8 ms·

It's hard to defend China here but it's also hard to see how they are supposed to handle the Uyghur question, and articles like this certainly don't give useful

by sho 8y ago

It's hard to defend China here but it's also hard to see how they are supposed to handle the Uyghur question, and articles like this certainly don't give useful suggestions. What do you do with a region full of separatist agitators who frequently resort to violence and refuse to even teach their children Mandarin? Leave them to it and tolerate the bombings? Allow them to secede? There's a long history here and after decades of failure, China is beginning to turn the screws, in typical heavy handed style. But I'd genuinely like to know what people think the alternative is with a near-rebel province. One quote from the article which I think sums things up: > “I cannot bear keeping silent [any more] because I think there’s a genocide taking place in East Turkestan,” he said, using the name many Uighurs use to refer to their homeland. This chap has unwittingly hit the nail on the head. China cannot, and will not, allow the separatist movement in the Xinjiang region to proceed further.

deugtniet 8y ago
Allow them to secede. There is no excuse for genocide. It happend in former Yugoslavia. It should happen in China.
- sho 8y ago
  Firstly, it's not "genocide" at all - that's typical hyperbole from a very politically motivated party. His next quote reveals his definition of genocide: > “They want to erase, erase, erase your identity and our culture and to melt them into Han Chinese.” That's quite different, and also accurate. They want them to learn Chinese and acknowledge they live in China. Of course. Interesting that you suggested the Yugoslavian "solution" which required a bloody war, in case you'd forgotten, between ethnic populations of roughly equal sizes and mass displacements. This "solution" could only ever have one outcome if you're seriously suggesting China should simply fight for its land and displace the rebels. That "war" would last roughly until tea time.
  - cirgue 8y ago
    Genocide is the systematic dismantling of an ethnic identity. It doesn’t definitionally include killing.
    - cjhopman 8y ago
      That's a rather liberal definition of the word. From brittanica, "Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race." I don't think "dismantling of an ethnic identity" at all fits into "deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people" unless you weaken "destruction" to mean almost nothing. From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide), "it has been applied to the Holocaust, and many other mass killings including the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas, the Armenian Genocide, the Greek genocide, the Assyrian genocide, the Serbian genocide, the Holodomor, the Indonesian genocide,[6] the Guatemalan genocide, the 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the Cambodian genocide, and after 1980 the Bosnian genocide, the Kurdish genocide, the Darfur genocide, and the Rwandan genocide." All of those examples are actual killings of people, not this new age definition of changing people's opinions about things.
  - dalbasal 8y ago
    Let's not argue about the words themselves. This is pointless. We know what's happening roughly, and it's a terrible thing regardless if what you call it.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    > They want them to learn Chinese and acknowledge they live in China. Of course. Why "of course"? Those people aren't Chinese culturally. They were conquered. > Interesting that you suggested the Yugoslavian "solution" which required a bloody war, in case you'd forgotten It only required a bloody war because the (by then dominated by Serbian nationalists) central government insisted on there being one. In all the Yugoslav republics, secession was peaceful once Belgrade left them in peace. The only exception was Bosnia, and even there it's not a given that it would have blown up the way it did, if Serbia and Croatia weren't already fighting elsewhere.
devoply 8y ago
The Uighur want nothing to do with the Chinese. Historically the only reason they wanted to be a part of China was because other Central Asians were oppressing them and the Chinese gave them a better deal. China's real claim to this province is simply about resource extraction... and maybe sovereignty. What's the solution, leave them alone to do as they wish. It should be its own country without Han Chinese invading all parts of it. That being said, the reality is that the Uighur are generally screwed just like the Tibetans were/are screwed. Empire does not compromise.
Krasnol 8y ago
Partial independence. Let them govern themselves. The dependency of the rest of China would have led to an automatic alignment...at some point in the past. But we're talking about China so this is not even imaginable. They'll try to put pressure until they break further, justifying even more pressure and so on. As far as I've heard they even have a special version of that credit system so there isn't even a viable escape route for those who want to align themselves to the rest of China.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Oh, an electronic yellow star.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
> Allow them to secede? Is that a serious question? If a people no longer wants to be part of a country they should be allowed to secede. The Scottish tried it via a democratic route - which would have succeeded with a wide margin post-Brexit. Actually, the British voted to secede from the EU. The Catalans want to secede from Spain. But that's besides the point - you're almost implying that it's OK to put people in concentration camps.
- CPLX 8y ago
  > Is that a serious question? If a people no longer wants to be part of a country they should be allowed to secede. While I am not defending China whatsoever in this specific case it’s worth noting that premise is highly debatable — essentially the definition of a serious question.
- toxik 8y ago
  The EU is not a nation state Scotland has a very unique history in this Catalunya is not gaining independence and the central Madrid government has declared their referendum illegitimate and illegal. People cannot vote their way to secession, even in democracies.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Secession has pretty much always had to be fought for (US, Ireland), but peaceful (Czechslovakia) and semi-peaceful (India) secession is possible.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    That depends on the democracy. You mentioned Scotland already (and there's nothing particularly unique about it). Then there's Canada, where the Supreme Court has specifically outlined the rules for Quebec (or any other province) to secede - but acknowledged that there is a basic right to do so. One could argue that ability to handle peaceful secession is simply the next stage in evolution of liberal democracy, and those that allow for it are more advanced than those that do not.
  - trhway 8y ago
dalbasal 8y ago
What if you reversed this question, and asked it from the Uyghar perspective. What do you think the solution to the china/ccp problem is? What do you do when you're ruled by a country that hates your language and religion, actively tries to extinguish your culture and frequently resorts to violence in order achieve this goal? Should they leave them to it? Allow them to imprison millions of your people and end your culture? I'd genuinely like to know what people think the alternative is to near-fascist rule? In conflict, it's always easiest to ask your questions in a way that leaves no alternative but bloodshed, a way that justifies anything. The way to peace is asking different questions.
baybal2 8y ago
Do you think of this as a genuine concern? Yes, in nineties some militants managed to effectively take control of the South Xinjiang with Kashgar and mop the floor with PLA for a few months. PLA can only blame itself for letting itself fail so spectacularly. Few bombings a year? That is not enough to normally set off reaction of a district police office, let alone on a nation level. Chinese oligarchs are waging wars on streets of Chinese cities against each others with private armies, blowing each others up every day, and the party does nothing about that. Where I'm leading here?: the real reason for the recent crackdown. Today, the party is being ran by a generation of people with no nerve or temper what so ever. Them pressing the, "big red button," is the only response to any issue their level of emotional and intellectual finesse avails them. Xi himself is said to be a man with very weak personality "ready to pull out a gun" on the most minor suspicion of anybody having personal animosity with him. I want to say that for the readers to not to base your opinion of him on the popular sentiment. The popular opinion in the West have no idea who he really is, just like as with the rest of political establishment here.
- _iyig 8y ago
  >Chinese oligarchs are waging wars on streets of Chinese cities against each others with private armies, blowing each others up every day, and the party does nothing about that. Wait, what? Do you have a source to back up that extraordinary claim?

by sho 8y ago

deugtniet 8y ago

Allow them to secede. There is no excuse for genocide. It happend in former Yugoslavia. It should happen in China.

sho 8y ago
Firstly, it's not "genocide" at all - that's typical hyperbole from a very politically motivated party. His next quote reveals his definition of genocide: > “They want to erase, erase, erase your identity and our culture and to melt them into Han Chinese.” That's quite different, and also accurate. They want them to learn Chinese and acknowledge they live in China. Of course. Interesting that you suggested the Yugoslavian "solution" which required a bloody war, in case you'd forgotten, between ethnic populations of roughly equal sizes and mass displacements. This "solution" could only ever have one outcome if you're seriously suggesting China should simply fight for its land and displace the rebels. That "war" would last roughly until tea time.
- cirgue 8y ago
  Genocide is the systematic dismantling of an ethnic identity. It doesn’t definitionally include killing.
  - cjhopman 8y ago
    That's a rather liberal definition of the word. From brittanica, "Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race." I don't think "dismantling of an ethnic identity" at all fits into "deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people" unless you weaken "destruction" to mean almost nothing. From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide), "it has been applied to the Holocaust, and many other mass killings including the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas, the Armenian Genocide, the Greek genocide, the Assyrian genocide, the Serbian genocide, the Holodomor, the Indonesian genocide,[6] the Guatemalan genocide, the 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the Cambodian genocide, and after 1980 the Bosnian genocide, the Kurdish genocide, the Darfur genocide, and the Rwandan genocide." All of those examples are actual killings of people, not this new age definition of changing people's opinions about things.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  Let's not argue about the words themselves. This is pointless. We know what's happening roughly, and it's a terrible thing regardless if what you call it.
- int_19h 8y ago
  > They want them to learn Chinese and acknowledge they live in China. Of course. Why "of course"? Those people aren't Chinese culturally. They were conquered. > Interesting that you suggested the Yugoslavian "solution" which required a bloody war, in case you'd forgotten It only required a bloody war because the (by then dominated by Serbian nationalists) central government insisted on there being one. In all the Yugoslav republics, secession was peaceful once Belgrade left them in peace. The only exception was Bosnia, and even there it's not a given that it would have blown up the way it did, if Serbia and Croatia weren't already fighting elsewhere.

devoply 8y ago

The Uighur want nothing to do with the Chinese. Historically the only reason they wanted to be a part of China was because other Central Asians were oppressing them and the Chinese gave them a better deal. China's real claim to this province is simply about resource extraction... and maybe sovereignty. What's the solution, leave them alone to do as they wish. It should be its own country without Han Chinese invading all parts of it. That being said, the reality is that the Uighur are generally screwed just like the Tibetans were/are screwed. Empire does not compromise.

Krasnol 8y ago

Partial independence. Let them govern themselves. The dependency of the rest of China would have led to an automatic alignment...at some point in the past. But we're talking about China so this is not even imaginable. They'll try to put pressure until they break further, justifying even more pressure and so on. As far as I've heard they even have a special version of that credit system so there isn't even a viable escape route for those who want to align themselves to the rest of China.

jacobush 8y ago
Oh, an electronic yellow star.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

> Allow them to secede? Is that a serious question? If a people no longer wants to be part of a country they should be allowed to secede. The Scottish tried it via a democratic route - which would have succeeded with a wide margin post-Brexit. Actually, the British voted to secede from the EU. The Catalans want to secede from Spain. But that's besides the point - you're almost implying that it's OK to put people in concentration camps.

CPLX 8y ago
> Is that a serious question? If a people no longer wants to be part of a country they should be allowed to secede. While I am not defending China whatsoever in this specific case it’s worth noting that premise is highly debatable — essentially the definition of a serious question.
toxik 8y ago
The EU is not a nation state Scotland has a very unique history in this Catalunya is not gaining independence and the central Madrid government has declared their referendum illegitimate and illegal. People cannot vote their way to secession, even in democracies.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Secession has pretty much always had to be fought for (US, Ireland), but peaceful (Czechslovakia) and semi-peaceful (India) secession is possible.
- int_19h 8y ago
  That depends on the democracy. You mentioned Scotland already (and there's nothing particularly unique about it). Then there's Canada, where the Supreme Court has specifically outlined the rules for Quebec (or any other province) to secede - but acknowledged that there is a basic right to do so. One could argue that ability to handle peaceful secession is simply the next stage in evolution of liberal democracy, and those that allow for it are more advanced than those that do not.
- trhway 8y ago

dalbasal 8y ago

What if you reversed this question, and asked it from the Uyghar perspective. What do you think the solution to the china/ccp problem is? What do you do when you're ruled by a country that hates your language and religion, actively tries to extinguish your culture and frequently resorts to violence in order achieve this goal? Should they leave them to it? Allow them to imprison millions of your people and end your culture? I'd genuinely like to know what people think the alternative is to near-fascist rule? In conflict, it's always easiest to ask your questions in a way that leaves no alternative but bloodshed, a way that justifies anything. The way to peace is asking different questions.

baybal2 8y ago

Do you think of this as a genuine concern? Yes, in nineties some militants managed to effectively take control of the South Xinjiang with Kashgar and mop the floor with PLA for a few months. PLA can only blame itself for letting itself fail so spectacularly. Few bombings a year? That is not enough to normally set off reaction of a district police office, let alone on a nation level. Chinese oligarchs are waging wars on streets of Chinese cities against each others with private armies, blowing each others up every day, and the party does nothing about that. Where I'm leading here?: the real reason for the recent crackdown. Today, the party is being ran by a generation of people with no nerve or temper what so ever. Them pressing the, "big red button," is the only response to any issue their level of emotional and intellectual finesse avails them. Xi himself is said to be a man with very weak personality "ready to pull out a gun" on the most minor suspicion of anybody having personal animosity with him. I want to say that for the readers to not to base your opinion of him on the popular sentiment. The popular opinion in the West have no idea who he really is, just like as with the rest of political establishment here.

_iyig 8y ago
>Chinese oligarchs are waging wars on streets of Chinese cities against each others with private armies, blowing each others up every day, and the party does nothing about that. Wait, what? Do you have a source to back up that extraordinary claim?