thing"
If WW3 starts and Chinese internment camps start popping up you'll find out that what people say in peacetime and what they actually think are two very different things.
Cancel culture never had any attention of pushing forward any reasonable change. It was mostly a tool for people to pretend that they somehow had an lasting positive impact on the world in the most convenient way. Boycotting goods made in China and substituting them with those made elsewhere is not as convenient. So cancel culture people and pretty much everyone else will pretend and argue such a measure will have no impact on the political situation. Maybe we should point out that apartheid in South Africa wasnt solved by good intentioned dialogue but through economic embargoes. But that argument will be ignored because its so inconvenient to not use goods made in China. You know its so easy to donate a paltry sum of money while looking at the photo of a poor African/Indian/Bangladeshi/Mexican kid and then feel great about ones magnanimity than to take the hard steps to curb an actual menace and human rights violation.
I mean, for most of us on here, it's either use goods made at least partially in China or switch career - you're never going to get a computer with no Chinese-made components, especially not at a price which I can afford. Good luck doing that without years of planning, and managing to continue to feed yourself.
Fact of the matter is that China is in an extremely powerful position over the world due to its position in the manufacturing chain. The world would fall apart overnight if China stopped manufacturing things - parts of it did already when Covid-19 caused lockdowns. There isn't the manufacturing ability elsewhere to scale up to what China provides.
I really do not understand the downvoting here. The one reply on this comment says that we are not that powerful. Greta Thrunberg literally wrote a book saying this is not the case.
I must admit that I have not read Greta Thunberg's book, but if it has a solution to capitalism's demand that we make sacrifices to our personal morals or starve in the specific instance of the tooling we need to perform our work, I'd love to hear it. You don't get to say "I am not using computers any more as they contain components made in China" and keep your job as a software developer, and you'd be very unlikely to receive unemployment benefits.
The only way we're getting there is actual organisation and uprising to overthrow the capitalism which requires that we make those sacrifices, and frankly... it's not going to happen any time soon. People broadly agreed to the National Guard being sent in to handle some people who were mostly demanding that the police stop killing them, can you imagine what would happen if those people were actually calling to overthrow the state?
I can't believe this isn't something people are rallying for. Nor can I believe the mainstream media is hardly talking about it. The lessons from WWII aren't stories that we should memorise as fun trivia facts.
The U.S. could follow India and adopt mandatory country of origin declaration requirements for ecommerce sellers. [1, 2]
Apple has shifted some manufacturing/assembly of iPhones to India, seemingly mostly for the local market [3] and perhaps EU [4], and AirPods to Vietnam [5].
And than?
The whole system depends on cheap supply of goods.
Look what happend during the lookdown in China
And it's not people want cheap stuff, most only can afford cheap stuff.
Money is a finite source, the more some people have, the less have others.
China became a synonym of low quality, whereas Vietnam has an experience of being production hub for Nokia in a best company's years. Also, there are few countries where situation with human rights worse than in China. In India and Vietnam it is definitely better.
Well thanks for phrasing that so nicely. I know it's offensive to some people but it's also exactly my kind of stupid humor. It's been a bit of a moral conundrum for me, I don't want to be an asshole to people who haven't done anything, but I also don't want to self censor. Currently though, for any new accounts that I create, I prefer another username anyway, but for this one, inertia is winning.
Does the "hipness" of an idea that motivates legions of people to actively protest depend on the perceived average age and/or culture of said legions of people?
This continued up until the US actually declared war on Germany. Countries don't particularly care what other countries do in their borders. It's only when they start threatening other countries that you'll see hard actions taken.
On the other hand, those boycotts pushed German Nazis to counter-boycott Jewish businesses and double down on anti-Jewish propaganda, and as far as I can read, didn't meaningfully hamper the escalation of Nazism toward war.
On the third hand, to do nothing is to side with the oppressor.
This. Thank you, we underestimate what we can do with our money. We can collectively bring an expansionist power China to a halt if we systematically boycott them.
No, we can't. Rather amusingly: if you stop buying Chinese electronics, how will you convince others to do the same? Ham radio? Even Fairphone weren't able to avoid China and their entire goal is to reduce human rights violations im their supply chain.
We need to start forcing companies to move production back home and we need to pay the 3x increase in prices that comes with that without as much as a single complaint. As long as our main concern is price, companies will outsource to poorer countries, which inevitably leads to exploitation.
We need governments to require full supply chain tracing, outlaw doing business with human rights violators and actually enforce all of that through regular inspections. If they find a single child worker in your supply chain, you have a month to stop doing business with them or pay 5% last year's revenue in fines.
This is what we have politics for. If you live in a democratic country, that's something you can actually do! Your money, however, is meaningless.
All of these are doing that because of either ethical (first 2) or political (the rest) reasons. They were not moved by people "voting with their wallet", nor could they be, as their products are not usable for the general public.
(I say this with nothing but respect for Librem and the Pi foundation. I'd get a Librem 5 if it didn't cost 5x as much as my car )
It hasn't been widely covered outside of the anti-CCP sources. It seems to be gaining a bit of traction lately. If you are interested, Epoch times, BitterWinter and others have been covering this for a long time.
Establishment media partisans aren't shy about using Nazi comparisons. Over the past year you would have been more likely to hear criticisms of US immigration policies painted in this light.
Friendly reminder that The Epoch Times is not a reliable news source, it promotes far-right politics in Germany, usually publishes conspiracy theories including QAnon, and was deprecated as a source by Wikipedia in 2019 [1], which means all edits containing links to The Epoch Times will be automatically reverted.
Just because something publishes conspiracy theories, doesn't mean it's always wrong. The US spying on its citizens was considered a conspiracy theory until Edward Snowden. A paedophile ring among the global elite was considered a conspiracy theory until Jeffrey Epstein. Most people in China would consider concentration camps in Xinjiang to be a conspiracy theory.
> Just because something publishes conspiracy theories, doesn't mean it's always wrong.
Of course. So I also mentioned the decision of Wikipedia community, at least they find the signal-to-noise ratio of The Epoch Times is low enough to be banned on their platform.
> Most people in China would consider concentration camps in Xinjiang to be a conspiracy theory.
Maybe. But as someone who fits your "people in China" criteria, I can add a data point: I myself and most of my friends actually don't consider the existence of these camps (or even forced labor) a conspiracy theory. We believe it. However we consider claims like "organ harvesting" a conspiracy theory. I'm unable to provide further insight on why we would think so though, so I guess you can claim I'm brainwashed, but I can say it would be much more complicated than that :-)
I didn't find any actual support for QANON in the article linked. After skimming it, it was simply a series of quotes from interviews with Q supporters.
Wikipedia has become politically charged. If you know of any other sources covering breaking news about the CCP's abuses and intrigues, I would be happy to hear about them.
Everyone has a bias. Adults should be capable of consuming information without gatekeepers deciding what is acceptable.
In the article you linked, you can find mentions of QAnon near the end:
> One such show is "Edge of Wonder," a verified YouTube channel that releases new NTD-produced videos twice every week and now has more than 33 million views. In addition to claims that alien abductions are real and the drug epidemic was engineered by the “deep state,” the channel pushes the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely posits that the same “Spygate” cabal is a front for a global pedophile ring being taken down by Trump.
> One QAnon video, titled “#QANON - 7 facts the MEDIA (MSM) Won’t Admit” has almost 1 million views on YouTube. Other videos in the channel’s QAnon playlist, which include videos about 9/11 conspiracy theories and one titled “13 BLOODLINES & their Diabolical End Game,” gained hundreds of thousands of views each.
> Travis View, a researcher and podcaster who studies the QAnon movement, said The Epoch Times has sanitized the conspiracy theory by pushing Spygate, which drops the wildest and more prurient details of QAnon while retaining its conspiratorial elements.
Note that links between this Youtube channel and The Epoch Times is not obvious, but the article you linked already covered that.
I've tried to verify the video [1], it seems to be taken down, but searching the link on Google resulted in various cross references on the Internet.
This is a technique I often see from the fact-checking sources. A claim such as Spygate will be conflated with something more ridiculous like Q. The ridiculous is used to ridicule the first claim.
In fairness, Spygate is currently being investigated by the DOJ.
What's happening with me is that I don't trust USA news sources on this topic. It is possible something is horrible is happening but there is so much propaganda people who might normally be concerned with this suspect it's a misdirection or scapegoating because of the US's catastrophic response to COVID19
It's the same reason a lot of right wing people who wouldn't be in favour of police brutalizing don't speak up - we become cynical and come to be believe we're being manipulated by selective reporting so when we should stand up for our values we don't because it looks like ceding ground to the enemy.
Now my account will probably shadowbanned because of emotional HN users but I don't think I'm mistaken about why there is apathy.
Values! Let's talk about what is happening this minute. Somebody just talked to me and then disappeared. All sorts of people with political opinions are self editing and deleting their own comments - or being banned or shadowbanned because their opinions don't fit consensus.
It is difficult for anybody to stand for their values in these conditions. China does not pretend to be a politically free society - but I believe I'd have a better shot freely talking about Western politics on a Chinese service than an American internet service today.
People with my opinions are not a threat to the CCP - so I would be left alone. The number of times I've been banned for speaking simple opinions that just don't conform to the consensus of the hour is more than I can count. All from American web services. Even Sam Altman - who owns some of those services has said the same. It's the synchronization that is causing all the overreactions and underreactions to events.
There's a big difference between government censorship and internet company censorship. Both are problematic but other than that they aren't in the same league.
Why a difference? Internet company censorship is at scale and often works to further censorship by other organizations - some of them are even governments.
Ignoring governments - who can have valid political and strategic reasons to be censors - the social media censorship is more serious because it is operating at the social layer - all those capillaries. Social consensus enforcement touches more people in everyday life.
1) Communism and Islam can by no means be considered "friends", reason being the antireligious policies that are inherent in Communism. You should read less Breitbart.
2) China can hardly be considered a communist country, it has been turning rapidly more capitalist ever since the official introduction of the 中国特色社会主义 theory in 1987.
> This project was supported by the Open Technology Fund, the Pulitzer Center, and the Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism.
Hmmm
> The Open Technology Fund was created in 2012 as a pilot program within Radio Free Asia.
Okay
> Based on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia was established in the 1990s with the stated aim of promoting democratic values and human rights, and diminishing the Communist Party of China.
> Radio Free Asia was founded and funded in the 1950s by an organization called "Committee for Free Asia" as an anti-communist propaganda operation, broadcasting from RCA facilities in Manila, Philippines.
So an article funded by a clearly biased anti-China propaganda organization that uses flimsy satellite imagery evidence to accuse a country of massive human rights abuses in order to rile up their population for another cold war that will feed their military industrial complex for many more decades. Great.
My heart bleeds hearing about Uighurs suffering. And I welcome these kinds of posts. At the same time I am wondering why news about Palestinians are flagged and filtered away on HN. I read Haaretz on a daily basis, and what I read about this corner of the world makes me lose my faith in humanity.
I am not talking about boycotting. I have relatives in IL. There are good people in IL who don‘t like the way the PL issue is dealth with. I was just talking about the silence when it comes to the Palestinians and their suffering on this platform. I am against every form of discrimination: Uighurs, Jews, people of color, women. There‘s too much suffering in the world.
I'm all for it. And also boycott most muslim countries for their despicable treatment of women and gays (or other minorities like Christian or Shiites etc)
I know and understand as single persons we don't have much power to do anything. But if you live in a western democratic nation, time to use that machinery. Call your Senator, MPs whoever your representative is. Let them know inaction in the face of this atrocity is unacceptable. Keep calling all Senators or members of parliaments. It might seem to have no effect, but significant changes come when many people demand something. It has to start somewhere.
Here is a site for resources and actions you can take [0].
Yes, this is bad. I think we can all agree on that.
But does anyone have sources on _how_ China got into this situation? They wouldn't be detaining Uighurs at this scale for no reason. So what's the history behind this?
I left a separate comment here of someone else who commented on the article with a potential background reason (terrorism?). Although I'm not sure if can rely on just that one comment, and would love to hear what HN thought.
A part of a civil discussion requires that we understand and seek out the argument from all parties. As a society, we need to evolve from one-sided arguments.
Much has been written in the Chinese academic literature about the need for new policing strategies in Xinjiang. Here's a reading list with English summaries: https://xinjiang.sppga.ubc.ca/policy-documents/chinese-acade... Of course the original articles are all in Chinese.
Thanks! This is great. It appears that China's argument for Xinjiang are:
1. Anti-terrorism / Religious Extremist Activities
2. Poverty alleviation
We have certainly seen similar situations play out in the past (e.g. US & Middle East), with different approaches. China's approach is to eliminate "ethnic separatism" through these "re-education camps". Not ideal, for sure. But what would be a better solution?
If we had terrorism in the US -- in fact, an entire state of people subscribed to that mindset -- what's the best way to deal with that?
(This is, ofc, assuming China's terrorism claims are real)
The Chinese government itself admits that these people aren't formally charged with any crime and that criminals go to different prisons. As they aren't actually terrorists, this entire line of logic doesn't apply.
The Black population in the US is disproportionately impoverished. Should we round them up into re-education camps?
It's policy based entirely in ethno-nationalism (racism).
The US had a Civil War over separation and slavery, but we didn't establish re-education camps for all the people who were on the losing side. You didn't see Germans forced into re-education camps after WW1 or WW2 (at least on the non-USSR side).
I don't know of ANY instances of this kind of re-education thinking in first-world countries. Even third-world countries don't usually consider this moral. It's basically limited to second-world (communist) despotic countries. In recent times, I've heard people talk about re-education camps in the US, but (big surprise), they're always alt-left (communists, antifa, whatever).
We created terrorists in Xinjiang, just as we did in Afghanistan. They murdered thousands of Chinese and, now that China has them under control, we make up stories about them.
US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman, Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981: "The CIA programs in Tibet, which were very effective in destabilizing it, did not succeed in Xinjiang. There were similar efforts made with the Uyghurs during the Cold War that never really got off the ground. In both cases you had religion waved as a banner in support of a desire for independence or autonomy which is, of course, is anathema to any state. I do believe that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones applies here. I am part American Indian and those people are not here (in the US) in the numbers they once were because of severe genocidal policies on the part of the European majority”. 8/31/19
> We created terrorists in Xinjiang, just as we did in Afghanistan. They murdered thousands of Chinese and, now that China has them under control, we make up stories about them.
This argument is made in bad faith given the author's statements below. In any case, the Xinjiang had attempted to get out from under China's thumb for centuries. Does that "murdered thousands" suddenly give moral permission to imprison, torture, and sell the organs of millions -- especially millions who's only "crime" in this argument is having the wrong ethnicity. Finally, the red revolution in China killed millions and then famine killed millions more.
> I do believe that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones applies here. I am part American Indian and those people are not here (in the US) in the numbers they once were because of severe genocidal policies on the part of the European majority
Nobody alive today is rounding up American Indians (instead SCOTUS is giving back half of Oklahoma). Can someone's children be held accountable for their parent's actions?
That said, if the Chinese gave the Xinjiang and Tibet the same level of autonomy that the US gives reservations today, I doubt anyone anywhere would be complaining about anything. Once again, this is a bad faith argument.
> US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman, Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981: "The CIA programs in Tibet, which were very effective in destabilizing it, did not succeed in Xinjiang. There were similar efforts made with the Uyghurs during the Cold War that never really got off the ground. In both cases you had religion waved as a banner in support of a desire for independence or autonomy which is, of course, is anathema to any state.
The whole point of a banner is to serve as a rallying point for like-minded people. If some random person on the street starts waving a nazi flag, does that suddenly mean everyone turns into nazis?
A banner can only rally people who think they hold the position that banner represents. The US could wave a religious banner, but unless the people already agreed, it wouldn't build up support (it's not possible to parse whether Xinjiang didn't rally because they didn't want to join or the rallying cry was not heard).
If anything, the fact that the US tried to empower people to fight for their independence from a despotic, racist regime who hated them should at least be neutral if not morally just.
You've been a member for long enough to know that the guidelines for posts are: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups"
Also, when are people going to stop using satellite imaging as a proof of evidence? I mean, let's not forget the whole casus belli for the last Iraq war, where there was clear evidence of WMDs from all those satellite images right? I mean, what's so different from the satellite image there and also a random business park in the UK (besides the labels and tags of course, and I used to be imprisoned in one of those blocks for most of my day that some people would like to call an 'office'):
The Chinese people are great. The country is awesome but the current government is tyrannical. We know that millions died under Mao yet he is still praised. That alone is enough for me to distrust the CCP.
This sums up my feelings about it as well.
I have been to China. I know Tibetans with heartbreaking stories about the direct impacts of government tyranny.
>We know that millions died under Mao yet he is still praised
It's my understanding that Mao is held in good regard by his people for the communist revolution, which liberated China from colonial powers, their colonization by the West and the Japanese occupation being a deeply disturbing part of their history.
It is also my understanding that Mao is also considered by most to have been misguided, senile, and/or perhaps usurped by others (like the gang of four) for things like the great leap forward and the cultural revolution which happened later. He is not admired for these events.
But please, do know that there are many individuals outside the USA, who regularly roll their eyes and feel triggered when yet another article accuses China or Russia of yet another "anything".
Don't get me wrong, some of the accusations sure are very valid ones. But the political bias and (more often than not) cultural blindness/hypocrisy is usually rather obvious. At least for many, like me, from outside the USA. Personally, I would say that the most shocking part might be that not more Americans can see that about themselves. I guess that must be the power of systemic propaganda.
As long as Americans (or at least many) keep using exceptionalism (of any kind) as some sort of blanked excuse, to justify a heap of nastiness they pull around the globe, one might wonder what right Americans have to point at anyone but themselves.
This of course does in no way excuse whatever it is that countries like China and Russia do wrong. But finding any US-based non-political and/or otherwise unbiased assessment of anything happening in China, Russia or any other country that isn't "aligned" with the US, has become close to impossible these days.
So, having people push back and posting counter stories might be nothing more than a natural process, by ordinary people who just get irritated by all this. Of course you're free to suspect bias in that, or even a Chinese agent if you'd like. But the real cause for these responses might just be ordinary people who simply get sick of all the biased and politicized "awareness" articles floating around these day .. especially here at HN, which should not be a forum for international politics (outside tech topic) in the first place.
Sincerely, the obvious information warfare might be at least equally as bad as the things these kind of articles are supposed to inform us about. That not a larger part of the HN crowd appears to be aware of this aspect, is pretty darn shameful and awkward in its own right.
I agree with you and grew very weary of these threads. My love of the forum come first from the tech/randomness of this place. However been living outside of China in Europe for almost a decade and half I feel it is difficult to ignore these matters completely. It is still eye-opening to read the many balanced, logical and articulate users here. So that even the worst threads have some enlightenment in them.
There's a wide swath of the US that feels the same way in regards to foreign policy. From reading your comment, I'm not sure if that is clear to outsiders?
Depends a bit on the outsider, I think. Also to which extend they might be a product of their own country's propaganda.
To me it certainly is clear, even from people I personally know. However, I do think that it might be only of limited relevance. That is, if these reasonable people have virtually no chance to bring about any substantial change in whatever system or collective actually governs/controls the USA, then how much does it really matter?
That said, I do not want to sound too harsh on the USA, especially its individual citizens. The country is no doubt going through a rather precarious development. It essentially shows all the hallmarks of almost every empire before it, right when those were on the brink of their collapse.
While social media tycoons, and a host of even far more shady companies and agencies, certainly make the radicalization and politicization of practically everything far worse than necessary, with mostly cynical/selfish goals, it might be that they are mostly just riding an already unstoppable wave, that would be there with or without them stirring things up even more.
To me, they are no doubt criminal enterprises either way, but the USA might soon have far more pressing problems on their hands than going after such companies. Which might be what some of these companies actually count on. Let's hope it turns out to be misguided arrogance, cynicism and hubris on their part.
>That is, if these reasonable people have virtually no chance to bring about any substantial change in whatever system or collective actually governs/controls the USA, then how much does it really matter?
There's still room for optimism if you choose. The current administration is campaigning for re-election on a record of no new wars.
No one is beyond criticism and this rule goes doubly for politicians. I'll also add the disclaimer that I view politicians as a class of professional liars. However, the media climate in regards to the current administration should be viewed through the lens of this anti-war stance. The pro-war establishment has demonstrated its media influence as you mentioned above.
> Which is why I'm highlighting the account for pushing a 100% political agenda.
Fair enough, as far as I'm concerned.
My main purpose was to (hopefully) give some context and explanation of why some people might write responses like that.
I'm not sure though, if the intent of that account is to push a political agenda, rather than just feeling compelled to counter what appears (to this person) to be another political agenda.
If you'd read my responses, you will find that many of them are political in nature as well. However, that is not because I like to campaign for politics. Almost always it is because I notice a glaring (implied) political bias in something and feel a strong need to point out what is missing there.
Personally, I would rather discus technical aspects. But for many topics, it's usually other people who are far more qualified to do that. So I often stay silent on those.
Consequently, it can easily be construed that I have to be some political agent (or worse). But in actuality it's mostly the nature of the content here on HN (and how it changed over time) that has leads to these results.
That said, of course that account could have been made for purely political purposes. I really would not know.
Is that somehow a terrible thing for a patriotic Chinese person who doesn't believe the details of the stories being used to gin up animus against their country? It isn't like you've had to look far for anti-Chinese sentiment coming from the US government since right after WWII.
or, OP simply does not want their true identity to be labeled as "pro-China" and created this specific account given how toxic, biased and hostile HN comment section has become wrt "pro-China" sentiment, by people like yourself.
Counter the argument for what it is if you wish but going after OP's account history is not called for.
Calling out the very few Chinese people on English platforms defending their country as shills is even more chilling than China calling everybody who mentions things like this spies and dissidents. In the west, it's also racially coded. It's also against a lot of forums' rules, including this one. It's an excuse not to engage on the merits, but to blanket dismiss.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
You should look through the comments of people who are constantly anti-China with the same vigilance; I'm sure you'll find 100x as many. Also, astroturfing is when corporations create activist organizations, not when somebody has an opinion you don't like, or when somebody believes their own government.
"Waa waa, someone does not ascribe to my beliefs so they must be a paid troll!" Do you need a tissue mate?
The reason I don't make many comments is because 1, I am too lazy and 2, HN is pretty toxic in that if you write anything adversarial to HN's party line of anti-corporates, anti-police, anti-China or anti-something else, even when what's written is true, then you get downvoted into oblivion.
Also, this is a pretty terrible platform for discussions (tbh, I am not sure if there is one that is good for discussions). No notifications, no auto-refreshes, in all honesty if I really paid attention to the discussions here, I should probably be questioning my life.
This is another distraction for the current BLM movement and thousands of death per day due to covid. I see a lot of hypocrite comments and I just want to laugh. Meanwhile on the streets of Detroit or Baltimore ghettos, kids/teenagers are under the influence of criminal culture and facing generation after generation of poverty they may never come out of. And I see no one even trying to figure out a solution.
And what does this have to do with the article? Every time there is a post about the Chinese state committing some evil act, there is a post like this - whataboutism at it’s finest. Usually written by a new account, usually written in a way that makes it seem like English isn’t the primary language of the poster.
Of course it does. They are all problems human beings facing when we trying to put different cultures together and live in harmony and create prosperity. If you can't even figure out what's happening near you, how can you assume you will even have a total understanding about something happening on the other side of the earth??
Because it's off-topic? It deflects from the discussion of how a totalitarian state is essentially committing genocide and tries to compare that to social problems in the U.S., which are not nearly on that scale.
why does a new account and non english speaking background matter? You see what's underlying your comment? you try to disqualify people's opinions/comments based on their background. Is that someone from a free speech country supposed to do? Shouldn't we open our arms to different opinions? Isn't that the "diversity" we've been talking about for decades?
Some opinions are wrong, we don't need to open our arms to all of them. Ever heard of the paradox of tolerance?
A new account means you could be hiding a post history that is pro-China, or comments you've made on another account alluding to living in China. You could be coming in here entirely to deflect arguments away from the real thread of discussion and attempting to turn it into an anti-U.S. one. It means I at least take what you say with much more skepticism because there is no record of your thoughts on other subjects to get a more complete picture of who you are.
Being ESL means you could potentially be Chinese, living in China, and very much in support of pro-Han activities such as annexing Tibet and burning down historic monasteries, or committing genocide against ethnic minorities. Which means your opinion is one of the ones that we don't need to open our arms to.
I doubt China's official figures include the so called "educational schools". If they did they'd easily top the chart. I mean, official USA figures probably don't include Guantanamo and black sites either but that's not the same magnitude.
Although anything is possible, this is no evidence, and I hardly believe it.
People lives are worthing much more than their organs when they are used for labor so I don't see any reasonable benefit from doing that. Plus, Falun Gong has a long history of fighting this, still without any evidences brought to the table, so I have some doubts about their assumptions.
The issue in Xinjiang is already serious enough, no need to add some unconfirmed facts which may just make us lose credibility if they're proved fake.
> People lives are worthing much more than their organs when they are used for labor
I absolutely disagree with this claim. Forced labor is inherently inefficient and barely cost-effective, especially in the modern age of mechanisation and the lessons of soviet GULAGs proved just as much. Especially so in China, which in no way suffers from a shortage of labor force.
It's true that China doesn't suffer from a shortage of labor force. However, wages raised a lot, and almost-free labor is more interesting financially.
After second thoughts, I think it may be possible that on a regional scale, local officials would find such practice highly profitable.
The party goal is not to be highly profitable (they are already), it's to stay in power as long as they can. Of course money can help in that goal, but such practices, if they leak and are confirmed, would just erode the stability of the state.
I feel the cons are too high and pros too low, politically, to do such atrocities on a country scale.
The thing is, there is a definite anti China sentiment within the present US government and many western media sources, in the sense that they seem to have a definite desire to villify China in recent times.
So the claims presented by them are suspect in intent, since it seems so evidently to suit their own world view.
While Chinese propaganda is suspect as is any propaganda, much western reporting is also politically informed and therefore suspect.
Most reports on this topic going around are not from people on ground, whereas western media including Reuters and BBC surely have people on ground in China, what have we heard from them in actuality?
Recently BBC had people sent to such a camp and even filmed it. Surely there is some political indoctrination going on, but nothing like the 'Concentration Camps' as is being claimed in this article.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24292962