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

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251–260 of 316 posts

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

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of the western Chinese vloggers I used to watch a lot recently fled China after they caught wind that the authorities were looking for them for 'illegal journalism'

This vlogger, his youtube channel is Serpentza lived in China for more than 10 years now had no choice but to leave, otherwise he wouldn’ve been inprisoned or even worse: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nWgqdfAomVI

Thanks for the link, that's too bad. I remember watching his videos years ago. He seemed to really like living in China.

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

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreign journalists cannot even enter xinjiang and travel around freely without 24x7 accompaniment by a government employee escort.

If true, that's uncannily reminiscent of North Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inebLA3HqPo

https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/why-its-so-difficult-journ...

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/uighur-xinjiang.php

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

#253
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure about giving but you need a license/approval before you can interview someone. Many western youtubers came under scrutiny for it.

> you need a license/approval before you can interview someone [citation needed] > Many western youtubers came under scrutiny for it. came under scrutiny by whom? Their audience or CCP? Disclaimer: I'm a China national.

This comment is fascinating. It feels like it's written by GPT-3. It almost makes sense at first glance.

If you look at bgee's comment history, all the posts are about China.

> [citation needed] The police officer in the video said that in the video linked above. Mostly I'm curious what China's official position is.

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is truly remarkable how many replies in that thread consist of bad analogies, denials of clear third party reporting, and whatabout-ism.

Same thing happens here btw on HN. Since I just said something against HN, I guarantee this comment will get downvoted into oblivion.

yeah i commented about documenting the prc supporters enabling this to happen and I got downvoted and flagged!

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

#255
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah that makes sense, thanks. I was wondering how other western youtubers had channels full of interviews.

A couple of the western Chinese vloggers I used to watch a lot recently fled China after they caught wind that the authorities were looking for them for 'illegal journalism'

Oh, that's great to know. I didn't realize that was happening. Thanks for the clarification.

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

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too simplistic. Based on the generally available reports, and based on prior probabilities given the way this stuff has tended to work all over the world, I tentatively believe something close to this: There is forced re-education, forced de-radicalization, and forced political (and cultural) assimilation. One major motivation is probably to fight a (largely illusory) danger of widespread separatist violence. In fact…

This is the best post on this topic that has ever been written on Hacker News. Only nitpick (after a bunch of brilliant conjecture that basically 'scans' as far as human behavior, chinese society, and Xi's inclinations): The cultural revolution was completely out of control once unleashed -- this seems much more 'regular' as far as how it's being administered.

There was https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Seventh_Cadre_School during the Cultural Revolution.

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

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the buildings are very clearly used as detention centers. They've been confirmed by journalists, for instance. Not all are proven to be camps and just look like they could be. (I don't know why China would need so many guarded prison looking areas with thick concrete walls, but I'm sure someone could come up with a reason.) I was talking about the other two articles by Buzzfeed. They interviewed quite a few p…

I agree with your facts there, although "sinicize Islam" sounds awfully grand? In context with Western countries' reactions to militant islam, it's very different, different cultural norms, but it's hard to call it comparatively monstrous. What if it works? What we're doing in afghanistan clearly isn't working, despite the humanitarian cost..

The phrase Sinicization of Islam is Xi Jinping's, or at least the CCP's. It does sound grand and oppressive, especially when you consider that it is about more than just a considerate plan to minimize the threat of violent sects of Islam and includes stopping Islamic finance, mosque-run schools, religious Arabic-language schools, and more much worse as we've heard reports of (bits of which are reported in the articles). Sure, these traditions may be vectors for some particular type of violent Islamic ideas to spread, but they are also important parts of many's peaceful faith.

Of course, the CCP has never really tried that hard to pretend they don't see religion as a threat. I mean, it really is a threat to the CCP's ultimate power. And if one doesn't have cultural norms respecting a person's right to peacefully practice religion and traditions, then I guess one wouldn't consider forced re-education camps monstrous. But if one did, then I don't think it would matter if it "works". I won't try and justify American wars or reason about their effectiveness in preventing violence.

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's social media army is out in force on that Twitter thread. Deflect, Deny, Discredit.

It is truly remarkable how many replies in that thread consist of bad analogies, denials of clear third party reporting, and whatabout-ism.

> It is truly remarkable how many replies in that thread consist of bad analogies, denials of clear third party reporting, and whatabout-ism.

Those are the the typical tactics, and they're pretty bad at it, but it must be noted that there are several long-standing wumao accounts on here that will brigade on posts that are deemed to be anti-CCP. The jokes on them, as I couldn't possibly care less about fake internet points, but every time I talk about HK and the CCP its not long before I get into the negatives if the thread/post has high visibility.

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

#259
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need a license/approval before you can interview someone [citation needed] > Many western youtubers came under scrutiny for it. came under scrutiny by whom? Their audience or CCP? Disclaimer: I'm a China national.

> > you need a license/approval before you can interview someone > [citation needed] So it was stated by a police officer in the video above (I'm assuming it was a real police encounter and not staged, and that the subtitles are correct as he didn't say it in English).

That scene is at ~12:00.

For the record those police officers said people can't accept interviews without approval, which is obviously BS.

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

#260

There are various levels of reporting in about what's happening in Xinjiang. I'm curious which ones of the following people here on HN believe are true. A. There is forced re-education, forced de-radicalization, and forced political assimilation (to fight separatism). Some camps are indeed for voluntary vocational education, others are for forced re-education. The number of people who are forced into camps, are a lot…

Too simplistic. Based on the generally available reports, and based on prior probabilities given the way this stuff has tended to work all over the world, I tentatively believe something close to this: There is forced re-education, forced de-radicalization, and forced political (and cultural) assimilation. One major motivation is probably to fight a (largely illusory) danger of widespread separatist violence. In fact…

> No genocide is intended; assimilation is intended. The goal is not so much to erase any existing cultural identity as to make it subordinate to "Chinese" identity. That includes accepting a healthy helping of Han, but the people defining the goals don't see that, and think of it as accepting "universal values and pro-social habits". The intended assimilation would have the long-term effect of erasure and might meet the UN definition of "genocide"... but that's not really the purpose.

This makes me think of the Native American boarding schools in the US and Canada. They were fairly awful from a human rights perspective and did play a role in genocide, but like what you describe the idea was forced assimilation rather than explicit genocide.

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