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China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

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Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#181

Post by hashr8064 »

stcredzero wrote: post #156
blhack wrote: post #74

Why does the west continue to tolerate China as a trading partner? China is pretty obviously building their empire. They, as a government, appear to have almost no regard whatsoever for human life. They, as a government, appear to have absolutely no regard whatsoever for national sovereignty. They, as a government, appear to have absolutely no regard for the environment. It just seems completely inevitable to me that…

It just seems completely inevitable to me that China eventually wants to conquer the world. Why is the west enriching them Up to the 20th century, the west had a surefire meta-strategy for dealing with world-conquering former empires like China. You bring them into modern industrial economics while exporting western culture. The massive changes would destabilize the old regime and turn it into another trading partner…

> You can say this for just about everyone on the world stage. Spain, France, Britain...

True, but you could argue that these countries had excuses. At the time of the worst crimes (colonialism, slavery, etc) there were no examples of benign, free trading partners, abiding by international law - all this had to be designed, philosophized, created - and the modern western countries did all this because they saw how bad those atrocities were. I'm not saying all western countries are benevolent or don't commit atrocities now, but certainly most try to uphold international laws and human rights and their populations have a very big democratic voice that is constantly fighting towards these ends, despite what political leaders and power elites want.

Compare that to China, which is not even attempting to abide by any of these standards - despite the fact that these laws, ideas, and rules have been around and well established in the entire rest of the world for at least the past 50 years.

At some point, you'd think the west would wake up, China is super nationalistic, powerful and has no regard for human rights.

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#182

Post by hutzlibu »

mc32 wrote: post #72
throwaway5411 wrote: post #58

I quietly wondered, some weeks ago, when China’s “Khashoggi moment” might occur. This probably isn’t it, unless an individual story can emerge that can capture the public’s revulsion in a way that, for some reason, only an individual story can. It took one journalist’s murder and dismemberment to finally make Mohammed Bin-Salman politically radioactive in a way that thousands of dead and starving Yemenis could not. A…

China took and kidnapped their own international official personified in the head of the Interpol. Not much more than a squeak. So, I don't think you're going to hear about "unknowns" much. The Saudi journalist is an odd exception. Any other journalist (remember the Russian journalist assassinated, or the Maltese journalist). Like there is a squeak but not much else --which tells me there is something about the Saudi…

Well, but he was not murdered. "Just" imprisoned in unconvential ways so to say. So you can't really expect the same outcry.

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#183

Post by candiodari »

michaelmrose wrote: post #59

So how many victims are there? CNN said in 2016 that there were 10k legal transplants and 60-100k actual transplants based on looking at actual volume of transplants at the largest hospitals and supposes that executed minorities compose the difference. Keep in mind that one victim could be sufficient to provide fodder for a number of operations. https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/i... Do we ha…

> Keep in mind that one victim could be sufficient to provide fodder for a number of operations.

Not if you want the organ recipients to survive, which presumably is the point of the whole exercise. The odds of them matching with one recipient are tiny, the odds of them matching with 2 are tiny squared.

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#184

Post by keldaris »

blhack wrote: post #87
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We fund them because it helps the people in charge get rich off the backs of cheap Chinese labor. We (the U.S) tolerate their disrespect for human rights because we also do not respect human rights, as demonstrated by our relationship with Saudi Arabia, our many horrible wars, etc. We also do not respect national sovereignty, as demonstrated by our covert wars in South America, our firebombing of Vietnam, Laos, and C…

>We (the U.S) tolerate their disrespect for human rights because we also do not respect human rights I'm sorry but this statement is just absolutely and completely ridiculous. I don't know if you've either never been to The United States, or you've never left The United States, but the difference between the respect that we have for human rights, and the respect that much of the rest of the world has, is stark.

It's not ridiculous. It merely conflates (as do most statements in this thread) two orthogonal aspects - how repressive a society happens to be internally and how much of a threat it poses abroad. Historically, there doesn't seem to be any perceptible correlation between those two factors.

The U.S. is indeed by most metrics one of the freest societies on the planet in terms of the state repression imposed on the average citizen, certainly far better than China in this regard. At the same time, in foreign policy it behaves exactly the same way any other nation state does - pursuing its perceived interests without consideration for anything else other than objective constraints to its power. Since the U.S. is by far the most powerful nation state in the world, its list of foreign atrocities far exceeds that of anyone else since WW2. However, that's not any different from any other major power in world history and there's absolutely no reason to think China (or anyone else) would behave any better or worse given similar ability to pursue its interests unchecked.

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#185

Post by mc32 »

hutzlibu wrote: post #182
mc32 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China took and kidnapped their own international official personified in the head of the Interpol. Not much more than a squeak. So, I don't think you're going to hear about "unknowns" much. The Saudi journalist is an odd exception. Any other journalist (remember the Russian journalist assassinated, or the Maltese journalist). Like there is a squeak but not much else --which tells me there is something about the Saudi…

Well, but he was not murdered. "Just" imprisoned in unconvential ways so to say. So you can't really expect the same outcry.

True, but a person of great stature and responsibility, Not the UN sec general, but imagine the UN sec general gets kidnapped by Portugal and.... crickets...

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#186

Post by PavlovsCat »

tropo wrote: post #159
BonesJustice wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unbelievable. It would be an atrocity merely to rob someone of “non-vital” organs that they can live without, like a spare kidney. To murder someone and profit from the sale of vital organs is simply beyond my comprehension. I cannot fathom a more monstrous act.

There is another way to look at this. These are people who are already subject to execution. They get to stay alive a bit longer in order to preserve the organs. So rather than causing death, the possibility of organ transplants is what keeps these people alive.

There's always a more depraved way to look at something. Unless you actually hold that view, why dig for it?

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#187

Post by PavlovsCat »

BonesJustice wrote: post #78
eric_b wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "According to the reports, political prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, are being executed "on demand" in order to provide organs to recipients." Wild... I had no idea this was going on. There are a lot of things about China that I disagree with, but this might be the worst thing I've heard so far.

Unbelievable. It would be an atrocity merely to rob someone of “non-vital” organs that they can live without, like a spare kidney. To murder someone and profit from the sale of vital organs is simply beyond my comprehension. I cannot fathom a more monstrous act.

> Until now the totalitarian belief that everything is possible seems to have proved only that everything can be destroyed. Yet, in their effort to prove that everything is possible, totalitarian regimes have discovered without knowing it that there are crimes which men can neither punish nor forgive. [..] we actually have nothing to fall back on in order to understand a phenomenon that nevertheless confronts us with its overpowering reality and breaks down all the standards we know. There is only one thing that seems to be discernible: we may say that radical evil has emerged in connection with a system in which all men have become equally superfluous.

-- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#188

Post by usaar333 »

mc32 wrote: post #72
throwaway5411 wrote: post #58

I quietly wondered, some weeks ago, when China’s “Khashoggi moment” might occur. This probably isn’t it, unless an individual story can emerge that can capture the public’s revulsion in a way that, for some reason, only an individual story can. It took one journalist’s murder and dismemberment to finally make Mohammed Bin-Salman politically radioactive in a way that thousands of dead and starving Yemenis could not. A…

China took and kidnapped their own international official personified in the head of the Interpol. Not much more than a squeak. So, I don't think you're going to hear about "unknowns" much. The Saudi journalist is an odd exception. Any other journalist (remember the Russian journalist assassinated, or the Maltese journalist). Like there is a squeak but not much else --which tells me there is something about the Saudi…

> which tells me there is something about the Saudi case.

It being done on foreign soil is part of what made the Saudi case so egregious.

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#189

Post by pesfandiar »

jhallenworld wrote: post #131

Respect for life is pretty low in China in other ways, take a look at the experience of having a baby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBgZ_xNXViw

Coming from a Middle Eastern country, I understand very well what low respect for life could look like. It runs through all layers of the society/culture, and probably takes generations to fix.

For a better depiction of how low the respect of life could be, I suggest (at risk of psychological trauma) reading or viewing videos about how some drivers in China would rather run over an injured pedestrian (in some cases small children) a few times to ensure they're dead. Apparently a dead victim costs less than ongoing medical bills.

Re: China harvested organs from political prisoners, says tribunal

#190

Post by berbec »

jfhufl wrote: post #52

Reminds me of the organ banks in Niven's Known Space, Series. Governments made being sent to the "organ banks" the favored punishment for crimes. Also gave way to OrganLegging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organlegging Lovely.

I recall a horrifying story Niven wrote about a man running from the police to escape his death sentance. At the end of the story, he is caught and brought to justice for running a red light.
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