Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 456 posts

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#251

Post by tasogare »

reaperducer wrote: post #211
apexalpha wrote: post #55

The whole Tibet situation is such a horrible one. From our Western perspective it feels so wrong that they're essentially trying to extinguish an entire culture and 'fitting' it into China. But we also can't say anything because China makes all our stuff. Plus, China isn't going to be impressed when the old Imperial continent with 140 ex-colonies and the current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases are go…

But we also can't say anything because China makes all our stuff. I happily pay more for things not made in China, when I can. When I can buy an iPhone that's not made in China, I'll buy it. Even if it means a downgrade. Several of my family members buy as many vintage and second-hand goods as they can. Not to be hipsters (are hipsters still a thing anymore?), but because they do not want to support China.

Some iPhone are made in India. Are they available outside it, that’s the real question.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#252

Post by platinumrad »

jakeva wrote: post #249
platinumrad wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puerto Rico should be granted statehood, not independence, unless you want it to be an impoverished client of the United States.

Unlike how it is now?

It might have been clearer for "be" to be "remain".

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#253

Post by hnlmorg »

bwilli123 wrote: post #28
bognition wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that the Spanish gov't forcibly enroll youths in labor camps?

What is Conscription then? Or compulsory National Service?

I'm not going to voice support for compulsory national service but at least their purpose isn't to purge the social identity of an entire ethnic minority. Which, if you actually dig a little deeper into the Tibet issue, is exactly what China is trying to achieve (and having some success at too).

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#254

Post by adventured »

api wrote: post #180
apexalpha wrote: post #55

The whole Tibet situation is such a horrible one. From our Western perspective it feels so wrong that they're essentially trying to extinguish an entire culture and 'fitting' it into China. But we also can't say anything because China makes all our stuff. Plus, China isn't going to be impressed when the old Imperial continent with 140 ex-colonies and the current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases are go…

It's similar to our reluctance to criticize Saudi Arabia even when there are links between their upper crust and the largest terror attack ever on American soil. Saudi Arabia is still one of the largest oil spigots with the easiest ability to turn that spigot on and off and therefore set global oil prices, so we don't dare offend them.

The US no longer requires any oil from Saudi Arabia, they're now almost entirely incapable of harming the US with that formerly potent resource weapon in terms of shutting off supply (mostly what they can do to harm US economic interests now instead of turning it off, is to flood the market and damage US producers).

For 2019 total US petroleum production (crude + petro products + biofuels) was 19.3m barrels per day (bpd), consumption was 20.5m bpd. Imports were 9.1m bpd, exports were 8.57m bpd.

Imports dropped from 13.7m bpd in 2005, to 9.1m bpd for 2019. Net imports (imports minus exports) dropped from 12.5m bpd in 2005, to 500k bpd for 2019 (the lowest figure since ~1952).

Imports from Canada have gone from 500k bpd in 1980, to 4.4m bpd in 2019. All of OPEC supplied 1.6m bpd to the US in 2019 for contrast. Imports from Saudi Arabia were down to just 530k bpd in 2019 (cut in half since 2015/2016). We could sneeze in West Texas and wipe that out at this point.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#255

Post by bobbyz »

jjcon wrote: post #244
bobbyz wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Japanese were interned during WWII, illegals are in camps now, and the Chinese will likely be soon. Puerto Ricans STILL can't vote. Its important to build your argument from sturdy facts, so that big bad reality can't huff and puff and blow it all down!

‘Illegals’ are not in forced labor camps and that sort of equivalence is just gross. Immigrants to Europe and the US need a place to stay while their cases are processed, with the increases in immigration (especially in Europe) it is difficult to keep up with. Does the west need to do better? Absolutely but stating that these immigrant camps are like forced labor camps is deliberately misleading and just flat out wro…

What is the difference in real terms between the border camps and forced labour camps? The labour? Taking bets that these camps introduce forced labour like the Nazi camps did. Odds stop at the decade.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-fac...

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#256

Post by adventured »

cma wrote: post #232
dahdum wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US policy has been moving towards energy independence from Bush, Obama, and through Trump. We're pretty much there now, OPEC can't drive up prices without US shale producers ramping up production, sharply limiting their control.

The US is essentially part of OPEC now already. They legally can't be without going through congress, so they just called it OPEC+.

In OPEC+, the plus is for Russia, not the US. Russia has been directly coordinating with OPEC on market supply matters.

The US oil producers don't coordinate well with OPEC. It has been an ongoing problem that OPEC has been endlessly complaining about for many years.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#257

Post by xster »

liminal wrote: post #10

Han supremacy has all the markings of other supremacist movements and will unfortunately need to be confronted. Not sure when the world will work up the courage to do so, though.

There's definitely some skeletons in the closet. The Han population was 1% in 1950. In the current year, it's 97%. Though I suspect it's not going to be geopolitically convenient for Adrien Zenz to write about the indigenous Taiwan people anytime soon.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#258

Post by aatharuv »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #227
abawany wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see companies shifting manufacturing out of the PRC, though sadly not fast enough and not for human rights reasons. Cellphones made in Vietnam etc. (e.g Pixel 4a I think) would be preferable to supporting the current regime in the PRC. Here's hoping we stop enabling the cruel regime in the PRC.

Genuine question: is Vietnam any better than China in regards to freedom and human rights?

Whether or not it's actually better, it gives leverage over China. Do better or else...

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#259

Post by platinumrad »

iliveinchina wrote: post #236
platinumrad wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What is culturally and ethnically Mongolian actually stretches across the Middle East, as well as large swaths of Russia and Europe." It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims.

The point is these areas are still pretty actively Tibetan today, not just historically. Is there a contiguous region stretching from Mongolia deep into the Middle East and to Europe where a high percentage of the population (like a quarter or more) speaks Mongolian as their native language? I know that might be true for a small area surrounding Mongolia in Russia, but I think the comparison stretching into the Middl…

The dedicated Turanist will talk your ear off about linguistic co-evolution, haplogroups, and so on, but no, of course not. The example was deliberately outlandish. A quarter is lower than the proportion of Russians in Crimea.

I think we may ultimately be making the same point, that political borders are by nature artificial and often fail to reflect the historical fluidity of culture and ethnicity, but I objected to the perceived implication that these regions are uniquely Tibetan.

Re: China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

#260

Post by Der_Einzige »

logicallee wrote: post #22

I think the million+ uighers in concentration camps are a precise analogy for death camps run by you know who in the 20th century. The u.s. should tell China, hey you hid your concentration camps really well, we totally just found out like today, but the thing is we can't let this go on so you have to free all your concentration camps in 18 months or we come invade. Sorrrry. We totally didnt know you were doing this.…

It's like nuclear weapons just don't exist in your mind.

I am so glad that geopolitics I'd handled by a select few rather than the supposedly educated crowd of hacker news...

Post reply on HN