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Comment by dustinmoris | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. It's the same irony around the fears of Huawei's 5G, whilst the entire world IT is run on operating systems owned by US companies. I can't remember the last time China tried to assassinate a country leader in South America, or a country which has been bombed by Chinese drones, or a WikiLeaks document which proved that China is spying on the entire world. On the other hand... I genuinely can't remember a single year where the US didn't bomb a country..

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Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. Such threads are extremely repetitive and deeply uncurious, and therefore off topic here.

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Sure, good reminder, thank you!

I can't remember when the US built concentration camps specifically for a remote Muslim minority, or when they built islands to falsely stake territorial claims, or ...

Your arguments have been cherry-picked in a such a way, that "bad faith" comes to mind.

Some would argue Guantanamo Bay is a concentration camp:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#...

Nobody credible who knows what a concentration camp is would.

And many of America's own citizens criticize the US government for running it. What happens to Chinese citizens when they comment negatively on the Uighur camps?

The fact that the US does not always live up to the ideals its espouses is no knock against those ideals.

The American system, for all of its faults, at least manages to select correct at times to point closer to its ideals. Maybe I don't follow closely enough, but I generally don't see anything like that happening. Perhaps a bit of 'de-Maoification' of his personality cult at one point?

The embrace of a more market economy wasn't a good accepted for its own sake, but more for its practical benefits, so I wouldn't count that.

In some ways, that is the genius of Pax Americana. Give people the idea that they have a voice to criticize and to change policy, and forever hold the moral high ground over regimes that don't bother to make that pretense.

Then have politicians run for office promising to address that. Once they're in office, they drop it completely, blaming bureaucracy and 'lack of political will'. Then voters start all over again, with heads held high on the belief that what they want could theoretically be possible with the next candidate. Or the one after that.

The Obama administration came into office on a promise to close Guantanamo, and offer a public option on healthcare. Neither came anywhere close to fruition.

> The Obama administration came into office on a promise to close Guantanamo, and offer a public option on healthcare. Neither came anywhere close to fruition.

For the first, talk to Congress (at least partially):

* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/24/obama-guanta...

For the second, talk to Lieberman:

* https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-art...

Probably plenty of things to blame Obama for with regards to how the Executive acted: these two are weak examples IMHO.

It's simple. The US has amassed such immense power through violence that there are very few US citizens that can actually threaten it. But when they crop up, they do get assassinated.

I had explicitly written "remote Muslim minority" to point exactly at the Uyghurs, while avoiding connotations like Guantanamo, or the Japanese internment camps in WW2, to undermine the sloppy argumentation of the post I replied to.

Did you see any proof showing there is concentration camp in Xinjiang? Or you just read it from news and have you doubted whether the news is fake or not?

There's literally thousands of testimonies from people who have been in those camps - is that not good enough for you?

Thousands? Pretty much every article that I have read about concentration camps, I have tracked down to unreliable sources like CIA-funded propaganda organizations.

Today I learned that amnesty international is CIA funded...

I don't see articles from amnesty international going viral in western media. The last big China bad news story in HN was [1], which was literally funded and assisted by a CIA-funded organization. An article which uses a few blank spots in a map to make up just crazy conclusions?? And people in HN just seem to buy it without any of the usual skepticism you see HN show about the most boring science articles showing the most obvious results. It's like that in pretty much any western social media site. Makes you think you're living in some alternate reality.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24292962

It sounds like you're the one living in an alternate reality.

Their are pictures of the camps taken by Chinese citizens.

Leave your astroturfing behind the Great Firewall.

You could argue that the treatment of Native Indians is just as bad if not worse - hundreds of thousands have been killed directly, and their descendants suffer because US has nearly entirely eradicated their culture and identity. And sure, there are no concentration camps, but putting an entire ethnic group inside a reservation without means to support themselves is not exactly great either.

And US didn't build islands, sure - it just gets CIA to overthrow governments and replace them with ones much friendlier to their business.

Of course, no one is saying that the countries are equivalent. Just that superpowers are going to do evil superpower shit.

I think the OP should have said ACTIVE, i dont think any of those things are ACTIVE in the us

Sure be critical of the past, but we also have a recognize the difference from past mistakes and On Going, Current atrocities.

Native Americans are still suffering as an ethnicity in the US - while they are free to leave the reservations and won't be punished for doing so, many don't have the means to do so because those means have been taken from them and their ancestors in the past. They suffer from much higher drug use percentage, huge unemployment, and increased crime rates where they live, and that's something that was and is forced upon them.

So no, maybe Native Americans aren't being actively prosecuted for who they are - but they definitely haven't been made whole by the American people.

Again, it's apples Vs oranges. Native American reservations aren't as bad as Uighur concentration camps, but just because it's in the past it shouldn't be ignored. Germany pays wartime reparations to this day, even though they could easily say that Nazi crimes are in the past now.

Xinjiang is awful, but in the context of how TikTok is a national security threat to the US it's less relevant than the points dustinmoris made

> can't remember when the US built concentration camps

2001 Afghanistan and 2003 Iraq war, hundreds of thousands of Muslim men were imprisoned without trial. And they were proper prisons not dormitories.

Can you find me some photos of these "concentration camps"? Because I can go searching for US detention centers from that time and it's not pretty.

Your argument is also cherry picked. You care about Muslims? Name me the Top 5 countries which are responsible for Muslim deaths in the last 10 years. Spoiler alert, China is not on that list, guess who is though.

According to multiple sources, number one on the list is China, based on suspected atrocities against the Uighur population.

The Uighur camps are larger in size than most middle eastern countries.

My point was that the parent (to which I replied) was some serious cherry picking, and I replied to show one could reverse the argument by applying the same argumentation.

BTW, holding the US responsible for "muslim deaths" in Iraq and Afghanistan is a bit weird. In 2016, US-led forces were responsible for 1200 deaths (the peak over the last decade), while the ISIL accounted for almost 9000. Check iraqbodycount.org.

> US built concentration camps specifically for a remote Muslim minority

Thought experiment: place a teleporter from Xinjiang to just south of the US border. Suddenly it's possible for the oppressed Uighurs to escape and cross the border into the US. What happens to them?

I suspect they'd simply end up in a different internment camp.

But, in China, they are not in an "internment camp" for leaving one country and entering another illegally.

Thanks for proving my point: you'd rather they stay there regardless of what happens to them than enter the US.

How does that prove your point. I didn't say I'd rather they stayed in China.

I stated that if they came to America via your suggested path, they'd be locked up for doing something illegal.

But there's no legal path for them; theoretically they're supposed to claim asylum at the border, but in practice that's not going to work for them.

Insisting on "legal route only" when the legal route is closed is just a conscience saving lie.

What's wrong with them claiming asylum in Mexico? International law requires asylum seekers to request it at the first available country. It doesn't let them "shop around".

https://immigrationforum.org/article/mexicos-asylum-system-i...

Mexico is not unique. This isn't the US's responsibility.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/truth-about-refugees

I believe the link you shared contradicts your previous statement that "International law requires asylum seekers to request it at the first available country." From the linked article:

"""Neither the 1951 Refugee Convention nor EU law requires a refugee to claim asylum in one country rather than another.

There is no rule requiring refugees to claim in the first safe country in which they arrive."""

Regarding "This isn't the US's responsibility..."

There are two answers to the "This isn't the US's responsibility" assertion.

One is that it's everybody's responsibility, and the US has the resources to shoulder a disproportionate burden (to say nothing of a bit of causal history creating the need to shoulder a burden in the first place; the US has intervened in South American politics for decades, sometimes with the express goal of disrupting the will of the people and local governance). Where others say "Why?" we should instead say "Why not?"

The other is that the country that has a statue in one of its largest harbors declaring "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" ... has declared it their responsibility quite openly.

> I can't remember when the US built concentration camps specifically for a remote Muslim minority

I think the internment of Japanese in America during WWII is similar in concept. [0]

You could cherry-pick situations for nearly any country to suggest they are good or evil. Reality is that most countries have done a lot of good and a lot of bad. I’m not sure that we’ll reach a conclusion to the discussion topic “is China worse than America” just by giving examples of how they are each bad!

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

> You could cherry-pick

My point was exactly that the parent was cherry picking, quite heavily.

> I can't remember when the US built concentration camps specifically for a remote Muslim minority,

But the US has done it for plenty of other groups.

The problem with your logic is you are comparing US to "the world" and China as small resourceless player. The case here is more akin to China blocking US products and US blocking china's product. If US consistently blocks without reason, let's say Germany's cars, then I think Germany have ethical ground in blocking US's cars.

China has far greater internal issues of oppression and authoritarianism. It also meddles in foreign affairs around the world but you probably don't hear about it. See Africa and the belt-and-road initiative for some details on the damage done.

> a country which has been bombed by Chinese drones

There's evidence that Chinese-made drones are being used by the UAE in Libya [1], including in a drone strike that killed 26 people [2].

1: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/nov/27/libya-is-ground...

2: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53917791

I think he meant drones operated by china, but I might be wrong.

You're not wrong, but the US/UK get the blame when client nations use weapons sold to them (see: Saudi Arabia). The Chinese shouldn't get a free pass for selling weapons into the Middle East with scant regard for how they're used either.

Also, from the Graun link in my parent post:

> the US remains unwilling to allow countries in the conflict-torn Middle East to buy its Reaper drones.

There is a massive difference between bombing conducted by a country and bombing conducted by another country using the country's weapons.

Not to anyone on the receiving end.

You don't remember because the US has only been not at war for 17 years since its founding.

You really don’t know how pervasive Chinese espionage is?

I can't remember the last time Cisco copied Chinese product 1:1 and sold it openly as their own.

This Cisco?

"As part of the Great Firewall, beginning in 2003 China started the Golden Shield Project, a massive surveillance and censoring system, the hardware for which was provided by mostly U.S. companies, including Cisco Systems. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall

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