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China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

303 points by farseer 8y ago

duxup 8y ago
The scale is jaw dropping.
- manuelmagic 8y ago
  That is exactly what I thought while reading the article.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
flyGuyOnTheSly 8y ago
I keep telling people about this and their unconcerned reactions really worry me.
- ironjunkie 8y ago
  People are only getting concerned by the "hype thing of the day". (today it is the 1500 immigrant children lost, yesterday it was some battle in Syria) They don't care about things until a mob of similar people care about it. It is group thinking and virtue signaling at its peak
  - em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
    Like the frog in gradually heated water, no one notices the gradual intensification.
    - pas 8y ago
      That's actually false. The frog jumps out when the water gets too hot.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- root_axis 8y ago
  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.
  - Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
    Awareness can possibly help them (us) ward off similar controls in our own communities.
- nomass 8y ago
  what reactions did you expect?
- ihsw2 8y ago
  Other people don't share your passion, who would've guessed? This is not controversial or concerning.
volgo 8y ago
Whether you like China or not, Islamic fundamentalism is a huge problem to global peace today. Not just in the Middle East, Europe, but also parts of Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Philipphines) and China. The problem is people clinging to old time religious beliefs that women are inferior and must be veiled and that infidels are not worthy We've slowly dispelled Christian fervor (which used to be just as bad as Islamic fundamentalism) by slowly improving the scientific literacy rate and living standards in the west. Must of the Islamic countries haven't seen growth like this. How do you root these out? Not sure if China's hard handed approach may work. Maybe it will, who knows. Maybe it will fail. But we at least must do something about it
- duxup 8y ago
  "But we at least must do something about it" Like oppress an entire region of people who aren't committing violence to get to the handful who are?
  - oblong 8y ago
    Gaza shows that handful can easily become most of the population if you let it get out of control. The left's deep love and devotion to a religion that oppresses their other favoured groups - gays and women - astonishes me.
    - ironjunkie 8y ago
      Gaza is not a religion problem, it is a human right problem. Israel is scandalously denying human people living in Gaza any dignity in their living, after stealing their land and oppressing them for years. I'm sick to see how much America is getting complicit with this. and happy to see that most of Europe realizes what is really going on there.
      - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
        The problem is you are considered Anti-Semitic if you criticize the government of Israel. So you cannot even talk about it in public, or it will ruin your reputation and career. Edit: The karma of my comment proves my point.
Roritharr 8y ago
Besides this being dystopian out of the western libertarian pov, i wonder what it actually does against crime? I imagine a crime free city would be an interesting human phenomenon without equal. The side effects of there not being any undetected and unprosecuted crime would be fascinating.
- jdavis703 8y ago
  What is crime though? Do you want to live somewhere where spitting on a random sidewalk in front of the wrong camera means you're banned from flying for a year? Is the fear of criminal violence greater than the fear of state violence?
  - kfrzcode 8y ago
    > an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law. He who holds the biggest stick writes the book of law
  - msh 8y ago
    Depends on the country. Among my Danish countrymen I am pretty certain most is more afraid of criminal violence.
- duxup 8y ago
  It might be hard to study as I'm not sure how accurate crime stats are in China at all, let alone that region before the crackdown.
- privong 8y ago
  > The side effects of there not being any undetected and unprosecuted crime would be fascinating. The book "Liars and Outliers" addresses this question some, at least in broad hypothetical terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liars_and_Outliers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liars_and_Outliers
- mtgx 8y ago
  It won't be crime free. These types of authoritarian systems also tend to have deep corruption. In other words, there will be plenty of people "with the right connections" to evade the system.
purple-again 8y ago
This paywall is defeating all my usual tricks, can someone help me out? On an iPhone and the web link didn’t work, nor did going through twitter or Facebook. Thanks in advance for any help.
- spectrum1234 8y ago
  Guest mode in Chrome
- reilly3000 8y ago
  On my iPhone I was able to open it up directly using a private browsing window.
- jack_kc 8y ago
  Use private browsing mode on iOS.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  >This paywall is defeating all my usual tricks, can someone help me out? Paying for the content ought to do the trick.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - sgwae 8y ago
    You pay for porn, and software too right? Get real, only suckers pay for such things.
  - LearnerHerzog 8y ago
    What an ignorant and patronizing thing to say. Does your daddy have enough money for us too?
    - Barrin92 8y ago
      I don't really see the point of the excursion into my private life but I pay for my newspaper subscriptions myself, and I'm not really sure that being unable to pay for content somehow justifies stealing it.
stephengillie 8y ago
> As a result, more and more private prisons are being built: the incarceration archipelago is adding islands even faster than the South China Sea. Adrian Zenz of the European School of Culture and Theology in Kortal, Germany, has looked at procurement contracts for 73 private prisons. He found their total cost to have been $108 million, almost all spent since April 2017. Records from Akto, a county near the border with Kyrgyzstan, say it spent 9.6% of its budget on law enforcement (including private prisons) in 2017. In 2016 spending on law enforcement in the province was five times what it had been in 2007. By the end of 2017 it was ten times that: $1.24 billion. Change a few keywords and it sounds more like the current situation in the USA. > CCA revenue hit a whopping $1.79 billion in 2015, up from the year before, while GEO revenue hit an even higher $1.84 billion, likewise an improvement over their previous year.[0] [0]http://allthatsinteresting.com/private-prisons-us-stats http://allthatsinteresting.com/private-prisons-us-stats
CapacitorSet 8y ago
The fact that this is done under the guise of antiterrorism ought to ring some bells to American readers.
- adventured 8y ago
  The situations don't compare well, even though the US too often uses terrorism as a guise to pursue global political goals. Domestically there are 3.3 million Muslims in the US. There are ~50 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, with most of the former detainees having been released without charge. Some of them were charged as enemy combatants and or terrorists. And Guantanamo is widely considered a black mark on the US reputation. The US has millions of Muslims that co-exist entirely peacefully with a very large Christian majority. After 9/11, at the height of anti-Muslim emotions in the US, Muslim Americans weren't put into camps by the tens or hundreds of thousands; they weren't slaughtered; their rights weren't wiped out; their culture and religion wasn't made illegal; the US didn't arrest them by the hundreds of thousands in targeted fashion. In fact, it's extraordinary just how peaceful and calm the situation after 9/11 actually was: if you believed the propaganda, America surely would have killed or arrested every Muslim in the country, except the propaganda is all a lie. The US is not trying to destroy Islam in the US. The US is not interning millions of Muslims, trying to eradicate their culture and beliefs. The US is not torturing its Muslim population of 3.3 million. The US is not restricting their movement, their worship, or keeping them from owning guns or knives to defend themselves. The US is not razing their places of worship. The US is not building massive camps to put hundreds of thousands of Muslims into. The US isn't doing anything even remotely similar to what's going on in China.
  - s2g 8y ago
    No, the US just goes and bombs their homes instead. and at home the US strips away freedoms from their own people with the justification of "national security".
    - 323454 8y ago
      If you're a US Muslim then your home is probably the US.
surfanddurf 8y ago
I think we, as the world, need to counter this by 1.) Start moving factories out China, back into your local country. It could be an upgrade for companies to upgrade to more automated factories. Furthermore, it fights against China's agenda of 'Made in China in 2025', which they expect to make....everything in China. 2.) Shame companies that are investing further in China, destroying jobs in your local country. 3.) Stop buying things that are made in China. China doesn't have a big enough consumer base; it requires developed countries to purchase their good. 4.) Let everyone know about China's concentration camps that affect 1M+ muslims.
- kfrzcode 8y ago
  > the world FWIW, 20% of the world is China. They also manufacture a lot of things. Also it'a a huge country with a huge tapestry of interwoven peoples and problems. "The world" isn't just going to turn the other cheek and oust what will probably be the next global superpower.
- igivanov 8y ago
  In other news, the US, NATO and friends in this century alone destroyed Iraq, Libya, almost destroyed Syria and Yemen and did a few other nasty things that resulted in at least a million dead. Do you have a big enough item 5 for that?
  - em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
    - whatsstolat 8y ago
      Parent makes a point though. Should we boycott everything?
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      Doesn't make his point any less valid in this PARTICULAR context. I mean, where are we going to move the factories if the prerequisite is "No brutal use of deadly force against Muslims" ?
swedish_mafia 8y ago
The question is this: which is more meritocratic - a totalitarian system of governance that rewards merit or a caste system masquerading as an open society? Please answer a or b. Another question: system a: a developer with an idea and skills sitting in Montana believes (correctly) that the chances of getting funded are exponentially higher for people from Stanford university (or some other affiliation). System b : there is a similar guy sitting in a a rural shithole in China and he believes that he has an equal shot at vc funding as the next guy. Which system wins? Just asking.
- whytaka 8y ago
  But why make up such irrelevant questions that have no connection to reality?
tc 8y ago
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 invention that would be exported and widely adopted. The liberal democratic model of government spread around the world not just because the people saw it work in America and decided that's what they wanted, but also because the ruling aristocrats saw that it would be net better for them. The French Revolution probably helped convince them it compared favorably to the guillotine. If another model is pioneered and proven that's better for the ruling class, it won't be difficult to find regimes eager to adopt it.
- oblio 8y ago
  One could argue that “totalitarianism” was the default government form for most of history. The problem is, the higher we go on the Maslow pyramid, the more likely it is for it to fail. You just can’t have a huge mass of creative, inventive people without them complaining about leadership (and wanting to improve it). And totalitarianism by definition has problems accepting criticism. The only way for totalitarianism to “work” is if the rulers are both much smarter than the population as a whole and also benevolent. Regarding China, let’s see. These kinds of regimes don’t fail immediately. Just the cracks get bigger and bigger. From what I heard there’s a consolidation of power going on, that’s generally a sure sign of the first cracks appearing.
  - s4vi0r 8y ago
    The amount of protests in China has been exploding over the past decade(s). I didn't even know until someone mentioned it on here a few months back, but iirc its gone from maybe a few thousand per year in the 90s to well over 100,000 in recent years. The Chinese rich I've interacted with are also (in my experience, at least - I don't have stats to support this) really ignorant of how bad a lot of their countrymen have it. A friend of mine's father is some sort of government official in a tier 1 or 2 city, and he's told me that the rich and poor are segregated enough that he himself didn't even realize his family was anything other than middle class until he came to Canada and saw it wasn't exactly normal to have parents who can afford 100k+ annual tuition, luxury cars and apartments, etc.
rhn_mk1 8y ago
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 there it is: people must install government spyware on their personal devices. Reading this gave me a new appreciation of how human rights are broken in China. I sincerely hope that those people recover their freedom. As recent history had shown, even Western countries, proud of their freedom and Enlightenment values, may realize that something bad is happening when it's too late. Seeing how surveillance is making comparatively small advances here, I'm slightly more worried that privacy might be completely extinguished from the world one day.
- brianpgordon 8y ago
  The GDPR just coming into force is surely a promising sign that we're moving generally in the right direction.
biggio 8y ago
China must be split up. It's a huge population and it's not working.
- partycoder 8y ago
  Hello https://youtu.be/0vVOXlgHC1U?t=37m5s https://youtu.be/0vVOXlgHC1U?t=37m5s
  - em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
    For those that don't watch the YouTube, it shows a long Chinese military parade, which suggests the unlikelihood of China splitting up.
- ihsw2 8y ago
  You are in no position to argue or decide that.
- joejerryronnie 8y ago
  You should get Margrethe Vestager on this right away!
imleft 8y ago
Sort of like hn moderating against a diverse POV?
scotty79 8y ago
What would be your advice to China about how should they treat Uighurs?
- emptybits 8y ago
  Treatment identical to Han Chinese would be a great start.
  - ihsw2 8y ago
    They do get treatment identical -- any Han committing the same crimes would be exposed to the full force of the law.
    - emptybits 8y ago
      You refer to a very qualified and narrow "identical". In the general sense, before an Uighur commits a crime, are they treated in an equal manner to a Han Chinese before they commit a crime? In all manners of expression, association, travel and employment, for example?
  - throwaway9346 8y ago
    It would definitely ease how the Han Chinese feel about Uighurs being ungrateful. For those that don't know, China as affirmative action policies for Uighurs and other minorities. They were exempt from the 1-child policy, they get additional social welfare, and have an easier time getting to college and government jobs. So with all these perks, most Han Chinese see them as being ungrateful when they commit or support terrorist acts, like the Kunming massacre in 2014 or suicide bombing police stations.
nomass 8y ago
As a European I hope we find the courage and the strength to allow ourselves to be militarized as we where at the beginning of the 20th century. I think to a certain degree a military conflict with China would not be a bad thing. Here we have achived quite a few things of which each of his own would be worth dying for. Typical western values are seriously underrated and are not taken seriously.
- pas 8y ago
  Instead of military spending, we should get our education and politics act together. We should be at least ready to pivot to self sufficiency. We depend on Putin's mercy for energy, because a lot of us skipped game theory in kindergarden apparently. Someone mentioned cell phones. Yes that'd be good, to have a full end to end electronics pipeline around here. And so on.
  - nomass 8y ago
    We have very little military spending. The ukraine invasion was a very successfull testrun for Putin. We in Europe we keep ourselve weak and defenseless. Why?
    - skrause 8y ago
      We're not defenseless. The Ukraine just isn't part of either the NATO or the EU and not really close to the rest of Europe. If Russia was about to invade part of Finland the reaction would be quite different.
    - pas 8y ago
      The parent comment advocated for more military spending. I tried to offer better places for money.
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  > Here we have achived quite a few things of which each of his own would be worth dying for. What, like nuclear bombs? Because that's what most likely will kill you in a large scale conflict between superpowers. There ought to be a law that you can't advocate for war unless you've actually been to war...
throw2016 8y ago
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' is entirely fabricated. Why is Assange still stranded and Snowden in Russia? What consequences has there been from the revelations on western security services and rubber stamp courts? No answer from the economist because they aren't even asking the question. Yet another cheap ploy to use 'human rights', 'democracy' and 'freedom' to attack other countries while soiling these principles. The economist is a principal cheerleader of neoliberalism, shock therapy and other exploitative economic policies that directly lead to corruption, theft of national resources by uncontrolled privatization and oligarchies in third world countries. Nothing to do with democracy. This kind of hypocrisy and grandstanding has run its course, its a dangerous distraction designed to lull readers into complacency while entrenched interests that publications like the economist support make democracy more and more meaningless. [1] https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2014/01/10/treachery-and-its-consequences https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2014/01/10/tr...
- pas 8y ago
  Could you point to a few examples of support for "shock therapy and other exploitative economic policies" on the Economist?
emptybits 8y ago
A thought experiment, from an ignorant Canadian to those Chinese who accept ethnic discrimination in national policy: Generation(s) of Han Chinese and Uighurs get together and start having children. An act of loving subversion, if you will. At what level of mixing does the dangerous Uighur contribution become safe to you? 50%? 25%? 12.5%? [Only somewhat tongue-in-cheek.]
- throwaway9346 8y ago
  It's not about race but rather their patriotism towards China. The largest group of Muslims in China are the Hui Muslims (about 10 million of them). They are the descendants of the Muslims that were absorbed during conquests in the Tang and Ming Dynasty. They eventually integrated and married other Han Chinese. They are still Muslim, but also identify as Chinese. There are also affirmative action programs for them, making it easier for them to into good colleges and government jobs. They were also exempt from the 1-child policy. They are how Asians are in the US, the "model minority."
  - emptybits 8y ago
    > It's not about race but rather their patriotism towards China. Please explain, then, why race is a category used to reduce a person's numeric "trustworthiness score" in China. If one is ethnically Uighur instead of Han or if one has received religious education then one is deemed by the government as "less trustworthy" -- not because of behaviour or evidence of a crime but simply because of ethnicity.[1][2][3] Since this score is used to determine whether freedoms are restricted (e.g. travel, communication, and forced "re-education"), it is racism. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thousands-china-xinjiang-uighur-beijing-disappear-fears-authorities-thought-police-personal-safety-a8115421.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thousands-chin... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/china-re-education-camps.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/china-re-educatio... [3] (TFA) https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turned-xinjiang-into-a-police-state-like-no-other https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turn...
dreamszl 8y ago
Tell the story not the news. Wow, well done.
joejerryronnie 8y ago
What happens if we find out China is committing atrocities like ethnic cleansing? Will we implement some economic sanctions or will we send in the troops?
- pas 8y ago
  North Korea is still doing whatever the hell they feel like doing. Because bombs (and artillery pointed at Seoul).
woodandsteel 8y ago
Perhaps the most important reason authoritarian regimes fail in the modern world has to do with decision making. In order to make good decisions, you need accurate information and a good discussion of alternatives and their likely outcomes. The modern world is so complex and changes so much that the only way to get this is a free flow of information in which everyone can honestly say what is happening in their particular part of the society, and everyone can make suggestions and offer evaluations. Authoritarian regimes shut all of this off, such as through turning the press into a governmental propaganda machine, and dictating what university professors can research. The consequence is the top decision makers live in an epistemic bubble and become increasingly out of touch with reality, and increasingly subject to group-think. And that in turn leads to poorer and poorer decisions, and eventually the system comes to an end. I think it is quite predictable that this is where Xi's regime is heading over the long term.
assblaster 8y ago
I have first hand experience in Xinjiang a decade ago. I can only imagine it's getting worse. What I remember most was: 1) nearly hourly MMS messages to my flip phone from unknown numbers with an unknown attachment. Since my phone was bought outside China, the MMS attachment didn't automatically open the likely spyware. 2) Being followed and monitored by plainclothes policemen 3) Having my hotel room searched while I was away. Having police come to my hotel room to interrogate me but lacking access because I had the only key to the room (very very cheap hotel). 4) Armed convoys of Chinese army soldiers constantly going up and down major streets.

303 points by farseer 8y ago

duxup 8y ago

The scale is jaw dropping.

manuelmagic 8y ago
That is exactly what I thought while reading the article.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

flyGuyOnTheSly 8y ago

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

ironjunkie 8y ago
People are only getting concerned by the "hype thing of the day". (today it is the 1500 immigrant children lost, yesterday it was some battle in Syria) They don't care about things until a mob of similar people care about it. It is group thinking and virtue signaling at its peak
- em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
  Like the frog in gradually heated water, no one notices the gradual intensification.
  - pas 8y ago
    That's actually false. The frog jumps out when the water gets too hot.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
root_axis 8y ago
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.
- Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
  Awareness can possibly help them (us) ward off similar controls in our own communities.
nomass 8y ago
what reactions did you expect?
ihsw2 8y ago
Other people don't share your passion, who would've guessed? This is not controversial or concerning.

volgo 8y ago

Whether you like China or not, Islamic fundamentalism is a huge problem to global peace today. Not just in the Middle East, Europe, but also parts of Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Philipphines) and China. The problem is people clinging to old time religious beliefs that women are inferior and must be veiled and that infidels are not worthy We've slowly dispelled Christian fervor (which used to be just as bad as Islamic fundamentalism) by slowly improving the scientific literacy rate and living standards in the west. Must of the Islamic countries haven't seen growth like this. How do you root these out? Not sure if China's hard handed approach may work. Maybe it will, who knows. Maybe it will fail. But we at least must do something about it

duxup 8y ago
"But we at least must do something about it" Like oppress an entire region of people who aren't committing violence to get to the handful who are?
- oblong 8y ago
  Gaza shows that handful can easily become most of the population if you let it get out of control. The left's deep love and devotion to a religion that oppresses their other favoured groups - gays and women - astonishes me.
  - ironjunkie 8y ago
    Gaza is not a religion problem, it is a human right problem. Israel is scandalously denying human people living in Gaza any dignity in their living, after stealing their land and oppressing them for years. I'm sick to see how much America is getting complicit with this. and happy to see that most of Europe realizes what is really going on there.
    - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
      The problem is you are considered Anti-Semitic if you criticize the government of Israel. So you cannot even talk about it in public, or it will ruin your reputation and career. Edit: The karma of my comment proves my point.

Roritharr 8y ago

Besides this being dystopian out of the western libertarian pov, i wonder what it actually does against crime? I imagine a crime free city would be an interesting human phenomenon without equal. The side effects of there not being any undetected and unprosecuted crime would be fascinating.

jdavis703 8y ago
What is crime though? Do you want to live somewhere where spitting on a random sidewalk in front of the wrong camera means you're banned from flying for a year? Is the fear of criminal violence greater than the fear of state violence?
- kfrzcode 8y ago
  > an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law. He who holds the biggest stick writes the book of law
- msh 8y ago
  Depends on the country. Among my Danish countrymen I am pretty certain most is more afraid of criminal violence.
duxup 8y ago
It might be hard to study as I'm not sure how accurate crime stats are in China at all, let alone that region before the crackdown.
privong 8y ago
> The side effects of there not being any undetected and unprosecuted crime would be fascinating. The book "Liars and Outliers" addresses this question some, at least in broad hypothetical terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liars_and_Outliers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liars_and_Outliers
mtgx 8y ago
It won't be crime free. These types of authoritarian systems also tend to have deep corruption. In other words, there will be plenty of people "with the right connections" to evade the system.

purple-again 8y ago

This paywall is defeating all my usual tricks, can someone help me out? On an iPhone and the web link didn’t work, nor did going through twitter or Facebook. Thanks in advance for any help.

spectrum1234 8y ago
Guest mode in Chrome
reilly3000 8y ago
On my iPhone I was able to open it up directly using a private browsing window.
jack_kc 8y ago
Use private browsing mode on iOS.
Barrin92 8y ago
>This paywall is defeating all my usual tricks, can someone help me out? Paying for the content ought to do the trick.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sgwae 8y ago
  You pay for porn, and software too right? Get real, only suckers pay for such things.
- LearnerHerzog 8y ago
  What an ignorant and patronizing thing to say. Does your daddy have enough money for us too?
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    I don't really see the point of the excursion into my private life but I pay for my newspaper subscriptions myself, and I'm not really sure that being unable to pay for content somehow justifies stealing it.

stephengillie 8y ago

> As a result, more and more private prisons are being built: the incarceration archipelago is adding islands even faster than the South China Sea. Adrian Zenz of the European School of Culture and Theology in Kortal, Germany, has looked at procurement contracts for 73 private prisons. He found their total cost to have been $108 million, almost all spent since April 2017. Records from Akto, a county near the border with Kyrgyzstan, say it spent 9.6% of its budget on law enforcement (including private prisons) in 2017. In 2016 spending on law enforcement in the province was five times what it had been in 2007. By the end of 2017 it was ten times that: $1.24 billion. Change a few keywords and it sounds more like the current situation in the USA. > CCA revenue hit a whopping $1.79 billion in 2015, up from the year before, while GEO revenue hit an even higher $1.84 billion, likewise an improvement over their previous year.[0] [0]http://allthatsinteresting.com/private-prisons-us-stats http://allthatsinteresting.com/private-prisons-us-stats

CapacitorSet 8y ago

The fact that this is done under the guise of antiterrorism ought to ring some bells to American readers.

adventured 8y ago
The situations don't compare well, even though the US too often uses terrorism as a guise to pursue global political goals. Domestically there are 3.3 million Muslims in the US. There are ~50 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, with most of the former detainees having been released without charge. Some of them were charged as enemy combatants and or terrorists. And Guantanamo is widely considered a black mark on the US reputation. The US has millions of Muslims that co-exist entirely peacefully with a very large Christian majority. After 9/11, at the height of anti-Muslim emotions in the US, Muslim Americans weren't put into camps by the tens or hundreds of thousands; they weren't slaughtered; their rights weren't wiped out; their culture and religion wasn't made illegal; the US didn't arrest them by the hundreds of thousands in targeted fashion. In fact, it's extraordinary just how peaceful and calm the situation after 9/11 actually was: if you believed the propaganda, America surely would have killed or arrested every Muslim in the country, except the propaganda is all a lie. The US is not trying to destroy Islam in the US. The US is not interning millions of Muslims, trying to eradicate their culture and beliefs. The US is not torturing its Muslim population of 3.3 million. The US is not restricting their movement, their worship, or keeping them from owning guns or knives to defend themselves. The US is not razing their places of worship. The US is not building massive camps to put hundreds of thousands of Muslims into. The US isn't doing anything even remotely similar to what's going on in China.
- s2g 8y ago
  No, the US just goes and bombs their homes instead. and at home the US strips away freedoms from their own people with the justification of "national security".
  - 323454 8y ago
    If you're a US Muslim then your home is probably the US.

surfanddurf 8y ago

I think we, as the world, need to counter this by 1.) Start moving factories out China, back into your local country. It could be an upgrade for companies to upgrade to more automated factories. Furthermore, it fights against China's agenda of 'Made in China in 2025', which they expect to make....everything in China. 2.) Shame companies that are investing further in China, destroying jobs in your local country. 3.) Stop buying things that are made in China. China doesn't have a big enough consumer base; it requires developed countries to purchase their good. 4.) Let everyone know about China's concentration camps that affect 1M+ muslims.

kfrzcode 8y ago
> the world FWIW, 20% of the world is China. They also manufacture a lot of things. Also it'a a huge country with a huge tapestry of interwoven peoples and problems. "The world" isn't just going to turn the other cheek and oust what will probably be the next global superpower.
igivanov 8y ago
In other news, the US, NATO and friends in this century alone destroyed Iraq, Libya, almost destroyed Syria and Yemen and did a few other nasty things that resulted in at least a million dead. Do you have a big enough item 5 for that?
- em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - whatsstolat 8y ago
    Parent makes a point though. Should we boycott everything?
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    Doesn't make his point any less valid in this PARTICULAR context. I mean, where are we going to move the factories if the prerequisite is "No brutal use of deadly force against Muslims" ?

swedish_mafia 8y ago

The question is this: which is more meritocratic - a totalitarian system of governance that rewards merit or a caste system masquerading as an open society? Please answer a or b. Another question: system a: a developer with an idea and skills sitting in Montana believes (correctly) that the chances of getting funded are exponentially higher for people from Stanford university (or some other affiliation). System b : there is a similar guy sitting in a a rural shithole in China and he believes that he has an equal shot at vc funding as the next guy. Which system wins? Just asking.

whytaka 8y ago
But why make up such irrelevant questions that have no connection to reality?

tc 8y ago

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 invention that would be exported and widely adopted. The liberal democratic model of government spread around the world not just because the people saw it work in America and decided that's what they wanted, but also because the ruling aristocrats saw that it would be net better for them. The French Revolution probably helped convince them it compared favorably to the guillotine. If another model is pioneered and proven that's better for the ruling class, it won't be difficult to find regimes eager to adopt it.

oblio 8y ago
One could argue that “totalitarianism” was the default government form for most of history. The problem is, the higher we go on the Maslow pyramid, the more likely it is for it to fail. You just can’t have a huge mass of creative, inventive people without them complaining about leadership (and wanting to improve it). And totalitarianism by definition has problems accepting criticism. The only way for totalitarianism to “work” is if the rulers are both much smarter than the population as a whole and also benevolent. Regarding China, let’s see. These kinds of regimes don’t fail immediately. Just the cracks get bigger and bigger. From what I heard there’s a consolidation of power going on, that’s generally a sure sign of the first cracks appearing.
- s4vi0r 8y ago
  The amount of protests in China has been exploding over the past decade(s). I didn't even know until someone mentioned it on here a few months back, but iirc its gone from maybe a few thousand per year in the 90s to well over 100,000 in recent years. The Chinese rich I've interacted with are also (in my experience, at least - I don't have stats to support this) really ignorant of how bad a lot of their countrymen have it. A friend of mine's father is some sort of government official in a tier 1 or 2 city, and he's told me that the rich and poor are segregated enough that he himself didn't even realize his family was anything other than middle class until he came to Canada and saw it wasn't exactly normal to have parents who can afford 100k+ annual tuition, luxury cars and apartments, etc.

rhn_mk1 8y ago

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 there it is: people must install government spyware on their personal devices. Reading this gave me a new appreciation of how human rights are broken in China. I sincerely hope that those people recover their freedom. As recent history had shown, even Western countries, proud of their freedom and Enlightenment values, may realize that something bad is happening when it's too late. Seeing how surveillance is making comparatively small advances here, I'm slightly more worried that privacy might be completely extinguished from the world one day.

brianpgordon 8y ago
The GDPR just coming into force is surely a promising sign that we're moving generally in the right direction.

biggio 8y ago

China must be split up. It's a huge population and it's not working.

partycoder 8y ago
Hello https://youtu.be/0vVOXlgHC1U?t=37m5s https://youtu.be/0vVOXlgHC1U?t=37m5s
- em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
  For those that don't watch the YouTube, it shows a long Chinese military parade, which suggests the unlikelihood of China splitting up.
ihsw2 8y ago
You are in no position to argue or decide that.
joejerryronnie 8y ago
You should get Margrethe Vestager on this right away!

imleft 8y ago

Sort of like hn moderating against a diverse POV?

scotty79 8y ago

What would be your advice to China about how should they treat Uighurs?

emptybits 8y ago
Treatment identical to Han Chinese would be a great start.
- ihsw2 8y ago
  They do get treatment identical -- any Han committing the same crimes would be exposed to the full force of the law.
  - emptybits 8y ago
    You refer to a very qualified and narrow "identical". In the general sense, before an Uighur commits a crime, are they treated in an equal manner to a Han Chinese before they commit a crime? In all manners of expression, association, travel and employment, for example?
- throwaway9346 8y ago
  It would definitely ease how the Han Chinese feel about Uighurs being ungrateful. For those that don't know, China as affirmative action policies for Uighurs and other minorities. They were exempt from the 1-child policy, they get additional social welfare, and have an easier time getting to college and government jobs. So with all these perks, most Han Chinese see them as being ungrateful when they commit or support terrorist acts, like the Kunming massacre in 2014 or suicide bombing police stations.

nomass 8y ago

As a European I hope we find the courage and the strength to allow ourselves to be militarized as we where at the beginning of the 20th century. I think to a certain degree a military conflict with China would not be a bad thing. Here we have achived quite a few things of which each of his own would be worth dying for. Typical western values are seriously underrated and are not taken seriously.

pas 8y ago
Instead of military spending, we should get our education and politics act together. We should be at least ready to pivot to self sufficiency. We depend on Putin's mercy for energy, because a lot of us skipped game theory in kindergarden apparently. Someone mentioned cell phones. Yes that'd be good, to have a full end to end electronics pipeline around here. And so on.
- nomass 8y ago
  We have very little military spending. The ukraine invasion was a very successfull testrun for Putin. We in Europe we keep ourselve weak and defenseless. Why?
  - skrause 8y ago
    We're not defenseless. The Ukraine just isn't part of either the NATO or the EU and not really close to the rest of Europe. If Russia was about to invade part of Finland the reaction would be quite different.
  - pas 8y ago
    The parent comment advocated for more military spending. I tried to offer better places for money.
UncleEntity 8y ago
> Here we have achived quite a few things of which each of his own would be worth dying for. What, like nuclear bombs? Because that's what most likely will kill you in a large scale conflict between superpowers. There ought to be a law that you can't advocate for war unless you've actually been to war...

throw2016 8y ago

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' is entirely fabricated. Why is Assange still stranded and Snowden in Russia? What consequences has there been from the revelations on western security services and rubber stamp courts? No answer from the economist because they aren't even asking the question. Yet another cheap ploy to use 'human rights', 'democracy' and 'freedom' to attack other countries while soiling these principles. The economist is a principal cheerleader of neoliberalism, shock therapy and other exploitative economic policies that directly lead to corruption, theft of national resources by uncontrolled privatization and oligarchies in third world countries. Nothing to do with democracy. This kind of hypocrisy and grandstanding has run its course, its a dangerous distraction designed to lull readers into complacency while entrenched interests that publications like the economist support make democracy more and more meaningless. [1] https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2014/01/10/treachery-and-its-consequences https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2014/01/10/tr...

pas 8y ago
Could you point to a few examples of support for "shock therapy and other exploitative economic policies" on the Economist?

emptybits 8y ago

A thought experiment, from an ignorant Canadian to those Chinese who accept ethnic discrimination in national policy: Generation(s) of Han Chinese and Uighurs get together and start having children. An act of loving subversion, if you will. At what level of mixing does the dangerous Uighur contribution become safe to you? 50%? 25%? 12.5%? [Only somewhat tongue-in-cheek.]

throwaway9346 8y ago
It's not about race but rather their patriotism towards China. The largest group of Muslims in China are the Hui Muslims (about 10 million of them). They are the descendants of the Muslims that were absorbed during conquests in the Tang and Ming Dynasty. They eventually integrated and married other Han Chinese. They are still Muslim, but also identify as Chinese. There are also affirmative action programs for them, making it easier for them to into good colleges and government jobs. They were also exempt from the 1-child policy. They are how Asians are in the US, the "model minority."
- emptybits 8y ago
  > It's not about race but rather their patriotism towards China. Please explain, then, why race is a category used to reduce a person's numeric "trustworthiness score" in China. If one is ethnically Uighur instead of Han or if one has received religious education then one is deemed by the government as "less trustworthy" -- not because of behaviour or evidence of a crime but simply because of ethnicity.[1][2][3] Since this score is used to determine whether freedoms are restricted (e.g. travel, communication, and forced "re-education"), it is racism. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thousands-china-xinjiang-uighur-beijing-disappear-fears-authorities-thought-police-personal-safety-a8115421.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thousands-chin... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/china-re-education-camps.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/china-re-educatio... [3] (TFA) https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turned-xinjiang-into-a-police-state-like-no-other https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turn...

dreamszl 8y ago

Tell the story not the news. Wow, well done.

joejerryronnie 8y ago

What happens if we find out China is committing atrocities like ethnic cleansing? Will we implement some economic sanctions or will we send in the troops?

pas 8y ago
North Korea is still doing whatever the hell they feel like doing. Because bombs (and artillery pointed at Seoul).

woodandsteel 8y ago

Perhaps the most important reason authoritarian regimes fail in the modern world has to do with decision making. In order to make good decisions, you need accurate information and a good discussion of alternatives and their likely outcomes. The modern world is so complex and changes so much that the only way to get this is a free flow of information in which everyone can honestly say what is happening in their particular part of the society, and everyone can make suggestions and offer evaluations. Authoritarian regimes shut all of this off, such as through turning the press into a governmental propaganda machine, and dictating what university professors can research. The consequence is the top decision makers live in an epistemic bubble and become increasingly out of touch with reality, and increasingly subject to group-think. And that in turn leads to poorer and poorer decisions, and eventually the system comes to an end. I think it is quite predictable that this is where Xi's regime is heading over the long term.

assblaster 8y ago

I have first hand experience in Xinjiang a decade ago. I can only imagine it's getting worse. What I remember most was: 1) nearly hourly MMS messages to my flip phone from unknown numbers with an unknown attachment. Since my phone was bought outside China, the MMS attachment didn't automatically open the likely spyware. 2) Being followed and monitored by plainclothes policemen 3) Having my hotel room searched while I was away. Having police come to my hotel room to interrogate me but lacking access because I had the only key to the room (very very cheap hotel). 4) Armed convoys of Chinese army soldiers constantly going up and down major streets.