China suppression of Uighurs meets U.N. definition of genocide, report says

I mean, frankly, much of this discussion is probably not authentic either. These topics always attract people who will bend over backwards to defend genocide.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

Also, unrelated, it's sad that any comment trying to discuss or question what's specifically in the article is quickly downvoted into oblivion -- except this one, curiously -- and only general threads suitable (or unsuitable) for any submission loosely on this topic remain. People are quick to post insinuations about astroturfing too, despite guidelines specifically banning that.

It's different though. We're the good guys.

There is no indication of that.

Just decade after WWII British government did yet another genocide in Kenya. Concentration camps, floggings, torture and rapes. After that there has been many others.

Even China itself, as bad as it is, is enormously improved from the genocidal days of Mao.

This kind of communication is based on narrative. The ultimate problem is that when you have a conflict of evidence and narrative, you have people that want to keep theirs. So instead of changing the narrative, they change the evidence.

Find a way to be able to change your own narrative, and survive, given conflicting evidence, and you may be able to help change the world.

This is just the present manifestation of human nature. I assume, just as genocides and war has occurred in the past, they will continue to occur in the present and future, and we will never achieve world peace until human nature itself is changed, perhaps through some future genetic engineering that would make everyone exceedingly docile.

From the Wiki article, the UN definition of Genocide is met if...

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[5]

I'm not a fan of China, but the UN bar for genocide is so low that it's essentially meaningless.

The word itself means gene-killing.

Whether china is actually trying to wipe out or is being oppressive isn't clear when the UN definition is used.

We have also never fully acknowledged what the Spanish, British, and later USA did to the native populations of North and South America in the preceding centuries. Yes it's true that disease did much of the work without anyone lifting a finger, but that's only true in the early days. Later on there was plenty of intentional slaughter including bounties to encourage it.

When I look at the way Twitter erupts into ideological witch hunts or things like the Qanon cult, I realize that we have not changed. If any of those mobs got actual power we'd see the same things repeated against whatever groups (real or imaginary) they hate. Civilization is a thin veneer.

If you were to somehow take a caveman’s baby, bring it back to the current time and raise it to full adulthood you would not be able to tell the difference it and “us”.

Any progress we’ve made with regard to human rights is purely cultural and not innate ...and it can disappear in the blink of an eye.

You can bet that any horrible thing you can imagine happening some vile cnut somewhere has done to some other poor sap.

Sino China was involved in WW2, yet look at this.

Also, forced sterilization is still a thing, particularly outside of urban health authorities.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la...

The timing for Zenz shift in opinion is very convenient. China removing family planning policy exemptions for minorities like Uighurs started back in 2017. The policy was proposed back in 2014 and saw some discussion among China watchers in the following years. This is not a new policy change, and one Zenz should be aware of for at least 5+ years.

[1] https://time.com/4881898/china-xinjiang-uighur-children/

[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/08/chinese-official-floats...

IIRC, HN has a couple of algorithms to automatically detect "flamewars," and I wouldn't be surprised if this post tripped one, since much of the discussion is flamewar-ish.

I've been on forums where the moderators would remove "derailing" comments/threads, and I think this is a topic that probably needs that kind of moderation, unfortunately.

This just seems false. There are no ways to guarantee that they won't do something, but China, like everyone else, is vulnerable to international pressure. An optimistic historic parallel to which one could look is the Helsinki Accords, where diplomatic measures far short of war wrung what turned out to be dramatic human-rights concessions from the Soviets.

There is one recent-ish historical exception: the SA Apartheid regime was brought down by the West without any land invasion.

But invasion is no guarantee either; the Indian caste system, which makes apartheid look like Sunday school, survived the British occupation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

Note: I'm not defending this, and I'm not looking forward to the coming Chinese hegemony. However, what is the proposed alternative? It's obvious from the past few months just how deeply reliant western supply chains are on China.

When the Dutch were at the height of power, they heavily invested into British manufacturing, only to later be taken over as the hegemonic power by the British. The British later did similar with the US, and, in combination with the world wars and exiting as the only possible creditor from WW2, the American hegemony was established. From Volcker onwards, the American economy increasingly turned to financialization and local communities came to be service-oriented economies.

We're just historically at the end of a cyclical process of accumulation and China's up next.

Suppression of birth does not mean “limiting”, it means “preventing”. The actual U.N. article phrasing is as follows:

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

If the Chinese government was imposing sterilization on their own people in the native ethnic majority, then that too would qualify under that definition, as long as the intent to "physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" is proven (emphasis mine). The same need to prove intent applies to this situation with the Uighur people as well.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

And even the U.N. guidelines are controversial in genocide study circles due to the ongoing academic debate on intent.

Edit: Intent is the most fierce academic discussion in genocide studies. It's the first major academic topic introduce in Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (Adam Jones), which is the standard introductory book. Here's a collection of books, not even articles, primarily concerned with intent:

* With Intent to Destroy: Reflecting on Genocide

* The Khmer Rouge and the Crime of Genocide: Issues of Genocidal Intent with Regard to the Khmer Rouge Mass Atrocities

* A Collective Theory of Genocidal Intent

* On the Nature of Genocidal Intent

Not to mention dozens of articles, symposia, proceedings, debates, book chapters, reviews, and more. The UN-defined "with intent to destroy" has become the most notorious and controversial phrase in genocide studies. Adam Jones pp 11-39, 49-51 is my recommended reading for a primer on the subject. It's online for free. [0]

[0] http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf

The UN guidelines that Zenz is following:

> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

> Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang

> The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply

> But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show. Some rural Muslims, like Omirzakh, are punished even for having the three children allowed by the law

> Leaked data obtained and corroborated by the AP showed that of 484 camp detainees listed in Karakax county in Xinjiang, 149 were there for having too many children - the most common reason for holding them. Time in a camp — what the government calls “education and training” — for parents with too many children is written policy in at least three counties, notices found by Zenz confirmed

> While fines also apply to Han Chinese, only minorities are sent to the detention camps if they cannot pay, according to interviews and data

> Seven former detainees told the AP that they were force-fed birth control pills or injected with fluids, often with no explanation. Many felt dizzy, tired or ill, and women stopped getting their periods. After being released and leaving China, some went to get medical check-ups and found they were sterile

https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c