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

This website and its mods are a joke.

When I posted about two countries pressuring tech companies into silencing oppressed communities (including one country credibly accused of genocide) [1] it was flagged for being “political”.

But China bad. Whatever fits your agenda I guess. Goodbye.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26117559

The overlooking of certain behavior never was justification of the the same behavior on other occasions.

The dilemma faced by China and the West, regarding their ways of life, is that they are operating on 2 systems that are different down to a very fundamental level.

In short, China and the West have different values.

The sad thing is that outside of China and the West, there are actually more people being entirely left out of the discussion. And neither have the universal systems and resources to bring these people out of their suffering.

Til this day, China's treatment on Uighurs are still highly secretive. That leads to the claim of internment of 1 million Uighurs become a superficial paly thing by both sides:

* China certainly are very content that no domestic instability because that 1 million figure is obviously not trustworthy to Chinese people. (Note that there is no way to verify the truth, as that's CCP's tactic all along; there is always the national security card prevent any forceful international investigation).

* The West are also very comfortable because they can outrageously condemn CCP for various political objectives. Do they really care about the 1 Million Uighurs? Obviously yes, but probably is behind a long list other concerns.

This dilemma (or pleasant situation if we think about it as a whole) is a reflection of the incompatibility of 2 systems. It is a clash of civilizations. And that clash is not movable by the seemingly good will of the people: if you ask the people in China and the West they would universally say that they like the people from the other side, and they just dont like their government. But they are merely unconscious of the fact that the clash is happening not because of the government, but really was by the people's will, through the thousands of channels of influences that the puny Human brain will never fully grasp.

Istanbul in in Turkey. As per NYT she fled to Istanbul, to give birth. This is why she has not seen her children, she is in Istanbul.

Kalbinur Tursun might be a made up name being used for Uyghurs being interviewed. It's probably two people.

I see now the Chinese government have stated the original Kalbinur Tursun was a pseudonym - http://jeddah.china-consulate.org/eng/zt/xjfk/t1767403.htm

I am not so convinced by this "clash of civilizations" or "different values" rhetoric. I know this is the standard party response to many foreign criticisms of Chinese politics, but to me it comes across as a bit like the Chinese version of American exceptionalism. The recent effort to push a Chinese view of human rights[0][1] into the UN, I find to be cynical and politically motivated.

The idea that Chinese people and "Western" people are fundamentally different seems to deny the fact that humans as whole share common needs and common motivations. If China and the West have incompatible values, where does that leave other countries of the East? Does India count as the West? What about Japan or South Korea or Taiwan? What about countries in the Global South, are their values incompatible with both the West and China? Plenty of those countries have ratified ICCPR[2].

[0] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-02/22/c_139758736.htm

[1] https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/can-china-change-the-definit...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civi...

It's worth pointing out the self serving and cynical reason for pursing a "genocide" determination when cultural genocide or crimes against humanity is more appropriate. "Cultural genocide" would equivalate Xinjiang forced integration with Canadian self-professed cultural genocide of indigenous peoples. Which would create the difficult position of questioning disparity in reprisal for one event and not another, both domestically and abroad. Canada literally admitted to cultural genocide - explicitly because it's a consequence free label.

It's the same reason why Pompeo pressed for genocide on his way out, despite his own state department finding there's insufficient evidence for such determination, compared to more appropriate "crimes against humanity" or "cultural genocide". Bluntly because the latter two have no formal conventions, i.e. there is no obligation to punish. The semantic game is significant and self-serving. If punishment for "crimes against humanity" were ever formalized, it would open up US actions to similar scrutiny (i.e. war crimes). Similarly for Canada, labelling XJ "cultural genocide" and setting norms to punish it would open Canada to punishment. Hence elaborate propaganda, exaggerated word games and non-binding resolutions. To be clear, XJ is absolutely "cultural genocide" / "crimes against humanity" - but it's not genocide. If the US state department, under lying Pompeo can't comfortably rationalize the determination, it's because the accusation is flawed. Rather these efforts are specifically designed to target only Chinese human rights violations while insulate against western ones.

A serious campaign actually sympathetic to human rights will attempt to prosecute XJ as "crimes against humanity", for which there is a feasible avenue for prosecution, and start a formalize process for punishing this and future events. But Canada doesn't want to do that, because they will suffer from the fallout. The US doesn't want to do that... because lol, the Hague Invasion Act exists specifically so US can get away with "crimes against humanity". Realistically no country wants to go down that route, not just because no hands are clean, but because no one wants to be punished the next time their hands get dirty. Finally, there's no compelling reason to insist on "genocide" label outside of domestic politics, which will never stick internationally, least of all because China still has plurality international support, from Islamic nations no less, for XJ being a counter insurgency response. TL;DR: it's theatre.