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China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

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Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#91

Post by skybrian »

Brain_Thief wrote: post #67
kuzehanka wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you uncomfortable with China's aggressive censorship, human rights abuses, and surveillance? Stop buying shit from them. China is buying up realestate and farm land in every major western nation. China is buying critical infrastructure across the globe via the Belt and Road initiative[1][2]. China has become too big and too powerful to be stopped by mere consumer action. They are not planning to wage a war on d…

While I understand your point, I strongly disagree with the implication that individual actions are meaningless. People should not accept a "death by a thousand cuts" behavioral paradigm when it comes to moral decisions in the realm of consumption. Voting is a part of the situation, but voting is an individual choice just like purchasing decisions.

The thing is, spontaneous order mostly doesn't happen. You need organized campaigns to make voting meaningful; if everyone votes for a different candidate you're not going to get anywhere and will usually lose to parties that are organized. The same is true in the market; individuals can't make good buying decisions about things that aren't visible without labeling by standards organizations or stores that set standards themselves.

While having popular support is essential, an organization is more than just the sum of individual actions and this is what leadership is about.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#92

Post by confusedhnguy »

guitarbill wrote: post #83
confusedhnguy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously nobody cares about right or wrong. The average westerners only want to accuse China so they can feel good about themselves for a while, and their leaders only want to secure world domination. Look at some of the comments here, people have no idea what they are talking about. Seriously? A civil war is good in his/her book? How many people do you think is going to die? And would the US and the Europe happily…

> and their leaders only want to secure world domination. projection? > the west always focus fire on the Chinese when they talk about human right issues? we don't. maybe you just pay attention to those stories more though. > Also, an unbaised standard does not exist when it comes to international affairs. i'll agree with this, however it doesn't make morally wrong things less wrong, or mean people don't suffer. > as…

Judging from how active and well-received Dalai Lama is in the west and how many westerners have bothered to go to Tibet to see it for themselves, I would say yes you focus too much on our human right issues for how little you care about what's really happening.

Right or wrong do exist, I also think Xi is an a-hole. But people ignore issues that are "inconvenient" for them and their allies is what drives me crazy. I would prefer people put their own oxygen masks on before helping others.

For the southern parts of China, I would say almost all the countrymen have access to tap water. For the northwestern parts, it is still pretty bad, a lot of them still rely on rivers/wells, although I don't have numbers. As for how clean the water is, that is something I have no idea about, and I am not optimistic.

Edit: grammar.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#93

Post by confusedhnguy »

mirimir wrote: post #85
confusedhnguy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously nobody cares about right or wrong. The average westerners only want to accuse China so they can feel good about themselves for a while, and their leaders only want to secure world domination. Look at some of the comments here, people have no idea what they are talking about. Seriously? A civil war is good in his/her book? How many people do you think is going to die? And would the US and the Europe happily…

Thanks. It's great to see a comment by a Chinese person. As I've said, individual rights and freedoms matter a lot to me. I'm pretty radical about it. More or less an anarchist, in the Crowley sense. Or as Stover would say, a Cainist. But still, I do my best to be open-minded. There's always the risk of infection, I know, but my mental immune system is pretty damn hardcore.

Thanks. I also think our current government is one of the worst, the problem is that the western leaders doesn't genuinely want to help us from our point of view, it seems that they want puppets like the South Korea and Japan. Human rights, environment issues are just tools they use to make us look bad.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#94

Post by mirimir »

confusedhnguy wrote: post #92
guitarbill wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and their leaders only want to secure world domination. projection? > the west always focus fire on the Chinese when they talk about human right issues? we don't. maybe you just pay attention to those stories more though. > Also, an unbaised standard does not exist when it comes to international affairs. i'll agree with this, however it doesn't make morally wrong things less wrong, or mean people don't suffer. > as…

Judging from how active and well-received Dalai Lama is in the west and how many westerners have bothered to go to Tibet to see it for themselves, I would say yes you focus too much on our human right issues for how little you care about what's really happening. Right or wrong do exist, I also think Xi is an a-hole. But people ignore issues that are "inconvenient" for them and their allies is what drives me crazy. I…

I used to be a total supporter of the Dalai Lama. I mean, great philosophy. Great clothes. Great ritual. Great sand paintings. And so on.

But then I starting thinking about what life would have been like in Tibet, under the Buddhist theocracy. Maybe benign enough, but not so much freedom for the serfs.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#95

Post by mirimir »

frotak wrote: post #88
mirimir wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... freedoms and liberties ... Yes, they are for sure doing that. But then, those are European concepts. I'm not even sure if they're really expressible in endogenous Chinese languages. So is cultural imperialism OK, as long as we're really "in the right"? That was basically Spain's argument for taking over Mexico etc. God was on their side.

> those are European concepts Only inasmuch as they were born in Europe who in turn had to flee their home country to pretty much make it a reality. In the article in questions here no one is talking about intervening in the internal affairs of other countries. The point of contention is that China is actively working to prevent the very discussion of what is happening under its authority. And they are actively using…

Sure, China doesn't want people dissing its internal policies. No country does, do they?

And yes, they are repressing dissent within China through "violent physical force". That again isn't unusual. There's a broad consensus that a state has internal monopoly on force.

Me, I hate that. But it's not as if China is alone, in that. I'd love to go buy some LSD or shrooms. But authorities put people in jail for that shit. Some huge percentage of US citizens are locked up for nonviolent drug offenses. How is that not just as bad as what China is doing?

Edit: And what if some were organizing a UN conference to discuss the violent repression of recreational drug use in the US etc? That's not even a credible possibility, is it? And that's largely because the US has so thoroughly dominated the world regarding the issue.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#96

Post by wallace_f »

wallace_f wrote: post #27
oxycontinOD wrote: post #5

A painful but important reminder about Lu Guang, a photojournalist captured by the goverment for taking photos of the damage suffered by countryman (and nature) due pollution from chinese factories: https://imgur.com/gallery/XwzByK7 Something needs to be done, I'm not sure what but inaction will only aggravate the situation.

Yea but China has big government, authoritarian command and control, extreme gun control and the kinds of reductions in civil rights and individual liberty that we are marching towards in America. It's time to stop fearing the consequences and just embracing it.

I should have clarified, this was an entirely sarcastic comment.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#97

Post by dTal »

FabHK wrote: post #75
ElBarto wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be careful about the terms you use. Some terms should not be overused because overuse trivialises.

> You should be careful about the terms you use. Some terms should not be overused because overuse trivialises. I agree. The uniqueness of the holocaust has been a subject of much debate among historians, the so called "Historikerstreit", triggered by right-wing historian Ernst Nolte arguing that the holocaust was not unique, while the opposing majority view holds that the holocaust has been uniquely evil. (The whole…

I am afraid the question of whether the holocaust is unique will transpire to be rather like the question of whether WW1 was the "war to end all wars". It was not the first time anyone had attempted such a thing, but it was the first time it was done in a mechanized, organized manner. It won't be the last.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#98

Post by yorwba »

chaostheory wrote: post #78
sleazy_b wrote: post #26

I think we will see what is happening to the Uighurs now as a genocide in that it is an intentional destruction of a culture and people. I'm not sure what can be done when a country so powerful as China is the perpetrator but it's pretty terrible to watch as it is happening.

What is happening in Xinjiang is terrible, but let's be more specific. What's happening is a more intense version of 'reverse genocide' and NOT ethnic cleansing (which is what a generic label of 'genocide' implies). What's reverse genocide? It's when you when you proactively encourage assimilation by intermarriage with Han Chinese (where the family will become Han in culture & treatment by Chinese society) and throug…

> It's when you when you proactively encourage assimilation by intermarriage with Han Chinese

How is it encouraged? I was under the impression that Uyghurs and other minority peoples aren't considered to be desirable marriage partners by most Han Chinese.

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#99

Post by frotak »

mirimir wrote: post #95
frotak wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those are European concepts Only inasmuch as they were born in Europe who in turn had to flee their home country to pretty much make it a reality. In the article in questions here no one is talking about intervening in the internal affairs of other countries. The point of contention is that China is actively working to prevent the very discussion of what is happening under its authority. And they are actively using…

Sure, China doesn't want people dissing its internal policies. No country does, do they? And yes, they are repressing dissent within China through "violent physical force". That again isn't unusual. There's a broad consensus that a state has internal monopoly on force. Me, I hate that. But it's not as if China is alone, in that. I'd love to go buy some LSD or shrooms. But authorities put people in jail for that shit.…

I absolutely agree that there are questionable aspects to how the U.S. enforced drug prohibition laws and how non-violent offenders are treated.

But again, the fact is that we can openly have, and pursue aggressively, discussion about and attempts at reform around how this is handled.

In fact we see this by the spread of various drug legalization efforts in the U.S. and efforts at prison reform.

Though there is also a huge difference between a governments authority to regulate the distribution and consumption of psychoactive compounds (and/or the sale of such compounds) and the ability to even discuss how the government is handling the issue.

Free speech and criticism of the government are a bare minimum baseline. So you can actively organize your fellow citizens in an effort to legalize various compounds in the US and you can lobby and protest the government without any fear of being arrested because of what you are saying. That is a completely different world than what goes on in China. If you are a dissident you are a criminal.

And with respect to whether or not the UN could openly address internal affairs of the U.S. - well it does: https://undocs.org/A/HRC/38/33/ADD.1

Yes the U.S. ambassador to the UN had some choice words about that specific report but it was all out in the open and wasn't suppressed

Re: China warned others not to attend UN meeting on Xinjiang human rights violations

#100

Post by dang »

abc-xyz wrote: post #14
simonh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do appreciate the sentiment, but with an authoritarian regime like this there's isn't an awful lot other nations can practically do that would actually make a difference. Just look at North Korea, it's under total economic lock-down but still continues along on it's brutally oppressive way. It's not that I'm happy about it, any suggestions welcome.

At this point I'd say the goal should be to isolate China and make them suffer economically.. We can see what they've done to the people of Tibet, Hong Kong, Xijiang, those practicing Falun Gong and so many more. They're also stepping up their efforts of conquering Taiwan and the South China Sea.. the world can't keep turning a blind eye as their influence continue to grow.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political, national, and ideological battle. That crosses into breaking the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it, so would you please stop doing it?

If you want to understand why we draw the line at "primarily", I've written a lot about it in the past: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

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