Live data from Hacker News

China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

buzzfeednews.com

281–290 of 420 posts

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#281
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most job losses ever? Or highest deficits ever? Or highest unemployment rate ever? >Does that win anyone over? How can you blame Trump for that when the unemployment rate was the lowest in over a decade before 2020, and the job losses / fall in unemployment was due to lockdowns he didn't support? Overall the unemployment rate is much better in Red states, which have weaker or no lockdowns: https://www.aier.org/artic…

I think it's a bit unfair to blame him for the unemployment rate having gotten so high, but it is fair to blame him for how long it has lasted. If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now. Most jobs could have come back, especially if we had done something lik…

>If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now.

Then why haven't the Blue states that have been locked down for months gotten back to normalcy? Like California and New York? Why hasn't Melbourne gotten back to normalcy? Almost nowhere that prevented a first wave by shutting down has managed to avoid a second wave.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tacitly approving of them to Xi, according to Bolton.

Yes, because we should all listen to and trust John Bolton, one of the worst war criminals of the 21st century. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/politics/p...

I would sure be upset with whoever nominated him to join the National Security Council.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#283
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going down that route would backfire hard, unless you want to go openly for different laws for different people. I.e. how would you convince European citizens that it's right to sanction Chinese businesses that profit from prison labor, but wrong to sanction US businesses that profit from prison labor? Or ignore those Europeans ... how do you convince US citizens of it? Sounds like they're quite angry about the domes…

The Uighur people are imprisoned solely for being not in the right/approved (i)religious and ethnic group. It's like if Germany decided to imprison or expel Romanians because they're mostly orthodox East Europeans.

Yes, that's the argument, but I'm sure that the CCP will say that it's not accurate and they're imprisoned at a much higher frequency than other groups because of their behavior, not because of their ethnicity or religion.

The problem becomes more obvious when you look at incarceration rates in the US. Of course, the US says "that's not racist, they just commit more crimes". And we (as in "Western societies") tend to believe that because the alternative is uncomfortable. There's a pretty vocal movement in the US that disputes that claim and alleges that the fact that wealthy and powerful people profit from prison labor is responsible for a) the rate of incarceration in general and b) the differences in incarceration rates.

I don't know whether they are right, but once you start going down that route, you better be prepared to walk for a while. If you don't (that is if you treat the Chinese behavior different from US behavior), you're going to do more harm than good, I believe, because people will understand that your talk of human rights is just a weapon in economical/political/military conflicts, and not a principle you believe in.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#284
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's actions are targeted genocide. They're a completely different level of evil.

How many Muslims did China actually kill? I mean, what's happening in Xinjiang is obviously very concerning, however I don't think anyone has ever produced any evidence that a literal genocide is happening. Mass incarceration? Perhaps. Brainwashing? Maybe. Genocide? Highly dubious.

> How many Muslims did China actually kill? [...] I don't think anyone has ever produced any evidence that a literal genocide is happening. Mass incarceration? Perhaps. Brainwashing? Maybe. Genocide? Highly dubious.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II:

“genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

“Mass incarceration” with children forcibly transferred to boarding schools run by people outside of the group and “brainwashing”, together, seem to qualify for (b), (c), (d), (e), even if (a) is missing.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#285
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us don't have much power. I denounced it online several times, that's all I can do. People like Lebron James, who thinks of himself like a freedom fighter, when he criticized China he ended up saying he was misinformed and he wasn't educated about the issue. He loves the money coming from China more than anything else. I want him to be reminded by this. He put his millions before human lives, just like some n…

==He loves the money coming from China more than anything else. I want him to be reminded by this. He put his millions before human lives, just like some nazi collaborators did.== All of this could be said about our current President and his family. He has far more power than LeBron James, maybe we should hold him accountable?

What a weird take. Every administration before our current one appeased China despite their obvious human rights issues. This is the first admin to challenge the issue.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#286
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit unfair to blame him for the unemployment rate having gotten so high, but it is fair to blame him for how long it has lasted. If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now. Most jobs could have come back, especially if we had done something lik…

>If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now. Then why haven't the Blue states that have been locked down for months gotten back to normalcy? Like California and New York? Why hasn't Melbourne gotten back to normalcy? Almost nowhere that prevented a first wave…

Oddly, you failed to mention all of Europe. they have a lower unemployment rate than the US [1].

[1] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/unemployment-rate-in-eu-ris...

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#287
post #36

BuzzFeed News identified 268 newly built compounds by cross-referencing blanked-out areas on Baidu Maps with images from external satellite data providers Pretty cool. Trying to hide the facilities made them easier to find.

CCP always does such bad propaganda thing. Ironically Everything it tried to hide was always exposed fairly quickly, things it doesn’t hide turns out to be less known

The point of bad propaganda is your submission to it. Once they can get you to accept and then repeat the obvious, ridiculous lies, they have a foothold in your mind.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#288
post #150

It all started with the "July 2009 Ürümqi riots" and then escalated after the "2014 Kunming attack".

Can't really collectively punish a community for crimes of few, that's no justice.

I just wanted to provide some backgrounds.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#289
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Muslim minorities" line is a trope used in Western media for the last couple of decades, especially in the wake of more interest in the Muslim world following 1990s and early 21st-century Islamist terrorism, but it obscures the fact that many Uighurs are non-religious or outright anti-religious. China is pleased at this "Muslim minority" angle that the Western media and NGOs use, because it can spin oppression o…

Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Hui Muslims in Xinjiang are subject to the same policies; the thing they have in common with Uyghur Muslims is that they're, well, Muslim, and that Kazakh and Kyrgyz speak Turkic languages. Meanwhile, the Chairman of Xinjiang is Shohrat Zakir, an Uyghur politician and (of course) Communist Party member. Being non-religious or anti-religious is a good way for Uyghurs to make career in service of the…

What Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Hui Muslims have in common with the Uighur here is that they are fellow minorities from Xinjiang who were also subjected to Han domination only recently. Moreover, the Kazakh population is often seen as a fifth column due to a titular republic for their own people being located right next door.

Citing Shohrat Zakir is disingenuous. In the Soviet Union it was common for people to point to members of the ethnic minorities placed in official roles and say "See, there is no discrimination or oppression”, and the exact same phenomenon holds for contemporary China though it is much less talked about. But those ethnic-minority bureaucrats or politicians invariably made compromises: they did not particularly insist on using their own language in officialdom or defending the rights of their ethnic kin to do the same, and when they did publicly use their native language it was merely in the service of propaganda initiatives directed by the central government. But those Communist Party members who have insisted on the dignity of China’s minority languages and called for resisting Han assimilation have, as I said, suffered persecution for it.

The Uighur definitely have been independent-minded. Regardless of military collaboration with the Qing, the average Uighur would not have had so much exposure to Han culture and language until recent decades.

Re: China Built a Vast New Infrastructure to Imprison Uighurs

#290

Reposting the top comment on the article, was wondering what HN thought about this: ------------------------------------------------------ Godfree Roberts: We created terrorists in Xinjiang, just as we did in Afghanistan. They murdered thousands of Chinese and, now that China has them under control, we make up stories about them. US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman, Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of S…

For those of you who are downvoting this comment, it would be much more productive if you just reply and speak your mind here.
Post reply on HN