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China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

economist.com

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Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#261

Post by imglorp »

Balgair wrote: post #181
imglorp wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology is making the price plummet of policing a large population. Natural language recognition, face recognition, location tracking, pattern-matching, deep packet inspection, graph traversal, and of course AI can all run unattended pointing out dissidents to the authorities who just have to go round them up and reeducate them. Oh and guess what China is making a big investment in lately?

The false-positive/negative rates are the key here. If they are not too bad, then yeah, it may 'work' in the short term. If they are sky high, like most facial recognition is today, then it's not going to work. Word will leak out very quickly that the surveillance is worthless.

For an authoritarian police state, false positives are fine as a show of force.

If the system mistakes you for someone else, you might get your door kicked down, your dog shot, and get dragged in and interrogated. Then you will come to realize what will happen if you really run afoul of them. So maybe you think twice if you're planning an infraction in the future.

So they may well want to round up the top N suspects, knowing that N-1 are innocent.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#262

Post by mc32 »

Laforet wrote: post #144
mc32 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if the state enlists and coopts a sufficient percentage of the local population, then it can work indefinitely, if the gov't provides enough in terms of basic needs. The idea of local administrative committees and youth organizations as an arm to make others toe the line is not a foreign concept to the CCP.

There really isn't one when most of the Uighur population is impoverished if not otherwise disaffected, and the local Han population are effectively incentivised to leave Xinjiang for better prospects elsewhere. Between 2010 and 2013, there have been 400,000 fewer Han Chinese living in Xinjiang through a combination of natural population decline and emigration[0]; this represents a solid 2% of total population and th…

I see what you are saying. I think there are ways to do it. The Soviets were successful in their central Asian and Caucasus "Republics". They tended to coopt a local leader and got them to do their bidding. Even Russia now with Chechnya has been able to use the same formula. It's not impossible for the CCP to do the same.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#263

Post by Balgair »

imglorp wrote: post #261
Balgair wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The false-positive/negative rates are the key here. If they are not too bad, then yeah, it may 'work' in the short term. If they are sky high, like most facial recognition is today, then it's not going to work. Word will leak out very quickly that the surveillance is worthless.

For an authoritarian police state, false positives are fine as a show of force. If the system mistakes you for someone else, you might get your door kicked down, your dog shot, and get dragged in and interrogated. Then you will come to realize what will happen if you really run afoul of them. So maybe you think twice if you're planning an infraction in the future. So they may well want to round up the top N suspects,…

Yes, but this is a separate issue than surveillance. You can have totalitarianism and surveillance just as well as with democracy (not ever typical though).

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#264

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

root_axis wrote: post #140
flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #4

I keep telling people about this and their unconcerned reactions really worry me.

What exactly should they be concerned about? It's not as if they have even the thinnest possibility of having any impact on such things. There are more important things for them to worry about.

Awareness can possibly help them (us) ward off similar controls in our own communities.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#265

Post by nkoren »

titanix2 wrote: post #70
nkoren wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. You want proof that doesn't appeal to the Quran? Fine. In long-Islamic countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, there are a large number of pre-existing minority religions: Yazidis, Mandeans, Samaritans, and a number of others -- as well as long-established Jewish and Christian communities. Those communities have been surrounded by Islam for more than a thousand years, and while they've undoubtedly got…

It is funny you take the example of Christians community in the Middle East, because right now they are precisely the target of Sunnis terrorists and in great danger. A few month ago, a Libanese bishop was saying in a newspaper that "Christians will inevitably disappear from the Middle-East, even from Lebanon". He predicted that to happen in the timeframe of a decade. [1] https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1110721…

These are different goalposts. I responding to the claim that Christianity has historically been a more tolerant religion than Islam; this specific claim is bullshit. The fact that religious minorities in Islamic-majority countries even exist -- in stark contrast to European Christendom, where all religious minorities were ruthlessly exterminated -- is proof of this.

But that's history. If we're talking about the present day, that's another matter entirely. The Islamic State is, today, roughly as ruthless and intolerant as Christianity used to be. This is not a defence of the Islamic State: what they do is evil and abhorrent and deserves to be stopped. And ISIS is in many ways a "natural" extremity of Wahhabi fundamentalism, which is deeply problematic wherever it is found. I'm not bringing up Christianity's appalling history in Europe for the sake of exculpatory whataboutism, but rather to make the point that no religion is a monolith, and that the same broad umbrella can contain both tolerant sects and theocratic genocidal ones.

So my contention is that Wahhabiism and its even worse offshoots should not be conflated with Islam as a whole, which both historically and continuing into the present day has been a largely (if unevenly) tolerant religion. Those tolerant elements should be acknowledged and accepted. When people condemn Islam as a whole, this diminishes the standing of tolerant Muslims (who can then be attacked as some kind of fifth column), and increasing the standing of extremists (who can then position themselves as stalwart defenders of the faith).

So not only is the "Islam has always been intolerant, and therefore must be opposed" argument simply wrong on a factual basis, it's also bad tactics. Unless you want to be in league with the extremists.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#266

Post by pas »

throw2016 wrote: post #133

The economist and other media love pointing fingers at others. That's easy to do. Everyone knows China is not a democracy but we are which makes surveillance here much more problematic. Yet we do not see any serious examination from the economist on threats to democracy from surveillance. Infact it is at the forefront on hit pieces on Snowden accusing him of treachery [1] which means their concern for 'surveillance'…

Could you point to a few examples of support for "shock therapy and other exploitative economic policies" on the Economist?

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#267

Post by arbitrary_name »

madengr wrote: post #155
tc wrote: post #58

In the West we have a false sense of security that totalitarianism will inevitably fail. We've seen so many examples of fallen tyrannical states. But many ideas fail the first few times they're tried. China seems committed to making totalitarianism "work." It's hard to think of any more dangerous invention. Even nuclear weapons aren't as dangerous as a sustainable model for modern tyrannical government. This is an in…

Seems many Americans are willing to crap all over the 2nd Amendment, which is specifically in place to prevent totalitarian government.

If you genuinely believe this argument, wouldn't the logical parellal thought be to starve the government of manpower and weapons? Instead, most who espouse the '2 amendment is needed against tyranny' position are often voting for massive increases to defense and policing budgets. Not picking a fight, it just seems ineffective and incongruous to think that holding on to an AR15 in your home will help you against billion dollar integrated policing and surveillance systems...

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#268

Post by arbitrary_name »

kinsomo wrote: post #259
mr_toad wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Successful insurgencies these days are supplied with heavy weapons and training by outside powers. You’re not going to do anything against armour and air power with small arms.

> Successful insurgencies these days are supplied with heavy weapons and training by outside powers. You’re not going to do anything against armour and air power with small arms. An insurgency has a lot of freedom in choosing its targets. If they don't have the weapons to directly attack armor or air power, they can avoid them. And with armor, there are other options, such as IEDs. Also, I'd bet that an American insu…

I think that's a pipe dream. If it was a right wing totalitarian government, which is imho the likely lean of any totalitarian government in the us, there would be little defection or protest from folks in uniform.

Think about any standoff between protesters and police or national guard in the us. Lefty students or unionists or whatever get shot or peppersprayed by cops or national guardsmen with a family to feed and a career defined by obeying the rules - that equation will not change with scale.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#269

Post by brianpgordon »

rtpg wrote: post #212
Laforet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt it is sustainable. The cost of policing is quite substantial and the productivity lost is hard to replace which adds to the cost. What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict[0] not unlike what took place in white Rhodesia/Namibia, Northern Ireland during the troubles, etc. There is a economic reason why these conflicts could not last indefinitely, no matter what ideologies drive…

"Only sustainable for a couple decades" is , to a first order, the same as "sustainable" when you're looking at a 20 year time span " Oh don't worry this nightmare will stop in about 2 decades"

An existential threat to freedom in human societies is scarier than just tyranny in our lifetime.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#270

Post by brianpgordon »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #60

The lengths that China goes to control the minority (although it's about half of the region) is astounding. I can't imagine what little privacy they have, between constant physical checks, personal party spies and electronic surveillance. I heard once that in a world where everyone agrees to being spied on by carrying a mobile, the mobile-less will be suspect. I never thought this would actually be the case, but ther…

The GDPR just coming into force is surely a promising sign that we're moving generally in the right direction.
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