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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

#121

Post by wk_end »

jcranmer wrote: post #117
ygjb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quickly reading the treaty itself (you can too at https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreeme... ), I see this bit in 33(5)(c): > Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed [...] to prevent a Contracting Party from taking action in pursuance of its obligations under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security. Labeling an act as genocide and taking measures ag…

China would argue - reasonably if debatably IMO - that the situation in Xinjiang is “internal” and thus not an issue of international peace or security.

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

#122

Post by syshum »

thereare5lights wrote: post #67
reedjosh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 differe…

> Wow... Biden's stance is essentially it's a cultural difference. This is a prime example of how taking specific cuts of quotes can lead to wildly misleading conclusions. This is what he actually said: "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…

>>that the US has different cultural norms than China and that we don't condone these things.

No, what is he is doing is reassuring Xi that while he may have to speak out publicly about how many US Citizens will disagree culturally with china, rest assured that while He is president there will be no action.

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

#123

Post by triceratops »

saeranv wrote: post #29
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." "

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: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26254997

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

#124

Post by throw373782 »

duxup wrote: post #120
throw373782 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s no different than how the entire Western media establishment has been relying on one-off style testimonies pushing atrocity propaganda and basing almost their entire genocide thesis off of anecdotal evidence. You’re acting like it’s my goal or duty to convince you, which is not the case. You can choose to believe what you want to believe. My simple goal here today is to make the point that the US has a long trac…

I don't think you're required to provide me anything at all. >It’s no different than how the entire Western media establishment has been relying on one-off style testimonies pushing atrocity propaganda and basing almost their entire genocide thesis off of anecdotal evidence. I think you greatly misunderstand how western media operates. But that's not really surprising. I find folks who sympathize with non free states…

You are conflating my skepticism of the official US State Department narrative on China with “sympathizing with non free states”, which is quite telling.

> I think you greatly misunderstand how western media operates.

I definitely used to greatly misunderstand how Western media operates. I was naive to the extent that I believed the invasion of Iraq was necessary. Now I’m under no such illusions.

https://swprs.org/the-propaganda-multiplier/

https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/

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

#125

Post by dgudkov »

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.

>costing Canada billions

Sometimes you can't have both principles and profit at the same time.

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

#126

Post by macspoofing »

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…

That still doesn't explain why Liberal MPs voted for the resolution. Presumably Trudeau could have prevented them from voting, or forced abstention.

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

#127

Post by rob74 »

Ok... I'll play devil's advocate here: genocide (quoting Wikipedia) "is the intentional action to destroy a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part" - meaning physically killing them. What China is doing (forced reeducation, mass surveillance etc.) is of course worthy of condemnation, but calling it "genocide" goes too far in my opinion, and diminishes the real genocides of the past. There are enough holocaust deniers already (not to mention the other skeletons that countries like Turkey would like to keep in their closets). If this "Uighur genocide" is not actually as bad as it sounds, it'll make it even easier to say that the Shoah or other genocides weren't such a big deal either...

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

#128

Post by Mitzi »

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.

This might be a bit naive but doesn't a cold war by definition imply the possibility of it getting hot? Or in other words: Isn't a cold war that is impossible to get hot just peace?

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

#129

Post by monkeybutton »

dleslie wrote: post #119
jcranmer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quickly reading the treaty itself (you can too at https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreeme... ), I see this bit in 33(5)(c): > Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed [...] to prevent a Contracting Party from taking action in pursuance of its obligations under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security. Labeling an act as genocide and taking measures ag…

The tribunals are outside of the scope of the normal Canadian justice system and can act entirely in secret; there's no guarantee, really, that they can be counted on to agree that such a declaration is within the scope of that clause. We Canadians might not ever know how they ruled, if they ruled at all, and how much it cost us in total.

To me, an average citizen, this sounds absolutely insane. Why is there a need for such secrecy? How does that benefit us?

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

#130

Post by ygjb »

omginternets wrote: post #95
ygjb wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are overlooking the policies of child separation and forced sterilization. Read the sources in the article I linked to.
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