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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

#171

Post by free_rms »

askl56 wrote: post #83
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…

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…

I've been to China numerous times, my Mandarin sucks, I stand out, and I went wherever I wanted. Didn't try to go to Xinjiang, admittedly.

There's paperwork that says you have to check in with local authorities wherever you go, tell them what hotel you're staying at, and all this other stuff, but nobody actually does it. If you caused trouble, it'd probably be held against you after the fact is all.

There's no reason to assume this guy is some kind of agent because he had freedom of motion. He probably liked all the people he met, sees lots of ignorant anti-China commentary on the English internet, and is pushing back (perhaps too strongly).

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

#172

Post by refurb »

tomaskafka wrote: post #123
Razengan wrote: post #8

Speaking of maps, I've always wondered what's in that huge, mostly-unlabeled region that is more than half of Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Russia It looks like it could comfortably fit a few countries and then some. Even when watching history documentaries there's a period where Russia is basically a thin strip at the western edge of its current territory, before suddenly and inexplicably blowin…

Taiga. And yes, that's where USSR internment camps and gulags used to be, for same out-of-sight reasons as they are in China.

I wish I could find it, but there is a Wikipedia article on a railway spur in that region. If I remember correctly it was mostly built with gulag labor and it lasted a few years at most before it fell apart due to the climate and terrain (not solid ground).

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

#173

Post by magicsmoke »

me_me_me wrote: post #142
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…

> 1) Cut them off on technology Google Rare Earth metals producers [0] Do you really want to enter who will starve first competition? [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268011/top-countries-in-...

China dominates rare earth metal production not because they have a monopoly on extraction technology or deposits, but because rare earth extraction is an extremely polluting process that developed countries no longer do. If China did restrict exports of rare earths, they're just providing an opportunity for mines like Mountain Pass in California to start production again.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/23/18637071/rare-earth-china...

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

#174

Post by panpanna »

free_rms wrote: post #166
fqye wrote: post #161

If they were actual camps, can someone explain why they were all empty? No cars, no trucks, no detainees, no guards at all? To supply and run a crowded camp, you need guards and logistics. Nothing there. Nowadays, researchers could easily obtain satellites images showing actual activities with all those clues. Just by looking at the images, it not possible to draw conclusion they were concentration camps. They could…

It's a tough issue because it's hard to give the Chinese government credit for lack of evidence when they're not letting journalists in in the first place. I looked into it a year ago and the strongest evidence I found at that point was two dudes drove around and took pictures of a bunch of facilities that looked like re-education camps. They guesstimated 100k-1M, one news article wrote "a million", then the rest of…

Does it matter if it was 100k or 1M??

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

#175

Post by glenstein »

ardy42 wrote: post #154
FooBarWidget wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think he’s spreading propaganda. Ok, fine. But I have issue with you saying “that which is reported widely”, as if the other side is entirely honest and truthful. In reality, both sides are distributing propaganda. I fear that, although you are skeptical of Chinese propaganda, you fail to recognize or be skeptical of Western propaganda at the same time.

> But I have issue with you saying “that which is reported widely”, as if the other side is entirely honest and truthful. In reality, both sides are distributing propaganda. I fear that, although you are skeptical of Chinese propaganda, you fail to recognize or be skeptical of Western propaganda at the same time. You're making a false equivalence by oversimplifying things into symmetrical "sides." The Chinese state-o…

Thanks, I was going to mention this too. I think there's an important skill that people fail to develop when they fall for propaganda, and it's the inability to calibrate appropriately for degrees of bias. Instead, all sources are 'biased' and regarded as equally untrue as one another. In my experience, if you try and communicate this, you can't get anywhere.

For an example I recently experienced, I was confidently informed by a redditor that Infowars and Common Dreams are equally biased sources, and there's a deficit of critical thinking there that I just don't know how to communicate to someone. It's also common with believers in the fake news trope - it's not wrong that there's media bias, but that gets used as an excuse to equate mainstream media outlets to those that traffic in conspiracy theories.

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

#176

Post by free_rms »

panpanna wrote: post #174
free_rms wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tough issue because it's hard to give the Chinese government credit for lack of evidence when they're not letting journalists in in the first place. I looked into it a year ago and the strongest evidence I found at that point was two dudes drove around and took pictures of a bunch of facilities that looked like re-education camps. They guesstimated 100k-1M, one news article wrote "a million", then the rest of…

Does it matter if it was 100k or 1M??

It matters it it's mandatory job and language training vs ethnic cleansing or genocide. There's evidence for the former, none for the latter. And a paternalistic "we'll end this unrest by educating them" attitude would be pretty on-brand for the Chinese Government.

Also, yes, quantity matters. How many do we have in jail on bullshit charges? It would be nice to be less, right?

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

#177

Post by wh1t3n01s3 »

jessaustin wrote: post #162
dragonwriter wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

USA's Pacific Ocean imperialism was never really distinguishable from its Western America colonialism. The same racist bastards (as in, the same actual army personnel: Jacob Hurd Smith, Leonard Wood, Blackjack Pershing, etc.) who killed lots of indigenous Americans also killed lots of indigenous Filipinos. The Bud Dajo Massacre was similar to that at Wounded Knee sixteen years earlier, except probably more diabolical…

Let’s not forget the kingdom of Hawaii

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

#178

Post by DrAwdeOccarim »

gumby wrote: post #170

This was supposedly a problem with a stealth ship designed by Lockheed’s “skunkworks”: against the choppy noise of waves and swell, a blank spot (of no radar return) stood out dramatically.

Cool! Do you have a link?

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

#179

Post by amaccuish »

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…

> https://medium.com/@jerry_grey2002/abc-four-corners-tell-the....

Thank you for that really insightful blog post. A very thorough takedown of that poor documentary.

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

#180

Post by partiallypro »

I'm still baffled that some people, even here, think this is all made up propaganda from the West. Despite tons and tons of evidence. Kind of reminds me of how it must have been with people in denial about the early Nazi concentration camps, and Holodomor. I'm not saying this is as brutal as what the Nazis did (at least as far as we know,) just drawing parallels to the pure denialism or marking it up as pure exaggeration.
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