China is detaining a million Uighur muslims in a secret camp

"Region in Northwest China relocated 461,000 poverty-ridden residents to work in other parts of the region during the first quarter of the year, in what a Chinese expert on Friday said was a bid to improve social stability and alleviate poverty."

Slighhhtly different spin on why it is being done, what's being done, etc

That's English-language content for a foreign audience

"Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China relocated 461,000 poverty-ridden residents to work in other parts of the region during the first quarter of the year, in what a Chinese expert on Friday said was a bid to improve social stability and alleviate poverty."

How kind of the government to forcibly separate families and relocate Uighurs to camps where there culture is eradicated, all in the name of poverty alleviation.

Here is another quote, with a link to a longer, more detailed article from a less-biased source (the Global Times is run by the Chinese Communist Party):

"Asked to comment on the camps, China’s Foreign Ministry said it “had not heard” of the situation."

https://apnews.com/6e151296fb194f85ba69a8babd972e4b

I asked him about 'state media control' and he said "well, you know, someone could just, you know, get a knife and start stabbing people!" which was his justification for all the control.

I asked him, while we waiting for CalTrain ... 'do you feel safe right now?' he said 'sure'.

The paradox is uncanny.

Open question: What would you do if you have increasingly frequent terrorist attacks in major cities year after year at the same time that Wahhabism is taking root in your previously tolerant community? China doesn't have the luxury of two oceans to protect itself from religious fanatics. Xinjiang itself was Buddhist and Indo-Persian in culture well into the medieval period, until conquered and forcibly converted by Turco-Islamists who reveled in "shitting on the Buddha's head" and destroyed many monuments -- basically the Taliban and ISIS. Since then, Xinjiang's Islam has mellowed out but the insidious and fanatical influence from West Asia continues nonstop.

It's absolutely defensible and moral to stop any fundamentalist backsliding in Xinjiang or indeed anywhere in the world. Modern day Xinjiang's problem is very simple, it's one of people losing their identity in a modernizing world. You see the historically more Chinese-influenced Northern Xinjiang more peaceable and prosperous, and religion more tolerant and tolerated. The opposite can be said of Southern Xinjiang. People who fear change tend to become reactionary and turn to religion. It would have happened regardless of whether they were in China. The alternative is to never develop like some of the Central Asian -stans (e.g. bride kidnappings in Kyrgyzstan), but then who wants to live there -- not even Uyghur émigrés, who never go to those places but always head for the EU, the US, or if they have no choice, Turkey. It's sad to say but it might take materialist brainwashing ('re-education') to reverse religious brainwashing.

underdeveloped nation in an underdeveloped region in the 1950s has non modern social practices.

In other news, The world is round, and the sky is blue.

So, taking over a country, eradicating their culture, deciding who reincarnates, diluting the population is ok?

Are we saying ethnic Chinese are superior to tibetans China basically has the money to bully people into submission.

Also it’s funny that the people who support North Korea, murdered most of their educated class during the great revolution, have locus standii on this issue.

In fact, the writer actually states:

"Last December, Ye Xiaowen, head of China's administration for religious affairs, published a piece in the state-run China Daily newspaper that, although propaganda, rings true. " And argues some of the same points from the propaganda piece.

The author of the piece you link to formerly worked for the China Daily in Beijing, run by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China.

Finally, you do realize that skulls are easily obtained via death by natural causes, right? Especially before the adoption of antibiotics and vaccination?

Tibetans practice sky burial, where bodies are left out in a charnel ground and picked clean by wildlife. (Probably because digging graves is difficult and cremation would be a waste of scarce fuel.) I suspect they have a different attitude about the dead and their parts than you.

1. my original comment was not an attempt to justify the current policies by the Chinese government in Tibet;

2. I was just saying it is a complicated matter, with lots of historic elements in it;

3. I agree that lots of things need to be improved there.

4. I do not know a good solution to this problem at this time; but please do share with us if you do...

That’s not far off from the current western use of relics. I’m glad the Italian government hasn’t raided the Vatican and turned it into a museum or government offices. The idea that this would be defensible because Catholics have retained medieval practices— well, I hope that’s plainly absurd to anyone reading this.

However, at this point, the individual Uyghurs have a choice of assimilating by force (and learning Mandarin, which they en masse don't speak) and giving up part of their identity, or staying in camps indefinitely. Assimilation & submission is the only way this story ends well.

China will have a stable, secure and controlled Xinjiang and they are pretty serious about it. It's not like anybody in the "global community" will seriously consider for a moment sanctions or (God forbid) any military action.

Coverage of what's going on in Xinjiang is good, and so is welcoming Uygur refugees. But any encouragement or foreign support of dissidents/etc inside Xinjiang is deeply unethical because Uygurs must and will submit to Beijing and anything that delays that will hurt people and cost lives.

Hunter gatherers had tribal wars and cannibalism, racism was rampant and women were powerless in the past. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be “scarred of the horrors”.

Post-slavery US behavior is far more favorable and accommodating to human rights than China today. Your comparison between the US and China is false and misguided. Individual rights are generally cherished and protected in the US; in China they are stomped upon by the Communist boot.

In fact you have a long history of making things up about HN moderation, posting them, and continuing to repeat the false claims when corrected. You also have a long history of using HN for political battle about China. If you keep abusing the site this way, we're eventually going to ban you. Dramatic allegations about "censorship" and "suppression" don't immunize you against having to follow the rules like other users.

In an authoritarian situation it literally doesn't matter if you believe what you're saying. You just say it to get through the day.

It's not like a scifi movie where every little thing is monitored, the game is you just don't cause yourself (or perhaps more importantly your pals or family) trouble and try to "get yours" and live something resembling a decent/self-actualized life.

For the regime, those kind of performative statements sets a good example & makes the problem go away

No. But I think Saudi deeply cares about Islamic demography in every country including USA. Saudi invests billions of dollars in countries like India to make sure Muslims remain radical and under the control of sharia and women on street wear hijab. In my village for example an international NGO funded by Saudi pays INR 800 ($12) to women who wear hijaab.

Our government can't keep it a secret. The Chinese government can.