Hacker News Reader

Comment by Canada | Hacker News Reader

That's interesting. Can you elaborate on this?

Some documents that were NOT part of the original leak but rather commentary or retranscriptions used characters that are not used in mainland China but instead in HK/Taiwan.

CCP apologists have latched onto that to falsely claim that the leaks are fraudulent.

> CCP apologist

Could you link to the corresponding comments? (two link would be enough)

Sure - mainland uses simplified Chinese script (in order to increase literacy), whilst Hong Kong and ROC continue to use traditional Chinese script. PRC went through a similar process with Chinese literacy as the US did with Americanisation of English spelling, though of course the Communists went top down mandate, whilst the Americans relied on the successful distribution of spelling guides and dictionaries.

In relation to this story, one of the key artefacts evidentialising the claims actually is contains traditional Chinese characters. A comparator would be if CIA document that uses English spellings, a significant incongruity. To a Chinese reader, this would be obvious but of course the audience for this was Western market

Seems like nothing more than an indicator, far from proof for any tampering. If I was part of a goverment and I was doing something bad, I might feel like doing it in Dutch instead of the goverment language, just because if something gets leaked, it seems weird "why would it be in dutch, it cant be real".

Im not implying anything and i dont care, I just feel like this is a fallacy to some degree

all we have are indicators, discovery of what is true is becoming an increasingly untenable task, especially when truth producers are at at it on a full time professional basis.

My question to is: if someone produced an email purportedly from Hilary Clinton where she used the spelling 'gaol' instead of 'jail', would you consider this notable or trivial?

It's too bad there wasn't a global organization that could go in to see and interview these supposed political prisoners being persecuted and their cultures being genocided - to see if there's any truth or pattern of abuse/genocide to their stories!

Oh wait, the United Nations wanted to - but the CCP has refused.

If I am not mistaken, the UN visited just this week, to precisely investigate the allegations. US State dept has already condemned the visit of course, and rejected the findings. Of course

You really should provide links to sources, but since you failed to do so on the font issue, I guess we'll be left hanging.

Is US State Department official enough for you?

https://www.state.gov/concerns-with-un-high-commissioner-for...

Yeah, but I was looking for a statement where they "condemned the visit and rejected the findings." As opposed to a statement where they criticize the restrictive conditions for the visit. (I don't think findings have been officially published yet?)

Yeah, "Sure, you can investigate if we're doing cultural genocide - you just can't look here, here, here, here, or here. Talk to these happy Uyghurs! Nothing to see here!"

Made a staged visit that was used by PRC as propaganda, definitely not an investigation, just raised concerns while being diplomatic. PRC unashamedly distorted her statement to paint itself in a good light.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/05/statement-un-hig...

Of course US State department condemned it, it was a "told you so" event.

>Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concerns Saturday about China’s “efforts to restrict and manipulate her visit,” and he said Bachelet was unable to access individuals who were part of labor transfer programs from Xinjiang to other parts of the country.

>“We are further troubled by reports that residents of Xinjiang were warned not to complain or speak openly about conditions in the region, that no insight was provided into the whereabouts of hundreds of missing Uyghurs,” Blinken said in a statement.

So pretty much what you'd expect. Not at all different from the "visits" influential people can make to North Korea to showcase what a shining utopia it really is.

> one of the key artefacts evidentialising the claims actually is contains traditional Chinese characters

Link?

I watched a recent YouTube video from ADVChina where Winston explains that situation with the fonts. He disproves the theory that traditional Chinese is being used in the document. It is a fairly long explanation but the gist of it is that some simplified Chinese fonts bear more of a resemblence to traditional Chinese.

I hope you realize the irony of replying to a comment asking for a link without linking to anything. I assume it's this channel https://youtube.com/c/ADVChina but none of the recent uploads have titles that seem relevant.

Is it one document? Many documents? Does the article mention it? What about all of the pictures?

Do you happen to have a link to the document in question, or a title I could use to search for it?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com