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Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide

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

#311

Post by dependsontheq »

marksbrown wrote: post #232
dependsontheq wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no right way and ethical way to do things in the Middle East - there is just the weird unsolvable status quo and weird things the US or anyone else can do - which might not actually have an effect on anything. I understand the criticism but I never read a book that showed a path forward.

Nobody dragged the US into the middle East. Why is there anything to do beyond acting as honest broker diplomatically?

I'm european (English/German) I am quite happy that the US is in the Middle East...otherwise we all would have to be. I see no chance that the Middle East becomes a nice peaceful place between the Saudis, Iran, Israel and Turkey (all others are just puppets). I am not sure what an honest broker would do, I am not sure that anybody in the relevant parties wants an honest broker. No question there have been terrible mistakes that cost an enormous amount of human suffering. I am not quite sure that the situation would be much different in another world. If the US had not invaded Iraq...would Iraq now be a stable happy country? No, why would it be?

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

#312

Post by KDJohnBrown »

koheripbal wrote: post #234
yumraj wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole point - Muslim countries care about their self-interest over the interest of some muslims in Xinjiang. Some care about selling oil, some about economy and so on..

Why should they care more or less than the rest of us?

This bigotted comment is not welcome here.

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

#313

Post by vimacs2 »

yumraj wrote: post #189
underseacables wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t China’s relationship with Pakistan more about threatening India?

That's the whole point - Muslim countries care about their self-interest over the interest of some muslims in Xinjiang. Some care about selling oil, some about economy and so on..

While this is true, you could say the same for all the ostensible Christian majority countries that both refuse to acknowledge the Armenian genocide that was inflicted by the Turks and the current genocide in Yemen targeting both Shia Muslims and Christians in the region.

Point is pundits like Sam Harris are full of shit - Religion is only ever evoked when the ruling party's self interest and the regional interpretation of scripture align. Such pundits also ignore the inconvenient fact that many Muslim majority countries often have very old Christian communities yet the same is not true of Christian majority countries. I wonder why?

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

#314

Post by vimacs2 »

silexia wrote: post #306
tim333 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can give them hassle over it. I think the Chinese still want to be seen as honourable.

How about if we do the courageous thing and give them war till they stop? We are morally no different than Europe prior to Hitler's invasion; knowingly allowing the genocide of others as long as it didn't affect us.

Cute thought but it's never going to happen. Hitler was a moron who kept prodding the Allies with invasions that were creeping ever closer West. At that point, the third Reich had become an existential threat to the Allies. They would have never went to war over the plight of some Jews and other hated minorities.

China on the other hand manufactures much of the world's consumer goods and has strong trade ties with dozens of nations. It has also never invaded Europe and shows no sign of having any intention of doing so. It also has a large enough army and nuclear armament to completely flatten any European country that chooses to break from NATO and try to pick a fight with it by itself.

NATO nations sell arms and political support to countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel so clearly morality is not a priority here. The real reason why they keep political pressure on China is because it's a rival to the USA and it's (at least in it's own eyes) communist - which is worse than stoning women and gay people to death, and bombing children hospitals and practising apartheid in the eyes of Washington D.C.

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

#315

Post by api »

m0rti wrote: post #309
api wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not, but our psychopaths are restrained by a government designed to be inefficient and to frustrate tyrants. We just had an attempted fascist coup in the USA and it failed hilariously. The swamp is a good thing. It’s there to bog down tyrants in mud. Efficient government is dangerous.

Even though I agree with what you said in terms of internal politics, I think when it comes to geopolitics, things start to get much uglier and multiple times more cruel. And since this topic is about foreign politics, I don’t think the US is any better than China. An American might think different, but I’m not one.

The US is better than China internally, but I mostly agree that China is not substantially worse than the US in terms of foreign policy.

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

#316

Post by reducesuffering »

vimacs2 wrote: post #313
yumraj wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole point - Muslim countries care about their self-interest over the interest of some muslims in Xinjiang. Some care about selling oil, some about economy and so on..

While this is true, you could say the same for all the ostensible Christian majority countries that both refuse to acknowledge the Armenian genocide that was inflicted by the Turks and the current genocide in Yemen targeting both Shia Muslims and Christians in the region. Point is pundits like Sam Harris are full of shit - Religion is only ever evoked when the ruling party's self interest and the regional interpretat…

> Such pundits also ignore the inconvenient fact that many Muslim majority countries often have very old Christian communities yet the same is not true of Christian majority countries. I wonder why?

What? Muslim majority countries with old Christian communities are because Christianity spread widely in the Middle East after 0 AD, until 7th century AD when Islam came around. Of course there will be residual Christian communities there. But the Christian majority countries became Christian before 7th century AD and were able to halt the spread of Islam post 7th century (Europe), or the country was colonized after the fact by previous Christian countries (USA, South America) where Islam never made it.

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

#317

Post by dirtyid »

danShumway wrote: post #308
dirtyid wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be unambiguously good if the international community (including the US) held itself to a higher standard on human rights. Sure, then prosecute XJ for what it is, not what it's not. Use XJ as opportunity to formalize conventions and punishments for crimes against humanity and cultural genocide. The genocide strategy is not designed to do that, it's a reach designed to undermine China while explicitly not se…

> It's exaggerations and propaganda for theatre. What do you believe is being exaggerated? Do you think the 1st-hand accounts we have are lies? There's a difference between a semantic argument that says "we agree on everything except the word for this" (ie, the State department's disagreement that sparked this thread in the first place) and an argument that says "China isn't doing the things you say it is." Which arg…

>exaggerated

...

>official-condoned

Severity and scope mainly. Bad stuff happens as byproduct of program on this scale. My position is numbers and atrocities are exaggerated. GIS study reveals there's 1/3 of the camp as those used to extrapolate the 1M+ figures. Changing testimonies from the same usual suspects is text book atrocity propaganda. The claim it's officially-condoned contradicts leaked memos themselves instructing (relatively) humane treatment which corresponds with earliest testimonies which were tame but also did not move needle. Hence need for exaggeration. TLDR is XJ is an none-event in geopolitical terms if it's comparable to US prison or CAN indigenous reserves where bad things happen as side-effect of scale and power dynamics. They're par for the course hence need to exaggerate into something they're not.

> what their goals actually are.

Neuter human rights + atrocity propaganda as a valid geopolitical weapon, because it engineers dangerous frictions. Fallout from wars has more significant negative outcomes than cultural genocide. The double standards of fabricating greater evils inhibits raising rights i.e. XJ formalized as cultural genocide opens up meaningful tools for Indigenous ppls in Canada. Labelling it as something else absolves such duty. I endorse increasing international pressure on crimes against humanity / cultural genocide to scope where it punishes west and east for benefit and detriment of both. I also acknowledge that there's cynical geopolitical reasons why this is not happening. Finally, a proper reflection on cultural genocide would at least formalize the limits to state powers especially on topics like forced integration, there are so many messed up internal divisions / post-colonial borders keeping countries from prospering - forced integration has been a important tool for stability since time immemorial, we can try to constrain it to what's globally acceptable, or leave it as the current free-for-all.

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

#318

Post by adultSwim »

jariel wrote: post #56

The word 'genocide' is a little tricky, it kind of implies death-camps, at least in the popular imagination, I mean, the first basis of comparison I think for most of us is the Nazi Holocaust. A note below talked about the DoJ's concerns about 'proving genocide' etc. - it's besides the point. If they are putting 1M people in jail due to their ethnicity and doing this crazy psychological programming, it's bad enough,…

Do we have good evidence to support the 1M figure?

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

#319

Post by m9731526 »

yange wrote: post #174
_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…

Like a normal person, I'm against any inhumane treatment in any form against innocent people. These personal stories from these victims are most likely true. I feel sad and angry about what happened to them and would like to see changes. You know, even average schools in China looks more like a prison than actual prisons in the west. (Which remind me of this: https://www.schoolprison.com/ ) You will often find 8-12 s…

> the Xinjiang situation was mostly a response to the non-stopping terror attacks in the region for the last couple of decades.

How does CCP define terrorists? Do they show you how do they investigate then decide they are terrorists?

CCP can define any attacks as terrorist. In case it's a revolt against inhumane treatment, can they say they are under terroristic attack from CCP?

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

#320

Post by yellowcake0 »

api wrote: post #254
yellowcake0 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, are their psychopaths crazier than our psychopaths.

Maybe, maybe not, but our psychopaths are restrained by a government designed to be inefficient and to frustrate tyrants. We just had an attempted fascist coup in the USA and it failed hilariously. The swamp is a good thing. It’s there to bog down tyrants in mud. Efficient government is dangerous.

My intention was to point out the irony of Chinese nationals wanting to immigrate to the US, ostensibly because China is ruled by a bunch of "crazy psychopaths". When the reality is that the US is also run, at least in part, by a bunch of crazy psychopaths.

But my point was not well taken.

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