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Comment by akiselev | Hacker News Reader

The last time the human race stopped an industrial scale genocide, half the world had to unite under their own selfish reasons. That's no longer possible thanks to nuclear weapons, so our battle will have to be fought first with introspection and reflection.

We can't do anything decisive to help the Uighurs without ripping apart Chinese sovereignty and causing even more collateral damage, so the best we can do is once again find our principles. We will need them to unite us and guide us through the economic pain and chaos that a proper solution like embargoing China would require.

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> We can't do anything decisive to help the Uighurs without ripping apart Chinese sovereignty and causing even more collateral damage, so the best we can do is once again find our principles

Yes we can. Boycott CCP controlled businesses, their manufactured goods and services. Ensure strict sanctions are levied on CCP members. Ban travel of CCP members to and from countries that respect the rule of Law.

But nope. We would rather, like cowards, keep our mouth shut and do nothing while this genocide continuous unabated.

An embargo is a national, legally mandated boycott that carries penalties up to and including prison time.

If your personal boycotts help make you feel better about the ongoing genocide, that's great! I, for one, would prefer a solution that works.

(daft post, deleted)

The US already has tariffs on china, and we can legally increase them.

Tariffs can cause a lot of damage.

And for all the folks who are saying "well that doesn't work" do look at for instance international pressure on South Africa near the end of apartheid. Internal and external pressure in concert can have effect.

South Africa had no real ways to fight back. China on the other hand can inflict a lot of damage.

> Boycott CCP controlled businesses, their manufactured goods and services. Ensure strict sanctions are levied on CCP members. Ban travel of CCP members to and from countries that respect the rule of Law.

That's typically not worked in other countries. For example, see Russia, which has been under exactly those kinds of targeted sanctions and yet which continues to openly murder opponents of the Putin regime across the globe.

> That's typically not worked in other countries. For example, see Russia, which has been under exactly those kinds of targeted sanctions and yet which continues to openly murder opponents of the Putin regime across the globe.

Russia is almost a semi-hermit State unlike China. Russia was never an "export powerhouse". China is. Russia doesn't have the kind of population China has. Russian population is less than half of USA. Sanctions don't have a major impact on Russia as US was never its major trading partner. But sanctions on China will be a huge blow as US was China's main trading partner. You can't compare Russia and China. They are not the same.

> We can't do anything decisive to help the Uighurs without ripping apart Chinese sovereignty

Breaking up a regime capable of doing monstrous things has been done before q.v. europe 1945 .

>That's no longer possible thanks to nuclear weapons

its in the post you replied to, c'mon man

You missed the parents points, where he argues that it took half of the world in a military alliance and years of wars to accomplish the goals.

Doing that against a nuclear state is impossible, as such military action is out of the picture. That leaves only economic action.

But can that be effective, really? Many times economic sanctions are a joke (see the ones dished out by the UN). If they become too hard, a nuclear state can threaten nuclear action just the same. What then?

Then next they come for someone else, then eventually they come for you. There's your answer, I guess in your world you lose either way, right?

Only when those monstrous things spread outside of the borders. Even then it was allowed to spread sometime outside its borders before others reacted.

Think you have a point. But if they can get away with it this time, they be comfortable to cast their influence wider. Then wider still. So I guess to say it's not a problem now means it'll be a bigger one later, and more dangerous.

Unlike Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, China has nuclear weapons and is completely enmeshed into the world economy.

Breaking up the Chinese government is not on the table.

What do you imply? WWII was fought by sticks, and stones in comparison to even cold war era weapons, and the combined death toll far, far surpassed the biggest estimate for a possible loss of life in a nuclear war in between Western, and Eastern bloc, even if each side would intentionally target each other's biggest cities.

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