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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

#131

Post by free_rms »

ardy42 wrote: post #86
free_rms wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Comintern was merely meant to promote workers rights? 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.

> 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…

It's propaganda for liberal values as long as they serve the interests of the US. Allies get a pass, and liberal enemies of our allies will be criticized.

Bin Laden was a good guy when he was fighting the Soviets.

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

#132

Post by simonh »

gleapsite2 wrote: post #129
simonh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The section on separatism is unadulterated pro-authoritarianism. Examples of regions that have peacefully seceded from a nation abound. Norway from Sweden, Greenland and Iceland from Denmark, multiple states from the former Soviet Union. Scotland had a referendum on independence recently and though they chose to stay part of the UK, there was no threat or chance of violence. Freedom to seceded, or coerced union are b…

>The fact that the US has indivisibility in it's constitution is a weird historical wrinkle, and one I find hard to reconcile given that they chose to separate from Britain. How they didn't recognise a general right for self determination is beyond me. But then I am a Brit. This is incorrect. The US Constitution doesn't mention indivisibility [1]. The Tenth amendment provides some Rights to self determination: > The…

Yes that was an unfair dig, my apologies.

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

#133

Post by FooBarWidget »

duxup wrote: post #110
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…

Do we feel like someone riding a bicycle through a region would necessarily discover something about such camps? If I randomly traveled in any country would I know about these things? Would I know if I was "without government supervision"? I'm not inclined to believe that any given rando foreigner would somehow provide a good view of what is going on locally. I've traveled plenty, there's a ton I could not see / know…

Neither my point, nor his point, is "this guy didn't see it while cycling, so they don't exist". In fact, he has stated multiple times that he isn't denying existance of camps.

As for what his point is: you should read the full article, it's nuanced.

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

#134

Post by Grimm665 »

simonh wrote: post #96
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…

The section on separatism is unadulterated pro-authoritarianism. Examples of regions that have peacefully seceded from a nation abound. Norway from Sweden, Greenland and Iceland from Denmark, multiple states from the former Soviet Union. Scotland had a referendum on independence recently and though they chose to stay part of the UK, there was no threat or chance of violence. Freedom to seceded, or coerced union are b…

> The result is that the vast majority of official members of 'ethnic minorities' have virtually, or actually no connection with the ethnic culture, but get full say in how their 'minority' is represented and treated

Your whole last paragraph was genuinely interesting and not something I've heard of before. Do you have a source I could read for more information?

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

#135

Post by adventured »

mschuster91 wrote: post #69
adventured wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have very little effect, which is why it's not a primary threat now. Despite China's aims, their tech giants have made little headway in pushing their core businesses far outside of China. Huawei is the primary success story in that regard (the US has obviously been aggressively targeting them across the board). Baidu was supposed to conquer the world and defeat Google, it failed miserably and is largely jus…

> cut them out of the global system; that requires a widespread effort from the top several dozen economies, it can be done however. The problem is that many of the world's economies already depend on China - either as a source of cheap products or, and that is an increasingly successful threat, for money. China has been buying up, building or financing construction works especially in South Europe (Italy, Greece, Cr…

> The problem is that many of the world's economies already depend on China

No question. On point 2, it wouldn't significantly harm China by any means. The point would be to humiliate their power aspirations, as China has an intense desire to be respected as a global superpower, to be viewed as a peer with great powers, and so on. It's nothing more than an attempt at influencing China, to exclude them from the global order that they obviously want to be part of.

Isolation is a modestly potent influence weapon, even more so today than in the past. Russia / USSR for example suffered from an intense desire to be viewed as a power peer, they desperately wanted that recognition from the US (Khrushchev sought that out with his populist visit to the US). Authoritarian systems always seek that with a great degree of desperation (they know their rule by force is illegitimate, so they seek outside sources - typically more democratic sources - to legitimize them).

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

#136

Post by duxup »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #133
duxup wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we feel like someone riding a bicycle through a region would necessarily discover something about such camps? If I randomly traveled in any country would I know about these things? Would I know if I was "without government supervision"? I'm not inclined to believe that any given rando foreigner would somehow provide a good view of what is going on locally. I've traveled plenty, there's a ton I could not see / know…

Neither my point, nor his point, is "this guy didn't see it while cycling, so they don't exist". In fact, he has stated multiple times that he isn't denying existance of camps. As for what his point is: you should read the full article, it's nuanced.

I'm less concerned with the article than this strange idea that someone on a bike not seeing a thing ... means something relative to all the other information we have.

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

#137

Post by Lio »

adventured wrote: post #92
Lio wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, does this label apply to the United Kingdom or Canada? Why would it not? It's not like the head of state wields power in a parliamentary democracy. We cut the head off the last monarch to try that 1649, more than 100 years before either the French or US revolutions.

Why is the Queen involved at all in regards to Parliament? The spectacle with Boris Johnson and the Queen was quite a sad joke on supposed British democracy. So long as the Queen (royal family) has any political capabilities, Britain is a partial democracy at best. Realistically they're still a mixture of monarchy and democracy, as they have been for a long time. Although people certainly likely to pretend the royal…

Our democracy is evolved not designed by a politician. So it might not make sense if your not interested in pragmatic solutions.

The queen is NOT involved in the running of state. The affairs of state are managed for her.

She’s is reminded of this every opening of parliament when the door is slammed shut in the face of her representative, Black Rod.

This bargain has been the basis of a stable and democratic form of government for 371 years.

I see no advantage in having an elected “figure head” for head of state if they wield no power.

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

#138

Post by James_Henry »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #125
James_Henry wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's presenting a very blatant false dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma It could have not been on purpose, but it doesn't come off as a good faith desire to find out what people believe. I'm not sure how you can really, effectively figure out what specifically people think on this forum, especially because it very well could be the case that most people reading and commenting on this article…

Re false dilemma: You mean I got downvoted for not providing an option "E: other, please describe"? And just by lacking such an option, it comes over as bad faith? That seems rather excessive and cynical. Why is it so hard for people to just post a comment describing their opinion, rather than hitting downvote?

That's my guess. Also, I think there are some jumps in the severity of things in your examples that probably come off as bad faith.

Your list is not quite as bad as

A. Just helping the Uighurs, but maybe not in the best way.

B. Just killing all the Uighurs.

But I think a lot of people have issue with your list not considering the fact that there may be something between full killing/genocide and only some of them being killed (perhaps the more religious? the imams? those whose blood tests show they'll make a good organ donor?) and the idea of "demographic genocide"; or with your list not mentioning the fact that the brutality may not be policy but that it may be tacitly condoned; or your list not mentioning that it doesn't take obvious destruction of artefacts, buildings, or killing of imams to erase a religion or tradition and that it can happen in more subtle ways.

Many westerners grow up learning about the potential horrors of western imperialism and colonialism, and they are worried about the sinicization of Islam (and everything else).

I realize this comment may come off as rude, but I think that it is a real explanation of the downvotes. It's also important to realize that it's a lot easier for people to vote than to converse, especially when most people know about issues like this from headlines, skimming articles, etc.

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

#139

Post by simonh »

Grimm665 wrote: post #134
simonh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The section on separatism is unadulterated pro-authoritarianism. Examples of regions that have peacefully seceded from a nation abound. Norway from Sweden, Greenland and Iceland from Denmark, multiple states from the former Soviet Union. Scotland had a referendum on independence recently and though they chose to stay part of the UK, there was no threat or chance of violence. Freedom to seceded, or coerced union are b…

> The result is that the vast majority of official members of 'ethnic minorities' have virtually, or actually no connection with the ethnic culture, but get full say in how their 'minority' is represented and treated Your whole last paragraph was genuinely interesting and not something I've heard of before. Do you have a source I could read for more information?

It's really just my own observation and discussion with family and friends. We can see it happening.

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

#140

Post by yorwba »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #125
James_Henry wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's presenting a very blatant false dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma It could have not been on purpose, but it doesn't come off as a good faith desire to find out what people believe. I'm not sure how you can really, effectively figure out what specifically people think on this forum, especially because it very well could be the case that most people reading and commenting on this article…

Re false dilemma: You mean I got downvoted for not providing an option "E: other, please describe"? And just by lacking such an option, it comes over as bad faith? That seems rather excessive and cynical. Why is it so hard for people to just post a comment describing their opinion, rather than hitting downvote?

Obviously there are at least as many reasons to downvote you as the number of downvotes you got, but I don't think adding E would've saved you from any of them, since you'd still be the one preselecting A-D.

Maybe you thought it would be as simple as people replying "B" or "C", but nobody just picked one of the answers and you got a super long reply that must have taken a long time to type out. The effort for a quick vote vs. writing a comment is heavily skewed towards voting.

You got some high-effort replies to your question anyway, so maybe just ignore the low-effort votes.

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