The Uyghur Genocide: An examination of breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention

https://newlinesinstitute.org/uyghurs/the-uyghur-genocide-an-examination-of-chinas-breaches-of-the-1948-genocide-convention/

by lawrenceyan • 5 years ago

302 203 5 years ago

newlinesinstitute.org

mikece5• 5 years ago

Both on the left and the right of US politics there has been fault found with China. I'm kinda surprised that no large brands have highlighted "No Chinese-made components" on their products. We embrace "blood-free" diamonds, why not Chinese-free merchandise for similar reasons?

conanbatt3• 5 years ago

The chinese people that build products are not the ones with the concentration camps. Pressure has to be on the top of the political spectrum, not on the regular chinese citizen.

munk-a6• 5 years ago

There are many ways to pressure the political spectrum, one of them is to take a stance on refusing import from the country - that will trickle up to the top of the spectrum.

It's not particularly impactful for a company to do on it's own due to the size of the chinese economy (we'd need a coordinated national effort) but if the Uyghur Genocide is something you feel strongly about as a business owner you can probably relocate to other suppliers without that much of a raise in cost.

tablespoon8• 5 years ago

The chinese people that build products are not the ones with the concentration camps. Pressure has to be on the top of the political spectrum, not on the regular chinese citizen.

That sounds nice, but your suggestion reduces the available options practically to zero (pretty much left with assassination and pointless sanctions against people with no foreign assets and diplomatic immunity when traveling).

The people at the top of the political spectrum derive a large part of their power from the factories where those regular people work.

tomjen32• 5 years ago

That would be nice, but as I recall it some companies got caught with their fingers in the cookie jar, including Apple [0]. The screen on your iPhone might be made with Muslim slave labor.

[0] https://dailycaller.com/2020/12/29/apple-uyghur-lens-technol...

mensetmanusman4• 5 years ago

Some of the chinese people that help build products are in the concentration camps. Not all of course.

stjohnswarts4• 5 years ago

I know people are downvoting you, but you are correct. The only ones who can really apply power to China are state level actors. Nothing will come of boycotting Chinese products. If you want to buy "Made in the _________" then do it because you want to help the western (other?) economies rather than China, not because it will do anything to convince the Chinese government not to genocide a culture.

meepmorp3• 5 years ago

Because diamonds are an exclusively luxury item that people can easily forego, and China is a whole country with a massive industrial base that makes a wide variety of products for cheap.

If you have $10, you're more likely to buy a $2 item than a $5 one because 20% of your budget is easier to justify than 50%.

mikece5• 5 years ago

I know it's difficult to buy a compute that doesn't have Chinese-made parts these days but not all parts of a computer are made in China. CPUs and memory chips are made in Taiwan and Korea; are there not makers of PCBs, power supplies, and the other parts of a computer such that you can get a computer to less than 10% Chinese parts? I didn't do a good job of expressing that raising awareness of the percentage of Chinese components as a differentiator would be a great marketing tool (similar to how cars sold in the US show what percentage of the parts in the car are US made versus imported).

tablespoon8• 5 years ago

Both on the left and the right of US politics there has been fault found with China. I'm kinda surprised that no large brands have highlighted "No Chinese-made components" on their products. We embrace "blood-free" diamonds, why not Chinese-free merchandise for similar reasons?

My guess is US corporations are too entangled with China, and it is too powerful and willing to retaliate. I wouldn't be surprised if a brand that did what you suggest would immediately be accused of "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people," and have its supply chains and markets disrupted.

praptak• 5 years ago

That might make some consumers feel a bit better but in the end it won't change anything.

It's a political problem which can only be solved at the state level.

mikece5• 5 years ago

And the state will only have the motivation to address the problem if they are facing a popular uprising -- either in fact or it's feared likely -- that could threaten the CCP as a the ruling order in China. There is a very long history in China of popular uprisings forcing political change which is why the reaction in Tienanmen Square in 1989 was so harsh and so swift (it's also why the unrest in Hong Kong is being put down the way it is). If any unrest doesn't end quickly and stay localized the CCP fears it will become nationwide before countermeasures are taken.

And if we, as consumers, make it clear that we will be buying Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Indian -- ANYTHING that isn't Chinese -- it will cause a reaction in the CCP (I just hope that reaction isn't a military first-strike).

ISL• 5 years ago

One need-not single out a nation-state in "-free" designations.

If WTO membership and global free-trade were predicated on certain civil-rights ground rules like: a free press, demonstrable rule of law, democratically elected governance, due process, and a complete absence of concentration camps, the world would be a better place.

Not only would it address the plight of the Uyghur people and the travesty that is occurring in Hong Kong, but it might grant the inmates at Guantanamo fair and open hearings.

Bring on the "oppression-free" consumer certifications. I am certain that there is a market.

PraetorianGourd• 5 years ago

I just bought a new down pillow, and there was a bunch of advertising about ethical down, and that the geese were treated well and the such. And if I buy a down pillow from a place that wasn't certified, I was a monster. Which is important! But I don't see any such admonishments against buying face masks or laptop parts made by Uighur slaves/prisoners.

Edit: I should note, I am saying it is disgusting that we turn a blind eye to human suffering in the name of cheaper products and higher profit margins.

phreack• 5 years ago

Maybe a lack of signal? I would certainly buy a more expensive product that's certified not to be made in genocidal or slave-labor countries. I've seen lists of 'blood-free' chocolate brands online before and they certainly had an effect.

tomjen32• 5 years ago

I don't think there is a single large brand that truthfully _could_ advertise that.

YarickR2• 5 years ago

Exactly, and competitors could easily prove such claims as lies, by pointing out second level suppliers being affiliated with China; guilty by association. We're effectively trapped in one cage with China, with no easy way out.

bjt2n3904• 5 years ago

Atop what everyone else says, I reckon it would take all of five minutes for Twitter to reframe it as xenophobic prejudice against China.

Doesn't matter that it isn't true. It sounds true, and that's all that matters.

president• 5 years ago

You got downvoted but that's essentially what happened with Covid. You're not even allowed to say the original name anymore [1][2].

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...

[2] https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/23074/

NoOneNew• 5 years ago

I do agree, but I would say it's an infrastructure problem than choice. Most components and "stuff", well, comes from China. Going elsewhere is not marginally more expensive, its significantly more. This means your political stance, though righteous, will bleed dry compared to those who would actually go for the "blood diamonds" for the lower cost. It takes the consumer to also make the choice.

The big arguement in the early 2000s on the fear of too much China reliance is exactly this. Can we stand a moral ground against a country whose teet we depend on? Too many companies are disgusting unwilling to. I dont watch anything hollywood (which has been silly easy oddly) over the whole self censorship to appease the chinese market. Any company that kowtows to chinese pressure for any little thing is on my shit list. But I'm just one dude. Most people dont care or are unwilling. At that, I know my computer, phone and a number of other things came from China. Anytime I can get anywhere but China, I go for it. It's real difficult. Unloading our manufacturing wasn't smart and we are reaping what we sowed.

fakedang3• 5 years ago

I'm doing my part by pirating Disney movies and encouraging anyone and everyone around me to pirate them too.

Do Netflix and Amazon also engage in appeasement? Those are the only two accounts we maintain now.

Chazprime• 5 years ago

I think that's likely because the quality of electronic components coming out of China has improved considerably while still being less expensive than manufacturing locally.

colonelpopcorn• 5 years ago

The cult of the MBA and their sacrament of cost-cutting measures?

gonehome2• 5 years ago

South Park's Band In China episode had this exactly right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_in_China

Earlier last year when people were joking about Apple not showing iPhones getting broken in their shows on Apple TV, the less talked about but much more alarming bit was their comment about China.

"Today’s report also claims that Eddy Cue has told Apple TV+ leadership that “the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China,” referring to potentially angering China with any of its original TV shows or movies."

https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/13/apple-tv-plus-gawker-show/

Does this mean no news on Apple TV? That soft-censorship for corporate economic interest reasons will allow the CCP to do terrible things because companies are incentivized to ignore it/suppress speech around it?

Apple also capitulates to the CCP, allowing them to host iCloud on CCP servers in country. They also remove the Taiwanese flag from Chinese iPhones, and remove podcast apps/content from China.

On one side you could argue this inter-economic dependence lowers the likelihood of war. It is not without an ethical cost though. Is genocide an acceptable cost for stability and compromising your principles? Is access to the Chinese market worth that?

https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html

The outcome of the South Park episode:

"In response to the episode's criticism of the Chinese government, South Park has been entirely banned in China, including on its streaming services and social media platforms.

In October 2019, insiders told Bloomberg that Apple, which has a significant portion of its users and manufacturers in China, was reportedly unlikely to bid for the streaming rights of the series due to the China ban."

eddywebs• 5 years ago

There is already a movement going on in India to boycott Chinese made goods. Issue or not an issue, it is imperative that manufacturing has redundancies like Apple making phones both in China and India.

ahthat• 5 years ago

It’s a little incendiary and perhaps would look a little racist to label things “Chinese free” or “Not made in China”.

Objects should simply continue to label their country of origin.

If the population really is interested in generally removing themselves from commerce with China, there will be a tendency to avoid products with the “Made in China” label. How great this tendency is will depend on how much the population values a commercial separation. Of course, it is ridiculous to assume that any individual would be completely aware of the degree to which their lives are ultimately influenced by commerce with China via their consumption of goods, let the alone the entire population. However, we can still expect the change in commerce with China to reflect the degree to which the rest of society values not doing business with those business entities that prosper in the spirit of mutual benefit with a regime that practices perverse and backwards acts against humanity entirely unbefitting of any modern world power.

Anyone man of commerce with a conscience must ultimately conclude to some degree that cooperating with entities under such a regime is not ideal, if simply for the sake of attempting to do good rather than evil. However, any man or woman of reason must realize that the leaders in international commerce that make these decisions must ultimately weigh this fact against a multitude of other factors. Their service most likely is foremost to the continuing survival of the business they represent, which in turn is dependent on consumption of the goods they sell. In the case of business with China, we can assume this to be goods sold elsewhere in society. These members of society have multilayered responsibilities in their responsibilities to society. Yes, to a degree they are responsible for the strife in China— however, they are also responsible to all the members of their supply chain, fellow colleagues and employees, business partners, and then also their consumers, not to mention their dependents and other contracts such as debt obligations and taxes. These are realities for society members working in the integrated world economy. To quit business altogether means disrupting these chains. However, if society values not cooperating with that particular system that sins against mankind enough, it would by degrees remove its consumption of the goods that arrive from that system, and furthermore by degrees shame and diminish the reputations of any partner to that specific system — the greater we as a society value liberty and justice for all, in both the arenas of physical personhood and in business, the more we will pressure the partners of the system and then ultimately the system itself to cease the contraptions diminishing to our natures. The degree to which society truly values these noble aims will be shown by the collective decisions and actions of that society.

In other words, in a free society, by which the actions of men and women are freely chosen, the degree to which that society as a collective values freedom will influence the degrees to which those who practice barbarism can continue doing so.

fiftyfifty• 5 years ago

I don't think we'll see individual brands take action unless there is significantly more consumer pressure in the west. For many manufacturers it could take years for them to create the manufacturing capacity somewhere else. This is a tricky situation, any military action has the potential to cause more death and suffering. Economic sanctions seem like the only reasonable path forward, but because of the entanglement of China with virtually everyone's economies it is likely to hurt the US and Europe as well. Is the west willing to suffer a severe recession to help the Uyghurs?

dillondoyle2• 5 years ago

Because it's hard and there aren't yet enough legal consequences for the use of this concentration camp prisoner labor.

While I agree we must get much stronger incentives/laws on our side we can't get distracted and pass all the moral consequences/imperative for action onto our side. It's less than half the equation.

We need to tackle the other side of this problem because CCP is directly responsible.

Bottom line Xi is perpetrating this genocide. That's the main fault & we can't 'offshore' 100% of the blame onto our corporations.

Even if we did get perfect decoupling I don't think that would be enough incentive to change China's behavior?

Morally, I don't think that alone is a strong enough reaction to these horrors and threats to Democracy.

We must hold the CCP & Xi directly responsible

beaunative2• 5 years ago

We don't really need diamonds, and the freedom loving people of the great united states of america do not produce most of things they use on a daily basis. They can all talk, but when a milk tea in San Francisco costs more than an earphone shipped from China, what's the choice gonna be?

wombatmobile• 5 years ago

The idea of boycotting goods from manufacturers whose enterprises are supported by state perpetrators of genocide might appeal to lots of people who are humanists.

In practice, that would mean not buying anything that has a connection to a list of countries that includes China, Indonesia, Belgium, and several countries which I'm not going to list because the conversation would become unmanageable, just as the Uyghur conversation would become unmanageable within China.

If China were the only guilty state in the world, a boycott would be a different proposition to what it is. Even then, it's not guaranteed to be effective because the way things work psychologically, commercially, and geopolitically.

Even though 99% of people consider themselves humanists, they are able to compartmentalise their feelings in surprising ways when it comes to the acquisition of consumer goods, energy, copper, gold, diamonds, and real estate.

stjohnswarts4• 5 years ago

Because boycotts don't work on this scale. This is nation state level stuff. Only the US government can apply any pressure here on a scale that makes a difference. The best thing you can do is vote for politicians that aren't afraid of China. If you want to buy American then do it because you want to buy American and help the economy and your fellow Americans not because you want to punish China.

SkyMarshal• 5 years ago

Because US corporations want access to China's market, which is 2x-4x the size of the US's. Criticizing China or the CPC will get them expelled.

99_Woodcutting7• 5 years ago

False. The right claims "Beijing Biden" is a sleeper agent for the CCP who is selling America out to China. Just check the comment section of ben shapiro youtube videos or the /r/conservative subreddit.

In the minds of the right, only Republicans are truly anti-China. They think the left is giving in to China.

thrw• 5 years ago

How can I filter out products made in China on Amazon?

meepmorp3• 5 years ago

By not using Amazon, tbh.

mikece5• 5 years ago

Years ago (30 years already?) if you shopped at Walmart you would see red, white and blue stickers proudly proclaiming "100% American Made" on items that were just that. If you buy a new car in the US the dealer sticker lists what percentage of the parts in the car are US-made versus imported. Labels that show what percentage of parts come from China could be a powerful marketing tool.

maxwell• 5 years ago

https://wecultivate.us

smoldesu3• 5 years ago

Starting April 1st 2021, we will charge 15% of all sales through Cultivate.

Man, what a great way to support American business...

betterunix2• 5 years ago

I doubt you could for the majority of products. Modern supply chains are global and China has a massive economy and thus a massive role in those supply chains.

exolymph• 5 years ago

You can't, obviously. Why would you expect to be able to do that?

99_Woodcutting7• 5 years ago

Stop using Amazon entirely. They are shills and enablers for the CCP.

dirtyid5• 5 years ago

Report rehashes boring Zenz talking points, nothing original.

Most interesting tidbit.

Newlines is funded by FairfaxU of Virginia, a private school with ~150 students and ~60 staff (read: there's external funding). Newlines Institute is also rebrand Center for Global Policy (CGP), tradename for International Institute of Islamic Thought... linked to the Muslim Brotherhood [0]. And owned by Mar-Jac, a front for SAAR Foundation, a massive source of funding of extreme terrorism whose US proxies were heavily investigated post 911, including IIIT with a couple prosecutions. Hence the rebranding. Most of their US proxies are located in Virginia, a recent of Mar-Jac investments in private schools was linked to Turkish Gulenist, which Gulf council countries has designated as terrorists... including Saudi. So the most interesting extrapolation for me is that some wealthy Saudi group(s) is interested in pushing genocide narrative via US proxies despite Saudi support for China at UN and MbS purging major funders of terrorist groups. Western MSM is whitewashing this as "Independent DC think tank". Real question is if this is Muslim extremist groups pursing their own interests through obfuscation or if they're coordinating with US intelligence, it's Virginia after all. US was willing to delist Uyghur terrorist groups, they're willing to work with OG Al Qaeda funders to destabilize.

MSM is currently using "Independent DC think tank" label for front funded by the same groups that was responsible for Al Qaeda. Desperate times for propaganda.

[0] https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2020/11/12/new-musli...

AndrewBissell2• 5 years ago

Nayirah testimony, WMDs in Iraq, the Libyan rape allegations, Syrian chemical attacks -- eventually you would think people would catch on to this playbook. I don't doubt there are serious human rights violations taking place in Xinjiang, but the term "genocide" is ridiculous, an allegation being deployed in support of the aims of U.S. empire.

LazyBoyAccount• 5 years ago

but the term "genocide" is ridiculous, an allegation being deployed in support of the aims of U.S. empire.

So why doesn't China allow independent investigations into what's really taking place? Maybe if they weren't hiding the truth people wouldn't be so quick to fill in the holes with their own stories.

Context_free2• 5 years ago

Gulf of Tonkin. If you look at Arafat's Wikipedia page it says he was not born in Palestine and died (of course) of venereal disease.

Insofar as how long it goes on, if you look at US WWI propaganda they were talking about German soldiers massacring babies in Belgium (the killing babies lie is a common one - from incubators to Assad gassing babies)

dirtyid5• 5 years ago

Free fifth estate manufacture consent more effectively than state propaganda. Access to information ≠ ability to discern or be critical. Everyone taught to check veracity of sources, but no one even reads past the headline in the first place. Even most educated audiences demonstrate QANON levels of eating bad information especially when it comes to foreign policy or other subjects that they have tangential interest but strong tribal investments in. I grew up with strong state media, and at least people are suspicious of media by default. Free media brainwashing is too strong.

loceng• 5 years ago

By definition, the use of the word genocide [as it includes elimination of culture] is not ridiculous.

Edit to add: Downvotes don't make my statement any less true.

dillondoyle2• 5 years ago

Here is UN definition line by line.

There are so many many sources but here is a good summary from NyTimes: http://archive.is/93x6g

Quotes from article under each line item definition. Again so many more sources but that would be exhausting to compile.

- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

"Those who have been held in camps describe a rigorous prison environment filled with monotonous political indoctrination and, for many, terrorizing bouts of violence and physical abuse by guards."

-Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

"Officials have held one million or more people in internment camps in Xinjiang, the country’s most sweeping mass detention program since the Mao era. A wide range of behavior can lead to detention, including acts of religious devotion, travel to certain countries, violations of birth restrictions or installing cellphone apps that allow encrypted messaging."

"And the authorities have carried out the widespread destruction of mosques and shrines while turning others into tourist sites."

- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

"has used repressive methods such as forced sterilizations."

- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

"Large numbers of children in Xinjiang have been placed in boarding schools designed to assimilate and indoctrinate them, according to the government’s published plans."

- Killing members of the group

Article doesn't have a quote and there isn't a lot of evidence here so it is likely not happening on a large scale. Though there are many deaths from poor treatment in concentration camps and forced labor camps.

tim3335• 5 years ago

There aren't really any obvious reasons why the 'U.S. empire' would want to fake this one. It's not like they really want to get into a war with the country that makes most of their stuff.

carnagecity786• 5 years ago

I feel like I keep seeing headlines like this, but nothing really changes. No country has the power, authority or even the international political weight to stand up to China. In generations to come we're going to look back at this moment and marvel at how everyone knew it was happening (unlike Nazi Germany where the allies only found out towards the end of the war) and yet done nothing about it. The current US administration cares more about curbing China's international political and financial influence rather than perhaps the biggest humanitarian issue since the Rwandan Genocide

ipnon• 5 years ago

If we compare China to Nazi Germany, the first legislation acts against Jewish Germans began in 1933, 12 years before the end of the regime. The rest of world was already aware of the abuse of Jewish Germans because they began to flee the country at that early time. Unfortunately, it is one thing to denounce an act and another to end it.

hertzrat8• 5 years ago

China has simultaneously pursued a dual systematic strategy of forcibly sterilizing Uyghur women of childbearing age and interning Uyghur men of child-bearing years,
According to Government statistics and directives, including to “carry out family planning sterilization,” “lower fertility levels,” and ”leave no blind spots,”
China began building a vast network of massive State- run, highly securitized boarding schools and orphanages to confine Uyghur children, including infants, full time.
local authorities have eliminated Uyghur education, destroyed Uyghur architecture and household features, and damaged, altered, or completely demolished the vast majority of mosques and sacred sites in the region,

I had not heard of any of this before today. The news only talked about internment, surveillance, and forced labour.

Edit: Why the flood of downvotes? Are the quotes offending people? They are directly from the executive summary of the report

danShumway2• 5 years ago

Threads like this aren't going to reach the top of HN very often (or in my experience, other social networking sites either), they get flagged and downvoted to oblivion. HN policy prohibits me from speculating why, but you can fill in the blanks.

There have been multiple media reports, but it's reasonable you might not have run into them outside of the context of "the PRC is vaguely doing something bad to Uyghurs". But yeah, the reality of what's going on is kind of horrifying, and I think the reaction from other nations (including the US) has been underwhelming.

antibuddy• 5 years ago

I can also fill out the blanks without violating HN policy. Nobody wants political controversity on their site because it attracts a lot of related problems. It is obiviously part of the spiral of silence and therefore I don't like it much, but one can kind of understand why.

99_Woodcutting7• 5 years ago

China is the sole exception to hackernews's "no politics, only tech talk" rule.

They are a unique evil that must be destroyed.

hertzrat8• 5 years ago

Why the flood of downvotes? Are the quotes offending people? They are directly from the executive summary of the report

Y-bar3• 5 years ago

It seems you are Just Asking Questions about a subject whose answers are readily available in a Wikipedia Article with 300 citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide

Nobody but you knows where you get your information from, but it would help if you showed some effort of why you think it has not been reported before (when it has).

ketzo• 5 years ago

Frankly, this thread is filled with stuff that's getting downvoted for no reason, and some really off-topic comments.

munk-a6• 5 years ago

I think it might be partially due to the fact that while none of your quotes are inaccurate you didn't really add anything to the quotes. I didn't downvote your comment as it's a pretty reasonable statement that seems to have been made in good faith but comments should add to and build on the contents of the article and, while many people don't RTFA here the assumption is that folks should be doing so. So just reposting a snippet of the article without any commentary or analysis isn't really adding anything to the discussion.

HN does have some very good posting guidelines if you're unfamiliar: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

zhengyi13• 5 years ago

To answer your "Why the downvotes?" question, two possibilities occur to me:

1) They may be folk concerned with the justice of the situation invested enough in this issue that they're reacting to your question with something like "Are you living under a rock?".

2) There may be folk invested enough in the mainland Chinese government's position that they take issue simply with the existence of these statements, and rather than engage with the substance of them, simply try to make them go away.

Whether either of these are a fair reaction is a different discussion.

hertzrat8• 5 years ago

I have read a ton of articles about the subject and the information I mentioned never came up. I think it’s not widely known. I checked with my wife and a friend just now, who both has followed the story over time, and they didn’t know those details either. I’m not blaming the media, I’m trying to highlight something I suspect isn’t widely known

whimsicalism7• 5 years ago

China has simultaneously pursued a dual systematic strategy of forcibly sterilizing Uyghur women of childbearing age and interning Uyghur men of child-bearing years,

I hadn't heard about this. I wonder if these are people who have already had more than two kids and this is China taking actions in compliance with their two-child policy, or whether they are sterilizing people who have had two or fewer.

Regardless, I doubt the policy is being enforced equally as stringently among Han Chinese.

gonehome2• 5 years ago

This would be my guess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

There's often wild voting in China related comment threads.

hertzrat8• 5 years ago

Every time this post got to +1, it got hammered to -2 within seconds until a few minutes ago. This happened every few minutes for the last hour until the story left the front page, and now it’s +9 and there are no downvotes to be seen. I know we’re not supposed to talk about downvotes, but I think I maybe just got suppressed. It was really, really weird watching it. Is it possible to report it for investigation? I don’t care about my karma or even being told the results of the investigation, but I’d love it if a mod looked into this

mytailorisrich2• 5 years ago

I made comments critical of this institute's credibility and not only they were immediately downvoted but people then went through my comments history and downvoted all my previous comments they could.

Clearly your 50 cent party works both ways.

Now I think it's insulting to suggest that commenters who dissent are paid by someone as if there was an obvious correct opinion and any other was obviously faked, but there is also a general problem with allowing things like 'downvotes' because they are always weaponised and they kill discussion. Unfortunately the same goes with flagging as that can automatically suppress a comment.

Context_free2• 5 years ago

One of the most horrific actions in this genocide was when the Chinese Air force bombed a wedding in Xinjiang, killing 37 people - many innocent women and children.

Oops! That was the US Air force 13 years ago, bombing a couple hundred kilometers southwest of Xinjiang, in a bordering country ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_ai... ).

It's illustrative how Americans get up in arms about how the Chinese dealing with Muslim terrorists in their own country deal with human rights, while they have flown across the world to perform massacres in the country on Xinjiang's western border.

AnimalMuppet• 5 years ago

There is a moral difference between accidental mistake and deliberate action.

refenestrator2• 5 years ago

The US has accidentally killed more muslims than China every single year for the last 20 years, though.

At some point you have to wonder why all these accidents keep happening, and why they always serve US geopolitical interests.

coliveira2• 5 years ago

Right, because everything wrong the American government does is by "mistake"...

whimsicalism7• 5 years ago

Yes, but I also think it is harder when the accidents are foreseen. The United States doesn't take repeated military actions with the rational expectation that there won't be these accidental killings of civilians, so because they are foreseen, they are arguably intended.

g00gler2• 5 years ago

Can you provide some sources for terrorist attacks perpetrated by Uighers?

lucian1900• 5 years ago

https://youtu.be/u4cYE6E27_g

tablespoon8• 5 years ago

> It's illustrative how Americans get up in arms about how the Chinese dealing with Muslim terrorists in their own country
Can you provide some sources for terrorist attacks perpetrated by Uighers?

They're probably referring to stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack

I remember after 9/11 there were paranoid fears that the US was going to do extreme things like round up all Muslims and put them in internment camps, etc. China's actually pursuing a policy not too different from those fears.

dyadic4• 5 years ago

They're talking about East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), it's the Uyghur jihadist organization that's conducted a number of terrorist attacks using bombs and knives.

I don't have a source to hand but you can find some attacks listed on their wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkistan_Islamic_Party#Attack...

jedimind5• 5 years ago

Don't fall for the false "terrorism" accusation. The real issue is the geopolitical importance of xinjiang: https://youtu.be/ZxvYcByv2M8

kuyan• 5 years ago

It's illustrative how Americans get up in arms about how the Chinese dealing with Muslim terrorists in their own country deal with human rights, while they have flown across the world to perform massacres in the country on Xinjiang's western border.

The United States has a long, violent history that continues into the present day. I don't think anyone here is arguing that. It doesn't make the PRC's actions better, nor does it mean that we shouldn't condemn abuses of human rights where we see them.

jedimind5• 5 years ago

Don fall for the "terrorism" deception, it's about the geopolitical importance of xinjiang: https://youtu.be/ZxvYcByv2M8

disgrunt2• 5 years ago

36 people at a wedding is a tragedy, 2.5 million Uyghurs is a statistic?

Daho0n5• 5 years ago

Yes, some would say so, just like they would of the deaths at 9/11 versus the 50.000 dead children caused by the reaction.

munk-a6• 5 years ago

Some of us here aren't American and don't see America as the sort of inspirational bastion of freedom that seems to be internally reinforced by your media.

Both America & the PRC can be in the wrong simultaneously, but, that said, the PRC is clearly more in the wrong.

dirtyid5• 5 years ago

Without considering US foreign policy. Even taking the most extreme Zenz estimates, a Uyghur in XJ has less lifetime chance of being incarcerated as a black American in US. And unlike US/western segregationist tendencies at cultural level, the XJ forced integration systems are designed to assimilate and not be a multi-generational minority repression trap. Compare development in Urumqi, Kashgar in XJ to western ghettos (i.e. French Banlieue) or indigenous preserves in Canada without basic amenities. Future BLM, indigenous and minority activists will be fighting long after next generations of Sinicized Uyghurs. Morality is complicated, especially evaluated on factors like time scope. The "long arc" moral universe is not necessarily better than "5 year" plan, and indeed the nature of compound interests / suffering suggest to me, that it's not.

whimsicalism7• 5 years ago

Yes, I don't think the United States does anything close to what the PRC is doing to its own citizens domestically, although I guess you can draw some comparisons with mass incarceration.

A more similar comparison with the West would be how Israel sterilized non-white jews through the 90s into the 00s.

e: and I'm downvoted for...?

Daho0n5• 5 years ago

the PRC is clearly more in the wrong.

How did you arrive at this conclusion? The victim count would massively disagree with it and so would the amount of imprisoned minorities. It seems to me that your first and last sentences disagree with eachother.

disgrunt2• 5 years ago

There are approximately 3.45 million Muslims living in the U.S., none are being held in reeducation camps. [0]

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/03/new-estimat...

vorpalhex• 5 years ago

Sorry, what does a bombing in Afghanistan have to do with the CCP performing a genocide against an ethnic and religious minority?

bigpumpkin• 5 years ago

The Uyghur Genocide-

The genocide where the Uyghur population grows faster than the Han population in Xinjiang.

The genocide where a Uyghur actress- Dilraba Dilmurat remains one of the most popular actresses in China.

The genocide where virtually no Covid infections occured in Xinjiang.

The genocide where Uyghur workers can't find work because of American sanctions on Xinjiang cotton.

The genocide where western countries claim genocide but don't even boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics.

One has to wonder, if there's a genocide, why are countries sending their skiers to slide down some slope near Beijing?

CyanBird4• 5 years ago

And rather, why are the supposed genocide witnesses changing their stories so much?

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/they-dont-only-rape-bu...

jedimind5• 5 years ago

The copy paste CCP talking points are almost comical by now. Everybody has a good grip on what's going on right now: https://youtu.be/ZxvYcByv2M8

whimsicalism7• 5 years ago

I'll be honest - this video is more cringe-y than the talking points.

Is this the sort of stuff people are watching to decide their political opinions?

smoldesu3• 5 years ago

I've always wondered how complicit companies like Apple are in the surveillance of these marginalized communities. Apple has never really addressed how exactly they operate in these regions, and their transparency report says that they turn over more information in China than nearly any other country. Hacker News probably won't like me for asking this, but:

Is there blood on their hands?

whimsicalism7• 5 years ago

Basically, they sub-contract it out to Chinese companies that do the actual tracking.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

smoldesu3• 5 years ago

I see, that's somewhat concerning. Thank you for sharing, I didn't know about the subcontracting bit.

mensetmanusman4• 5 years ago

Of course, but it's too late now (in their mind). They made a faustian bargain like most western countries and companies, hoping that china would change, but unfortunately they were wrong...

danShumway2• 5 years ago

I don't want to tread outside of HN policy, but in the spirit of a comment I saw Dang leave on a thread about wanting "surprising" comments on posts that tend to go in predictable directions, the sheer predictability of what happens on threads that even mention the Uyghur as a people makes me wonder if there's a good data visualization blog post somewhere here.

I would be interested in seeing someone explore what keywords seem to trigger the reaction, how fast it is, etc... HN has a pretty open API, so it feels like it wouldn't be too hard to make some interesting graphs on how the posts/comments evolve over time.

Heck, I'd be interested in seeing a visualization like that for HN posts in general, but PRC posts are the ones where it seems the most like there's an obvious, reproducible process happening that could be explored and experimented on.

minimaxir• 5 years ago

I've done work in this area (example from 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8425385) and it wouldn't be too terrible to do a data viz on comment count trajectory on a thread given a certain keyword.

Granted, given the responses to my previous work, it would likely not be well-received and it might be too niche for the effort involved.

Daho0n5• 5 years ago

It would likely look like a pixel perfect copy of data from a Tesla post.

justaman• 5 years ago

You're not the only one to notice this. Take all your downvotes as a sign this project needs to happen.

99_Woodcutting7• 5 years ago

It's okay, you are not violating HN policy.

China is the sole exception to HN's "no controversial politics talk, only tech news" rule.

They are an evil that must be destroyed.

mytailorisrich2• 5 years ago

This Institute was founded in 2019, is based in Washington D.C., was founded by someone who has ties to the US military, and is a division an relatively new private university that had their license almost revoked also in 2019...

Pinch of salt needed here, at the very least.

jkingsbery• 5 years ago

I haven't read it all yet, but are there any (1) incorrect statements of fact or (2) specific opinions that seem unjustified leaps?

berdario• 5 years ago

A huge boulder of salt.

The document has been produced in consultation with Adrian Zenz, and his work is referred several times.

Zenz is widely known to have made numbers up, and in fact he has now been sued by Xinjiang farmers that complains of his defamation

https://twitter.com/MazementC/status/1369104709072662532

Frankly, this article is just war propaganda. Hopefully flagging it will help preventing more people being mislead by it.

cletus2• 5 years ago

I think any reasonable person can look at what's happening with the Uyghurs and only come to the conclusion that it's appalling. The only real defense here is that the reports of it happening are untrue or exaggerated and I think at this point we have ample evidence that's not the case.

So let's set that issue aside and look at the more general problem of polarization as that has wider implications. Fact is, most people in the US (as one example) don't give a shit about genocide halfway around the world beyond maybe some slacktivism in liking a social media post about it every now and again.

So I'm not Chinese but as an outsider looking in who is not an expert by any stretch of the imagination this is what I see: I see a culture that within living memory came out of a period of severe instability, hunger and turmoil. China now under pseudo-Communist rule has entered a period of stability and prosperity for a significant portion of the population.

Because that's so recent there seems to be (heavy IMHO here) a cultural fear of that going prosperity going away. I don't want to trivialize this by any means but you see something roughly analogous to this with people who grew up poor vs those who didn't, even if those people who grew up poor have money now. Just having that experience of growing up without food or housing security changes you. It changes your relationship to money.

So what I see is there's an awful lot of Chinese people who look at any issue relating to China through this lens: anything remotely critical of China is an attack on that prosperity. So anything critical of China on HN (comments or posts) will attract a certain level of automatic downvote on any hot button issue (eg Uyghurs, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the origins of Covid-19).

The lesson here I think is in how dangerous things become when a large group of people become fearful.

As an example, in the US today you have polarization because people fan the flames of fear. The Trump base is one who fears their way of life is under attack, exploited quite masterfully where any demonstrable proof that Trump himself is by any objective measure a horrible human being gets labelled as "fake news" and people eat it up because that's what they want to believe. And they want to believe that because they've bought into this culture of fear.

I just hope we're not all screwed.

CyanBird4• 5 years ago

I think any reasonable person can look at what's happening with the Uyghurs and only come to the conclusion that it's appalling

Maybe, yeah

Detention for fear of terrorism is bad when the US did it with Japanese born citizens in Wwii and it is bad when it was done in Guantánamo, and it is bad now

That said, why are the supposed witnesses to these crimes changing their histories and narratives to make it seem like a B type horror movie rather than stick to their original telling of it?

I can't but remember the Nariyah Testimony in front of Congress

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/they-dont-only-rape-bu...

dirtyid5• 5 years ago

large group of people become fearful

What you're witnessing is new generations of PRC citizens with both access and experience in east and west finally realizing what citizens from global south that's been fucked by western foreign policy and news reporting have long realized: west is not the the bastion of morality it purports to be. The rampant unconditional western worship in PRC of the 80s-90s has ended, there's mass disillusionment with western systems and fatigue of western models with each hypocritical selective application i.e. weaponizing human rights. There's tons of Chinese users, either millions who hopped the wall or millions of diaspora whose finally engaging not because they are afraid, but because they're shocked by how brainwashed the west is and they're clapping back.

ample evidence that's not the case

We have western manufactured consent mechanism regurgitating "evidence" and narratives that exaggerates (in both numbers and atrocity) a very repressive system from what it is, cultural genocide that has no diplomatic consequences, to what it's not, genocide which does. It's generic western self-serving human rights geopolitics. XJ propaganda has to engineer genocide label, because if it was merely crimes against humanity then it's unprosecutable, by consensus and design, otherwise many western countries would have to pay for their own atrocities. Also queue comparisons to Nazi Germany when it's more comparable to US prison industrial complex for minorities repression/management with no greater global outrage. China loves to copy US after all. Not to mention how many people latch onto the genocide label even though it is by far the minority global position on the oppose vs support continuum. The plurality is "support", not support genocide, but support Chinese XJ counter-terrorism. Let that sink in, it takes particular blindness to assume the LEAST endorsed position (not even minority) as default, but here we are.

cletus2• 5 years ago

The typical term for your position is “butwhataboutism”, used to great effect in the Trump era.

So when someone points out something like the suppression of the Uyghurs and you point out “but what about atrocities committed by Western countries?” that’s a distraction where you’re trying to divert attention to an unrelated issue.

The USA committed atrocities against native Americans, engaged in centuries of slavery, interned Japanese citizens in WWII and dropped atomic bombs on civilians. All of that is true. But just because it’s true it doesn’t negate or excuse Chinese human rights abuses.

jxramos2• 5 years ago

What's the history here exactly, how and when did the Uyghur people get tangled up with the Chinese? Dumb question but how come they can't just leave or tell other's about what's going on?

chinathrow1029• 5 years ago

Here’s the history of it, straight from the horse’s mouth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKBTT827b84

xster2• 5 years ago

If you want to understand Xinjiang, you have to first understand the First Island Chain (and China's recent development in MRBM).

porphyra• 5 years ago

It's a bit complicated. Some say the Uyghurs arrived in that area 900 or so years ago, some say they have been there for over 6400 years. Most likely, modern Uyghurs are descended from a mix of peoples, including the original ancient Uyghurs, the Tiele people, and some other peoples.

China controlled the region about 2000 years ago during the Han Dynasty, but has since lost it and regained control several times throughout history.

The region is historically important as it is on the Silk Road, and has seen a huge amount of wars. So it is likely that the populations there have been displaced several times.

Apparently, modern Uyghurs are part of China because a plane crash killed many of the delegation of the Second East Turkestan Republic who were opposed to being part of China, leaving a surviving leader who joined the Chinese Communist Party.

Paradigma11• 5 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide

jxramos2• 5 years ago

terrifying!

tim3335• 5 years ago

So is there a legal framework to stop this? We could do with something like a court with economic sanctions.

zxcvbn4038• 5 years ago

The most interesting part of the Uyghur situation is that the world has had more or less the same reaction that they had to the Nazi persecution of the Jews in the 1930s. We know it is happening but we are not going to do anything. Arguably if not for Pearl Harbor the US wouldn't have interfered with Germany either.

cjblomqvist• 5 years ago

I'm not sure that people were as much aware as we are/could be today tbh. I had a few relatives (now dead) who supported the nazi politics (I'm Swedish) and my understanding is that it was not at all clear until after the war. Perhaps there were rumors, but facts were much more difficult to come by at that time (even though it's sometimes confusing nowadays too).

imtringued• 5 years ago

Instead of just blaming China and pointing fingers wouldn't it make sense to find new growth markets? I have read up on how China is investing in Africa. Wouldn't it be for the best to do the same and cut China as the middleman? After all, if African countries provide resources and even manufacture on site only to send the products to China why even bother with China?

amai2• 5 years ago

I would like to see Chinas reaction, if Chinese people would be treated like the Uyghurs in a muslim country.

xster2• 5 years ago

The Chinese people might, since the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [1] and Muslim majority countries in general [2] overwhelmingly support China in Xinjiang.

[1] https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250

[2] https://thediplomat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/thediplom...

But of course you'll never hear of it in western media.

amai2• 5 years ago

So you don't deny that a genocide is happening to the Uyghur people? You just argue, if muslim countries are supporting China this is ok?

Sorry comrade, that is the wrong answer. We will notify your leader and you will be scheduled for retraining soon.

The Uyghur Genocide: An examination of breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention

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