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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

China’s methods worked on Tibet; I expect the Uighur culture to be dramatically changed in a generation, especially since recording devices are being put in the homes of these people to prevent passage of oral culture/history to the young.

After the Uighur culture is gone, will China keep the surveillance technology in place, e.g. the face scans required to enter the strip-malls, etc.?

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What’s really interesting is the perspective regular Chinese have on how to develop Tibet.

There’s a great article from The Atlantic, where they interviewed Chinese teachers and social workers that chose to go to Tibet [1].

One comment that stood out was this: “First, I will use my friendship to help [the Tibetans]. But if they refuse my friendship, I will use war to develop them, like the Americans did with the Indians."

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/02/tibet-t...

The wars against Tibetan peoples, in a broad sense, have a much longer history than the American Indian wars. So it's no surprise that some would still think in those terms. And the American west is a good example of why many Tibetans are skeptical of Han migration. The western US has no chance to become independent because it was modernized by American settlers much like the Han settlers are modernizing Tibet.

I think the word you want is colonized, not modernized.

Sure but colonization has pretty much always brought modernization with it: Roman, Mongol, Ottoman, Spanish, etc.

But on the flip side, often times the local pop suffers great losses.

I think that's what he means when he says modernize. As in "modernize". Seems entirely intentional to me on several levels. I'm sure the Chinese do see it as modernizing, even if the reality is much more despicable.

> recording devices are being put in the homes of these people to prevent passage of oral culture/history to the young

This is the first time I hear of this, but I haven't been paying close attention - can you tell me more about it?

I’ve also been having trouble getting more information on this

People would ironically prefer to censor my interest at all, or thats how it seems

Planet money had a recent episode that was really good on the Uighers that you could listen to.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-plan-to-move-in-to-your...

Not OP; I've only come across this in a Vice documentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ

I don't think the surveillance has the explicit purpose of preventing cultural reproduction, but I can imagine it has a chilling effect.

https://www.shahit.biz/eng/ Here is a database of over 5000 video testimonials by people who have had family members disappeared into Chinese "re-education camps". You can spit the database file out as a .xls and text search it. I found four accounts of forced abortions for women held in the camps.

I meant specifically the recording devices in homes. I'm otherwise aware of China's general anti-Uyghur policy.

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