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China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

reuters.com

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Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#331

Post by lostlogin »

golergka wrote: post #282
apexalpha wrote: post #55

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…

> current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases You make it sound as if they were a part of aggressive expansion and colonisation, which is a bit misleading. Vast majority of US military bases are in NATO countries that were very enthusiastic about outsourcing protection from the soviet threat.

There are some bases that cause a lot of friction however. Behaving like they can do what they like is not in the US’s best interest. The latest rape saga in the Philippines comes to mind and the damage done by the 1990s rape of a child in Okinawa and it’s aftermath have damaged the US image. Also behaving like they are above the law, there was the appalling behaviour of the US military when a family member of a serviceman in the UK drove on the wrong side of the road, killing someone, then claiming diplomatic immunity to fly home. The base in Saudi has been the justification for some horrendous acts too. I’m not sure how you come up with a way of respecting people and their local laws whilst also having bases in places like Saudi, but the US can do better.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#332

Post by crocodiletears »

literallycancer wrote: post #320
crocodiletears wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US could just extract a few key TSMC engineers, turn its facilities into a crater, and back out. I don't think anyone wants to start WWIII with China over an exiled Chinese government living on an island that's less than 200 miles from the Chinese mainland other than an occupied Taiwanese people. I'm not even certain that the US could land a force in the area, given China's investment in defensive missile install…

Isn't their only carrier retrofitted Russian tech?

Yes, but my understanding of their defensive strategy for tbe south China Sea is largely contingent on their ability to saturate a carrier group's defenses with missiles and torpedoes, and then fire a few more in order to score kill shots (I unfortunately can't find the source where I read this).

It's a poor strategy for power projection, but theoretically it's a comparatively economical method of negating America's capacity to power project in the region.

Here's a National Interest article on the dialogue around it: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/aircraft-carriers-vs-...

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#333

Post by platinumrad »

literallycancer wrote: post #329
platinumrad wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it honestly probably would have been if the Central Powers had won WWI. American entry into that war was made possible the sinking of the Lusitania, which was secretly carrying war munitions. There is some evidence that the British enabled the event although this is admittedly a minoritarian view among historians (last I checked). It was undoubtedly beneficial for the Allied Powers though. The British Empire…

Yeah, life would be just peachy if half of Europe lived under the Germans or the Ottoman Empire. What? Why do people from large countries act like no one else exists? Would you like to live in a country run by someone who forces their language and culture on you?

What makes you think the Central Powers would have permanently occupied the nations it defeated when the Allied Powers did not? What makes you think Imperial Germany would have forced its language and culture on e.g. France when it would have been happy to simply install a friendly government?

WWI was not WWII. There was nothing uniquely evil about the Central Powers.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#334

Post by actuator »

platinumrad wrote: post #321
actuator wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I agree with the sentiment that US has a lot of soft power influence, I would argue that most of it is just US capitalism shining at its best. I think the best example of this is WW2 related content like movies. In France public perception of who won them World War 2 changed from Soviet Union in 1940s to US in 2000s. [1] One major difference in US soft power is, they don't censor media critical of them to an…

How is it an example of "shining at its best" when the Soviets made far more sacrifices during WWII only to be robbed of the credit in pretty much all western popular accounts. Yes, they were more brutal to those they defeated in many instances, but that doesn't diminish their military contribution. The US government doesn't engage in direct censorship like the Chinese government but it does have some power, in pract…

> How is it an example of "shining at its best"

Shining at its best, in terms of making a product that just sells well without the state taking much efforts at it. Like in case of WW2, they just made movies which glorify US's contribution at the expense of others, the product sold well because it was well made. So their role got pushed in the minds of people even outside US.

> How about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_(2017_film)

I read the synopsis, it doesn't seem like anything critical of their role in the war or need for it or their defeat. It talks about how they won bravery medals there and then it seems like a drama around love/work life.

Watch the Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns/PBS, that's the sort of media I am talking about.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#335

Post by blkmm »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #26
newen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'd want to whitewash Zenz as a Tibet-Xinjiang researcher when he is known to have said that he is on a religious mission against China. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-...

Ok, so maybe the Zenz quote is out of place - I don't know his history, but I don't know think you can disregard the government documents by discrediting Zenz, especially as Reuters explicitly says it's investigated and corroborated some of those claims. > Reuters corroborated Zenz’s findings and found additional policy documents, company reports, procurement filings and state media reports that describe the program.

> I don't know his history

Many redditors have revealed Zenz's background. Please see the second half of the comments (top ones are the typical "China Bad" ones)

https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ixjuq2/china_for...

What's interesting is that there is censorship in r/worldnews.

After many people exposed Adrian Zenz's background and history, this post with 4k+ comments and nearly 50k upvotes got removed from r/worldnews front page and replaced by a new one with The new one:

https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ixhd7x/china_sha...

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#336

Post by jariel »

ceejayoz wrote: post #325
golergka wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the reason to be in the camps. Breaking country's laws is generally viewed as legitimate reason to send someone to prison or camp, while being of a certain ethnicity is not. Of course, there's an issue of laws that are by themselves are morally reprehensible, like the Nuremberg laws in Nazi Germany. However, immigration laws are clearly moral and expected to exist in some form or another in any mode…

> However, immigration laws are clearly moral... This is not, in fact, universally agreed upon.

It's a question of civics - entering the country is illegal, migrants do that knowingly. FYI they can leave anytime they want, there is a 72 hour clearing process. They are detained due to a transgression of the law, much like anything else. Where we can disagree mostly is the nature of the incarceration etc. - but this is besides the point - China's detention of citizens, arbitrarily, due to their ethnicity or because they simply want to 'move them into another job' is not remotely comparable to the detention of citizens who have broken very clear and stated laws, and of course can leave said detention as they chose.

It's reasonable that some degree of moral relativism can be made WRT China, but on these threads, there is no such thing.

China's arbitrary incarceration of citizens based on their ethnicity is beyond pale, the President should be bringing it up at every occasion, and it should be a pillar of our relations with China, including trade.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#337

Post by platinumrad »

actuator wrote: post #334
platinumrad wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it an example of "shining at its best" when the Soviets made far more sacrifices during WWII only to be robbed of the credit in pretty much all western popular accounts. Yes, they were more brutal to those they defeated in many instances, but that doesn't diminish their military contribution. The US government doesn't engage in direct censorship like the Chinese government but it does have some power, in pract…

> How is it an example of "shining at its best" Shining at its best, in terms of making a product that just sells well without the state taking much efforts at it. Like in case of WW2, they just made movies which glorify US's contribution at the expense of others, the product sold well because it was well made. So their role got pushed in the minds of people even outside US. > How about this one? https://en.wikipedia…

The film is absolutely critical of the pointlessness of the war. Its most famous scene is of the PLA getting slaughtered in an ambush. Not everything needs to hit you over the head with a hammer like a documentary film.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#338

Post by spollo »

free_rms wrote: post #157
oxymoran wrote: post #105

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?

It's all lies. I used to believe this line of thought about China. "We aren't expansionist like the US, we just want to do things our way inside of the country". It's not true.

China as a unified country has never been as large as it is today. They are actively taking over parts of Nepal, they have taken pieces of land from India, they invaded and took over Tibet, the are nearing genocidal strategies to eradicate any semblance of culture or different-think amongst the Uyghur and people of Inner-Mongolia (bet you haven't even heard of that suppression! They have banned the Mongolian language in schools and nomads are no longer allowed to _ride horses_ as of a few weeks ago!). Not to mention what happened in Hong Kong.

If not for India, they would have already taken over Bhutan. If not for their fighting spirit, they would have tried to take over Vietnam. They are building islands and taking over the South China sea. They are practicing debt trap diplomacy in Africa.

They are the most expansionist, imperialist regime in Modern times second only to USA. Chinese people feed us this line, that they aren't expansionist, that they aren't imperialist, that they are only inward looking. For some reason we in the West take them at their word. Look at their actions, the picture is not so rosy. As much as I hate Trump, his pressure on China has been a welcome policy shift.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#339

Post by api »

adventured wrote: post #254
api wrote: 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.

The US no longer requires any oil from Saudi Arabia, they're now almost entirely incapable of harming the US with that formerly potent resource weapon in terms of shutting off supply (mostly what they can do to harm US economic interests now instead of turning it off, is to flood the market and damage US producers). For 2019 total US petroleum production (crude + petro products + biofuels) was 19.3m barrels per day (…

It's not about physical imports but about the price of oil which is set internationally. Oil is a global market.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#340

Post by baybal2 »

golergka wrote: post #287
api wrote: 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.

Two points. First, Ben Laden had ben persecuted by Saudi Arabia and had to flee the country. Long before the 9/11 attacks. Saudi Arabia was trying to get him. Second, supporting current regime in Saudi Arabia sounds barbaric and morally reprehensible — as long as you don't find out who's their internal opposition is. Surprise: it's not freedom-loving democratic westernised students. It's even more radical and aggress…

> First, Ben Laden had ben persecuted by Saudi Arabia and had to flee the country. Long before the 9/11 attacks. Saudi Arabia was trying to get him.

Which didn't prevent them spawning, and continuing support of hundred others like him.

What you say is conflating with something like "If USA took down NSDAP, Germans would still burn Jews, and even more of them." It is infuriating.

US must stop supporting Sauds, end of the story.

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