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Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

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Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#51

Post by jcranmer »

dleslie wrote: post #23
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paywalled for me. Can you give us the gist of it?

TLDR: The Economist tries to argue that without death camps there is no genocide; which is false.

It's slightly more nuanced, arguing that referring to such scenarios as genocide lessens the impact of the term for the more murderous forms of genocide.

I don't agree with that viewpoint at all. Both forms are vehemently barbarous, and the world has enough problems with genocide denialism that engaging in technical arguments over the definition is only going to give more cover to denialists.

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#52

Post by 908B64B197 »

rhodozelia wrote: post #37
thesimon wrote: post #15

I am not sure what term is apporopiate for the horrific treatment, but I found the Economist's point quite valid. > By the common understanding of the word, it is not. Just as “homicide” means killing a person and “suicide” means killing yourself, “genocide” means killing a people. China’s persecution of the Uyghurs is horrific: it has locked up perhaps 1m of them in prison camps, which it naturally mislabels “vocati…

The prime minister of canada declared that canada had conducted a genocide against the pre-european inhabitants of the continent. It looks like Louis Riel's Metis revolt in 1885 was the last [0] real battle or war. The genocide Canada has declared they conducted was also not a violent slaughtering of people. So I guess they are in good company with the Chinese as soft-genocidaires? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

What about the Acadian peoples? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Acadians

EDIT: You can downvote all you want, it won't change what happened.

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#53

Post by meowing »

dleslie wrote: post #27
thesimon wrote: post #15

I am not sure what term is apporopiate for the horrific treatment, but I found the Economist's point quite valid. > By the common understanding of the word, it is not. Just as “homicide” means killing a person and “suicide” means killing yourself, “genocide” means killing a people. China’s persecution of the Uyghurs is horrific: it has locked up perhaps 1m of them in prison camps, which it naturally mislabels “vocati…

That's not valid; genocide is not simply death camps, it can be the purposeful and systematic erasure of a culture.

I took a course on this, and part of it was just arriving at a definition. One way to think about it is literally the name - genocide is anything that prevents future generations of that culture or population

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#54

Post by saeranv »

reducesuffering wrote: post #36
saeranv wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a huge Liberal supporter, but am disappointed by Trudeau's decision on this. I never thought I'd say this, but good for the Tories. The most generous interpretation I've heard is that Trudeau's government is currently engaged in highly sensitive talks with China regarding captured Canadians and couldn't afford to take a stance on this. Canada is part of the core UN group about to present a resolution in the UNHCR…

See the other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26254381 It's obvious realpolitik, the actual hard decisions that have to be made in politics.

Fair, but I don't think their decision ended up on the right side of history.

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#55

Post by loceng »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #9
nickff wrote: post #4

Interesting that the parliament went ahead with a vote, from which the 'leadership' (cabinet) abstained; I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. >"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and almost all of his cabinet colleagues were absent for the vote. Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau was the only cabinet minister present. When it was his turn, he said he abstained "on behalf of the Government of Canada." "

If they didn't abstain, China would likely respond with tariffs, costing Canada billions. They're also worried about the two Michaels, a couple of Canadians imprisoned in China that have been used as political pawns for the past few years.

Indeed, the response to the CCP must be multi-lateral to soften the blow for all involved nations.

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#57

Post by tibbydudeza »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #33

The liberals abstained but the far left like the NDP and Greens and the centrist conservative party all voted in favour. Overall, they would be included in voting in favour but abstaining was just politics. I think the reality is that it's not really genocide. It's not a holocaust in that sense. Rather than genocide, the reality is that it's Gulags. Communism basically can't function without some sort of forced labou…

Genocide is a bit of a hyperbole if you looked at what happened to the Jews/Cambodia under Pol Pot/Rwanda Tutsi's and Armenians.

It would call it forced cultural assimilation by taking away their religion , language and culture and making them conform to the dominant Han culture.

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#58

Post by reedjosh »

99_00 wrote: post #14

What's Biden's position on this issue?

"I point out to him no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn’t reflect the values of the United States, and so the idea I’m not going to speak out against what he’s doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uighurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One China policy by making it forceful … I said, and, by the, he said, he – he gets it. Culturally there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow."

My original thought: Wow... Biden's stance is essentially it's a cultural difference.

I think I may have misinterpreted.

I didn't originally catch "and so the idea I’m not going"

Edited for correctness. Thanks for others who posted the full quote. I couldn't pull it well from quickly listening to the vid.

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#59

Post by bigpumpkin »

99_00 wrote: post #14

What's Biden's position on this issue?

"I point out to him no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn’t reflect the values of the United States, and so the idea I’m not going to speak out against what he’s doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uighurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One China policy by making it forceful … I said, and, by the, he said, he – he gets it. Culturally there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow."

Biden talking about conversation with Xi

Re: Canada's parliament votes to label China's persecution of Uighurs as genocide

#60

Post by cbozeman »

federona wrote: post #45
abhinav22 wrote: post #2

Good to see a stand being taken. Hopefully allows for more pressure put on China to be more humane. Also I think there is too much us vs China going around - another war would be terrible, and even without a war, negative consequences could arise. One world should be the dream we aspire for.

There is no way to avoid another Cold War. A hot war is impossible. I am glad that the Soviet Union ceased to exist. I will be glad with China being contained. I will also be glad in a multi-lateral world where America does not go unchecked and can be held up by others to its ideals.

A hot war is most certainly not impossible. Just because nuclear weapons might be off the table doesn't mean conventional bombs aren't. And frankly, even nuclear weapons might not be off the table fully.

Desperation leads people to do strange things.

China really is a sort of "early 1900s Germany" stage, which is rather frightening.

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