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Comment by sudofail | Hacker News Reader

I agree that prejudice plays a role in the West's view of China, and I'd agree that while China doesn't have democracy, the government has done tremendous good for millions of people. But that being said, what's happening with the Uighur population and "reeducation camps" is beyond unacceptable. And for that alone, I think the current Chinese government deserves all the criticism it's receiving.

China would have the moral high ground to argue the merits of non-democratic political systems if it didn't engage in such human rights atrocities.

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Comments like this are especially funny and dishonest because you, like most Westerners, likely have absolutely no idea what's happening to the Uighurs. Reports of "millions" being forced into camps are pure propaganda. And while China is taking some drastic measures in the region, most Uighurs at this point likely welcome the enhanced investment into the region.

The West' "view of China," like the West's view of the HK situation, is just a fantasy. It has nothing to do with actual evidence, facts or serious research. Like Iraq, the entire narrative is being driven by anonymous sources that do nothing but validate the Western hatred of China.

> China would have the moral high ground to argue the merits of non-democratic political systems if it didn't engage in such human rights atrocities.

Oh, the irony. As we speak American bombs are being dropped on Yemen, slaughtering thousands of children and escalating what the UN has repeatedly called the worst humanitarian situation on planet. But yes it's China that's engaged in human rights atrocities.

I happen to have a keen interest in the HK situation, and propaganda in general.

> Reports of "millions" being forced into camps are pure propaganda

Might it be possible for you to tell us what the actual number of Uighurs is that are are being forced into camps (and the number that are going there willingly, if some are doing so), as well as how you came to know the truth (actual numbers) of what is going on?

Bombs dropping every twenty minutes is a heinous evil that most Americans are ill-prepared to confront.

It takes a great deal of courage to learn the truth of the American military endeavours that have plunged the world into chaos and war for decades now. This concept is too scary for most Americans - even, Westerners in general - to deal with, and therefore: it continues.

Yeah, while this story joins the mass of stories that get flagged off the front page. Right now, one opportunity to be moral and show solidarity was given to you, and this is how you used it -- you aren't making a thread to help with what you use to belittle this, you use one atrocity to cover another, and think you're better than "most Westerners".

It's not primarily about who does bad things, it's about the victims, and how to help them. That's what empathy is, and that's why punishing evildoers even matters, not because the evildoers do. And yeah, I said evildoers instead of bending over backwards to say the same thing in more bloated language.

The victims need to be acknowledged by those who enable the perpetrators of the crimes.

I myself have helped multiple refugee families get their lives back together again. You?

> The victims need to be acknowledged by those who enable the perpetrators of the crimes.

Nah, I dont engage in and normalize sophistry, and still acknowledge them, and I don't use straw men to look the other way.

> The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future.

-- George Orwell

And it's not continued murder and pretending it and Tiananmen etc. never happened, all sorts of flowers can bloom on that:

https://shanghai.ist/2019/09/05/this-group-of-scholars-have-...

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