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Comment by FooBarWidget | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting to see that people on both sides are angry -- for different reasons. People on western Internet are angry at Intel for having issued an apology. People on Chinese Internet are angry because they view it as a non-apology, i.e. Intel still goes ahead with the ban. I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel.

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Personally, I'm angry at Intel for not having actual convictions.

It looks like they're doing the ban, not because they actually believe that there's slave labor in Xinjiang, but because their stockholders will be mad if they don't. And they issued the apology, not because they realized that there is no slave labor in Xinjiang, but because they don't want China angry at them. They're trying to just get on with being a business. (And to some degree that's fair. Intel is a business, not a moral crusader. Still, I'd like them to either take a stand, or not take a stand. Don't try to "take a stand" just to make people happy.)

("Angry" is too strong a word. "Disappointed" might be better. But I said "angry" to match the wording of the parent.)

There is no reason to expect human-like behaviour and traits from organisations.

And yet we deem it appropriate to grant them personhood in the eyes of the law.

If corporations are people as the Supreme Court would have us believe, they are most certainly psychopaths. Natural people need to be clear-eyed about this. Don’t look to corporations as moral leaders. They will fail almost any moral test you can throw at them.

As long as corporations are legal persons, I'm going to hold them to a moral standard, and I think the American public as a whole has a duty to do the same. If they can contribute to politicians, then we all have a personal stake in their ethics.

> I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel.

Is this feasible? There's not all that many other options for x86

I doubt it. China is not there yet w.r.t. semiconductor independence. There are people who say, buy AMD, but AMD is also subject to US laws...

So what will happen instead? From what I've seen so far, China is careful with counterattacking US because they know the US is stronger. I think the govt will just issue an angry statement but do nothing concrete internationally, while continuing their domestic efforts of semiconductor development as they already have, and also continuing with restructuring Xinjiang's economy (i.e. replacing foreign customers with domestic customers, as happened with cotton)

They will choose AMD because AMD doesn't make this statement clear but Intel explicitly mentions "Xinjiang" in its annual supplier letter. I guess AMD did take this factor into consideration.

Alibaba recently announced new CPU they developed based on ARM: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alibaba-unveils-128-core-s...

There are companies that are competitive in CPU design. But CPU manufacturing is a bottleneck. At the low end, they lack scale (until the new factories are built). At the high end (beyond about 14nm), they either lack an independent supply chain (and are thus susceptible to sanctions) or ability (beyond 10 nm requires EUV).

Furthermore, what we're talking about here is replacing x86. There is indeed a joint venture with AMD, but at the end of the day x86 is still US intellectual property and thus susceptible to sanctions.

It would be a different matter if they decide to replace x86 wholesale with something else, e.g. ARM or RISC-V. That is certainly more feasible today than a decade ago, with Android being a major platform and no longer being constrained to just Windows. But it's probably still a large amount of effort.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dual-chinese-zen-cpu-beat-...

I think AMD has less (possibly much less) in China than Intel.

I spent about €200,000 on AMD servers last year. They are performing better than Intel ones would have done at the same price, so it was a very easy decision.

isn't this exactly the opposite? IIRC there was a situation where a large-ish? AMD subdivision in china was nationalized and made off with a considerable amount of AMD IP

You're probably thinking about ARM, whose Chinese branch unilaterally declared independency from the crown some time ago.

Ah yes, my bad!! Sorry

you're thinking of ARM

Personally, I'm most angry that Intel refuses to properly audit their suppliers. They're not actually banned from importing goods from Xinjiang if they can prove that they weren't made with forced labor.

If they could prove that, the US government should be happy (because their stated goal of combating forced labor is respected) and Chinese people should be happy, too (better working conditions).

Merely restricting suppliers based on geography is a non-solution, since it's not like forced labor magically stops if you cross a provincial border.

I don't think it's that simple. For example BCI performed multiple audits since 2012 and hasn't found a single case of forced labor.[1][2] Despite that, they've pulled back from Xinjiang. Companies don't want to deal with Xinjiang just so they can avoid controversies, regardless of actual facts.

Also, the Xinjiang Forced Labor Prevention Act is based on the maxim of guilty-until-proven-innocent. There is no way to conclusively prove a negative. Even if you perform 100 unannounced audits you can still say "oh there's 0.001% chance that they fooled you 100 times"

1 https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1375456747477815296 2 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/BCI-s-China-office-No-...

You misrepresented BCI.

And there are other independent sources showing forced labor in Xinjiang [1][2], regardless of what BCI Shanghai said.

BCI Shanghai is contradicting the BCI headquarter [3], and BCI Shanghai is not credible on this matter [4].

    While there are plenty of authentic reports, and investigations documented by independent research groups, the BCI Shanghai’s statement to deny the forced labor in the region makes us just think how much pressure the Chinese team of the group faces from the Chinese government.

It is not that rare for a local Chinese branch to contradict the global headquarter, possibly due to pressure of operating in China.

For example, the local Hugo Boss in China wrote statements on Weibo (supporting Xinjiang cotton) which contradicted the global Hugo Boss headquarter (stating that Hugo Boss does not use Xinjiang cotton) [5], and the headquarter clarified that the Chinese Weibo statement was unauthorized [6].

BCI Shanghai is in a similar situation: the local branch operating in Shanghai (claiming to find no forced labor) did not represent the headquarter [3].

The problem with what you cite is not (only) with the outlet (CGTN), but with the source (BCI Shanghai).

You are like stating that Hugo Boss is supporting the Xinjiang cotton, because you find a Weibo post by the local office supporting it [5]. This is wrong [3][4][6].

And with other sources finding forced labor in Xinjiang [1][2], the BCI Shanghai statement is a red herring in this discussion.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/solar-chin... "Solar industry’s ties to China’s Xinjiang region raise specter of forced labor"

[2]: https://www.shu.ac.uk/helena-kennedy-centre-international-ju... "In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains"

[3]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127501/chi... "Chinese branch of Better Cotton Initiative challenges headquarters and says it has found no evidence of Xinjiang forced labour"

[4]: https://bitterwinter.org/better-cotton-initiative-why-its-sh... "Better Cotton Initiative: Why Its Shanghai Branch is Not Credible"

[5]: https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/26/hugo-boss-tells-chinese-cu... "Hugo Boss tells Chinese customers it will continue to purchase Xinjiang cotton, whilst own website says it has never used it"

[6]: https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/27/hugo-boss-statement-saying... "Hugo Boss statement saying it will ‘purchase and support’ Xinjiang cotton was ‘unauthorised,’ brand says"

Edited: added links [1][2][3].

is bitterwinter.org a reliable source? or perhaps we should dig deeper, is adrian zenz, whom most of the xinjiang genocide claims originated from, a reliable source?

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/18/us-media-reports-chinese-...

> is bitterwinter.org a reliable source?

The bitterwinter.org article, which is clearly labeled as Op-Ed:

1. reports that BCI Shanghai contradicts BCI headquarter (which you can independently verify, as there are other news sources supporting this, such as the SCMP article I just added).

2. argues that the local branch (BCI Shanghai) could be under pressure for operating in China (the quoted text above).

If you don’t buy their reasoning (2 above), you can at least agree with the HKFP reporting that the local Hugo Boss Chinese branch contradicted the Hugo Boss global headquarter without authorization, and make your judgement call for why.

> or perhaps we should dig deeper...

You may want to read these sources [1][2], which I just added to my original comment and do not rely on Adrian Zenz.

> is adrian zenz, whom most of the xinjiang genocide claims originated from, a reliable source?

With those other verifiable sources [1][2], we can ignore the straw man question of whether Adrian Zenz is a reliable source.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/solar-chin... "Solar industry’s ties to China’s Xinjiang region raise specter of forced labor"

[2]: https://www.shu.ac.uk/helena-kennedy-centre-international-ju... "In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains"

Literally the first reference/citation of "Broad Daylight" is attributed to Zenz. The Washington post does no additional verification but attribute to "researchers" who will no doubt also quote Zenz. It's also Washington Post. There are no verifiable sources alleging coerced labour that doesn't trace back to Zenz. Bitterwinter or HKFP are also far from reliable, on par with Epochetimes bias.

>Hugo Boss Chinese branch contradicted the Hugo Boss global headquarter without authorization, and make your judgement call for why.

Global HQs making judgement calls due to coordinated pressure campaign from their primary markets, against the due diligence of their local branch who has on the ground experience. Make your judgement call for why.

The “Broad Daylight” is an academic research, which necessarily cites related work or previous work, including of Zenz.

This is how academic research works. Citing Zenz per se does not make the the “Broad Daylight” less credible.

If people are against Zenz, please judge the “Broad Daylight” report by ignoring all reference to and evidence provided by Zenz.

If you find specific flaws with “Broad Daylight”, please list them so that we can discuss.

Saying that it cites Zenz is just pointing out how academic research works, and does not invalidate the report.

> Bitterwinter or HKFP are also far from reliable, on par with Epochetimes bias.

Bitterwinter is not used as a news source here, just an Op-Ed, because all needed reporting are supported by other news sources such as SCMP.

HKFP is just reporting what Hugo Boss headquarter and its Chinese branch are doing, with links to sources. You can follow the links to judge for yourself [1], or find alternative sources reporting the same [2]: Hugo Boss Chinese branch is making unauthorized Weibo post contradicting the Hugo Boss global headquarter.

So the local branch does not represent the headquarter [2], just like BCI Shanghai does not represent BCI headquarter (as reported by SCMP).

[1]: https://group.hugoboss.com/fileadmin/media/pdf/sustainabilit... "HUGO BOSS Statement on the Chinese region of Xinjiang"

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/article/china-xinjiang-hugo-boss-idI... "Chinese celebs, netizens slam 'two-faced' Hugo Boss over Xinjiang"

(And no, HKFP is more credible than Epochtimes, as [2] just validated the HKFP reporting, but this is a red herring for the current discussion.)

>Citing Zenz per se does not make the the “Broad Daylight” less credible.

Broad Daylight presumes Zenz conclusion of coerced labour as basis for rest of supply chain analysis. It can only be judged in that context, which makes it, and any research that use Zenz as starting point, less credible.>Citing Zenz per se does not make the the “Broad Daylight” less credible.

On par =/= equal. HKFP better than epochetimes, but not by much. The bias of Bitterwinter/HKFP is presuming PRC branches are going off script when acting "two faced" that gets "disavowed" by HQ is the kind of face saving behavior that multinationals do to stay in good graces of east and west. What Intel is doing here. Publishers like HKFP and Bitterwinter bias is characterizing typical corporate doublespeak as unique Chinese misbehavior.

> any research that use Zenz as starting point...

A research could be inspired by Zenz, then went on to find independent evidence supporting the same conclusion (forced labor in Xinjiang).

Getting inspired by Zenz does not make subsequent research less credible.

You need to list specific flaws in the Broad Daylight report to discredit it.

> On par =/= equal. HKFP better than epochetimes, but not by much...

With the Reuters reporting [1] linked above which reports the same as HKFP, diverting the discussion on HKFP is a straw man.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/china-xinjiang-hugo-boss-idI... "Chinese celebs, netizens slam 'two-faced' Hugo Boss over Xinjiang"

> The bias of Bitterwinter/HKFP is presuming PRC branches are going off script when acting "two faced" that gets "disavowed" by HQ...

The fact that the Chinese branch can go rogue against the global headquarter has been reported multiple times.

For an example in tech, see Arm China [2], where the damage to the headquarter is much larger than Hugo Boss or BCI.

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28329731 "Arm China Has Gone Rogue"

Given your background and opinions on the matter, I'd be interested to hear what you think goes on in the large, barbed-wire lined, centers they regularly ship Uyghurs in and out of. Do you think they are genuinely good places meant to help an under privileged minority group?

If you really want to know, feel free to reach out to me in private. See my profile. Twitter preferred.

What if I just 'kinda' want to know, for instance, in a comment thread?

Then I'll be brief.

Check out this thread to get an idea: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863939825221632

Check out Col Lawrence Wilkerson at the Ron Paul Institute, mark 22:20, on one of the reasons why the US was in Afghanistan (which borders Xinjiang): https://youtu.be/91wz5syVNZs?t=22m20s

Check out Max Blumenthal, investigative journalist, on the quality of evidence surrounding Xinjiang: https://youtu.be/qZkxaEC1xjY

You really must be quite westernized if you can't talk about China anymore without using the US as a reference point, and have to rely on Westerners spreading lies about China in service of their own agenda to speak for you.

Well done, you completely ignored the actual argument in order to resort to ad hominem, while ignoring the fact that the first source doesn't use the US as the major comparison point, while also making evidence-free statements such as "westerners spreading lies". Exactly as I would expect from you.

> first source doesn't use the US as the major comparison point,

"The typical American answer to problems: bombs and bullets." https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/146586396718...

"China went a different path. They didn't fire a single bullet or threw a single bomb, instead they used books and jobs." https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/146586397002...

Which is a lie, carelessly slandering the policemen who valiantly risked their lives in the fight against terrorism.

新疆打掉一境外直接指挥的暴恐团伙 1人投降28人被歼 http://xjfy.chinacourt.gov.cn/article/detail/2015/11/id/4667...

natded put it very well 13 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527720

Most of the online discussion centered around China is just US domestic political projection using an imaginary China as a mirror, or as a counterfactual which doesn't exist, and then there's the obvious propaganda too.

RnaudBertrand seems to be using China only as an imaginary counterexample to the US invasion of Afghanistan.

If you were just an average Westerner, mistaking that Twitter thread for an informed perspective would be an understandable mistake, buy I think you should be able to do better.

> Exactly as I would expect from you.

Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username.

> Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username.

You are right here, in my haste I recognized you for someone else who has been attacking me a lot lately. I apologize.

> The typical American answer to problems: bombs and bullets.

The US is a secondary supporting point, not the main point, which is Afghanistan and its terrorism problem.

> Which is a lie, carelessly slandering the policemen who valiantly risked their lives in the fight against terrorism.

This is an oversimplification rather than a lie. In the context of that tweet, what was referred to was:

1. Sending your military to foreign territory to kill the source of radicalization there.

2. The scale of the effort.

While there have definitely been fighting in Xinjiang, it cannot be compared to the likes of the War on Terror. The former's violance was at least constrained to people who shoot back, while the latter involved the killing pf many innocent people.

While you criticize the comparison with the US here, to completely take the US out of the picture in a description about Xinjiang would not be fair. For one, the US is a contributing factor in the creation of the terrorism problem in Xinjiang. Second, when one talks about counter-terrorism efforts, it only makes sense to compare the pros and cons of different approaches that have already tried. After all, it is a hard problem in which hard choices have to be made; nobody has succeeded in an approach which is completely free of violance or any kind of coercion.

I suppose you could also compare to France, but I don't think it would make sense to skip over the most high-profile example.

> This is an oversimplification rather than a lie.

When you wrote in another subthread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29663197 that

> So no, I'm not a CCP supporter. What I am, is being tired of all the anti-China propaganda that's on the one hand merely biased and prejudiced misrepresentations, and on the other hand a deliberate manufacturing of consent for war. I am tired of my home being constantly misrepresented and villified.

I mistakenly assumed that you would be against oversimplification.

Hey I did try to invite him to talk to me in private where I can explain a complex situation more thoroughly. But if one is only "kinda interested, but not very interested" and wants a quick summary in an HN post then one has to be contend with oversimplifications.

I understand why you criticize me, but rather than criticism I'd like to hear solutions. I had a conversation with my contact from Xinjiang yesterday (who regularly talks to westerners to explain the situation) and he told me how basically nobody in the west is interested in the complex truth; everybody wants simplifications. Which really limits the explanations he can give.

So, what is your solution? If you have a link to a better summary that you believe is

1. more accurate,

2. able to explain things from a westerner's perspective and able to provide the paradigm changes needed for proper understanding,

3. yet short enough to satisfy readers that are only casually interested,

then I'm all ears and I'll consider recommending your source next time.

I took some time to read and watch the links and digest the info to respond:

1) I'm getting kind of conflicting signals from the sources. You promote the idea that these camps aren't what we know they are, the the third link, but the entirety of the your Twitter feed reads as a justification and comparison to the war in Afghanistan. I don't see how that would be an apt comparison unless these camps actually did exist, and actually did forcefully detain people (which means forced labor in China).

2) Let's assume they are forced re-education camps, since that's the least evil thing possible. You're comparison to Afghanistan as the 'The US uses bombs and bullets whereas China is doing things peacefully' is still bad. Afghanistan is a separate country without a government that we declared war on. The US generally follows strict rules of engagement, so it would be inaccurate to say we shot innocent people or killed them on purpose. The mission over there consisted much more of building infrastructure and public services than it did fighting. Xinjiang is within China's own borders, and benefits from already having a government and infrastructure, to a much larger degree than Afghanistan at least.

3) Let's ignore 2 and assume the US was evil in Afghanistan and China is doing everything as morally as possible in Xinjiang. Then why not let international inspection of the facilities? The UN was in Afghanistan, and oversaw a lot of our mission there. If it's the same in Xinjiang, but better, then why the secrecy?

4) People go along with the idea that evil things are happening in Xinjiang without much evidence because of two reasons: China has been caught doing everything claimed before already (organ harvesting, forced abortions, internment camps) and they don't just prove otherwise. Any international traveller can come to the US and visit any hospital, any prison (provided they are journalists at least) and any prisoner here has the freedom of expression to say anything they want to anyone they want. That isn't the case in China. Of course there is a lack of evidence of what's going on their now. That's China's MO.

(Part 1) You are raising very insightful issues. Arnaud's thread is an oversimplification. This comment is my best attempt at explaining the full picture, with the knowledge I have gathered in the past 3 years.

- There are unacceptable practices going on, but of a different scale and kind than described in mainstream western reporting. - The terrorism issue is mixed up with the issues of Uyghur identity and separatism. - The goal is to address terrorism, identity and separatism at the same time, using a variety of measures. - There is difference between official policy and local implementation. Policy implementation in China is very distributed, with significant local leeway to interpret and implement. Due to incompetency rather than malice, there is significant collateral damage and impact on innocent people.

Let's unpack the above.

---

About the measures:

- Terrorism is addressed through security: lots of weapons checks, barriers and surveillance everywhere. Though this is not the only measure.

- Terrorism, identity and separatism are addressed through deradicalization, vocational training, government job programs and economic development. The thinking goes: if people's economic prospects become better (able to find jobs, more income) then they are less likely to fall for extremism and to harbor separatist sentiments.

- Identity is addressed through patriotic education.

There are prisons, deradicalization camps, vocational schools. Those are three different things. A major source of misunderstanding comes from the fact that western reporting lump all three together into "concentration/detention camps", while Chinese media and diplomats never talk about the first, seldomly about the 2nd, and usually about the 3rd. So when foreign media ask Chinese diplomats to elaborate on "concentration camps", and the diplomats say "we don't have those, we have vocational schools" then the diplomats are technically correct but there is already misunderstanding from the first second.

Prisons are for convicted criminals and terrorists, e.g. those who set off bombs, and come with prison labor (as is usual in Chinese prisons, and many prisons around the world).

Vocational schools teach skills and patriotic education. They are indeed voluntary. Vocational schools are often boarding schools.

The most problematic facilities are the deradicalization camps. They are for people who have gotten in touch with extremism but haven't done anything concrete. They are sort of a "vocation school ++": they are mandatory and they "brainwash" you into believing that extremism is bad (e.g. they teach you ideas like: women have rights, killing people for their beliefs is bad). They are mandatory boarding schools but not prisons. This is not a contradiction: mandatory boarding schools exist in other parts of the world too. And the environment is less unpleasant than true prisons.

Deradicalization camps probably are problematic for two reasons:

1. The criteria for what counts as "gotten in touch with extremism" is prprobably too broad, and so an amount of innocent people have been undeservedly rolled into deradicalization camps.

2. The people enrolled into them may not have committed a concrete crime yet. Chinese authorities say that their goal is to prevent terrorism from taking root rather than only acting after the fact. According to western thought, this practice is wholly unacceptable. However, commentators from Islamic countries, which have had a much longer and much more savage history with terrorism, criticize the western perspectice on the grounds that westerners underestimate the impact of terrorism. From the Chinese government's perspective, safe streets and social stability is more important than anything else: they view it as their duty to ensure that streets are safe (and a lot of the population agrees).

The security measures probably come with a certain amount of racial profiling, e.g. Han can pass security checks unchecked while Uyghurs are checked more thoroughly. More on this later.

---

At the same time, there is a significant amount of misrepresentation (and even outright lies) from western media.

Some is deliberate, e.g. propaganda. Max Blumenthal highlighted the problems with the "x million" number, witness testimonies and more. There are real issues, but not to the extend alleged. Too many people have been undeservedly forced into deradicalization centers, but not "1 million" and they're neither prisons nor concentration camps. The BBC visited a vocational boarding school, painted it as a prison, then said people were not allowed to leave while literally showing footage of people leaving. There is no genocide: the population has grown quicker than Han, and it has been shown that Adrien Zenz's IUD number deliberately omitted a 0 (i.e. 80% should be 8%). Despite alleged systematic rape, killing etc by witnesses, there is a complete lack of a refugee crisis.

Other reports are accidentally wrong: misinterpretations due to lack of understanding of China. For example many of ASPI's sattelite image concentration camp locations turn out to be schools, farms, etc. It seems that the criteria for identifying a "concentration camp" is "it has high walls, barbed wires and fences on windows". But Nathan Ruser, a young fellow who just came out of school and got recruited by ASPI for doing this "research", apparently didn't know that a great many normal buildings in China have these features.

(Part 2) As for "incompetence rather than malice":

There is a saying that aptly summarizes the issue: the central government told the Xinjiang authority to cut the hair, but they cut the entire head instead.

Local governments and police forces in China tend to be overzealous in implementing central policy. This is either because they're eyeing a promotion by showing how well they've reached KPIs, or because they're risk averse and don't want to deal with being punished for allowing a terrorist to slip through the cracks.

They also tend to brush with a broad stroke, hence lots of collateral damage which catches innocents in the process.

These are long standing issues and occur outside Xinjiang too, though slowly improving over time as competency improves. But it's especially bad in Xinjiang because:

1. Competent people don't want to be in Xinjiang: they tend to move elsewhere.

2. The central government wanted the terrorism issue under control as fast as possible. Incompetent officials and policemen focus on a singular goals and can't be bothered with something like collateral damage.

It's neither a racism nor official policy issue because:

- The head of Xinjiang is a Uyghur, and lots of government officials and policemen are Uyghurs. Uyghur policemen are trying to cut corners by racially profiling their own ethnicity.

- Official policy is give minorities preferential treatmenf through something similar to affirmative axtion. Minorities were exempt from the One Child Policy and they receive extra points on university exams. Laws are applied more leniently to minorities. This is not new and has been the case since the PRC's founding in 1949.

---

Forced labor is limited to prison labor. Deradicalization centers have no prison labor as far as I know. There is no evidence of cotton, tomato or solar panel forced labor. My contact in Xinjiang is pretty furious about the recent US ban because this ban actually harms the lives of normal Uyghurs who make a living through these products.

---

Regarding comparison to the US's conduct in Afghanistan: you paint a very different picture than the one I know of. For example, this: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/af...

---

Regarding international visits and transparency: there have been international visits.

Delegations from many non-western countries (including many islamic countries) have visited and said everything was fine, even saying they're impressed by the level of safety and development. A few years ago the UN sent a counter-terrorism expert to visit, who then wrote a positive report.

Of course, there are complications:

- The US protested that the report is not valid because a human rights expert should have been sent instead. They also protested that maybe we shouldn't send anybody to Xinjiang at all, because if the report turns out to be positive then that will give China undeserved legitimacy. Hmm.....

- Visits by non-western delegations are considered untrustworthy by western countries. The rhetoric goes that non-western countries have been bought by China. But this notion deprives those countries of their agency, and ignores the fact that friendly relations between China and the global south started way before China was rich.

If you ask me, the entire situation has been so thoroughly politicized that a neutral, objective inspection by foreign countries is not possible. Western countries won't accept any other outcome than "millions of Uyghurs are being genocided". There are a lot of dishonest reporters out there.

Which brings us to the next point...

At the same time, China distrusts western countries' neutrality and objectivity, and so they are incentivized to become less transparent.

---

Regarding transparency and secrecy:

The west is essentially punishing China for being transparent. They used to divulge more about Xinjiang, but after a series of dishonest western media reports and propaganda, they became increasingly wary to the point where they'd rather shut everything down and making things more opaque. This becoming more opaque extends to issues beyond Xinjiang as well: as the US increasingly sanctions China using data obtained through transparency, China becomes more opaque in response.

China has always been clumsy in its communication with the west (though the opposite is also true). The issue of transparency is a long-standing issue. The Chinese government, and more generally Chinese people, tend to respond to any controversy by staying silent rather than through rebuttals. In Chinese culture, speaking is silver and silence is gold — a bit the opposite of many western cultures. Staying silent doesn't necessarily mean covering up: it means they gave up on communicating and are going their own way.

But of course, this behavior only makes westerners more suspicious, where silence is seen as evidence of sinister practice.

----

Regarding China's reputation of having been caught and therefore deserves a guilty until innocence proven attitude:

Is "having caught" really true? You mentioned internment camps but that very issue is under dispute. So let's ignore that one for now.

Forced abortions: if you're talking about the One Child Policy, then that hardly counts has "having been caught in the act". The One Child Policy and its implications have always been public knowledge. I find this example very weird.

Organ harvesting: these claims come from Falun Gong. But where is the evidence?

There was organ harvesting, but not the kind alleged by Falun Gong. What they did was using organs of already-executed prisoners, which I agree is questionable but it's also on a whole different level than killing random people for their organs, as Falun Gong alleged. More importantly, China stopped this practice around 2015 on its own volition.

I assert that the claim that China cannot be trusted on the grounds of past crimes, is very dubious if you look deeply into the actual evidence. There are a lot of allegations without evidence. Some allegations are based on true underlying issues, but heavily distorted. Some are straight up lies. The bad reputation is built on a pile of sand, with very few actual bricks in the pile.

I saw on the ground in China early 2020 how the entire COVID issue was massively distorted by foreign media. The entire Li Wenliang censorship story was misrepresented. Wuhan was allegedly full of dead bodies which have been covered up, and everybody was forced by the government to stay at home rather than voluntarily doing so. No.

It is true that western countries tend to be more transparent (though I question your assertion that any journalist can visit any jail; can they visit Guantanamo?). But concluding that opaqueness is automatically sinister is also a stretch. This notion is especially problematic because the US is abusing transparency of foreign countries for the sake of upholding its own supremacy and for imposing sanctions, rather than as a way to truly encourage good and just governance.

---

The end. As you can see, the Xinjiang issue is complex, and consists of a mix of many different issues. Multiple facts which appear contradictory are actually true at the same time.

I spent 2 days writing this. As you can imagine, with all this complexity it's really difficult to explain to most people what's going on.

Skechers is a good example. They conducted multiple inspections and found no forced labor, so they maintained business dealings with Chinese suppliers.

https://about.skechers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SKECHE...

Why would I ever import from a supplier whose only positive is price, if I have to go to extra effort and expense - making them no longer competitive in any respect?

Hey, my favorite CCP shill, FooBarWidget: What is your official stance on Xi's new chair?

I don't care about his chair.

Posting like this is a bannable offense on HN. You can't attack another user like this, no matter how strongly you disagree with them. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739415 for a longer explanation.

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