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China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

reuters.com

231–240 of 456 posts

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#231

It has been sad to learn about the U.S. fighting fires in CA with prison labor. It is sad for a number of reasons, but in situations like this it removes moral standing of the US to criticize others, because clearly there is little introspection happening. The US houses 25% of the world’s prison population, how much more law and order do we need? Why do our prisoners labor for our governments and companies? Is this f…

Some things never change, such as using tu quoque fallacies to distract people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

> "And you are lynching Negroes" (Russian: "А у вас негров линчуют", A u vas negrov linchuyut) (which also means "Yet, in your [country], [they] lynch Negroes") and the later "And you are hanging blacks" are catchphrases that describe or satirize Soviet Union response to United States criticisms of Soviet human rights violations.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#232
post #199
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar to our reluctance to criticize Saudi Arabia even when there are links between their upper crust and the largest terror attack ever on American soil. Saudi Arabia is still one of the largest oil spigots with the easiest ability to turn that spigot on and off and therefore set global oil prices, so we don't dare offend them.

US policy has been moving towards energy independence from Bush, Obama, and through Trump. We're pretty much there now, OPEC can't drive up prices without US shale producers ramping up production, sharply limiting their control.

The US is essentially part of OPEC now already. They legally can't be without going through congress, so they just called it OPEC+.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was reading an account from the Roman Empire about parents begrudgingly using the imperial language while their kids grew up completely “Roman”. Then I reflected that if you go back far enough we all have a great^N parent who was in this situation. Someone else in their reply mentioned Hawaii and the US but even Hawaii was unified by force by King Kamehameha. I’ve come to an uneasy acceptance of the fact that we’re…

"I’ve come to an uneasy acceptance of the fact that we’re all the conquerors and the conquered." We all have to accept the past. We don't need to accept that the future will be the same. There are many ways that different areas and cultures can share an assimilate. Trade, travel, multilingualism, federations, mutually-agreed democratic annexation, shared constitutions, diplomacy, immigration, intermarriage, etc. Coer…

It's interesting that you mention immigration and intermarriage because if your press Tibetan and Uighur activists, or look at their more private communications rather than their press releases, miscegenation is frequently at the forefront of their concerns (as tends to be the case when a predominantly male group perceives itself to be losing status, e.g. poorer white men in the west). Outside of the wealthy cosmopolitan west, views toward intermarriage tend to be extremely illiberal.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#235

The whole Tibet situation is such a horrible one. From our Western perspective it feels so wrong that they're essentially trying to extinguish an entire culture and 'fitting' it into China. But we also can't say anything because China makes all our stuff. Plus, China isn't going to be impressed when the old Imperial continent with 140 ex-colonies and the current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases are go…

It feels wrong but it’s also how pretty much every culture got to be the way it is. Why do I have an Arabic last name even though I was born 3,000 miles away from the Middle East? Because 800 years ago an Islamic empire conquered India and Bangladesh. Why do Bangladeshis wear powdered wigs in court? Because the British conquered them 500 years after that. The British themselves are the product of numerous waves of conquest: Angles conquering the Pictish, Saxons conquering the Angles, Normans conquering who by now were Anglo-Saxons.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#236

Tibetan history, like Chinese history, is complicated. On the subject of Tibetan assimilation: what most people think of Tibet - that is the current Tibetan autonomous region of the PRC - is actually only about 1/3 of what many Tibetans would call "Tibet." What is culturally and ethnically Tibetan actually stretches across Qinghai province, as well as large swaths of Sichuan, and part of Yunnan and Gansu. If you go t…

"What is culturally and ethnically Mongolian actually stretches across the Middle East, as well as large swaths of Russia and Europe." It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims.

The point is these areas are still pretty actively Tibetan today, not just historically.

Is there a contiguous region stretching from Mongolia deep into the Middle East and to Europe where a high percentage of the population (like a quarter or more) speaks Mongolian as their native language?

I know that might be true for a small area surrounding Mongolia in Russia, but I think the comparison stretching into the Middle East and Europe is not accurate.

Qinghai is still almost a quarter Tibetan (a percentage that has probably been consistently shrinking in recent history due to migration) and is almost as large, area-wise, as the formal Tibetan autonomous region.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#237
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US policy has been moving towards energy independence from Bush, Obama, and through Trump. We're pretty much there now, OPEC can't drive up prices without US shale producers ramping up production, sharply limiting their control.

Jimmy Carter would like a word with you.

What would those words be?

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think they will stop with Tibet? The CCP wants China to be the new world hegemony. They think that their illiberal system is the only way and they want to spread it to every corner of the world. War is not the answer because it would be inconceivably horrific. But the world needs to stand up to China and stop putting up with their crap. Stop buying their crap. Start calling them out for their imperialism.

Citation? The US has a record of wanting to be hegemon and specifically wanting to export our ideology. China, not so much outside of their borders and immediate sea lanes. Are you just assuming they want to do so because that's what we do?

That's easy if you just unilaterally decide that anything you want is an "inalienable part" of your territory regardless of cultural, linguistic, historical, etc. differences. To say nothing of the local desire to be part of that inalienable territory and ruled by the CCP.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#239
post #18
post #10

Han supremacy has all the markings of other supremacist movements and will unfortunately need to be confronted. Not sure when the world will work up the courage to do so, though.

Not until China stops manufacturing everything, and I'm thinking by then it will be too late.

It just takes organization, multi-lateral trade agreements. Unfortunately it may be too late for those the CCP has within their borders and perhaps those within arm's length, however it won't be too late to protect the CCP from successfully expanding and taking over the rest of the free world.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#240
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> if you go back far enough we all have a great^N parent who was in this situation. 'Everyone is a victim' is a cop out. The fact that some ancestor of mine was probably conquered by vikings doesn't mean that I shouldn't criticize china for doing the same thing today. Nor do I feel like a conqueror because some other ancestor was one of those vikings. Look to the deep past for lessons. Don't point to the deep past a…

Not to mention, China can’t seem to stop at simply owning the land, they want to wipe these regions and people of their culture and heritage.

Why the downvotes? Is the CCP lurking here too?
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