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China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

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Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#101

Post by wrg91237 »

Reason for surveillance. London and Paris may do the same if there are more attacks.

"Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a statement supporting Jihad in Xinjiang against Chinese, in the Caucasus against the Russians and naming Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan as places of warfare.[42] Zawahiri endorsed "jihad to liberate every span of land of the Muslims that has been usurped and violated, from Kashgar to Andalusia, and from the Caucasus to Somalia and Central Africa".[43] Uyghurs inhabit Kashgar, the city which was mentioned by Zawahiri.[44]"

They don't want moderation.

"The Uyghur terrorist organization East Turkestan Islamic Movement's magazine Islamic Turkistan has accused the Chinese "Muslim Brotherhood" (the Yihewani) of being responsible for the moderation of Hui Muslims and the lack of Hui joining terrorist jihadist groups in addition to blaming other things for the lack of Hui Jihadists, such as the fact that for more than 300 years Hui and Uyghurs have been enemies of each other, no separatist Islamist organizations among the Hui, the fact that the Hui view China as their home, and the fact that the "infidel Chinese" language is the language of the Hui.[33][34]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Xinjiang

"A 2016 study from New America, a Washington-based think tank, found 114 Uighurs from Xinjiang joined the Islamic State. Xinjiang furnished the highest number of foreign ISIS fighters from any one region of the world outside of Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, the study found."

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/01/the-islamic-state-pledge...

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#102

Post by yusuke10 »

pentae wrote: post #99

So can anyone tell me why we should support what China is doing? Why should any entrepreneur or tech worker go there and support this government? How come China seems to get a free pass on human rights issues like this by western society?

So the short answer is, don't support China.

Long answer is

- reduce buying stuff from China.

- reduce buying stuff on aliexpress or alibaba or even amazon. try buying local

- call out leaders and entrepreneurs on social media when they are acquiescing/favorable to China (Tim Cook, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc)

- try to start up manufacturing of hardwares in your city/state/country

- call out China's totalitarianism in your circle of influence

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#103

Post by risent »

Freedom is not free. The majority of world are like peace, but the minority can break it with terrorist attacks. To prevent the attacks, the majority will pay a huge price.

In the other way, the minority's attacks will create Nationalism in the majority, and this will make the attacks more worse.

Is there any way to resolve this?

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#104

Post by tanilama »

bilbo0s wrote: post #24
justicezyx wrote: post #10

A side note: The terrorist attacks (what the CCP states) in Xinjiang was rampant. Every years hundreds of innocent people were killed. And due to media control, those reports seldom see publicity outside of small forums in the first a few months following the events. ps1: Whether or not those attacks are done by terrorists, or oppressed minorities, I have no comments. ps2: This not a defend. Merely suggest one of the…

"...Whether or not those attacks are done by terrorists, or oppressed minorities, I have no comments...." ??? If "...oppressed minorities..." commit acts wherein "...hundreds of innocent people were killed..." aren't they "terrorists"? Or am I thinking about this whole thing wrong?

You are entering a very dangerous territory. The terrorists in US and west can genuinely believe they are oppressed as well. To use violence to advance their own agenda on unrelated people is nevertheless evil.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#105

Post by fake-name »

yusuke10 wrote: post #79
monocasa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uighers may be the first population to sign up for satellite subscriptions If they can at all. Uighers can't even buy a knife without it being engraved with a QR code of their national ID number.

Don’t forget the massive Chinese re-education camp for 120,000 uighers. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/...

Jesus, amp links? Really?

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#106

Post by andrepd »

risent wrote: post #103

Freedom is not free. The majority of world are like peace, but the minority can break it with terrorist attacks. To prevent the attacks, the majority will pay a huge price. In the other way, the minority's attacks will create Nationalism in the majority, and this will make the attacks more worse. Is there any way to resolve this?

This is a false dillema. Show me any evidence that massive surveillance increases security.

There are many things that increase peace and security: wealth, education, good institutions/political systems, arguably culture, etc. Surveillance is probably not one of them.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#107

Post by 45h34jh53k4j »

SN76477 wrote: post #100
keiferski wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of western “free countries” with little-to-no street crime. It’s not an either-or situation.

I have been thinking lately about the purpose of crime. Obviously people get robbed and bad things happen, but what would happen in a society without crime? is it possible that crime has a larger purpose?

stagnation. without risk there is no progress.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#108

Post by _cs2017_ »

pentae wrote: post #99

So can anyone tell me why we should support what China is doing? Why should any entrepreneur or tech worker go there and support this government? How come China seems to get a free pass on human rights issues like this by western society?

Because keeping a large diverse country stable and safe is very difficult, and a failure causes enormous tragedy. The approach that works to keep the US stable does not always work well in other countries.

To keep the billion people who live in China safe from civil war and rampant terrorism is already a great achievement -- even it comes at the expense of some nice things such as human rights. In fact, China manages to do more than just keep itself stable; it's actually improving economically. That state of affairs is a lot better than many, many countries can even dream about.

A push for human rights increases the chance of a government collapse. That's what happened in the Soviet Russia during Gorbachev. It was everyone's luck that it resulted in relatively little suffering. A similar fall of the government in Syria, Yugoslavia, Iraq, etc were absolutely horrible for the people living in those countries. It is very hard to accept even a small risk of such an event in China; the suffering it would cause is beyond imagination.

Therefore, many people are quite happy with the approach followed by the Chinese government. In fact, it gives many people a hope that China might become a little similar to Singapore. The Singapore government has some issues with human rights (of course, much more modest than China), but is still highly respected both inside and outside the country precisely due to the prosperity and safety it brought to people.

Of course, for people who absolutely prioritize human rights, this is not good enough. But such people have relatively little influence outside the Western civilization. One certainly cannot blame people who prioritize the safety and prosperity of their family above human rights, and these people seem to be by far the majority of the Chinese population.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#109

Post by risent »

andrepd wrote: post #106
risent wrote: post #103

Freedom is not free. The majority of world are like peace, but the minority can break it with terrorist attacks. To prevent the attacks, the majority will pay a huge price. In the other way, the minority's attacks will create Nationalism in the majority, and this will make the attacks more worse. Is there any way to resolve this?

This is a false dillema. Show me any evidence that massive surveillance increases security. There are many things that increase peace and security: wealth, education, good institutions/political systems, arguably culture, etc. Surveillance is probably not one of them.

I agree with your opinion. But the problem is that: every option in your comment is a long term policy, it can't resolve the current problem in the reality as quick as possible.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#110

Post by comex »

keiferski wrote: post #77
toephu2 wrote: post #71

On the plus side, I just visited China last month and never felt safer. Before you would wear your backpack on the front of your chest when taking public transportation for fear of thieves. Now, with surveillance everywhere (and random ID checks at subways), you can freely wear your backpack on your back where it belongs without fear of theft.

There are plenty of western “free countries” with little-to-no street crime. It’s not an either-or situation.

And non-Western - just look at Japan.
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