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Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

bbc.com

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Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#261

Post by snet0 »

yellowapple wrote: post #185
newacct583 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you whooshed on the point. Indeed, all those other guys were worse. And they're not here, and we are. China isn't the threat they're being presented as, they're just a convenient point of outrage for a demographic that craves outrage. In fact, if the upthread point had labelled the PRC the greatest threat to global freedom of the past three decades, then I'd be inclined to agree! But that's not what it said.…

> I think you whooshed on the point. I could say the same about your own grasp of the point; it doesn't seem relevant at all to bring up historical examples of threats to global freedom when we're discussing current examples of threats to global freedom - the PRC pretty unambiguously being one of them (and the US being another, to be clear).

The original commenter being replied to wrote "that this world has ever seen".

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#262

Post by mytailorisrich »

seattle_spring wrote: post #22

I work with a lot of folks from China and they are bending over backwards trying to defend the CCP. Their argument almost always boils down to "I know people who live in Xinjiang and they say it's not that bad." Equivalent to someone using their one black friend as proof that they can't possibly be racist.

The simple fact is that we don't know what is going on in Xinjiang and most of the reports in the West about what is allegedly going on there are by people who have a vested interest in making it sound as bad as possible or who likely have links with Western governments. On top of that very few people in the West know anything at all about China, its culture, and its history.

So, as a matter of intellectual honesty, I don't think it is possible to have strong opinion and to use extremely strong terms to describe the situation there as if that was fact.

That's really a common problem when information is withheld. On the one hand it obviously arouses suspicion but on the other hand it also allows over-the-top narratives and rumours to spread, and it is very difficult to separate facts from propaganda, from the other side's propaganda, from fantasy...

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#263

Post by agumonkey »

koheripbal wrote: post #251
agumonkey wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, with enough anecdotes we'll reach statistical significance

No, because anecdotes suffer from sample bias since they are self-reported.

You fail to see the 12 month of 24/7 presence on this site and interaction with all countries. To hell with stats.

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#264

Post by tim333 »

bildung wrote: post #179
_coveredInBees wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what are your thoughts on first-hand survivor accounts such as these? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071 https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/china-uses-rape-t... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/uighur-xinjian... These are real people. They aren't Western "plants", and it would be a pretty big conspiracy for them to all coordinate and "lie" about the things they detail…

The problem is that there are always examples where such witnesses or whistleblowers were planted by actors in the US, like Li-Meng Yan, a supposed whistleblower supported by Steve Bannon. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bann... Or the Nayirah case: "In her emotional testimony, Nayirah claimed that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubator…

>planted by actors in the US, like Li-Meng Yan

She isn't an actor. She's a bit of a conspiracy theorist type from Hong Kong on the Wuhan lab leak stuff. I'm not sure how that's relevant to anything much here beyond that it pays to check your sources.

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#266

Post by bingbong70 »

seattle_spring wrote: post #22

I work with a lot of folks from China and they are bending over backwards trying to defend the CCP. Their argument almost always boils down to "I know people who live in Xinjiang and they say it's not that bad." Equivalent to someone using their one black friend as proof that they can't possibly be racist.

US/UK were bombing these Uighur extremists/separatists just a few years ago. Now they are seen as useful pawns in the trade/economic war with China, so the genocide narrative gets mainstreamed by the usual suspects (the same ones that tried to hide the fact that we (US/UK) were arming/training/funding ISIS and visiting Uighur/Turk terrorists in Syria).

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#267

Post by _-david-_ »

Bakary wrote: post #242
_-david-_ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By 'this statement' do you mean mine or the person I was responding to?

The former. The proposition is a hard sell on a purely logical basis ("if you don't freedom correctly, we'll freedom you ") but also in its broader context. Western nations have made great innovations in empire building and genocide from the Opium Wars to the camps, have destabilized a large number of governments, created the threat of nuclear annihilation, then lecture other nations after only a few decades of liber…

I consider any genocide, opium wars, etc to not be western values. While the west did do those things I do not think they are in line with the values I think should be wide spread.

I think an apt comparison would be members of the military being charged with conduct unbecoming. Just because a member of the military does something bad doesn't mean that those are the values of the military. Just because the west has done some bad things doesn't mean those are western values.

Western values are freedom of speech and religion, not imprisoning political opponents or ethnic and religious minorities. Along with the ability to do most anything you want with relatively low amount of restrictions. There are more things that would be considered western values but I think you probably understand what I mean by western values.

Western governments are comprised of people. These are people who are flawed and do not always do the right thing, but that doesn't mean there aren't ideals worth spreading.

We have Biden and others who say that China is just following different cultural norms. If enslaving people is part of a country's culture and value system then we should try to push the western values onto them.

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#268

Post by dragonwriter »

_-david-_ wrote: post #267
Bakary wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The former. The proposition is a hard sell on a purely logical basis ("if you don't freedom correctly, we'll freedom you ") but also in its broader context. Western nations have made great innovations in empire building and genocide from the Opium Wars to the camps, have destabilized a large number of governments, created the threat of nuclear annihilation, then lecture other nations after only a few decades of liber…

I consider any genocide, opium wars, etc to not be western values. While the west did do those things I do not think they are in line with the values I think should be wide spread. I think an apt comparison would be members of the military being charged with conduct unbecoming. Just because a member of the military does something bad doesn't mean that those are the values of the military. Just because the west has do…

> I consider any genocide, opium wars, etc to not be western values.

Well, yeah, if you just arbitrarily define things that the West actively prioritized as “not Western values” because it doesn't fit the mythology you want to create of the West, then you can make any argument you want.

In reality, “Western values” are in deep conflict with themselves because the West is not, and never has been, even loosely ideologically coherent, much less ideologically consistent over time.

Are “freedom of speech” and “freedom of religion” Western values? Sure, but so is imprisoning, persecuting, and even exterminating religious, ideological, ethnic, and racial minorities, especially ones which refuse to assimilate the dominant culture. If you ignore the evidence that the latter has been, and remains today, a prominent value in the West in favor of mythologizing the former as the exclusive set of defining Western values in this domain, you won't understand either the actual West or the way the rest of the world responds to the West.

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#269

Post by nashashmi »

koheripbal wrote: post #249
nashashmi wrote: post #27

The credibility is in the statements of the Chinese that both deny and defend the practice.

No. The credibility comes from the actual evidence provided.

True. But evidence is also given by the perpetrator through denial and accidental confirmation.

Re: Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

#270

Post by tourist_ »

cambalache wrote: post #258
tourist_ wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between authoritarian and democratic states is that CPJ wouldn't exist in authoritarian states. The very existence of a report which documents the actions against journalists wouldn't exist in authoritarian states. How hard is it to understand this ?

Even the most authoritarians of the states have inside groups who oppose them (from the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, to Saddam in Iraq, to Putin in Russia, to Trump in America), the groups can be more or less tolerated in function on how dangerous they are perceived. See the treatment of the black panther movement and the communist party in America. The narrative is created by powerful people usually with in…

Yes, an attempt is always made by powerful forces to create a narrative. But with CCP (or any successful authoritarian governments) there is no "alternative" view point at all. They are always right, and make no mistakes. I haven't and won't claim that Israelis are any better, but CCP does it against their own citizens time and again (Tibet) and CCP apologists, shills come out with "Everyone does it. There is no free press!" arguments. Yes, the state attempts to create a narrative, but authoritarian governments can hold on to a given narrative indefinitely, while democracies can potentially change policies over a period of time.
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