The Uyghur Genocide: An examination of breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention
newlinesinstitute.org
newlinesinstitute.org
> According to Government statistics and directives, including to “carry out family planning sterilization,” “lower fertility levels,” and ”leave no blind spots,”
> China began building a vast network of massive State- run, highly securitized boarding schools and orphanages to confine Uyghur children, including infants, full time.
> local authorities have eliminated Uyghur education, destroyed Uyghur architecture and household features, and damaged, altered, or completely demolished the vast majority of mosques and sacred sites in the region,
I had not heard of any of this before today. The news only talked about internment, surveillance, and forced labour.
Edit: Why the flood of downvotes? Are the quotes offending people? They are directly from the executive summary of the report
There have been multiple media reports, but it's reasonable you might not have run into them outside of the context of "the PRC is vaguely doing something bad to Uyghurs". But yeah, the reality of what's going on is kind of horrifying, and I think the reaction from other nations (including the US) has been underwhelming.
They are a unique evil that must be destroyed.
If it's a problem for the platform owners, I'll be even more political. Screw them.
They are a unique evil that must be destroyed.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting...
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon...
I guess a Uyghur genocide could qualify as something like an 'interesting new phenomenon' though I wouldn't normally describe it that way.
Nobody but you knows where you get your information from, but it would help if you showed some effort of why you think it has not been reported before (when it has).
> I had not heard of any of this before today. The news only talked about internment, surveillance, and forced labour.
You seem to lay blame on the media for not telling you about this when it has previously been reported. For example BBC has consistently reported on this, so you apparently do not read BBC or check Wikipedia when a new subject arises where you find something you have not heard about before.
> China forcing birth control on Uighurs to suppress population, report says > https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53220713 BBC 2020
> China Muslims: Xinjiang schools used to separate children from families > https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48825090 BBC 2019
It is medias job to report stuff, but it is also our job to actually read it and not blame media when we fail to do so.
It just looks like you are taking an antagonistic stance by saying "Stop mind reading" to my attempts at contributing to answering your question here.
(by the way, I see my own points go down negative here, just like yours so I also wonder)
I think that reading your original comment as JAQ is a bit of a bad faith action, but this is also a topic that produces a lot of vitriol on both sides so I can see why the commenter read it in such a manner.
HN does have some very good posting guidelines if you're unfamiliar: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1) They may be folk concerned with the justice of the situation invested enough in this issue that they're reacting to your question with something like "Are you living under a rock?".
2) There may be folk invested enough in the mainland Chinese government's position that they take issue simply with the existence of these statements, and rather than engage with the substance of them, simply try to make them go away.
Whether either of these are a fair reaction is a different discussion.
To learn more, you can watch the NTD media Youtube channels, especially China Uncensored and Crossroads. NTD is affiliated with Falun Gong, so they don't pull any punches - their reporters are based in the US, but still get death threats from the CCP.
https://www.youtube.com/user/NTDChinaUncensored
Also, there's a few vlog channels like serpentza/ADVChina that provide more background from people who lived in China long-term. Note these vloggers have all been forced to leave China in the past 2 years by the CCP, or face imprisonment.
https://www.youtube.com/user/serpentza
The reality is that most people can't handle the truth about what the CCP is doing - who wants to study the horrors of a 2021 version of Auschwitz?
For example:
- women are in the camps to disrupt their reproductive cycle (live births are down 90%)
- the camps are organ harvesting pools. China's hospital system is funded by organ medical tourists and organ exports.
So ... how much do you really want to know?
I hadn't heard about this. I wonder if these are people who have already had more than two kids and this is China taking actions in compliance with their two-child policy, or whether they are sterilizing people who have had two or fewer.
Regardless, I doubt the policy is being enforced equally as stringently among Han Chinese.
There's often wild voting in China related comment threads.
Clearly your 50 cent party works both ways.
Now I think it's insulting to suggest that commenters who dissent are paid by someone as if there was an obvious correct opinion and any other was obviously faked, but there is also a general problem with allowing things like 'downvotes' because they are always weaponised and they kill discussion. Unfortunately the same goes with flagging as that can automatically suppress a comment.
It's not particularly impactful for a company to do on it's own due to the size of the chinese economy (we'd need a coordinated national effort) but if the Uyghur Genocide is something you feel strongly about as a business owner you can probably relocate to other suppliers without that much of a raise in cost.
That sounds nice, but your suggestion reduces the available options practically to zero (pretty much left with assassination and pointless sanctions against people with no foreign assets and diplomatic immunity when traveling).
The people at the top of the political spectrum derive a large part of their power from the factories where those regular people work.
I personally firmly stand by not punishing civilians and private/mostly-private/mostly-civilian-held companies for the actions of their governments.
Also, governments are not monolithic. Would you punish the National Park Service for the actions of the NSA?
> ASPA authorizes the President of the United States to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court". This authorization has led the act to be nicknamed the "Hague Invasion Act".
> The act prohibits federal, state and local governments and agencies (including courts and law enforcement agencies) from assisting the court. For example, it prohibits the extradition of any person from the U.S. to the Court; it prohibits the transfer of classified national security information and law enforcement information to the court.
> The act also prohibits U.S. military aid to countries that are party to the court. However, exceptions are allowed for aid to NATO members, major non-NATO allies, Taiwan, and countries that have entered into "Article 98 agreements", agreeing not to hand over U.S. nationals to the court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
That's nonsensical, and completely ignores the idea of power/control. The Chinese government has direct control over Chinese manufacturers, and derives power from them. Derek Chauvin or the MPD (for example) do not control or derive power from a Bay Area tech company Google, and have only a very tenuous relationship with it (if any).
> You could say Guantanamo Bay was funded in part by your taxes. You could say all the ruckus in Nicaragua was funded by your taxes as well.
And if you want to boycott American goods over that, be my guest.
So does the US government. There entities in the US government that have direct control over US companies, and derive power from US companies.
> Derek Chauvin or the MPD (for example) do not control or derive power from a Bay Area tech company Google
You're emphasizing my point here. The US government is not a monolithic entity and neither is China's.
Just like you mentioned Derek Chauvin, you should rightfully be critical of the Derek Chauvins of China instead of the "Chinese government". Those Derek Chauvins have very little to do with Chinese manufacturers of high-tech goods (other than being tax-funded, which is the same with the Derek Chauvins of USA).
> And if you want to boycott American goods over that, be my guest.
I boycott neither American nor Chinese goods over government issues.
China's government is actually far more of a monolithic entity than the US's. It doesn't have sovereign subdivisions or separation of powers, and is organization around centralized hierarchical control. The center makes policy, and the periphery implements it.
> Just like you mentioned Derek Chauvin, you should rightfully be critical of the Derek Chauvins of China instead of the "Chinese government". Those Derek Chauvins have very little to do with Chinese manufacturers of high-tech goods (other than being tax-funded, which is the same with the Derek Chauvins of USA).
The Chinese government is basically a government of Derek Chauvins, and the the point of boycotting is to weaken it or at least slow its growth.
Think of it this way: you have a mob boss who owns a legitimate restaurant staffed by honest people, and he uses the profits from it to pay for criminal acts (say hits against his enemies). If you patronize the restaurant because you're concerned that the staff shouldn't have their income reduced on account of their boss's assassination hobby, you also provide the boss with money to enable or increase his assassination activity. Maybe the result of this is the boss grows powerful enough to take over the whole local government, because he could assassinate everyone in his way.
On the one hand, you have some people who could make less money or have to find different work. On the other hand, you have murder and a breakdown of honest government.
It's a moral dilemma, and you have to weigh the pros and cons. It feels like you're taking a hard stand on relatively minor moral issue in a way that compromises more important ones.
No. Just no. Stop right there. You might be thinking of North Korea, but that is not China. The western media wants you to believe this, but if you even take a little time to experience China first-hand you'll realize that -- and this may come as a surprise to you, understandably from the brainwashing that western media does -- China's government is doing mostly good things.
Literacy in China is at 96%, well above the United States, and 99.8% for the 16-24 age group, 95% have access to a safe water source, access to electricity went from 93% in 1990 to >99.9% in 2018, famine is almost absent, they regularly haul people out of earthquakes and other disasters to safety, street assaults are seldom (females regularly freely take walks at night downtown!), 350 km/h trains shuttle people between cities safely several times an hour (compare to the mostly non-existent and <120 km/h passenger trains in the US), violent street crime is almost zero, there are fast, clean, safe electric transportation systems in most cities, there is healthcare for all citizens, and there are massive clean energy efforts underway.
Do you really believe it is a government full of Derek Chauvins that accomplished all that? Have you ever lived there? You'll be surprised.
And yes, there are atrocities and censorship as I should duly note. But by far, no, it's not a government full of Derek Chauvins. It's rather a few Derek Chauvins in a vast system of mostly good people that the western media largely doesn't want to talk about because they enjoy the ad revenue they get from fear-mongering and jumping on the anti-China bandwagon.
And yes, I advocate for being critical and holding accountable the people responsible for atrocities. However, I still stand against boycotting and punishing average civilians for any of those things. Those civilians are just living their lives and doing hard work to feed themselves or their families just like you and me, and have absolutely nothing to do with atrocities committed by a few Derek Chauvins.
You forgot to add that they just "eliminated poverty."
> Do you really believe it is a government full of Derek Chauvins?
You've twisted my wording. I didn't say it was a government full of Derek Chauvins, but a government of Derek Chauvins. And in any case, it was a cartoonish riff on your previous comment, so it shouldn't be taken too literally.
> Have you ever lived there? You'll be surprised.
I think you'd be surprised.
> It's rather a few Derek Chauvins in a vast system of mostly good people
That "rather a few" are the ones setting and enforcing policy. That's the important fact. You don't rise up in the Communist Party by being a good person.
China has 1.4 billion people: do you think it's a good plan or even morally defensible to attempt to hurt all of them to get to affect a fraction of a fraction of wealth of maybe 200 politicians?
[0]: https://dailycaller.com/2020/12/29/apple-uyghur-lens-technol...
If you have $10, you're more likely to buy a $2 item than a $5 one because 20% of your budget is easier to justify than 50%.
Decision theory says that the best outcome comes from me adopting the “companies are groups of people” model. I'll try to remember that, and do so.
And that applies to other areas. China does tons of industrial manufacturing for materials that are subsequent inputs to other products - the chemistry to create your medicines might happen in the US, but it's nearly certain that a big fraction of the reagents used came from someplace in China.
More information is available from the FTC web site: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...
Fun stuff, Afghanistan has some of the largest deposits in the world for lithium, rare earths, gemstones and uranium, but good luck convincing them now of mining that. Also, yep, China has started both mining operations in Afghanistan, and an open declaration from the Taliban stating they won't touch their facilities.
Tibet would like a word.
Well, true, but that still does not give you a right to invade and rule another nation.
Until you can stop trade between Taiwan/Korea with China, there is no point in buying those parts instead of Chinese parts.
That money will eventually be recycled towards China.
Buy American. Buy European.
My guess is US corporations are too entangled with China, and it is too powerful and willing to retaliate. I wouldn't be surprised if a brand that did what you suggest would immediately be accused of "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people," and have its supply chains and markets disrupted.
It's a political problem which can only be solved at the state level.
And if we, as consumers, make it clear that we will be buying Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Indian -- ANYTHING that isn't Chinese -- it will cause a reaction in the CCP (I just hope that reaction isn't a military first-strike).
Somewhat surprised it needs to be said, but I guess as tensions are getting higher, people just say more and more ridiculous things.
Whenever I read statements like this I wonder who people think China might attack militarily. The only one I can think of that wouldn't either cost them more than they'd gain (and even then it still probably would) or turn into a suicidal act would be Taiwan. Any other neighboring nation offers them little value with respect to the cost of war, and nations like the US and Russia could create such an expansive war that China would lose all the political and economic ground it's gained this century, and probably more.
IMO, anyone who has spent extensive time in China can see what a pipe dream overthrowing the 100 million strong CCP is. Think about the likelihood of overthrowing the United States government.
Okay, you buy their products instead of China. They grow richer and trade more with China.
Until we pressure our fellow Asian "allies" to stop trading with China, that money will just be recycled towards China anyways.
Buy American. Buy European.
If WTO membership and global free-trade were predicated on certain civil-rights ground rules like: a free press, demonstrable rule of law, democratically elected governance, due process, and a complete absence of concentration camps, the world would be a better place.
Not only would it address the plight of the Uyghur people and the travesty that is occurring in Hong Kong, but it might grant the inmates at Guantanamo fair and open hearings.
Bring on the "oppression-free" consumer certifications. I am certain that there is a market.
Edit: I should note, I am saying it is disgusting that we turn a blind eye to human suffering in the name of cheaper products and higher profit margins.
Doesn't matter that it isn't true. It sounds true, and that's all that matters.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...
The big arguement in the early 2000s on the fear of too much China reliance is exactly this. Can we stand a moral ground against a country whose teet we depend on? Too many companies are disgusting unwilling to. I dont watch anything hollywood (which has been silly easy oddly) over the whole self censorship to appease the chinese market. Any company that kowtows to chinese pressure for any little thing is on my shit list. But I'm just one dude. Most people dont care or are unwilling. At that, I know my computer, phone and a number of other things came from China. Anytime I can get anywhere but China, I go for it. It's real difficult. Unloading our manufacturing wasn't smart and we are reaping what we sowed.
Do Netflix and Amazon also engage in appeasement? Those are the only two accounts we maintain now.
Earlier last year when people were joking about Apple not showing iPhones getting broken in their shows on Apple TV, the less talked about but much more alarming bit was their comment about China.
"Today’s report also claims that Eddy Cue has told Apple TV+ leadership that “the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China,” referring to potentially angering China with any of its original TV shows or movies."
https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/13/apple-tv-plus-gawker-show/
Does this mean no news on Apple TV? That soft-censorship for corporate economic interest reasons will allow the CCP to do terrible things because companies are incentivized to ignore it/suppress speech around it?
Apple also capitulates to the CCP, allowing them to host iCloud on CCP servers in country. They also remove the Taiwanese flag from Chinese iPhones, and remove podcast apps/content from China.
On one side you could argue this inter-economic dependence lowers the likelihood of war. It is not without an ethical cost though. Is genocide an acceptable cost for stability and compromising your principles? Is access to the Chinese market worth that?
https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html
The outcome of the South Park episode:
"In response to the episode's criticism of the Chinese government, South Park has been entirely banned in China, including on its streaming services and social media platforms.
In October 2019, insiders told Bloomberg that Apple, which has a significant portion of its users and manufacturers in China, was reportedly unlikely to bid for the streaming rights of the series due to the China ban."
Objects should simply continue to label their country of origin.
If the population really is interested in generally removing themselves from commerce with China, there will be a tendency to avoid products with the “Made in China” label. How great this tendency is will depend on how much the population values a commercial separation. Of course, it is ridiculous to assume that any individual would be completely aware of the degree to which their lives are ultimately influenced by commerce with China via their consumption of goods, let the alone the entire population. However, we can still expect the change in commerce with China to reflect the degree to which the rest of society values not doing business with those business entities that prosper in the spirit of mutual benefit with a regime that practices perverse and backwards acts against humanity entirely unbefitting of any modern world power.
Anyone man of commerce with a conscience must ultimately conclude to some degree that cooperating with entities under such a regime is not ideal, if simply for the sake of attempting to do good rather than evil. However, any man or woman of reason must realize that the leaders in international commerce that make these decisions must ultimately weigh this fact against a multitude of other factors. Their service most likely is foremost to the continuing survival of the business they represent, which in turn is dependent on consumption of the goods they sell. In the case of business with China, we can assume this to be goods sold elsewhere in society. These members of society have multilayered responsibilities in their responsibilities to society. Yes, to a degree they are responsible for the strife in China— however, they are also responsible to all the members of their supply chain, fellow colleagues and employees, business partners, and then also their consumers, not to mention their dependents and other contracts such as debt obligations and taxes. These are realities for society members working in the integrated world economy. To quit business altogether means disrupting these chains. However, if society values not cooperating with that particular system that sins against mankind enough, it would by degrees remove its consumption of the goods that arrive from that system, and furthermore by degrees shame and diminish the reputations of any partner to that specific system — the greater we as a society value liberty and justice for all, in both the arenas of physical personhood and in business, the more we will pressure the partners of the system and then ultimately the system itself to cease the contraptions diminishing to our natures. The degree to which society truly values these noble aims will be shown by the collective decisions and actions of that society.
In other words, in a free society, by which the actions of men and women are freely chosen, the degree to which that society as a collective values freedom will influence the degrees to which those who practice barbarism can continue doing so.
While I agree we must get much stronger incentives/laws on our side we can't get distracted and pass all the moral consequences/imperative for action onto our side. It's less than half the equation.
We need to tackle the other side of this problem because CCP is directly responsible.
Bottom line Xi is perpetrating this genocide. That's the main fault & we can't 'offshore' 100% of the blame onto our corporations.
Even if we did get perfect decoupling I don't think that would be enough incentive to change China's behavior?
Morally, I don't think that alone is a strong enough reaction to these horrors and threats to Democracy.
We must hold the CCP & Xi directly responsible
In practice, that would mean not buying anything that has a connection to a list of countries that includes China, Indonesia, Belgium, and several countries which I'm not going to list because the conversation would become unmanageable, just as the Uyghur conversation would become unmanageable within China.
If China were the only guilty state in the world, a boycott would be a different proposition to what it is. Even then, it's not guaranteed to be effective because the way things work psychologically, commercially, and geopolitically.
Even though 99% of people consider themselves humanists, they are able to compartmentalise their feelings in surprising ways when it comes to the acquisition of consumer goods, energy, copper, gold, diamonds, and real estate.
In the minds of the right, only Republicans are truly anti-China. They think the left is giving in to China.
Most interesting tidbit.
Newlines is funded by FairfaxU of Virginia, a private school with ~150 students and ~60 staff (read: there's external funding). Newlines Institute is also rebrand Center for Global Policy (CGP), tradename for International Institute of Islamic Thought... linked to the Muslim Brotherhood [0]. And owned by Mar-Jac, a front for SAAR Foundation, a massive source of funding of extreme terrorism whose US proxies were heavily investigated post 911, including IIIT with a couple prosecutions. Hence the rebranding. Most of their US proxies are located in Virginia, a recent of Mar-Jac investments in private schools was linked to Turkish Gulenist, which Gulf council countries has designated as terrorists... including Saudi. So the most interesting extrapolation for me is that some wealthy Saudi group(s) is interested in pushing genocide narrative via US proxies despite Saudi support for China at UN and MbS purging major funders of terrorist groups. Western MSM is whitewashing this as "Independent DC think tank". Real question is if this is Muslim extremist groups pursing their own interests through obfuscation or if they're coordinating with US intelligence, it's Virginia after all. US was willing to delist Uyghur terrorist groups, they're willing to work with OG Al Qaeda funders to destabilize.
MSM is currently using "Independent DC think tank" label for front funded by the same groups that was responsible for Al Qaeda. Desperate times for propaganda.
[0] https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2020/11/12/new-musli...
So why doesn't China allow independent investigations into what's really taking place? Maybe if they weren't hiding the truth people wouldn't be so quick to fill in the holes with their own stories.
Remember the independent investigators in Iraq and how mocked they were in order to manufacture consent for the invasion after they found no wmds?
Yeah, you might not, but the chinese leadership does remember that
Why they should? The burden of proof is on the accusers. "Independent" investigation guarantees nothing. Eg WMD in Iraq.
Insofar as how long it goes on, if you look at US WWI propaganda they were talking about German soldiers massacring babies in Belgium (the killing babies lie is a common one - from incubators to Assad gassing babies)
Edit to add: Downvotes don't make my statement any less true.
There are so many many sources but here is a good summary from NyTimes: http://archive.is/93x6g
Quotes from article under each line item definition. Again so many more sources but that would be exhausting to compile.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
"Those who have been held in camps describe a rigorous prison environment filled with monotonous political indoctrination and, for many, terrorizing bouts of violence and physical abuse by guards."
-Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
"Officials have held one million or more people in internment camps in Xinjiang, the country’s most sweeping mass detention program since the Mao era. A wide range of behavior can lead to detention, including acts of religious devotion, travel to certain countries, violations of birth restrictions or installing cellphone apps that allow encrypted messaging."
"And the authorities have carried out the widespread destruction of mosques and shrines while turning others into tourist sites."
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
"has used repressive methods such as forced sterilizations."
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
"Large numbers of children in Xinjiang have been placed in boarding schools designed to assimilate and indoctrinate them, according to the government’s published plans."
- Killing members of the group
Article doesn't have a quote and there isn't a lot of evidence here so it is likely not happening on a large scale. Though there are many deaths from poor treatment in concentration camps and forced labor camps.
Is there blood on their hands?
Man, what a great way to support American business...
So let's set that issue aside and look at the more general problem of polarization as that has wider implications. Fact is, most people in the US (as one example) don't give a shit about genocide halfway around the world beyond maybe some slacktivism in liking a social media post about it every now and again.
So I'm not Chinese but as an outsider looking in who is not an expert by any stretch of the imagination this is what I see: I see a culture that within living memory came out of a period of severe instability, hunger and turmoil. China now under pseudo-Communist rule has entered a period of stability and prosperity for a significant portion of the population.
Because that's so recent there seems to be (heavy IMHO here) a cultural fear of that going prosperity going away. I don't want to trivialize this by any means but you see something roughly analogous to this with people who grew up poor vs those who didn't, even if those people who grew up poor have money now. Just having that experience of growing up without food or housing security changes you. It changes your relationship to money.
So what I see is there's an awful lot of Chinese people who look at any issue relating to China through this lens: anything remotely critical of China is an attack on that prosperity. So anything critical of China on HN (comments or posts) will attract a certain level of automatic downvote on any hot button issue (eg Uyghurs, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the origins of Covid-19).
The lesson here I think is in how dangerous things become when a large group of people become fearful.
As an example, in the US today you have polarization because people fan the flames of fear. The Trump base is one who fears their way of life is under attack, exploited quite masterfully where any demonstrable proof that Trump himself is by any objective measure a horrible human being gets labelled as "fake news" and people eat it up because that's what they want to believe. And they want to believe that because they've bought into this culture of fear.
I just hope we're not all screwed.
Maybe, yeah
Detention for fear of terrorism is bad when the US did it with Japanese born citizens in Wwii and it is bad when it was done in Guantánamo, and it is bad now
That said, why are the supposed witnesses to these crimes changing their histories and narratives to make it seem like a B type horror movie rather than stick to their original telling of it?
I can't but remember the Nariyah Testimony in front of Congress
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/they-dont-only-rape-bu...
What you're witnessing is new generations of PRC citizens with both access and experience in east and west finally realizing what citizens from global south that's been fucked by western foreign policy and news reporting have long realized: west is not the the bastion of morality it purports to be. The rampant unconditional western worship in PRC of the 80s-90s has ended, there's mass disillusionment with western systems and fatigue of western models with each hypocritical selective application i.e. weaponizing human rights. There's tons of Chinese users, either millions who hopped the wall or millions of diaspora whose finally engaging not because they are afraid, but because they're shocked by how brainwashed the west is and they're clapping back.
> ample evidence that's not the case
We have western manufactured consent mechanism regurgitating "evidence" and narratives that exaggerates (in both numbers and atrocity) a very repressive system from what it is, cultural genocide that has no diplomatic consequences, to what it's not, genocide which does. It's generic western self-serving human rights geopolitics. XJ propaganda has to engineer genocide label, because if it was merely crimes against humanity then it's unprosecutable, by consensus and design, otherwise many western countries would have to pay for their own atrocities. Also queue comparisons to Nazi Germany when it's more comparable to US prison industrial complex for minorities repression/management with no greater global outrage. China loves to copy US after all. Not to mention how many people latch onto the genocide label even though it is by far the minority global position on the oppose vs support continuum. The plurality is "support", not support genocide, but support Chinese XJ counter-terrorism. Let that sink in, it takes particular blindness to assume the LEAST endorsed position (not even minority) as default, but here we are.
So when someone points out something like the suppression of the Uyghurs and you point out “but what about atrocities committed by Western countries?” that’s a distraction where you’re trying to divert attention to an unrelated issue.
The USA committed atrocities against native Americans, engaged in centuries of slavery, interned Japanese citizens in WWII and dropped atomic bombs on civilians. All of that is true. But just because it’s true it doesn’t negate or excuse Chinese human rights abuses.
China controlled the region about 2000 years ago during the Han Dynasty, but has since lost it and regained control several times throughout history.
The region is historically important as it is on the Silk Road, and has seen a huge amount of wars. So it is likely that the populations there have been displaced several times.
Apparently, modern Uyghurs are part of China because a plane crash killed many of the delegation of the Second East Turkestan Republic who were opposed to being part of China, leaving a surviving leader who joined the Chinese Communist Party.
I would be interested in seeing someone explore what keywords seem to trigger the reaction, how fast it is, etc... HN has a pretty open API, so it feels like it wouldn't be too hard to make some interesting graphs on how the posts/comments evolve over time.
Heck, I'd be interested in seeing a visualization like that for HN posts in general, but PRC posts are the ones where it seems the most like there's an obvious, reproducible process happening that could be explored and experimented on.
Granted, given the responses to my previous work, it would likely not be well-received and it might be too niche for the effort involved.
China is the sole exception to HN's "no controversial politics talk, only tech news" rule.
They are an evil that must be destroyed.
[1] https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250
[2] https://thediplomat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/thediplom...
But of course you'll never hear of it in western media.
Sorry comrade, that is the wrong answer. We will notify your leader and you will be scheduled for retraining soon.
Oops! That was the US Air force 13 years ago, bombing a couple hundred kilometers southwest of Xinjiang, in a bordering country ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_ai... ).
It's illustrative how Americans get up in arms about how the Chinese dealing with Muslim terrorists in their own country deal with human rights, while they have flown across the world to perform massacres in the country on Xinjiang's western border.
At some point you have to wonder why all these accidents keep happening, and why they always serve US geopolitical interests.
By the way, can you show statistics to back up your claims?
But ultimately I'm not going to be gaslit into this weird idea that you're pushing that the US armed forces don't have a racial component to the massive amounts of deaths they've created, when I've seen that with my own eyes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Global_Television_Networ...
No. Or more precisely, that's a false equivalency because you can only make it if you ignore some very important details.
BBC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...
RT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...
CGTN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_media
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting
> Public-sector media (state-funded) is not to be confused with state media (state-controlled), which is "controlled financially and editorially by the state."[1]
> Can you provide some sources for terrorist attacks perpetrated by Uighers?
They're probably referring to stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack
I remember after 9/11 there were paranoid fears that the US was going to do extreme things like round up all Muslims and put them in internment camps, etc. China's actually pursuing a policy not too different from those fears.
I don't have a source to hand but you can find some attacks listed on their wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkistan_Islamic_Party#Attack...
You don't have to like or support what China are doing to acknowledge that the terrorism was real. These are real groups and real documented events that you would be calling terrorism if they'd happened in any other country. Be careful when you start making friends with your enemy's enemy.
> people like you
I linked an article on Wikipedia in response to someone’s question. It’s hardly Chinese propaganda. Really?
What kind of absurd bait and switch is that? I am talking about your propaganda right above. You are omitting years of oppression and terrorism against the uyghur people by the ccp + their genocide while dishonestly highlighting the resistance as the terrorism. That's like saying "yea but the jews tried to kill hitler with bombs, that's terrorism" while omitting the context of what was happening to the jews. What kind of childish mind games are you playing, smh...
Thanks for posting!
It seems like concerns about radical Islam are mounting in both the east and west (see Swedish burka ban, new French laws about stopping radicalization).
I wonder what avenues of unilateral action can be taken by China, the EU and US.
The United States has a long, violent history that continues into the present day. I don't think anyone here is arguing that. It doesn't make the PRC's actions better, nor does it mean that we shouldn't condemn abuses of human rights where we see them.
This video is using all the same editing techniques as you would to push geocentricism and make it look like Michio Kaku is onboard with it.
That's why they include crap like a The Winter Soldier from Marvel being interrogated and random clips from Mulan, while giving quotes that can't use an entire sentence of before being forced to use a jump cut.
That's a false equivalency and doesn't apply to this very well researched and excellently presented mini documentary. If that were the case it wouldn't have received over 62000 likes and over 1 million views, so don't insult people's intelligence with your pseudo intellectual 'critique' by making hand wavy allegations without pointing out anything specific to which it actually applies in the content.
>This video is using all the same editing techniques as you would to push geocentricism and make it look like Michio Kaku is onboard with it. That's why they include crap like a The Winter Soldier from Marvel being interrogated and random clips from Mulan, while giving quotes that can't use an entire sentence of before being forced to use a jump cut.
Wow you don't like the editing, could you be more shallow and desperate in your defence of the ccp's genocide? The video is excellent in its approach to deliver an important topic in an entertaining and engaging manner, that's why it has successfully reached a greater audience. Your 'criticism' is a joke.
And "What The Bleep Do We Know" made tens of millions of dollars (which is worth way more then 62k likes, but instead millions of people paying to watch it). It's still a load of horse crap.
Andrew Wakefield's documentary on how vaccines cause autism also pulled in 10's of millions with a lot of people believing it, and used similar editing techniques.
62k likes on youtube is not some high barrier of truth to clutch your pearls about. Go look at the like count of flat earth videos for another example.
> Wow you don't like the editing, could you be more shallow and desperate in your defence of the ccp's genocide? The video is excellent in its approach to deliver an important topic in an entertaining and engaging manner, that's why it has successfully reached a greater audience. Your 'criticism' is a joke.
I'm pointing out that it's using well known techniques to make people seem like they're saying the opposite of what they're actually saying, while infusing the whole argument with emotional impact unrelated to what's being said.
As I said originally, the OP would be better off not using a documentary that doesn't use techniques known for telling lies via editing.
That's again a terrible comparison. How much something made is not the same as a video on a public platform open to criticism from anyone who is willing to offer criticism in an open comment section. Deniers like yourself can't provide any argument which would hold up to scrutiny that's why you here making hand wavy allegation without engaging anything in specific.
>62k likes on youtube is not some high barrier of truth to clutch your pearls about. Go look at the like count of flat earth videos for another example.
Compare the ratings on such videos and the comments, it's not even remotely on the same level. Your comparisons are dishonest and reek of desperation. You are not addressing the arguments in the video, because you can't, that's why you resort to deceptive rhetoric.
>I'm pointing out that it's using well known techniques to make people seem like they're saying the opposite of what they're actually saying, while infusing the whole argument with emotional impact unrelated to what's being said.
Nonsense. You are again making vague allegations without specifying anything in particular. Your deceptive rhetoric is ineffective.
>As I said originally, the OP would be better off not using a documentary that doesn't use techniques known for telling lies via editing.
As I said originally, you would be better of not trying to defend the ccp's genocide with deceptive vague, hand wavy rhetoric thinking that people are too stupid to see through your dishonest talking points.
No, I have never described it as some "bastion of intellectual greatness", but as place where people can freely exchange ideas and formulate criticism. That's why you don't post your non arguments there, because they don't hold up to any scrutiny. You on the other hand are doubling down on your deceptive rhetoric by concentrating on anything other than something specific in the content of the video. I hinted to it once and I will say it again, you are acting in bad faith and are clearly deceptive.
Both America & the PRC can be in the wrong simultaneously, but, that said, the PRC is clearly more in the wrong.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/they-dont-only-rape-bu...
A more similar comparison with the West would be how Israel sterilized non-white jews through the 90s into the 00s.
e: and I'm downvoted for...?
How did you arrive at this conclusion? The victim count would massively disagree with it and so would the amount of imprisoned minorities. It seems to me that your first and last sentences disagree with eachother.
[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/03/new-estimat...
Pinch of salt needed here, at the very least.
The document has been produced in consultation with Adrian Zenz, and his work is referred several times.
Zenz is widely known to have made numbers up, and in fact he has now been sued by Xinjiang farmers that complains of his defamation
https://twitter.com/MazementC/status/1369104709072662532
Frankly, this article is just war propaganda. Hopefully flagging it will help preventing more people being mislead by it.
The genocide where the Uyghur population grows faster than the Han population in Xinjiang.
The genocide where a Uyghur actress- Dilraba Dilmurat remains one of the most popular actresses in China.
The genocide where virtually no Covid infections occured in Xinjiang.
The genocide where Uyghur workers can't find work because of American sanctions on Xinjiang cotton.
The genocide where western countries claim genocide but don't even boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics.
One has to wonder, if there's a genocide, why are countries sending their skiers to slide down some slope near Beijing?
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/they-dont-only-rape-bu...
Is this the sort of stuff people are watching to decide their political opinions?