China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations | Hacker News Reader

China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

hongkongfp.com

244 pointsabc-xyz112 comments

A painful but important reminder about Lu Guang, a photojournalist captured by the goverment for taking photos of the damage suffered by countryman (and nature) due pollution from chinese factories: https://imgur.com/gallery/XwzByK7

Something needs to be done, I'm not sure what but inaction will only aggravate the situation.

I really do appreciate the sentiment, but with an authoritarian regime like this there's isn't an awful lot other nations can practically do that would actually make a difference. Just look at North Korea, it's under total economic lock-down but still continues along on it's brutally oppressive way. It's not that I'm happy about it, any suggestions welcome.

We can't possibly know. Different countries have different cultures and histories. It might also be that resulting slump in economic output would incite revolts.

At this point I'd say the goal should be to isolate China and make them suffer economically.. We can see what they've done to the people of Tibet, Hong Kong, Xijiang, those practicing Falun Gong and so many more. They're also stepping up their efforts of conquering Taiwan and the South China Sea.. the world can't keep turning a blind eye as their influence continue to grow.

Suffering economically will likely lead to far more suffering for various Chinese people, and the end result has a good chance of being a civil war. Is this worth preventing their influence from growing? Who benefits from it?

> Suffering economically will likely lead to far more suffering for various Chinese people, and the end result has a good chance of being a civil war. Is this worth preventing their influence from growing? Who benefits from it?

All the future citizens of the world, but especially those people living in smaller, more liberal, neighboring countries. My biggest worry with authoritarianism is that is seems we may be reaching a technological tipping point that will make these regimes even harder to replace than in the past [1]. Whatever can be done to prevent that is good in my book, especially since I think it's unlikely that these regimes will be content to limit their influence to their borders.

[1] Nuclear weapons make them impossible to replace militarily, and digital surveillance + secret police may eventually make it impossible for internal change to replace them.

>All the future citizens of the world, but especially those people living in smaller, more liberal, neighboring countries. My biggest worry with authoritarianism is that is seems we may be reaching a technological tipping point that will make these regimes even harder to replace than in the past

So you're worried they'll use their influence to support authoritarian regimes in other countries? Maybe we should stop doing that ourselves before we start playing with Chinese lives.

I worry about this too. Pervasive surveillance and monitoring of communications could make an authoritarian regime super-stable and impossible to reform from within.

That's a bold prediction when they are imprisoning so many people.

I'm not sure why a flimsy assumption of the future for something that can't reliably be quantified would be used as a rationalization to do nothing.

I can't come up with exact scenarios for what would happen, but the West has used it's influence to cripple the Chinese economy before and the results included famines killing millions.

Isolation just doesn't work though, as I pointed out it's made zero difference to North Korea's behaviour and China was doing all the same things back when it was isolated.

Arguably by making China more prosperous, we are empowering ordinary Chinese economically and eventually this could lead to broad demands for more political and social freedom. So it's quite possible sanctions would make the state more powerful with respect to individual citizens, not less.

I'm not saying that's necessarily true, but it's plausible. I can see a case for symbolic sanctions though, something that's eye-catching but not necessarily economically impactful, as a way to draw attention to the issue within China.

> Isolation just doesn't work though, as I pointed out it's made zero difference to North Korea's behaviour and China was doing all the same things back when it was isolated.

> I'm not saying that's necessarily true, but it's plausible. I can see a case for symbolic sanctions though, something that's eye-catching but not necessarily economically impactful, as a way to draw attention to the issue within China.

Except my understanding is that the modern PRC regime has staked its legitimacy on increasing living standards and economic development, since they de facto abandoned Communism. The regime itself fears an economic slowdown could loosen its grip on power.

So, relatively onerous economy-slowing sanctions tied to demands for liberalization [1] may actually work pretty well, forcing the authoritarians to pick their poison.

[1] e.g. make things like opening up the great firewall a condition for lowering tariffs/loosening embargoes.

If there is an economic slowdown and it does lead to challenges to the legitimacy of Communist rule, I think we'll find their source of legitimacy switches to the guns and jackboots variety PDQ. Honestly, is there any example ever where economic sanctions have forced a government to become less authoritarian?

> Honestly, is there any example ever where economic sanctions have forced a government to become less authoritarian?

Arguably the Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union. If they had been integrated into the Western economic system on favorable terms [1], material conditions there may not have been as bad and may not have fell in the late 80s/early 90s.

[1] Such as being allowed to buy things on credit or buy advanced technology. IIRC, the Soviets were only allowed to trade with hard currency, and they were forbidden from buying most of the things they actually wanted.

South Africa's apartheid regime could also be cited as an example of sanctions and international isolation making a difference.

China's economic growth is already slowing. Isolating them now just gives them a convenient excuse, "look the Americans really want us to remain poor".

I'd argue North Korea support the idea that isolation does work to the degree that they're unable to cause (significant) harm to people outside their own borders. I feel the goal at this point should be to protect Taiwan and the South China Sea. Move productions to less populous countries, kick out Huawei and other Chinese companies (and investments for that matter) that pose a threat. Seek to protect Hong Kong. We should've learned by now that you can't satisfy the Chinese government, they'll always ask for more as they become evermore powerful. If war is inevitable (I think civil war is far more likely by putting economic pressure) then rather now instead of waiting for them to conquer more countries and building/controlling more crucial infrastructure in foreign countries.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political, national, and ideological battle. That crosses into breaking the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it, so would you please stop doing it?

If you want to understand why we draw the line at "primarily", I've written a lot about it in the past: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

If you feel that way then you better ban me because I know I'll continue to "primarily" advocate digital privacy, and condemn those who seek(/contribute) to turn the world into a surveillance dystopia.

Those are fine goals, but fine goals aren't enough to prevent HN from burning itself down. Indeed, they're potent fuel for that, if people don't care about the purpose of this site or take care to protect it from becoming like the rest of the flaming internet. It's my job to prevent the latter from happening, even though I'm sure I agree with your goals.

The loss of a community on the internet where people gather for intellectual curiosity would make the world a little more dystopian too. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the spirit of this site to heart?

I think you've been doing a great job, the best of any networking site I've ever encountered (only Tildes appear to come even close in terms of purpose and leadership), and I truly wouldn't feel any resentment if you banned me because you felt the community would be better off without my comments. I think the place where we hold strong disagreement is in how to deal with evil. For instance I feel very confident that you (and almost every HN reader) agree that it's wrong and shameful that Apple would make it impossible for Macs brought in China to display Taiwan's national flag. I want to mention it whenever the context allows, even if it means repeating myself a thousand times, whereas you appear to prefer it being mentioned once and then never again. I feel my approach is necessary to achieve what I assume you agree is the morally right thing to do (that Apple will revert its decision and once again display their national flag).

I of course also realize that it's you and not me who has to deal with moderating thousands of new comments every day, and that my comments likely make it much more tiresome for you to do your job. I can't stop making these comments, but I can agree to stop using nicknames such as Xitler.

As for today's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19554466), I feel what's happening here is the scariest thing I've read this year, and it deserves much more focus and not to be dismissed as unsubstantial because of guesswork. China does not deserve benefit of the doubt at this point, they've proven over and over again that they have little to no regard for human rights, that they want to censor everything that put them in a bad light, and that they'll take every opportunity to rewrite history for their benefit. This is a fact and only to what degree can be argued.

Right now China can make UC Browser default on all Huawei, Lenovo, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and many more devices. They've demonstrated countless times that they'll behave like a spoilt child to get it their way (e.g. fire an employee for liking a tweet thanking their company or we'll kick you out of the country).. they've just demonstrated they'll gladly censor a SSL protected page (before today I didn't even consider it was possible, did you?).. how can you not be scared? How can you not feel extremely confident that they'll end up modifying Google search results and abuse this in so many other ways? If they're willing to do it with a GitHub repo, why wouldn't they do the exact same thing with Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, etc? They're already forcing companies to censor and manipulate content, rewrite history.. if they could do it by themselves on a massive scale then why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they sell devices at a loss if it meant they could control these people to influence foreign policies? Honestly, I'd accuse you of being willfully naive if you saw a less evil outcome.

Isolation doesn’t work (as you point out with NK).

Integration also doesn’t seem to be working (well, not nearly as fast as those in the Nixon era and since then hypothesized).

My view is that isolation is a worse route, because mostly the poor suffer from economic isolation.

I really like the strategy of targeting the powerful politicians/rich benefactors using tools like the magnitsky act. Those people shouldn’t have the privledge of traveling to western countries.

Which is completely useless unless you also lock them out of the western financial system.

The lack of physical presence isn't that big a showstopper anymore. Throw in an inability to exercise financial clout anymore though, and things will rapidly change.

There likely isn't much political will for that though, and I'm fairly certain it could only come after a period of weaning the economy off the luxury of cheap as dirt manufacturing/shipping.

A lot of the mfg costs have been offset by automation. Where China now has the advantage is vertical markets in close proximity. You have chips, boards, cases, plastics all created in proximity which adds value. Not too dissimilar to Detroit in the 50's and 60's, a lot of vertical and related markets had footholds in the area.

I think if you isolated China economically, the US and other markets would be able to build their own competitive versions within a couple years.

What is concerning to me is an increasing movement under a different name that would lead to similar policies in the US over time. At least comparing the rhetoric to communist theory in the early 1900's.

Why restrict it to western countries? The UN is made to form a huge bloc of countries that should be aimed at preventing the atrocities seen in WW2 (and before); so far, given what's happening in NK, China and the US it doesn't seem very effective.

(I included the US because it has the highest incarceration rate of the world which disproportionately affects a racial minority; if prisons were relabeled as re-education camps and what happens in there is hidden from the world they would be on par with what China is doing atm)

Right... except a judicial system not only put people in there, they have the ability to challenge it. This is not an analogous situation.

While it is true the economic sanctions didn't work in NK and Iran, similar conditions worked in former-USSR and they can and will work in China for a simple reason: Folks in NK never experienced economic propsperity and were brainwashed from day one, people in China are experiencing economic bounty and as such are at the moment willing to overlook their government.

The day this economic progress slows down, the masses will turn and hopefully revolt against the system. The only fear is that China is militarily very strong and I believe that Western nations are probably afraid that this may lead to WW-III, but in the absence of that, in the case of China economic sanctions can indeed lead to internal revolt and collapse of the CCP like that happened in former-USSR.

China is not military very strong. It has consistently prioritized economic development at the expense of military investment for the past few decades.

I keep on seeing this opinion that if China doesn't grow at 8%+ rate, there'll be a revolution. Where does this idea come from?

China went through not just minimal growth, but policies that killed tens of millions in the 1950-70s. I think the CCP is going to be very stable, and the current technological surveillance infrastructure has only strengthened it.

Based on my macro models, I believe growth has been zero for last 12 months.

North Korea persists because China keeps it alive. If China joined the rest of the world in sanctions and a no trade policy NK would fold in a week.

The USSR largely collapsed due to its economic isolation. It couldn't keep pace with the wests military industrial machine and because the west predominantly sanctioned the USSR they couldn't grow to compete.

Regimes do not last in total economic isolation for long. They require someone to prop them up. Of course, getting the whole world to ban trade with China would be infeasible if for no other reason than China already has enough influence in nations around the world to override the will of Europe and North America. Most of Southeast Asia and Africa would still do business with China even under UN sanctions because they are under the influential heel of the CCP at this point.

You can look at Russia today as an example of sanctions somewhat working - continued sanctions by the west against Putins governments atrocities have not overthrown him yet but they certainly sow seeds of discontent against him. Its why Russia is spending so much effort to meddle in western elections, they can see the writing on the wall that a strong and hostile west will eventually erode Putin and the Russian mafias ability to hold dictatorship over the country.

Holy.., for some reason those photo's hit me hard here at work. Especially burying the child.

These images are haunting.

More on Lu Guang: "Lu is based in New York City, the first Chinese photographer to be invited by the U.S. State Department as a visiting scholar, and Beijing. In early November 2018, whilst travelling in Xinjiang, Lu was taken away by state security agents and has not been heard from since."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Guang_(photographer)

By the way, great to see the Hong Kong Free Press on the HN front page. It's an independent, non-profit newspaper financed primarily by reader donations.

Hong Kong has basically only 3 English-language newspapers left: South China Morning Post ([1], since 1903, but now owned by the mainland Alibaba group), The Standard ([2], free, ad-financed), and HKFP.

Given the encroaching Chinese influence on HK (contra the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the "One Country, Two Systems" principle [3], which specify wide ranging autonomy of HK on internal matters until 2047), a free press in HK is enormously important to safeguard HK's freedoms.

(If you care about it, please support the HK Free Press! (I'm not affiliated.) Here:)

https://www.hongkongfp.com/support-hong-kong-free-press-2019...

[1] https://www.scmp.com

[2] http://www.thestandard.com.hk

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems

EDIT: typos, add "One Country, Two Systems"

Uh, wait. What happens in 2047? Is HK screwed then?

It reverts wholly to China, and becomes a Chinese city like any other. No more separate economic system, political system, currency, immigration, press, etc.

But China is basically pre-empting that by gradually tightening the screws already. One of the factors (together with massive inequality and diminishing economic opportunities) leading to the 2014 umbrella protests.

China has begun quite a campaign of rogue diplomacy, a good example being the continued saga of Canada abiding by its treaty with the United States and holding Meng Wanzhou for due process of an extradition for charges laid in the US.

In retaliation China has jailed a number of Canadians on invented charges and are now leveraging trade in a farcical manner, claiming that Canadian products are contaminated (which is rich coming from China) to try to lever the government.

Rule of law vs rule of Xi Jinping.

China is rule of law when convenient.

They even killed a Canadian. In a future where China is dominant you can just tell that they learned diplomacy from Americans... where they basically act like the mafia. And really much effort should be put to restrain them as it's going to be a disaster for world peace and human rights.

I'm wondering if people in China can see this website in Google.

Edit: to people who are downvoting this... check this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19540562

Not anymore!

People aren't downvoting this within 7 minutes of you posting.

>People aren't downvoting this within 7 minutes of you posting.

Obviously they are, or OP wouldn't have added that edit. You can see your comment scores (as you know.)

Interestingly, I just read that China employs people to influence social media. (Which Hacker News would fall under, I guess.) What I read was this, I'll quote it in full:

   >China does this with its 50
   >Cent Party: people hired by the government to
   >post comments on social networking sites
   >supporting, and to challenge comments
   >opposing, party positions.

This is from a book on privacy by a famous author. It would be interesting to know if the people mentioned post to HN.

The recent story about Apple disabling their News app in China got flagged over and over in the first hour or so, but I don't know if that was wumao or Apple fans doing it for free :)

Please don't break the site guideline which asks you not to insinuate astroturfing on HN. See my recent explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19538691.

Plenty more at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

my apologies. thank you for the informative link.

Well, it got downvoted in the first 2 minutes.

People in China can't see Google. People here have it so backwards about which companies are most cooperative with China

Yes it's quite bizarre that HN is so anti-Google in this issue. Only tech companies that cooperate with China exist in China. Google tried to stand their ground for years and was completely banned.

Google being completely banned in China doesn't do anyone any good. A censored Google is better than no Google.

Why the down-vote? Isn't the absence of Google a more totalitarian form of censorship than some access to Google?

That thread is about Google Ads. If Chinese people can see Google Search, they're using a VPN and can see that website. Without VPN, on the other hand, it has been blocked by the Great Firewall since at least 2015: https://en.greatfire.org/https/www.hongkongfp.com

I say this kind of thing a lot, but I feel compelled to repeat myself. It seems like every week brings more evidence of oppressive governments edging ever closer toward a full-on 1984 nightmare scenario.

At this point the decision tree facing privacy activists, those concerned with human rights, and those who support the expansion of western moral aspirations is unambiguous.

Are you uncomfortable with China's aggressive censorship, human rights abuses, and surveillance? Stop buying shit from them. Stop using their software. Nine times out of ten you don't need it. Don't support corporations that enhance the efficiency of the Chinese government's oppression in the name of profits. Don't accept the idea that it's okay for giant corporations to bend to whatever demands (however ominous) an authoritarian government hands to them in the name of profit.

Exceptions arise, and no one's behavior is perfect. But the 1/10 case where you absolutely MUST use a certain surveillance app or buy a certain widget made by slaves in another country is not an excuse for throwing your hands up and capitulating in the other nine cases you encounter every day. Many of us on HN have the option to not support oppressive systems - I implore you to exercise that option so that others may gain the ability to choose as well.

Would you support a general government embargo on Chinese trade in your country?

I absolutely would and not just because of the way China treats it's citizens - putting all the global production of strategically important electronics in the hands of one country with a proven track record of well..almost everything seems like a fairly poor idea.

This is far too large a problem for individual buying decisions to make much of a dent. But if you're against trade, maybe tariffs will do it?

1) The societies of the world are composed of individuals. Individual actions, if appropriately cultivated and communicated, may become group actions. Individual actions absolutely matter.

2) At no point did I claim to be against trade.

Encouraging people to not buy stuff from an entire country or do business with them (basically an informal boycott) sure sounds like a way of penalizing trade, but much less effective. If that's not what you meant, maybe explain it again?

> Are you uncomfortable with China's aggressive censorship, human rights abuses, and surveillance? Stop buying shit from them.

China is buying up realestate and farm land in every major western nation. China is buying critical infrastructure across the globe via the Belt and Road initiative[1][2]. China has become too big and too powerful to be stopped by mere consumer action. They are not planning to wage a war on democracy, they're planning to simply subsume it with soft power and emigration.

To stop China's hellish vision of the future from becoming reality, the leaders of the developed world need to hit it with trade controls as hard as they did Cuba. But so far it seems that everyone is choosing to sell out their own country for those sweet Chinese RMB[3].

I see the sign of the times when I go to the largest shopping centre in the Southern Hemisphere (Chadstone, Melbourne, Australia) and see little stands advertising AU realestate in all-Chinese banners, staffed by Chinese agents who don't even speak English. The citizens of the country they're selling are not worth talking to.

[1] https://www.africanliberty.org/2018/09/10/like-zambia-sri-la...

[2] https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2016/04/16/...

[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-08/chinese-billionaire-h...

While I understand your point, I strongly disagree with the implication that individual actions are meaningless. People should not accept a "death by a thousand cuts" behavioral paradigm when it comes to moral decisions in the realm of consumption. Voting is a part of the situation, but voting is an individual choice just like purchasing decisions.

The thing is, spontaneous order mostly doesn't happen. You need organized campaigns to make voting meaningful; if everyone votes for a different candidate you're not going to get anywhere and will usually lose to parties that are organized. The same is true in the market; individuals can't make good buying decisions about things that aren't visible without labeling by standards organizations or stores that set standards themselves.

While having popular support is essential, an organization is more than just the sum of individual actions and this is what leadership is about.

I think we will see what is happening to the Uighurs now as a genocide in that it is an intentional destruction of a culture and people. I'm not sure what can be done when a country so powerful as China is the perpetrator but it's pretty terrible to watch as it is happening.

What is happening in Xinjiang is terrible, but let's be more specific. What's happening is a more intense version of 'reverse genocide' and NOT ethnic cleansing (which is what a generic label of 'genocide' implies). What's reverse genocide? It's when you when you proactively encourage assimilation by intermarriage with Han Chinese (where the family will become Han in culture & treatment by Chinese society) and through the encouragement of mass migration of Han Chinese. This is what has happened with both Mongolia and Tibet and it's worked. When that doesn't work or is too slow, what you get is what's happening in Xinjiang where people are either 'assisted' to assimilate with the help of Han babysitters, or put in brainwashing camps which echoes the Cultural Revolution. As horrific as it all is, it still not as terrible as past campaigns of trying to achieve some form of "genetic purity" that's happened in other countries outside of China.

> I'm not sure what can be done when a country

What are you willing to personally give up? Are you willing to pay more for trinkets and electronics? e.g. A very conservative estimate would probably add another $100 to the price of an iPhone. See a similar increase across many if not most products. Are you willing for our economy to take a hit (i.e. financial instability, temporary job losses, ...)?

As much as I dislike and disagree with Trump & his policies, I may disagree with his execution of confronting China, but not with its general idea.

> It's when you when you proactively encourage assimilation by intermarriage with Han Chinese

How is it encouraged? I was under the impression that Uyghurs and other minority peoples aren't considered to be desirable marriage partners by most Han Chinese.

Right now there's still a huge imbalance between men and women. While not ideal for Han Chinese, just being able to marry and have children makes intermarriage between other ethnic groups a necessity. When the end result is you have a family that more or less looks Han and is culturally Han, no one cares really about the means.

As much as I tend to hate on China for its extreme policies of government censorship and social control, it's somewhat disingenuous to tar them for lobbying (even ~threatening) other UN diplomats.

I mean, doesn't ~everyone do it? Having been interested in the Palestinian issue, and the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, it's pretty clear that Israel and the US have done just what China is doing. And no, this isn't whataboutism. I'm calling bullshit on the US etc for "pot calling the kettle black" bullshit.

Also, although I'm not a huge fan of cultural relativism, it is true that Chinese culture is very old, and very different from European culture. Including the US and other former colonies, obviously. But maybe not so much from India and other former colonies in Southeast Asia.

But anyway, given that, what's the argument that we're "right" and they're "wrong"? Because God said so? But which God, then?

The god of humanism and human rights. We are right and Chinese are wrong for oppressing their own people with what amounts to racism and fascist nationalism.

OK, but why does our god beat their god?

Their god is a fuck of a lot older ;)

Is it just because we can? And that we'll kick their ass hard enough and long enough that they worship our god? That's cool, I guess. But we ought at least be honest about it.

And what if we can't? What then?

Their God was invented by Marx, Mao, Fascism, and Capitalism. This has nothing to do with Confucianism or Buddhism or Taoism.

So you say.

But I've heard even vaguely liberal Chinese argue differently. And seriously, have you actually read Confucius? Or the Yi Jing? Concepts like social benefit trumping individual freedom, and respect for authority, go back a long way.

Fascism and Communism are relatively modern European inventions. Even Chinese Communism, at its peak, was never anything like what Marx and Engels imagined. Although they talked about social evolution, they were fundamentally operating in the context of individual freedom.

Yes historically Chinese civilization has been highly hierarchical and authoritarian. Which has to do with their state craft, not something due to the will of the people. So much so that they used to completely mistreat people, like for instance see how the great wall was built. That does not mean that we should laud or tolerate that as their culture and the way that it has to be. And if we're talking about living in the past then we should be arming the Uighurs to defend themselves as that's a part of our cultural heritage.

In the end the point is for people to have rights and not be subjected to arbitrary harassment, detention or murder by the state. That's a universal global thing now. And that's for the better.

I have nothing with the Chinese wanting to be great. That's the purview of all humans. I just have a problem with the way they have decided to go about it. And the rest of the world should as well.

> That's a universal global thing now.

Except for China. And not really even for India. Or for much of the Middle East, for that matter. Or even for Russia, when you really get down to it.

So maybe not so much a "global" thing. Maybe a European culture thing. Which thinks that it ought to be global.

And yet, I do believe that it ought to be global. But I realize that I'm on shaky ground there.

There was a time when there were powers and authorities in the Western world that would silence dissent via violence and murder.

See Galileo and the Catholic Church as an example. Or the Inquisition. Or any number of other examples of absolute authority executed by a State or State based actors in the pursuit of silencing dissent and controlling discourse.

A fundamental component of American ideology is the protection of free speech and dissent. Pretty much unequivocally. E.g., the "old" and "different" culture of authoritarianism that controlled Western civilization was overturned to give individuals more freedom.

So far this dedication to individual liberty and freedom of thought and expression is a relatively short lived blip in human history - but arguing that Chinese culture is just "old" and "different" side steps the fact that on the one hand we see an evolving and changing culture that embraces the individual...and on the other we see a continuance of abusive authoritarianism that subjugates individuals in pursuit of preserving the status quo.

Sure, I get that. That's why I came to the US. And I do believe that, for the most part, the US does display an honest commitment to those values.

But still, imposing your values on others is an iffy thing.

In the one case you have China actively violating the freedoms and liberties of the people living under its control and on the other hand you have the UN as a collective body seeking to have a discussion about that.

China is actively seeking in this case to kill any sort of discourse. The UN has no power to impose its values on anyone else. It can, as a body, take certain actions to indirectly affect nations of the world...but it is not a world government that can impose anything.

In this case all that was on the table was a discussion - and even that was untenable to China.

That is China imposing it's values on others in a very absolute way - and I agree...that's an iffy thing. I would go even further and say it's unacceptable (by any country) to try to completely silence discussion.

> ... freedoms and liberties ...

Yes, they are for sure doing that.

But then, those are European concepts. I'm not even sure if they're really expressible in endogenous Chinese languages.

So is cultural imperialism OK, as long as we're really "in the right"? That was basically Spain's argument for taking over Mexico etc. God was on their side.

> those are European concepts

Only inasmuch as they were born in Europe who in turn had to flee their home country to pretty much make it a reality.

In the article in questions here no one is talking about intervening in the internal affairs of other countries.

The point of contention is that China is actively working to prevent the very discussion of what is happening under its authority. And they are actively using violent physical force to impose their authority and prevent discussion and dissent within their borders.

Is history replete with examples of Western countries undertaking violent imperialistic expansion? Absolutely.

Is that what we're doing now or talking about here? No.

> I'm not even sure if they're really expressible in endogenous Chinese languages.

And it never will be expressible unless and until free and open discussion can be engaged in.

Sure, China doesn't want people dissing its internal policies. No country does, do they?

And yes, they are repressing dissent within China through "violent physical force". That again isn't unusual. There's a broad consensus that a state has internal monopoly on force.

Me, I hate that. But it's not as if China is alone, in that. I'd love to go buy some LSD or shrooms. But authorities put people in jail for that shit. Some huge percentage of US citizens are locked up for nonviolent drug offenses. How is that not just as bad as what China is doing?

Edit: And what if some were organizing a UN conference to discuss the violent repression of recreational drug use in the US etc? That's not even a credible possibility, is it? And that's largely because the US has so thoroughly dominated the world regarding the issue.

I absolutely agree that there are questionable aspects to how the U.S. enforced drug prohibition laws and how non-violent offenders are treated.

But again, the fact is that we can openly have, and pursue aggressively, discussion about and attempts at reform around how this is handled.

In fact we see this by the spread of various drug legalization efforts in the U.S. and efforts at prison reform.

Though there is also a huge difference between a governments authority to regulate the distribution and consumption of psychoactive compounds (and/or the sale of such compounds) and the ability to even discuss how the government is handling the issue.

Free speech and criticism of the government are a bare minimum baseline. So you can actively organize your fellow citizens in an effort to legalize various compounds in the US and you can lobby and protest the government without any fear of being arrested because of what you are saying. That is a completely different world than what goes on in China. If you are a dissident you are a criminal.

And with respect to whether or not the UN could openly address internal affairs of the U.S. - well it does: https://undocs.org/A/HRC/38/33/ADD.1

Yes the U.S. ambassador to the UN had some choice words about that specific report but it was all out in the open and wasn't suppressed

> But again, the fact is that we can openly have, and pursue aggressively, discussion about and attempts at reform around how this is handled.

Yes, freedom of expression in the US is wonderful. As is freedom of religion. But still, when I'm feeling cynical, I observe that freedom of expression in the US ends when you're actually doing anything.

Or even talking about actually doing anything. Issues around the ritual use of peyote and ayahuasca come to mind.

And still, it's about as good as it gets on planet Earth. Except for, in some ways, northern Europe.

That's a great US report. Thanks. I've drifted a lot around the US, and I was seriously into whitewater for a few years. traveling barely navigable creeks and rivers in the southeastern US, I saw some unbelievable stuff.

I suggest you should read up on the far more recent case of Fred Hampton and COINTELPRO regarding US "protection of dissent". American institutions protect the status quo and allow "safe" dissent (meaning bounded (e.g. NY Times) or ineffective (tiny groups / grandpa screaming) dissent). However, free speech is treated more seriously here than most other places and times in history, that is true and good.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/assassination-of-fre...

That said, what is being done to the Uyghur people in China is vile and is contradictory to established human rights. It is completely appropriate to take China to task at the UN. However, as US citizens, it is difficult for us to have a strong moral voice given the wars, assassinations, coups, and destructive sanctions we have initiated along with our history of indigenous genocide, colonialism, and slavery that we have still not fully reckoned with. Even now we are implementing a slightly different version of the Japanese internment camps for the most vulnerable people in our society, undocumented immigrants, to distract from the economic depredations of the ruling class.

If we want to be a more effective and just nation, we have a lot of work to do at home.

I am not saying that there aren't parts of the U.S. government that actively work against free speech - because that is certainly the case.

However the very fact that we can discuss these things (or that there is a book that is freely accessible to all on the subject of a specific instance of institutional oppression in the U.S.) openly and without fear that our doors are going to get knocked in and see us getting swept off to a "reeducation camp" are the signs that we live in a country that strongly values free speech.

The U.S. does not have a perfect track record by any means...but for all of the examples you give of bad action by the U.S. as an institution I am aware of large and public and accessible documentation in the forms of museums, installations and other means of dissemination and availability.

In other words the U.S. airs (or allows to be aired) its dirty laundry as much or more than most other countries. And while this invites "whataboutism" it certainly, in my opinion, helps validate our position to openly question and try to discuss the actions of other nations.

Obviously nobody cares about right or wrong. The average westerners only want to accuse China so they can feel good about themselves for a while, and their leaders only want to secure world domination.

Look at some of the comments here, people have no idea what they are talking about. Seriously? A civil war is good in his/her book? How many people do you think is going to die? And would the US and the Europe happily accept Chinese refugees? It is fine for millions of people from other parts of the world to die, billions to suffer, as long as it is for western values. Just look at the Middle East.

Also, an unbaised standard does not exist when it comes to international affairs. Do you think the billions of poor people in India are enjoying their lives? How come the west always focus fire on the Chinese when they talk about human right issues? Have you heard of the caste system?

About culture, as a Chinese living in the US, many Americans have asked me whether I eat dogs, or do I have microwaves/tap water back in China. Do you think they will change their minds even if I try my best to explain my experience to them? Americans want culture diversity as much as kids want to visit a zoo: lol look at these barbarians, now let's go back to our modern, superior way of life.

Edit: People read several biased articles online and think they know everything about China, because why would the media lie? We obviously do not need to set foot on this huge country to see it for ourselves, a few news reports are all we need.

> and their leaders only want to secure world domination.

projection?

> the west always focus fire on the Chinese when they talk about human right issues?

we don't. maybe you just pay attention to those stories more though.

> Also, an unbaised standard does not exist when it comes to international affairs.

i'll agree with this, however it doesn't make morally wrong things less wrong, or mean people don't suffer.

> as a Chinese living in the US, many Americans have asked me [...] do I have microwaves/tap water back in China

this could just be a weird thing Americans do, even in Canada or Europe they'll ask if it's safe to drink tap water.

out of interest, how many of your countrymen to have access to clean tap water?

Judging from how active and well-received Dalai Lama is in the west and how many westerners have bothered to go to Tibet to see it for themselves, I would say yes you focus too much on our human right issues for how little you care about what's really happening.

Right or wrong do exist, I also think Xi is an a-hole. But people ignore issues that are "inconvenient" for them and their allies is what drives me crazy. I would prefer people put their own oxygen masks on before helping others.

For the southern parts of China, I would say almost all the countrymen have access to tap water. For the northwestern parts, it is still pretty bad, a lot of them still rely on rivers/wells, although I don't have numbers. As for how clean the water is, that is something I have no idea about, and I am not optimistic.

Edit: grammar.

I used to be a total supporter of the Dalai Lama. I mean, great philosophy. Great clothes. Great ritual. Great sand paintings. And so on.

But then I starting thinking about what life would have been like in Tibet, under the Buddhist theocracy. Maybe benign enough, but not so much freedom for the serfs.

Thanks. It's great to see a comment by a Chinese person.

As I've said, individual rights and freedoms matter a lot to me. I'm pretty radical about it. More or less an anarchist, in the Crowley sense. Or as Stover would say, a Cainist.

But still, I do my best to be open-minded. There's always the risk of infection, I know, but my mental immune system is pretty damn hardcore.

Thanks. I also think our current government is one of the worst, the problem is that the western leaders doesn't genuinely want to help us from our point of view, it seems that they want puppets like the South Korea and Japan. Human rights, environment issues are just tools they use to make us look bad.

> ...it's somewhat disingenuous to tar them for lobbying (even ~threatening) other UN diplomats.

We're not tarring and feathering them _for_ lobbying. We are tarring and feathering them for _what_ they are lobbying. Is that not a valid distinction?

What strikes me as disingenuous is to frame your argument in this way, when it misses the point of _why_ this is drawing any attention in the first place.

On the scale of what the US does about those who trade with Iran, say, what China is doing is nothing.

Trying to sweep human rights violations, to put it as mildly as humanly possible, under the rug, using threats by your own admission, is nothing? Why is your default position here whataboutism?

OK, not Iran. The trade embargo on Iraq, which killed many thousands through starvation. How is that not a human-rights violation?

And the thing here is that this is about how China is treating people in areas that are part of China, and have off-and-on been part of China for thousands of years. Some of them were part of China long before the proto-US was importing slaves from Africa.

So if the US wants to focus on human-rights violations, they arguably ought to focus on African-Americans. Some huge percentage of African-American men are, or have been, in prison. Far more than the Chinese are fucking with.

And fundamentally, it's not whataboutism. It's about realistic expectations. I mean, just consider what the US diplomatic response would be if China started organizing a UN conference on treatment of African-Americans. Pretty soon, as with China, it'd come down to "don't mess with us".

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