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Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

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Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#51

Post by goodcanadian »

AlexandrB wrote: post #17
323 wrote: post #4

More evidence that China's arm reaches quite far, including inside the West. Because China is willing to play dirty. If they hosted it, they would see Marriot executives arrested for "corruption", or Marriot hotels closed for "environmental damage" or similar things, like how they arrested two innocent Canadians as retaliation for the Canadian arrest of the Huawei executive. This is why Nike, NBA, Hollywood, ... bow…

I'm not a fan of China myself, but there's some evidence[1] that the two Canadians arrested were, in fact, spies. Personally, I'm not sure what to think. But tweets like this from CSIS[2] are certainly suggestive when viewed in a certain light. [1] https://canadianpatriot.org/2021/09/29/michael-kovrig-and-sp... [2] https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441576564374769665

I have never before heard of Canadian Patriot, but from the first sentence of the editor's note, I am led to strongly doubt its impartiality:

Canadian Patriot Review Editor’s note: On September 24, 2021, an agreement was reached to free Meng Wanzhou who had been illegally held captive in Canada since December 2018 . . .

There was nothing illegal about Meng Wanzhou's arrest. The U.S. made a request under a long extant extradition treaty. As for being "held captive," she was released on bail and lived in a home that she owned in Vancouver: very different to the conditions of the "two Michaels." In the end, the extradition hearing was never completed as the arrest warrant was eventually dropped by the U.S.. It was, by no means, a foregone conclusion what the outcome of the hearing would have been. Whatever you think of U.S. motives in all of this, the process was legal.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#52

Post by Buttersite »

scilro wrote: post #28

The World Uyghur Congress is not some politically neutral group made up of concerned immigrants and activists. It has US state backing and intelligence connections. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/05/world-uyghur-congress-us-... Whether you are convinced by the allegations they have made against the Chinese government or not, it's not inaccurate to call it a political entity. Its name is a bit misleading and makes on…

Lol linking to the gray zone. Fascist punk fuck off.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#53

Post by javert »

criddell wrote: post #41
cm2012 wrote: post #36

The USA should make it illegal to kowtow to China like this. The details of how this law could be structured can be debated, but there has to be a way. Let companies choose between having US and Chinese business instead of always taking the easy way out.

I don't think the constitution would allow it. Kowtowing is an expression of something so I would guess it's covered by the 1st amendment.

The question is what the Supreme Court would allow, not what the Constitution would allow. They are often not the same.

The Court has engaged in a lot of spurious reasoning and wishful thinking over the centuries, and continues to do so.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#55

Post by BitwiseFool »

jaywalk wrote: post #14

I wonder how long it took to come up with the phrase "political neutrality" to explain this, seeing as it's literally the exact opposite of that. To be fair to Marriott, they are saying it was a local hotel management decision and not a corporate decision, and that their corporate policies would not have restricted this conference. Remember, Marriott doesn't actually own or control (the vast majority of) hotels with…

It's definitely one of those quirks of the English Language that enables Doublespeak.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#56

Post by skeeter2020 »

enriquto wrote: post #22
julianlam wrote: post #3

Marriott decided to avoid poking the bear by stepping on the proverbial mouse. From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense, but moralistically, it does not. It is very disappointing that even I, as an Asian individual living in Canada, am disincentivized from expressing even my own opinion on China and HK/Taiwan, etc. due to the perceived threat of "consequences" from a government whose reach I cannot easily…

> From a business perspective And that is our fault, to a great extent. By "we", here I mean citizens of western countries that put up with this bullshit. When one of "our" companies engages in this shameful authoritarian appeasement we should boycott them to oblivion. If we fail to do so, we are enabling this behavior. There's not much that we can do about human rights abuses in other countries. But there's a lot th…

>> When one of "our" companies engages in this shameful authoritarian appeasement we should boycott them to oblivion.

What's the difference between what you're promoting and the knee-jerk cancel culture that's as bad as what it punishes? I like to think we can influence and change behaviours without "boycotting companies into oblivion", even if that was realistic or likely. There's a large distance between your aggressive post on the internet and an entire country of people coordinating a campaign against specific business.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#57

Post by throwaway894345 »

FredPret wrote: post #38
throwaway894345 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Opinion: Due to Chinese human rights abuses AND the threats against American business, the US should not attend the upcoming Beijing Olympics In a vacuum, I fully agree with protesting China to the fullest extent; however, if scientists are to be believed, these things (human rights, trade, etc violations) trifle in comparison to the climate change threat, and China has all of humanity by the throat here. We need a…

This would work about as well as appeasing the Nazis did

Here are a couple of not-rhetorical questions for you:

* Which is worse in your mind? China's treatment of the Uyghurs or global civilizational collapse?

* Does holding China accountable for its treatment of Uyghurs increase or decrease the likelihood that China will cooperate on climate?

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#58

Post by throwaway894345 »

foobar2021 wrote: post #15
throwaway894345 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Opinion: Due to Chinese human rights abuses AND the threats against American business, the US should not attend the upcoming Beijing Olympics In a vacuum, I fully agree with protesting China to the fullest extent; however, if scientists are to be believed, these things (human rights, trade, etc violations) trifle in comparison to the climate change threat, and China has all of humanity by the throat here. We need a…

What’s that quote? It’s something along the lines of “the way to get good people to accept or do evil things is to convince them that the end justifies the means”

I think that's a good general principle, but I think the magnitude of the climate change threat and its timelines are exceptional. This principle doesn't generalize to it in my mind, but I'd be happy to hear how we can apply this principle and save the planet.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#59

Post by redis_mlc »

jollybean wrote: post #24

Collectively, the West is much more powerful than China, but nobody in the West is nearly as powerful as Xi. In that fragmentation, he can gain considerable leverage like this, without even having to say a word. One thing that might help even larger businesses is for government to pass legislation banning this kind of activity, i.e. making judgements on who can attend or not, or at very least, passing it off to the l…

> nobody in the West is nearly as powerful as Xi.

Trump was. The CCP called an emergency meeting after each of his 2020 speeches. He single-handedly reversed 50 years of US appeasement.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#60

Post by skeeter2020 »

goodcanadian wrote: post #51
AlexandrB wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of China myself, but there's some evidence[1] that the two Canadians arrested were, in fact, spies. Personally, I'm not sure what to think. But tweets like this from CSIS[2] are certainly suggestive when viewed in a certain light. [1] https://canadianpatriot.org/2021/09/29/michael-kovrig-and-sp... [2] https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441576564374769665

I have never before heard of Canadian Patriot, but from the first sentence of the editor's note, I am led to strongly doubt its impartiality: Canadian Patriot Review Editor’s note: On September 24, 2021, an agreement was reached to free Meng Wanzhou who had been illegally held captive in Canada since December 2018 . . . There was nothing illegal about Meng Wanzhou's arrest. The U.S. made a request under a long extant…

I agree; anyone who thinks the two situations are comparable between "out on bail and living in a Vancouver mansion" vs. "held in Chinese prison with no access to diplomatic resources" has been successfully co-opted by the China-led campaign.
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