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Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

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Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#81

How as a consumer do I avoid the moral dread of buying made in China when 99% of everything is made in China.

The only way to avoid your moral dread is to change your belief system. Anything that legitimately hurts the CCP a little would disproportionately devastate the residents there. If you boycott all factories that employ Uighurs, for example, that means that many of them will be laid off and sent back to reeducation camp.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are excellent suggestions. I've been wishing for some kind of "made in democracy" stamp, or a "produced humanly" if that would also shut out other more moderate manufacturing centres, similar to fair trade chocolate. https://www.fairtradeamerica.org/shop-fairtrade/fairtrade-pr...

> "made in democracy" Many countries have a fake democracy cover. Even Hitler won an election with like the 99% of the votes (I wonder if the other 1% survived for too long.) Also, does this label apply to the United Kingdom or Canada?

That's not the case. The Nazi party won only 37% of the vote in the last arguably free election (1932). They also didn't win a majority in the 1933 election, which the Communists were barred from and which was post-Reichstag fire and suspension of civil liberties.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#83

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports. One of his bl…

As someone who lives in SEA and used to live in China, he's able to move around because he lives in China and I assume has a long term visa and speaks Mandarin. And he is going with the blessing of the Chinese state media:

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/12754321240702976...

What he is saying does not seem remotely credible unless he has the evidence to back it up.

I don't think he's completely making up that he's been to Xinjiang, but what he is writing is propaganda and should be treated as such.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#84

There are various levels of reporting in about what's happening in Xinjiang. I'm curious which ones of the following people here on HN believe are true. A. There is forced re-education, forced de-radicalization, and forced political assimilation (to fight separatism). Some camps are indeed for voluntary vocational education, others are for forced re-education. The number of people who are forced into camps, are a lot…

I'd think a mix of A and C (massive amounts of both good and ill intent/practices, largely a question of who runs the particular camp). This is based on both living in China in 2009 and seeing the nature of the state apparatus at the time, and having a Uighur roommate in 2012 who spoke a bit about the political situation at that time.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#85

How as a consumer do I avoid the moral dread of buying made in China when 99% of everything is made in China.

A bit of an exaggeration. It does not take much research, google of course is useful, and looking at product websites they must disclose country of origin. Certain big names are obvious skips, seriously don't buy Apple. Avoid certain car brands and yes this includes Tesla but Volvo also exports from China as does Buick and others. A lot of brands have US based manufacturing but to be honest, if you are avoiding China related items you must hold the company accountable across all territories.

for consumer electronics its pretty easy to find sites dedicated to popular models and from there you can easily see where something is made

if you are looking for house hold goods, furniture, dinner ware, and the like, consider buying used from thrift shops, donation centers, garage sales, and even ebay; all my dinner and glass ware is vintage anchor hocking and morgantown glass.

the other option is to consume less. most often people buy stuff when what they have already does quite well. it is also a leading reason why many don't have sufficient savings

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#86
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Radio Free Asia ... founded by the CIA and a today well oiled propaganda arm for whatever is on the US government's foreign policy agenda. Eh, not so much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia > RFA is the only station outside China that broadcasts in the Uygur-language.[32] It has been recognized for played a vital role in exposing Xinjiang re-education camps.[33][34][35] The New York Times regards RFA as…

And the Comintern was merely meant to promote workers rights? It's definitionally a propaganda arm of the government. If you think that we're the good guys, then they're the good guys, but they're still propaganda.

> It's definitionally a propaganda arm of the government. If you think that we're the good guys, then they're the good guys, but they're still propaganda.

If it's propaganda, it's propaganda for western-style journalism and liberal values.

The question shouldn't be "is it state sponsored or not;" it should be "is its reporting reliable or not." On that question, RFA's reporting on this topic has gotten the endorsement of the news pages of at least one top-tier American paper. I'd put it in a similar space as the BBC or AFP.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#87
post #80

Curious how the YC involvement in China has panned out. I know they had divested somehow a couple of years ago, or at least they had started using another legal entity to do their bidding over there (maybe I'm mistaken on this). Also, it was my impression that people directly involved with YC at the time (such as Sam Altman) were pretty "blinded" by what was happening elsewhere in China and their were focusing instea…

YC announced the closure of YC China last year.

https://blog.ycombinator.com/an-update-on-yc-china/

There’s no “using another legal entity to do their bidding over there”. It’s just closed.

That said, it’s not clear that it’s unequivocally morally superior to deny a service to all 1B+ Chinese people, many of whom could have been founders of great companies or customers/beneficiaries of those companies, just because of the actions of a government, particularly one that was not elected by those citizens.

But that’s moot now. YC China has been closed.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#88

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports. One of his bl…

Travel in Xinjiang isn't restricted for foreigners at least a year ago. There are a lot of security checkpoints, but they will just ignore you if you're not brown.

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#89

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports. One of his bl…

Another one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oKvulTU8oU

Re: Blanked-out spots on China's maps helped us uncover Xinjiang's camps

#90

There is a Canadian named Jerry Grey, who went on a bicycle ride in China. He literally rode hundreds of kilometers in Xinjiang, away from mainstream tourist attractions, to remote places he himself is interested in. He was able to do that without government supervision; all the government checkpoints let him pass without much scrutiny. What he reports on is very different from mainstream media reports. One of his bl…

I think individual experience is going to vary depending on how much you are trusted. SerpentZa was a vlogger who was there in China for a long time. In contrast to your example, he has mentioned about being stopped at various places and CCP trying to honeytrap him. Even though his wife is Chinese, he moved out of China eventually[1]

But I would agree to the sentiment that American/European media might not be giving the complete picture. If you read local sources or wire feeds you will realize the partisan reporting they do. This is not just true for China, take one more big Asian country India, it has a lot of English media press, you can see the bias easily in reporting of even big names like NyTimes, Guardian. They like to report on mostly negative stuff, skipping reports which connect events as well, so you might end up with a perspective that things are worse than they might be. I can link reports to show how coverage gets omitted from even wire feeds but that is offtopic.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWgqdfAomVI

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