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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

#91

Post by ygjb »

omginternets wrote: post #80
ygjb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are incorrect. The legal definition of genocide under the UN, and recognized as international law by ratified signatories is discussed here. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml The reality is that child separation, sterilization, and the acts taken by the Chinese government to destroy Uigher connections to their cultural history meet the definition. Genocide isn't just about killing people, it…

You are mistaken. In fact, your link quite clearly supports my position (namely: that intent is key): >In the present Convention, 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: [...] (Emphasis mine)

I don't know what point you are trying to make; the intent is key, but the intent is clear. The Chinese government is targetting the Uigher people and their supporters with the intention of destroying the Uigher cultural identity.

The Chinese government is doing all of these things to the Uigher people, and I am not going to replicate the exhaustively cited information that is summarized in the article[1] below to support each individual claim. I recognize that Wikipedia articles may have bias, but the bulk of the citations in that article are from recognized news sources.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide

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

#93

Post by cyberlurker »

inglor_cz wrote: post #82
jonathannat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

One of our dirty secrets is that we in the West improved our own local environment by shipping off all the polluting industries to somewhere else, preferably overseas. While all of your points are valid and I believe we should stop being deferential to China (including on topics like Taiwan), their pollution is our pollution, too, at least partly so.

Agreed and per person the Chinese actually pollute less than Americans.

Same with NYC vs all of Nebraska. Per person, sure NYC is very low as most of the 8 million citizens use public transportation. But the number of trucks and busses bringing people and goods into the city still results in a huge amount of pollution. Also the heating and cooling for buildings that are hundred+ years old or super tall structures.

In comparison, Nebraska has a small population but they have a thing for trucks and no subway. Less pollution overall but more per person.

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

#94

Post by dilap »

They're using "genocide" in the same sense of the word as people who allege "white genocide", i.e., to mean that policies are reducing fertility of a certain demographic.

Specifically, they allege:

> the use of arbitrary detention, political re-education, forced labour, torture and forced sterilization

The traditional, dictionary definition of genocide is "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group".

To use genocide in this other sense seems to me disingenous; it's an attempt to invoke the strong emotional reaction we have to mass-killings when that is not what is alleged to be ocurring.

It is, in a sense, fake news: many people will see just the headlines, and assume that China is in fact carrying out vast, demographically targeted killings.

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

#95

Post by omginternets »

ygjb wrote: post #91
omginternets wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mistaken. In fact, your link quite clearly supports my position (namely: that intent is key): >In the present Convention, 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: [...] (Emphasis mine)

I don't know what point you are trying to make; the intent is key, but the intent is clear. The Chinese government is targetting the Uigher people and their supporters with the intention of destroying the Uigher cultural identity. The Chinese government is doing all of these things to the Uigher people, and I am not going to replicate the exhaustively cited information that is summarized in the article[1] below to su…

>The Chinese government is targetting the Uigher people and their supporters with the intention of destroying the Uigher cultural identity.

This is begging the question -- what are those things that reveal the intent to eradicate?

We both agree that Uighur's are being specifically targeted, of course, but the Wikipedia article is weaseling in the "cultural" qualifier, i.e. "cultural genocidie". That's a comparison to genocide. I still don't see clear and compelling evidence of intent to eradicate.

Evidence of intent to torture? Yes.

Evidence of intent to marginalize? Yes.

Evidence of intent to harvest organs for the benefit of others? Yes.

Evidence that Chinese policy wishes to remove the people from existence? I could be convinced, and it wouldn't surprise me very much, but the evidence is unclear.

What am I overlooking?

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

#96

Post by [deleted] »

jonathannat wrote: post #49
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.

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by 1MachineElf »

ygjb wrote: post #62
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." "

It's pretty straightforward; from 2012-2015 the previous government, led by Stephen Harper (Prime Minister), and in partnership with Erin O'Toole (at the time Parliamentary Secretary with oversight over International Trade) negotiated a trade agreement with China [1]. Under this treaty, if the Canadian government takes actions that damage or undermine Chinese investment in Canada, then Chinese companies can sue Canad…

Sounds like somewhat the TPP. I wonder what in the trade agreement made this a worthwhile compromise.

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

#99

Post by gruez »

dleslie wrote: post #13
kareemm wrote: post #11

This is largely a (smart) political move by the opposition right-wing party. Canada is embroiled in a political issue with China right now. They're holding a Huawei exec named Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US, who are investigating Huawei for violating sanctions against China[1]. China retaliated by arresting two Canadians without apparent cause[2]. They're been in jail for two years. The Conservative party put…

It's supported by the NDP, Greens, and Bloc as well. In fact, it was all Yay and Abstains.

>it was all Yay and Abstains.

not surprising. Voting nay would be political suicide.

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

#100

Post by throw373782 »

duxup wrote: post #75
throw373782 wrote: post #68

[flagged]

>Uyghurs (mostly on Chinese social media) pushing back against the charge of “genocide” by US politicians and Western media. Some of them are even laughing at the absurdity of it. I see these kind of strange examples posted. Like you posted, and others usually involve travel stories where the person was supposedly in the region and "didn't see anything". The general idea here is that the oppression has reached the le…

> Is "laughing at the absurdity of it" supposed to convince people of something?

Look, no one can convince someone of something when they are hellbent on seeing things in a certain light. I’m sure if you look hard enough, you can find some Uyghur somewhere in those videos blinking out “HELP ME” in morse.

But if Westerners are hyperventilating over Uyghur genocide while thousands of actual Uyghurs living in Xinjiang are making videos laughing at the allegations, don’t you think there’s something wrong with that picture? Rhetorical question.

Here’s another great channel from an Uyghur Vlogger showing everyday life in Xinjiang (she posts on Bilibili but her fans have been reposting to Youtube). Nothing about that screams genocide to me, sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KvC89nKCHo

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