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Comment by peisistratos | Hacker News Reader

It's funny how the USA is in its 17th year of war and occupation and drone strikes in Afghanistan, about 40 years after it sent Osama bin Laden there to wage jihad and overthrow the secular government - yet we hear not about that in the West, but about something we have almost nothing to do with and have no control over - how the Chinese are treating what in US parlance would be called Islamic jihadists in their own territory. With an expansiveness to the definition possibly equivalent to the US's.

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you seem to be very defensive of China's human right violations. I took a peek at your comments and you aren't doing a good job of hiding it. Either way, to address your point; people have raised concern. The vast majority of US citizens want the country to pull out of the unending war and steps are being made to do so. Chinese citizens have less power to enact change and spread awareness. Not an apt comparison in the slightest. I would love for you to respond to some of the other replies and see how you rationalize this to yourself.

It’s probably because these threads always devolve into Chinese “people” bashing.

Israel is doing some horrible things as well, but the conversation around it is much more muted and balanced. A US politician was even rebuked for talking about “Israeli political influence” but would have been praised if she warned about “Chinese influence.”

Israel is actually constantly debated on US news. Yet Israel doesn't indoctrinate Palestinians in giant reeducation camps, doesn't control their speech, and doesn't arrest family for doings of family members, nor punishes for having faith in Islam. China is a mindless, heartless machine. Comparisons to Israel are silly.

Maybe it's just the circles I run with or the people I follow online but I see many complaints about the US war machine and the hypocritical nature of certain political stances of the government. Either way it doesn't mean people can't be critical of other regimes.

We hear things about Western involvement in Afghanistan all the time. People talk about it and criticize the governments responsible for it on prime time newscasts. I’ve even watched debates between anti-war activists and the politicians responsible, on live un-edited television, where afterwards political experts analyze the debates and some of them conclude that the activist won. Has something like that ever happened on Chinese television about this particular situation?

> what in US parlance would be called Islamic jihadists in their own territory.

Bad analogy, because the vast majority of the Uighurs are ordinary people who are being hurt by a capricious dragnet.

The proper analogy is the WW2 Japanese Internment of Japanese Americans by the FDR government.

Even that analogy has problems. America was at war with Japan. China is happily and deeply economically engaged with Muslim nations. It is almost entirely an internal matter for China to maintain control and order.

You say control and order, I say rounding Uighur for things like having a beard or refusing to let PLA soldiers stay in their house.

The language you’re using denudes the situation of any semblance of the real horror of it. The ‘control and order’ you’re talking about goes far beyond putting up security checkpoints or arresting people for disorder, they’re sending people to re-education camps for the mere suspicion of opposition and they are forcibly trying to “HANify” these people’s culture away unlike the other ethnic minorities in China like the Dong, Miao, Hui, or Yi.

Is it an internal manner? Sure. Do I have to ageee with it? Nope, it does not absolve the PRC of criticism.

The usage of terrorism to erect a security surveillance state should be opposed everywhere.

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