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“Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

economist.com

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Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#91

Post by VSerge »

Clewza313 wrote: post #81
yarcob wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are eventually being released from them According to what I've read, people in these camps disappear and are never heard of again. They sound a lot like concentration camps. Just because they aren't full blown extermination camps yet, doesn't make them any less despicable. The Nazi camps didn't start as extermination camps either, that was a gradual development.

Well, actually, I'm pretty sure an extermination camp like Treblinka that's purpose-built for killing humans is more despicable. This is also pretty much what the article is saying: excessive hyperbole cheapens the very real problem.

Excessive hyperbole, aka crying wolf, does make it less likely that if horror happens, it will be taken seriously. But this is not that. China has jailed over a million people from a single targeted ethnic group. Rapes, forced sterilizations, disappearances, etc have been happening and have been documented.

It is genocide according to the UN definition, which the Economist writer mentions and ignores blissfully, because of course they would know better. History repeats itself, and good people will continue to discuss semantics while others are tortured and killed.

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#92

Post by hkmaxpro »

loudmax wrote: post #66
skissane wrote: post #36

> Calling it genocide depends on a definition rooted in a UN convention which suggests that one need not actually kill anyone to commit it This article is ignoring the history of the word "genocide". It was coined by the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, during the Second World War, to describe what the Nazis were doing to his own people (and to others too). However, Lemkin himself never defined it so narrowly as…

The difficulty is that we need to have different terms for different levels of atrocities. Forced sterilization of an ethnic group is an atrocity. Mass murder of an ethnic group is also an atrocity. But they're on different levels. Both of these are crimes against humanity. Both are deplorable. But they're not equally deplorable. Both are bad, but they're not equally bad. Clearly, mass murder is worse than mass steri…

Why do we need another word?

The Genocide Convention of 1948 (a response to the Holocaust) specifically mentions “Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group” and “Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” in the definition of genocide.

https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/vol...

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#93

Post by pseudalopex »

lmz wrote: post #42
rvr_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judge de current situation by ethical standards of the present and judge historic ones with the eyes of those days. Eugenics was, once upon a time, seen like "good stuff" all around the globo, not anymore.

It sounds unfair. It's OK for these other countries to keep enjoying the benefits of eugenics they did in the past, but China can't join in? (same argument can be used for pollution)

What benefits?

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#94

Post by eecc »

draklor40 wrote: post #82
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reference to US political policy: the USSR was an enemy, and therefore everything associated with anything under a red flag[0] is evil. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_(politics)

Isn't the term `Red Scare` ? Strange that I get called out for mixing up names :) Anyway, Guardian, Economist, etc, doesn't really make a difference. They all write the same subservient way about China anyway \__(:-/)__/

Seriously, in what parallel universe do you toss The Economist and The Guardian in the same bucket. The only think they have in common is the article in the name

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#95

Post by yarcob »

Clewza313 wrote: post #81
yarcob wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are eventually being released from them According to what I've read, people in these camps disappear and are never heard of again. They sound a lot like concentration camps. Just because they aren't full blown extermination camps yet, doesn't make them any less despicable. The Nazi camps didn't start as extermination camps either, that was a gradual development.

Well, actually, I'm pretty sure an extermination camp like Treblinka that's purpose-built for killing humans is more despicable. This is also pretty much what the article is saying: excessive hyperbole cheapens the very real problem.

So as long as it's just sterilisations and imprisonment and forced labor camps and just a few murders for organs it's hyperbole to call it a genocide?

I don't get the point. Yes, they haven't reached the point of murdering by the millions yet. But its still a very worrying development.

We know from history what happens when people are accused of being asocial and are sent to work camps. It's happened before, and people didn't believe it, and it took decades for people to fully realise what was going on.

I always wondered why nobody did anything against the concentration camps, the doctors who killed patients, the mass murders.

I think people were either choosing to not believe it, or they were watching in terror, helplessly, relieved that they were not yet victims themselves.

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#96

Post by dirtyid »

karmakaze wrote: post #76
skissane wrote: post #36

> Calling it genocide depends on a definition rooted in a UN convention which suggests that one need not actually kill anyone to commit it This article is ignoring the history of the word "genocide". It was coined by the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, during the Second World War, to describe what the Nazis were doing to his own people (and to others too). However, Lemkin himself never defined it so narrowly as…

The salient point of Genocide (for me) is the intent not the means. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide 4.3 Genocidal intent ... 4.3.3 "A national, ethnic, racial or religious group" 4.4 Genocidal acts 4.4.1 Killing members of the group ... 4.4.4 Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Well if you go by UN (aka diplomatically actionable) definitions, by formally extending family planning uniformly to minorities which previously disproportionately targeted Han, China did not start genociding Uyghurs but effectively stopped genociding Han. Unless the argument is family planning is genociding everyone, in which case the primary victims are still urban Han. The verbiage trying to define Cultural Genocide makes more sense:

(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;

"Trying" because there's no official definition of cultural genocide at UN, hence the game by certain interests attempting to fit XJ into literal genocide box. If the matter is intention then no need to conflate sinicization with destroy, if only for the reason reducing 56 official minorities to 55 would ruin Xi's legacy. If PRC actually wanted to destroy / genocide Uyghurs, it could do so much faster and cheaper than spending 5+ years and trillions in resources. Enough time has passed that even warn torn Germany's rudimentary death camp infrastructure applied to XJ would have reached final solution by now. China is capable of doing what Nazi's did over years in weeks, but hasn't for the exceedingly simple reason that the goal is not to genocide.

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#98

Post by [deleted] »

Supermancho wrote: post #60
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> As would snatching the children of that group and placing them in families of your own group While these acts are unquestionably immoral, I don't think the ICE detention or transplanting children equates to genocide. It's not the same intent or effect. Eliminating "culture" is not the same as eliminating "people".

[deleted]

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#99

Post by lmz »

pseudalopex wrote: post #93
lmz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds unfair. It's OK for these other countries to keep enjoying the benefits of eugenics they did in the past, but China can't join in? (same argument can be used for pollution)

What benefits?

Increased unity, no need to consider minority demands. e.g. consider the Keystone XL pipeline. Would it be easier and quicker to build without the Native population being there to protest? Or consider the recent race riots in the USA, would such a thing even be possible in places without such diversity?

Re: “Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang

#100

Post by hkmaxpro »

dirtyid wrote: post #96
karmakaze wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The salient point of Genocide (for me) is the intent not the means. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide 4.3 Genocidal intent ... 4.3.3 "A national, ethnic, racial or religious group" 4.4 Genocidal acts 4.4.1 Killing members of the group ... 4.4.4 Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Well if you go by UN (aka diplomatically actionable) definitions, by formally extending family planning uniformly to minorities which previously disproportionately targeted Han, China did not start genociding Uyghurs but effectively stopped genociding Han. Unless the argument is family planning is genociding everyone, in which case the primary victims are still urban Han. The verbiage trying to define Cultural Genoci…

Read the whole Genocide Convention of 1948:

> 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.

Was CCP trying to destroy Han via the One-Child Policy? No.

Was CCP trying to destroy Uighurs via (b)(d)(e)? Arguably yes.

https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/vol...

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