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Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

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Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#111

Post by yorwba »

dgellow wrote: post #102
Aunche wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travel in Xinjiang isn't restricted for foreigners at least a year ago. There are a lot of security checkpoints, but they will just ignore you if you're not brown.

> but they will just ignore you if you're not brown. Is that true? Based on Vice's reports last year, journalists and tourists where forced to show their phone to border agents and to install some surveillance app: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/3/20681258/china-u...

... crossing the border from Kazakhstan. It's not surprising for border checkpoints to have heightened security. If they had traveled by plane like actual tourists, it would've been less of a hassle.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#112

Post by yorwba »

tomhoward wrote: post #87
paganel wrote: post #80

Curious how the YC involvement in China has panned out. I know they had divested somehow a couple of years ago, or at least they had started using another legal entity to do their bidding over there (maybe I'm mistaken on this). Also, it was my impression that people directly involved with YC at the time (such as Sam Altman) were pretty "blinded" by what was happening elsewhere in China and their were focusing instea…

YC announced the closure of YC China last year. https://blog.ycombinator.com/an-update-on-yc-china/ There’s no “using another legal entity to do their bidding over there”. It’s just closed. That said, it’s not clear that it’s unequivocally morally superior to deny a service to all 1B+ Chinese people, many of whom could have been founders of great companies or customers/beneficiaries of those companies, just because o…

As the announcement mentions, Qi Lu continues to be active in the VC space with a new company, MiraclePlus, which calls itself "formerly YC China" on their website: https://www.miracleplus.com/

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#113

Post by newacct583 »

gruez wrote: post #43
rjsw wrote: post #3

There are blank spots on western maps too, I can think of at least one [1] that isn't in Google maps. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviano_Air_Base

So? The issue isn't satellite/aerial imagery being censored, it's that it's being censored to cover up unsavory things. The equivalent in the US would be ICE/CBP detention camps being covered up on maps, but it doesn't look like that's happening: https://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities

During the months in 2018 where Child Separation was official US policy, there were absolutely attempts made by the government to prevent reporting on the known facilities, discovery of which facilities held separated children, or even reporting on accounting data of how many children were being held.

It's true that this sort of thing works poorly in the US (e.g. eventually someone on the cleaning staff gets upset and calls a journalist). But the impetus was absolutely identical.

The US government tries to hide its crimes too, basically. We're just bad at it. (And Child Separation proved a PR disaster, and officially ended even though lots of those kids will probably never see their parents again).

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#114

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway69123 wrote: post #100
magicsmoke wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure he didn't. The US has the notable distinction of performing genocide on an entire continent of peoples and cultures in the process of replacing its population with settlers. I'm sure more then a few people in China justify ethnic cleansing with "The US did it and now they're the most powerful nation in the world. Maybe they were on to something. Well, better late then never."

I am not American, but I assume you are referring to native americans, it is my understanding that the displacement of the native population occured before the federation of the US states, which would mean the perpetrators of this crime would be the colonizing countries, which would be Spain/France/England, surely?

> it is my understanding that the displacement of the native population occured before the federation of the US states,

It started before that, sure. It very much continued after (into the 20th Century), and was a major feature of the post-independence westward expansion of the US.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#115

Post by mike_h »

yorwba wrote: post #105
FooBarWidget wrote: post #76

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports. One of his bl…

He repeatedly mentions Arabic as the local language instead of the various Turkic languages of the region, indicating that he most likely doesn't speak any of them, so he probably didn't have much interaction with less-educated people, who'd be the major targets of forced Mandarin education etc. So when he talks about people feeling safer now, is that representative of everyone in Xinjiang or just the people he chose…

He says he’s talking about the written language on signs.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#116

Post by ardy42 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #76

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports. One of his bl…

> Does anyone know why his report is so different, and why the government would just let him go whereever, unsupervised? Do people here believe that his report is genuine, or do people here believe that it's fake?

Honestly, I would expect the report of a tourist to be genuine but not reliable, especially when it comes to political stuff short of a devastating war. They'll probably be honest about what they saw directly, but probably won't find themselves "where the action is." They'd also lack the context and are poorly equipped to understand the larger situation, and are more vulnerable to being mislead. I'm reminded of all the times in my travel journals where I overgeneralized from a small experience or uncritically reported what some tour guide or random person said about something. They could have been lying, mistaken, or leaving something important out, but I lack the ability to tell.

Also, IIRC, the restrictions in Xinjiang are more around journalists and diplomats (that have different visas that subject them to more scrutiny).

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#117

Post by askl56 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #91
askl56 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives in SEA and used to live in China, he's able to move around because he lives in China and I assume has a long term visa and speaks Mandarin. And he is going with the blessing of the Chinese state media: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/12754321240702976... What he is saying does not seem remotely credible unless he has the evidence to back it up. I don't think he's completely making up t…

Didn't Global Times report on him long after he had already made the trip and blogged about it? Or are you saying: it's all one big scheme, planned way up front?

Given his Twitter feed looks like a Chinese diplomat's[1], I would assume he is part of the pro-Beijing influence network. I mean, why would someone dedicate 6 months of their life to convincing the world that something isn't happening which is reported on widely (even by some limited Chinese media)?

I have no idea if he is scheming with the the government or if he is simply trying to curry favour, but if you are a gwai lo (westerner) in China and want to get ahead for any reason (visas, job whatever), this is precisely what you would do. Whether its voluntary propaganda or paid propaganda, it's still propaganda.

edit: This is the kind of blatant propaganda I'm talking about: https://twitter.com/Jerry_grey2002/status/129826250774052044...

[1] - https://twitter.com/Jerry_grey2002/status/129669725507268608...

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#118

Post by yorwba »

mike_h wrote: post #115
yorwba wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He repeatedly mentions Arabic as the local language instead of the various Turkic languages of the region, indicating that he most likely doesn't speak any of them, so he probably didn't have much interaction with less-educated people, who'd be the major targets of forced Mandarin education etc. So when he talks about people feeling safer now, is that representative of everyone in Xinjiang or just the people he chose…

He says he’s talking about the written language on signs.

The written language should be Standard Mandarin in combination with one or more of Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Xibe etc. depending on the composition of the local population. They're written in scripts related to the Arabic script, but the languages themselves are very different.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#119

Post by ardy42 »

angio wrote: post #101
ardy42 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's definitionally a propaganda arm of the government. If you think that we're the good guys, then they're the good guys, but they're still propaganda. If it's propaganda, it's propaganda for western-style journalism and liberal values. The question shouldn't be "is it state sponsored or not;" it should be "is its reporting reliable or not." On that question, RFA's reporting on this topic has gotten the endorsemen…

> On that question, RFA's reporting on this topic has gotten the endorsement of the news pages of at least one top-tier American paper. While we like to consider the mainstream press as completely free and unbiased, I think it's fair to remind everyone that in the early 2000s all publications were parroting the US lie that Iraq was hiding WMDs. Something similar happened last year with the election in Bolivia and sub…

> While we like to consider the mainstream press as completely free and unbiased, I think it's fair to remind everyone that in the early 2000s all publications were parroting the US lie that Iraq was hiding WMDs. Something similar happened last year with the election in Bolivia and subsequent coup.

That's true, taking that observation too far leads to a quagmire or cynicism, paranoia, and/or ignorance.

If RFA basically has the problems of the mainstream press, then it's actually pretty good, since the mainstream press, despite its issues, is the best press we have. It definitely compares favorably to outlets like RT and Xinhua.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#120

Post by beowulfey »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #76

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports. One of his bl…

>You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?

I trust journalists more than some rando for starters. But even besides that, I have a much harder time believing statements made on a blog by someone with very obvious opinions over direct visual evidence of a clear ramping up of detention centers.

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