I was not asking from a standpoint of trying to tell you that you're wrong. I was asking because it seems like a good example to take away from the article but I'm not sure what specifically you were thinking.
China:
- is good at doing things. Projects in the West are smaller and take longer.
- can take the long view. Western governments think of the next election.
- promotes harmony and unity among its citizens. Western electorates must be divided by emotional issues.
- has a domestic security apparatus that's more transparent and obvious than corresponding forces in the West.
- has 1.4 billion people. EU has 512 million. US has 330 million.
- learn what works from others and make it their own. Less Western students go to China, than vice versa.
- people emigrate everywhere, mix with everyone but still maintain their own culture. Less Westerners migrate to China than vice versa.
- is very safe from violent crime and terrorism. The West could emulate China's effective law enforcement strategies.
- has an admirable, inspiring and clear goal of striving for national rejuvenation, a harmonious and moderately prosperous country. What admirable, inspiring and clear goal for the future to work toward does any Western country have?
That's some of what I think.
But I don't think it's important to you what I think. I think what's important for you is you being open to see what's already there in front of you. When you are open to learn, you will find your own things about China that you admire and wish the West would emulate.
Or, if you need some help to get beyond that, let me flip it around for you. Do you disagree with an effective law-enforcement and counter-narrative strategy for countering radical extremism?
And seeing concentration camps (or, if you prefer, re-education camps) makes me rather hesitant about learning the rest. If what I learn is attached to re-education camps, I'm not sure I want to learn it.
For example, social cohesion is a good thing. We could really use some of that! But the Chinese method of achieving it ranges from the "social credit" system to the re-education camps. Do I want social cohesion? Sure. Do I want it that badly? No.
If you're primed to see the foreign country as monstrous and evil, you'll see it that way, whatever the balance of the facts for people who live there may be.
For example, social credit. Do you know what it is? Do you know specifically what's being proposed and implemented right now? Or are you going off of some breathless reporting?
(super briefly, there's no consumer credit system in China. Currently there are 2 corporate credit systems evolving in response to need (alipay, wepay), and something like 15 different government-sponsored pilot programs testing different ideas in different provinces, because having consumer credit scores is in fact important for finance. This gets reported as some Big Brother Social Credit Program With A Big Dystopian Plan by western media).
> “I will give you an example. There was an old woman in the camp who had been a shepherd before she was arrested. She was taken to the camp because she was accused of speaking with someone from abroad by phone. This was a woman who not only did not have a phone, she didn’t even know how to use one. On the page of sins the inmates were forced to fill out, she wrote that the call she had been accused of making never took place. In response she was immediately punished. I saw her when she returned. She was covered with blood, she had no fingernails and her skin was flayed.”
> Tears stream down Sauytbay’s face when she tells the grimmest story from her time in the camp. “One day, the police told us they were going to check to see whether our reeducation was succeeding, whether we were developing properly. They took 200 inmates outside, men and women, and told one of the women to confess her sins. She stood before us and declared that she had been a bad person, but now that she had learned Chinese she had become a better person. When she was done speaking, the policemen ordered her to disrobe and simply raped her one after the other, in front of everyone. While they were raping her they checked to see how we were reacting. People who turned their head or closed their eyes, and those who looked angry or shocked, were taken away and we never saw them again. It was awful. I will never forget the feeling of helplessness, of not being able to help her. After that happened, it was hard for me to sleep at night.”
Source (you probably have to open it in incognito mode): https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-milli...
Here's what I think:
There is some torture and physical beatings of residents, but a very small percentage of "worst offenders" go through that process. The vast majority of stuff that happens in the campuses is designed around getting people to be constructive members of society.
If you compare the level of violence there, with violence against detainees at various black sites, extrajudicial prisons, or even just the regular prison system in the West, I think you're just splitting hairs. So what are you so concerned about this for?
Of course, if you really care so much about Xinjiang, just go there and "die as a martyr" if that's what you really believe happens. I'm joking.
Xinjiang is a problem, because the rise of terrorist ideology using Islam as a delivery vector could easily spread through the region and cause unrest. I think what the government did by pre-emptively controlling the area was very masterful and a good thing. They prevented unrest and contagious unrest by taking decisive steps, and now that area is going to be saved, instead of damaged by the virus of terrorism.
The other problem is just cultural. Those steppe people are stubborn, they think they can do whatever they like, since for thousands of years their culture is independent. But they have to adjust to the contemporary world where everything is under the purview of one state or another. That is a cultural adjustment against the DNA of those people to be stubborn and independent. So China has to shape them into a more compatible form, so they don't deal with issues in future. It's sad about the old ways having to die out and change, but at the same time, these people would cause problems anywhere, since no place in the world is compatible with that. If you look throughout history these people of the steppe caused recurring problems again and again at the fringes of all empires.
Eventually, this type of culture has to be assimilated into a larger more stable culture and preserved that way, or it won't be able to exist.
At least it's not an out and out slaughter like of the Native Americans. The solution the Chinese are doing, is actually more humane that just starting a war in the region, or killing everyone. China doesn't want to have to deal with the problem, but it's their problem because it's under their state, so they have to deal with it.
Also, people think that China wants "homogeneity". That is rubbish. They don't care about everybody looking the same, acting the same, or whatever. There are so many regions in China with different dress, food, language, custom. More variety than in the West. But that's whitewashed by the Western "journalists". They even don't want everyone to think the same. They do want to promote common purpose and collective identity, because that makes the country strong.
Also, in the West, the media is used to inflame divisions and further divide people, and create a milieu of confusion and conflict. Half the reason China censors the media and online is to prevent the abuse of it leading to this kind of Chaos. Because China is not a democracy it gets no utility from inflaming people's passions and dividing them against each other. So it can afford to promote their own collective harmony, and individual peace and happiness.
Apologists for totalitarian regimes usually deny the atrocities those regimes commit. I just wanted to see you do it and discredit yourself in the process.
But can you "deny" something if it's not true? Isn't that confirming the untruth?
But was I denying it?
I'm saying the Western propaganda is overblown but it looks like there's there's suppression going on. I just don't think it's an "atrocity", I think terrorism is the atrocity, and I think what China is doing is the correct path. But I guess you're an apologist for Xinjiang terrorists, huh, pal?
It looks like the only one who's discredited is you for shamelessly misrepresenting me here. If you misrepresent me here, what do you do with any news article; just twist it to fit your agenda? Why should anyone listen to such a shameless misrepresenter?
Anyway, if you claim the Western media is telling the truth, and it's not just your belief, prove it to me. Or don't you have the conviction? Thanks, pal. XD
But we all get to pick our side, right? So pick yours. Apologist for China cracking down on terrorists, or apologist for "Islamic" terrorism. I know where I stand. Do you? Hahah. This is too easy, pal. Whatugot?
Quick, you better invoke another persona. Looks like that one's gonna run outta steam.
You’re the one who’s twisting news articles to fit your agenda. Here’s what you’re doing: you’re denying firsthand accounts of the actual conditions inside the camps, and then you are turning around to justify what’s happening inside the camps.
Did China have a terrorism problem in the first place? Did Xinjiang terrorists hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Shanghai? Of course not. Uighur “terrorism” is a lie that you are telling to justify atrocities at the very same time that you deny that those atrocities are happening in the first place.
Meanwhile you’re accusing me of not being open to dissenting views, such as...having a state-controlled media that doesn’t publish dissenting views. You’re accusing me of being unwilling to think differently while championing the cause of throwing “steppe people” into prison camps for the crime of being so stubborn that they think differently from the rest of China.
I’m not threatened by your opinion, because your opinion is an incoherent mess built on a foundation of lies. What I am threatened by is the geopolitical power of the liars, torturers, rapists, and mass murderers you are defending.
That's a great line, and I know it looks like I'm defending liars, torturers, rapists and mass murderers. But in fact you're pretending to be against liars, torturers, rapists and mass murderers but you're actually defending the terrorists who do this and criticizing the law enforcement who is saving people from it.
You're pathetically projecting, because your opinion is the incoherent mess and the foundation of lies is all yours, pal. Which I think you know. My opinion is so much clearer than yours, I'm Pro China, Pro US and Pro Law. What are you for, again? Pro Terrorism? Pro Rape? Or was it Pro Disinfo? Your lack of belief in these issues shows, I can tell you're conflicted, but you have to keep pressing the message regardless. You really ought to get outta the business of lying for a living. Go back to trying to be a writer. Because you're literally not morally equipped to be trotting out this claptrap.
And, what's more, son, you're lying.
You falsely claim Xinjiang has no terrorism problem. At least you've exposed yourself as not just hysterical and shrill but also misinformed. Literally the first 3 results on Google: http://archive.is/TYTow http://archive.is/jCdNS and https://www.theglobalist.com/china-xinjiang-uighurs-extremis...
So it does seem you're suffering from a major case of confirmation bias complicated by shrill moralizing. This is particularly nasty to get rid of as you'll have to surrender your sense of superiority you get from vehemently pretending China is so wrong. It helps you cope with the anxiety about your own culture's stagnation and decay. I get it, but don't worry you can get professional help. Start by opening your eyes to learn from China about doing things that work to build a positive national identity and an inspiring pace of progress.
Main point is, so what does your moral outrage matter?
It looks like you got triggerd by seeing something positive about China, so you tried so hard to paint the page with everything negative. It's as if you're saying, "No one is allowed to like China because China bad", and then you invent reasons to pretend China is bad. What's convincing is you have a serious case of China envy and China hate. What's not convincing is your claim that "China bad". I still don't believe you, pal, you'll have to work harder to be convincing because you still haven't proved this is actually true. Points for effort, tho. I mean, you made a lot of effort. Shame it didn't pay off, huh, pal?
Are you sure it's not just your hysteria? Have you been duped by the Western media?
You're against China implementing and enforcing their law, that makes you a dissident and anti rule of law. You're also apologizing for terrorism while denying terrorism exists. This is just pathetic. I would have expected an American to be more against terrorists. What happened to make you soft on terror? Are you secretly a supporter?
Further, and this part will really blow your mind (trigger, mind blown warning ~~ make sure you're ready for it) I think you've fallen under the Communist Party's masterful disinformation spell like so many other useful foreign idiots. The CCP knows that foreigners love to hate on China, and love to preach and moralize. So the CCP uses this vulnerability (in fact the Haaretz interview was 1 ex detainee told to fabricate mistreatment claims and 1 undercover security operative handler also posing as a detainee, and the "Cables" is another disinfo product from Chinese information agents), deliberately spinning some disinfo. It plays you like a cat drawn by a laser. It plays you by getting you to look.
Of course, you're too abhorrently dull to understand why the CCP would want to pretend it's doing bad stuff ( just like you won't immediately understand why the CCP wants the unrest in HK, and even wants HK to become more democratic (pro tip: it's not for the sake of democracy)). But I'll explain it to ya, dun worry.
30% of the reason is distraction. Controlled opposition. 65% of the reason is because playing from a self-created straw man position gives them "out of thin air" leverage.
So China gets to make the narrative all about human rights (which is easy, because they know Westerners love to hate on China about 'human rights', so they just play into this Western vulnerability/bias) but actually it's not violating any human rights, and so by creating this public outrage (even if Western officials know it's disinfo) Western officials are forced to act (punished for cultivating their population's China hatred) as the populace goes rabid trying to outdo each other to condemn the "evil Chinese". Just as you, son, have done. Great work!
Now when the world thinks China is abusing human rights but it's not, China can magically provide the fix. When deal terms hinge on leverage, China can provide "generous concessions" and promise to "do better". Or it can cultivate domestic fire against the West by pointing out how much the Western media is fake news against China. Or it can use it to make Western politicians dance to its tune, and at the same time break their credibility. (Personally, I don't want to see conflict between the West and China, but I see China is masterful at defending itself, and I admire its skill, and ability to use the Western "moral supremacism" complex against itself).
Seriously, can you not see what's happening? I like both places, so I blush to see China pulling the USA's strings so readily here, but China had a huge win in terms of disinfo and narrative control recently: they convinced 427 senators to vote in their favor, and they've got the whole world, include Secretary of State, talking about human rights abuses in China. And most people are convinced this is absolutely what China does not want. They're wrong. This is China's game, and you've all fallen for it. But by doing so, you're helping China. So I thank you, because I think China ought to be helped and supported. But I'm also kind of embarrassed they duped you all so easily. I mean, WTF? I guess after years of being bashed this way and that by your own news media into a constant state of conflict and confusion, none of yall can't just think straight, huh?
Just like after Tiananmen, China scored a massive coup of WTO entry only 11 years later. Shouldn't the world have ostracised them for such an "atrocity"? Sorry, it doesn't work like that pal. They can control the narrative and use it to say, "look, we've reformed, we adopt your values now, so you have to let us in".
Seriously, I'm not just advocating supporting China because I believe in the China experiment (as a good balance to the US experiment). I'm advocating supporting China because I like the West, and China will fuck the West up if the West keeps fucking with it. Just like it is already doing, but you're all too dumb to see it. Stop fighting them, and work to create a better world together. They're using your desire for conflict and competition against you, and it looks to me like you're gonna wake up to that fact too late. Learn from them, stop hanging onto past glory, don't be like the Brits, ok?
Is there something specific you think I should be concerned with?
I'm not saying that there isn't anything we could possibly learn from China. They seem to have talented engineers and to have accomplished some serious innovations in the fields of manufacturing and construction in recent decades. In fact, I consider it absolutely imperative to learn from the PRC's example in the "know your enemy" sense. That doesn't mean uncritical admiration.
Goodness me. Where exactly did I say this? There was no attempt at a moral equivalency in my post. What I was trying to convey was that in any serious discussion of the US Government, a driveby, one-line post reminding us all that certain US agencies do unquestionably bad things and are answerable to essentially no one would be treated the way it deserved to be: as a single data point in a larger discussion, and essentially worthless without more substance or an attempt to connect to the larger discussion.
Heresy suppression. On the Anglosphere internet of late November 2019, it is unquestionably heresy to say anything non-negative about China, especially on Hacker News, as your response so aptly demonstrated (again, no one in this thread has expressed anything near uncritical admiration.) You've mistaken my identification of something as heresy for support of the heresy, I think.
You didn't. The guy I was originally replying to did. If you're going to wade into a thread to defend somebody else's position, it behooves you to understand what their position actually is.
I actually kind of agree with you. If someone starts discussing the merits of Guderian’s doctrine of mechanized warfare or Von Braun’s rocket designs, it would be ridiculous to counter that argument by raising irrelevant objections about concentration camps. But I raised those objections specifically in response to someone who specifically said the communist regime in China was good and deserved uncritical emulation.
You want an example of heresy? Go practice the Islamic faith in Xinjiang. You will be shipped to a concentration camp and the government will station a man in your house to sleep in the same bed as your wife.
The commenter upthread was specifically asked to list some things they considered positive about China. I think it is pretty uncharitable to consider their response uncritical, as their reticence about expressing their views suggests they are well aware of the negative aspects of the regime (perhaps more so than you and I are, through firsthand experience) as well as of how people expressing any positive sentiment about any aspect of China are recieved on forums like these.
>You want an example of heresy? Go practice the Islamic faith in Xinjiang. You will be shipped to a concentration camp and the government will station a man in your house to sleep in the same bed as your wife.
Bad things are bad.
Is it ok for me to wonder at the motives of those telling me that particular bad things are worse or more worthy of discussion than other bad things, especially when those bad things have been known for quite some time but only discussed in media for the last year or so? I have known about the camps and human rights violations in Xinjiang since 2017 at least, but back then nobody wanted to discuss it on the Internet with me as a geopolitical issue. So it's... good? I guess, that it's becoming more broadly known.
Edit: i see this whole subthread is detached now for being offtopic. I want to be careful here since I already got warned once for losing my temper about this subject. When you're from a geopolitically insignificant country, like I am, the actions of the big powers look different. Happy to leave it at that for now.
I’m also not doxxing this person to try and get them fired from their job, nor am I in any position to throw them in jail or suppress their right to express their opinion. I am merely expressing a contrary opinion.
But I agree there are a large many things that can be learned.
At the same time, when you say, "not work out", sorry I disagree with that. Which "few" of my points here? I only mention "harmony" in 2 out of 9, and even then it's not like they "do not work out" because of "harmony". Anyway....
What level of acceptance do you expect? As a Chinese you'll have more expectations, sure, but no more than locals, just different. As a foreigner I have different expectations. I have to work to carve out my space here, too. It's not just you who goes through difficulties. Everyone does. Is it really easier for Chinese to "integrate" into a Westner community than vice versa? I don't think so.
But anyway, this is diverging from the points I'm making. At a civilizational level, harmony has utility. It's a good thing for people. I'm not comparing different levels of acceptance / racism towards individuals. I deliberately omitted any comparisons about that in my list because it seems to me there aren't significant differences, and this list is about "What does China do really well that the West can learn from"
But to say the rest of my view on the point you raised, whether you're accepted or not I believe depends on how well you understand the culture and work to adopt it, and adapt yourself. It's not accidental or based on your skin color or where you're born, you have to be deliberate about it. But really, it's not different than a Chinese from one city, going to another city in China with a very different culture. The locals will view them differently, and to get "accepted" they'll have to work at it, just like you do. Why resist that? Don't expect something for nothing.
Overlay that with how the US spent our cold war dividend over the same period..