Hacker News Reader

Comment by pulse7 | Hacker News Reader

The blacklist is interesting, because it maybe shows China's government interests - some of which are not widely known: - "Independence of Mongolia" - Does this show they would like to acquire Mongolia (when the time will be appropriate)? - "The Organisation for the Liberation of Palestine" - Does this show pro-Israel support?

View on HN

Mongolia needs allies to withstand China's looming threat https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Mongolia-needs-allies-to-wit...

The implications of the rise of China's military for Mongolian security https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/5340

China accused of 'cultural genocide' in Inner Mongolia https://www.ucanews.com/news/china-accused-of-cultural-genoc...

China’s Crackdown on Mongolian Culture https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/chinas-crackdown-on-mongolia...

China absolutely has designs on Mongolia. The whole existence of the modern Mongolian state is a mess of cold-war / world war 2 geopolitical compromises that left basically no one happy. If Sino-Russian relations cool, or the climate of Mongolia itself warms, it could quickly find itself in an awkward spot between two notoriously bad-faith superpowers and with essentially no alternatives to vassalage.

I suppose it would be very different from Tibet: Tibet provides 2/3rd of the water resources of China, and China came and secured it. I don’t think Mongolia has such scarce resources… does it?

Mongolia has a lot of copper, coal, and significant deposits of gold and other raw materials. Mostly, it's the Russians and Chinese that mine it, so that don't really have a reason to invade at this point.

Maybe potential for mining rare earth elements?

Independence of Mongolia refers to Inner Mongolia, a Chinese region with a low ethnic Han population. It and the country of Mongolia serve as buffers against the Russians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Mongolia Han: 79%. It's just one Google away.

> against the Russians

This seems to be rewriting the history of Russia creating an independent country of outer Mongolia out of collapsing Qing territory. It'd be akin to saying an independent Alsace nation "serves as a buffer" against the Germans.

So if China moves millions of Han Chinese to Xinjiang (which by the way they've been doing since at least the 50ies), so that they become the majority there, then the plight of Uyghurian self-determination and independence ceases to exist? Doesn't work like that. People remember.

>Qing territory

Both China and Russia have been oppressive identity-suppressing culture-destroying mutli-ethnic empires (something very very very very bad) since forever. (The identity-suppressing culture-destroying part really started up in the 19-20th century, when it became evident that the empires won't survive without colonization and suppression in the modern age) "Qing territory" doesn't say more to me than the British Empire's "territory". Same for Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and arguably even Canton.

> People remember.

No. People don't remember over a sufficiently long period of time.

For instance, you mention China, Russia and the British Empire, but if you look further in time, you get to see other things which nobody remembers:

> The Islamization of Xinjiang started around 1000 AD by eliminating Buddhism. [1].

> Many Buddhists fear that their countries will lose their culture and become Muslim, as had been the case in many parts of modern day Central Asia, Xinjiang, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, which were majority Buddhist before the arrival of Islam in the 7th-11th centuries. [...] When the Muslim Turkic Qarakhanids captured the Buddhist city of Khotan in Xinjiang in 1006 CE, one of their poets penned this verse: “We came down on them like a flood/We went out among their cities/We tore down the idol-temples/We shat on the Buddha’s head.” In the Islamic world, a destroyer of idols came to be known as a but-shikan (بت شکن), a destroyer of but, a corruption of the word Buddha. [2]

Long before the Islamization of Buddhist Uyghur, there were "Caucasoid" people, which would be impossible to know without the discovery of the Tarim "Celtic" mummies (~2000 years BC) [3].

> From the evidence available, we have found that during the first 1,000 years after the Loulan Beauty [~4000 years ago], the only settlers in the Tarim Basin were Caucasoid. East Asian peoples only began showing up in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin about 3,000 years ago, Mair said, while the Uighur peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom, largely based in modern day Mongolia, around the year 842. [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang#Demographics

[2] https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/buddhism-and-islam-in-asia-a...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies

[4] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/meeting-civili...

There is the inner Mongolia autonomous region which is part of the PRC.

The Independence of Mongolia is probably about Inner Mongolia, which is part of China. You can read some history about how Mongolia became independent. The official map of ROC (Republic of China) does not officially recognize Mongolia. The PRC (CCP) recognized the independence of Mongolia. Probably people in Mongolia think Inner Mongolia in China should be part of their territory, and there is an organization for that.

China is pro Palestine if you follow the news. The relationship between Palestine and China goes back to 80s.

I don't think Xiaomi cares what people in Lithuania are reading, other than selling its phones. I don't think CCP cares about what people in Lithuania are reading.

Independence of Mongolia maybe talking about "Inner Mongolia," which has ten times as many people as the country of Mongolia. My guess with the Palestine piece is the "Muslim terrorists" in Xinjiang would be interested in that.

"People's Daily newspaper" is a pretty big counterexample that everyone is conveniently ignoring.

It's not the mainland China paper if you search for the Chinese characters.

Renminbao [人民报] is an independent Chinese online news website that criticizes the Chinese regime.

https://china-chats.net/keywords/1705

Thanks, that makes more sense why the Lithuanian authorities included it in their (cherry-picked?) subset of the filtered ad phrases.

The common thread here is how Beijing is afraid from organized ethnic minority movements, religious movements and/or societies from the civil society that could have their own independent ideas.

They are not that different from other Leninist inspired governments. Cuba does that. Vietnam does that. The Soviet Union certainly did that.

These governments always lose their minds with the idea of people organizing themselves and the controlling party having no control whatsoever about these groups.

I have no idea how the People's Daily plays into that. Maybe the readership is so small and it attracts a certain type of personality that Zhongnanhai thinks it is a good idea to report on them.

I've read that the major clique in the CCP certainly wasn't happy about students calling themselves Maoists and supporting workers striking.

I don't know much about China to say about that nor if the People's Daily has many people reading it.

People's Daily is an official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, i.e. "Beijing". Perhaps this fact can improve your analysis.

The term in the list is actually 人民报 "People's newspaper" not 人民日报 "People's Daily newspaper". From a quick look at their website, 人民报 appears to be pretty anti-communist. Basically typosquatting.

You are mistaken, see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28622783

The issue of Mongolian independence was left ambiguous by the USSR and China (this includes the PRC and ROC -- they both technically claim it). Mongolia had at one point petitioned to join the USSR but was actually rejected. The status of Mongolia was a bargaining chip the USSR used with the PRC and China never really completely relinquished its claim on it (whether that claim is legit is another issue)

Good YouTube overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUa1mvaYNtk

> (this includes the PRC and ROC -- they both technically claim it)

Neither claims it anymore. The PRC never did. The ROC did at least until the 60s, but they changed position around 2002.

The ROC technically recognized the independent Mongolia in 1946 after some pressure from the Soviets, though they backpedaled on that and blocked Mongolia admission into the UN in the 50s. Taiwan certainly recognizes Mongolia since 2002 at least. They have good relation.

The PRC has good enough relations with Mongolia since mid 80s.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com