421–430 of 456 posts
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…
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I agree, there is some nuance to the matter. I am partially sympathetic to the idea that this can be a way for people to lead better lives - in the modern, economic sense - instead of subsistence nomading. At the same time, China has, over the past several years, also demonstrated a trend of new behavior and a clear break away from a previous trend of liberalization that started with Deng. This push in Tibet should b…
I want to agree with you but I too am a bit out of touch (all the information is from friends). I don't like to defend the central gov but there is too much smoke and mirror to see through things. A lot of press reports genuine issues about China but also a mix of unverifiable information. I believe the local governance is actually improving. At central level it might be a very different story. However that said some…
My impression is that, aside from people who've studied abroad, Chinese youth today are more conservative and nationalistic than their elders. They've been fed only on a diet of domestic media with external news censored and have grown up only seeing their standards of living rapidly improving with China taking a more central role on the world stage.
The older generations, who suffered through the Cultural Revolution and then saw it end, and those who grew up during Deng's period are more likely to be liberal and sympathetic to the West. Even Jiang Zemin spoke English and liked Western opera.
But I think if you ask people of about any demographic, they will tell you Xi has changed the trajectory that China was previously on. The end of 10-year term limits demonstrated an objective shift towards one-man rule instead of an oligarchy where power was more diffused between elite factions.
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You are aware that most people know perfectly well how to use VPNs?
Well, the Great Firewall recognizes VPN packets and can decide to drop them, so you might not even be able to complete a login with the VPN server...
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It appears it’s mostly the language, interaction with various services and institutions, and skills necessary to get a job.
What language? If they have their own language, wouldn't there be plenty of jobs where they can just use their own language?
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Funny how you arrived at “forcibly” while there’s not a single proof this program is forced on anyone.
So China has a free press now to find such proof! How silly of us. This myopic, appeasement view of an authoritarian regime has been shown time and again through our history to not end well.
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Problem is, the concentration camps are just as real as weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
You are correct but not in the way you think. WMD were found in Iraq and the concentration camps are real. https://www.wired.com/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-contin...
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Now I know you are lying! The Qing dynasty was far larger than China is today; in fact, it included Bhutan: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Qing_dynasty_...
Please stop breaking the site guidelines. You've done it a lot, we've asked you repeatedly not to, and I do not want to have to ban you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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I see this a lot. There's a loss of confidence in the West, where people feel like you can't call out immoral behavior unless it's committed by another westerner or a western nation. This serves absolutely no one well. The fact that a country or civilization has past sins should not be a disqualification from taking a moral stand in the present. Some form of mild hypocrisy is vastly preferable to sitting silent while…
The problem is not past sins, its past sins that have yet to be atoned for. Conditions for Native Americans are still inexcusable up to this day.
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This statement smelled fishy to me as there are only 40M or so people in Iraq to begin with, so I Googled around a bit. Despite politicians and talking heads claiming for years that either Desert Storm, UN sanctions, or both caused half a million child deaths, evidently most studies found that the child mortality rate in Iraq was unchanged throughout the 1990s. https://psmag.com/news/the-iraq-sanctions-myth-56433 htt…
Whether or not there really were so many dead children or not does not change anything in Albright's statement. If it serves the goals of the USA, they are willing to let 500.000 children die.
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…
From our Western perspective? No. From the general perspective of any culture that values human life.
Your words are an empty restatement that mirrors what most officially sanctioned Chinese media reports tell us:
That we should not/legally cannot/morally cannot oppose or interfere with these atrocities.
I urge HN readers to very carefully judge empty statements such as the GP, because while it doesn't seem like it, it is actually attempting to persuade you to accept that absolutely nothing can be done.
And that is utterly wrong.