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It is puzzling to me why foreigners would actually believe that we are somehow inflicted by the "social credit score" and worry about being sent to a "re-educat

by admk 7y ago

It is puzzling to me why foreigners would actually believe that we are somehow inflicted by the "social credit score" and worry about being sent to a "re-education camp" for simply circumventing the censorship. I work in a research institute that is government-sponsored, and I can assure you that our work relies on having access to censored foreign sites (Google, Google Scholar, etc.), and there isn't an official way to do so and we all use third-party or self-hosted VPNs. All my friends and families always discuss incidents in the past history of PRC freely, and never have to worry about being surveilled. It has recently bothered me that the western media often see the issues in colored lenses, have strong beliefs in anti-China sentiments and yet provide no direct evidence relating to the claimed atrocities commited by the government. I tried very hard to find actual direct evidence and to justify their claims (e.g. [1]) but discovered none. The lack of evidence make those hard to believe and would urge you to take those with a substantial grain of salt, and not everything is abysmal in China. Conflict of interest: I am a Chinese and I studied in the UK for 8 years. [1]: https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/China-Tribunal-SUMMARY-JUDGMENT_FINAL.pdf https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/China-T...

vorpalhex 7y ago
So by forcing the use of illegal vpns, you can always be arrested. Or fired for not doing your job. It's not that everything is terrible in China, it's that the Chinese government is an oppressive regime with severe totalitarian bent. Those oppressive regimes which least interfere in the everyday are the most likely to continue existing - we've known this since ancient times. But censorship, ethnic camps, totalitarian power and mass surveillance do a reppressive regime make.
- admk 7y ago
  There are a few cases when it comes to arrests of VPN service owners, but zero incidents that I know of of VPN user being arrested. This is simply because the former breaks the law and the latter doesn't. Censorship is no secret, totalitarian power is hard to define, but ethnic camps and mass surveillance may or may not exist depending on the existance of direct evidence. Edit: Evidence is universal, and I suppose we can all agree that it is not dependent on me.
  - malaxii 7y ago
    The existence of the camps is independent of whether you have evidence of them or not.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    There is no country I am aware of, including China, which denies the existence of the camps. China contends that they are voluntary "educational centers" that just happen to only contain Muslim Chinese who aren't allowed to leave and spend their days singing praises to Jinping.
jamoes 7y ago
Here's some direct evidence of the atrocity that is the Tiananmen Square massacre: https://i.imgur.com/E3D9BuH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/E3D9BuH.jpg. I'm sure you've seen the infamous "tank man" picture, which provides direct evidence that the PRC rolled tanks into Tiananmen Square. The above picture isn't as iconic, but it shows what the PRC did with those tanks: they crushed and killed anyone in their path.
- admk 7y ago
  I was refering to more recent events, e.g. FLG, organ harvesting, Uighurs, Hong Kong protests. I am aware (as told by many, I was too young to know) that there were numerous deaths and many more injured in that year.
  - themacguffinman 7y ago
    > Uighurs https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48667221/inside-china-s-thought-transformation-camps https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48667221/inside...
  - jamoes 7y ago
    This does a a good job at showing the huge number of people protesting in Hong Kong: https://gfycat.com/relievedcornychrysomelid-timelapse https://gfycat.com/relievedcornychrysomelid-timelapse
  - dougmwne 7y ago
    That's very shocking to hear, but I'm not entirely surprised to hear that you doubt these events. The combination of censorship and propaganda is very effective. I try to keep an unbiased perspective and I am very aware of how the hidden motives of governments and media organizations can skew the news, even in the freest of countries. My best media-savvy sense is that all of the things you mention are in fact happening and that they are atrocities. For example, here's some good reporting the BBC did: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_cam... My broader point though is that you won't change your mind because your livelihood and freedom depends on you denying or ignoring the actions of your government. So just like in the VPN experiment, we can remove the wall, but you will not leave the prison. I feel sorry for you, individually and personally, though it's probably for the best that you're not interested in questioning these things too closely.
avar 7y ago
As a westerner outside China I'm not under the impression that the CPC cares much about your private or semi-private conversations with your friends and family, unlike notably the Stasi or early Soviet censorship. But I bet you'd be running a very different mental calculus before saying some of those things you'd say in closed circles on your widely-read blog under your own name. That's the thrust of what the GP is talking about, which I think you're taking a very selective view of in thinking that by "chilling effect" they're talking about Stasi-like censorship. Even if can get away with certain speech 99.9% of the time in a totalitarian regime just having to worry about the 0.01% has a huge chilling effect.
gurkendoktor 7y ago
> provide no direct evidence relating to the claimed atrocities commited by the government. I tried very hard to find actual direct evidence and to justify their claims ... but discovered none I'm genuinely curious about this. There are witness accounts of forced organ harvesting, and it's not too long ago that the government announced that it stopped the practice[1], implying that it was happening at least up until that point, and the rumors were correct. There's no way for external parties to verify that forced organ harvesting has ended as promised. When a government does not invite external observers to verify such an important matter, shouldn't anyone's gut feeling go on red alert? Has there ever been a case when a lack of gov't transparency wasn't a bad sign? Is it cultural bias on my end to assume the worst-case scenario? [1] https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/dk99ol0WsHPmCmdviXAReg https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/dk99ol0WsHPmCmdviXAReg?
69robots 7y ago
I believe the fear and anti-China sentiments stemmed from the the past history of the regime in China. It's okay to bear the "outsider" concept that as long as you are not doing something wrong then the gov won't do anything to you. However, please do keep in mind that if you are not voicing out for the others that are suppressed, then no one would voice out for you when you are the target of suppression. Assuming you had some sort of higher education, it's hard to gauge when will your interest conflicts with the central government's. The fact that people around the world are resisting and pressuring such regime is because the fear that it would spread its influence globally. I personally don't think the issue relates to the people itself, but I would not trust the central government at all. (Tienanmen square, "re-education camps", Surveillance, Censorship, Persecution of political dissidents) Conflict of interest: Hong Konger
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Your link [1] goes to an exhaustively researched and documented conclusion that China is participating in "widespread or systematic" state-sponsored forced organ transplants, torture, and extermination, targeted specifically against Uyghurs and Falun Gong, "beyond any reasonable doubt." What were you trying to accomplish by posting that? Did you skim the first couple of pages outlining the claims, get bored, and assume their conclusions would match your beliefs? Or did you hope that no one would bother to read enough of the bloody dense thing to figure out what it actually said? Either way, you're lying when you say you "tried very hard to find actual direct evidence but discovered none."
- admk 7y ago
  I didn’t lie, and actually wasted my valuable time on this bloody dense thing and found it to be extremely biased and lacks solid evidence.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    The report summarizes eyewitness testimonials given in front of the tribunal; I'm not sure what other evidence you expected. FWIW in 2009 China Daily, which as you may know is a party-owned newspaper, published an article on the practice of taking transplants from prisoners. Unfortunately the original article was not archived, but it appears in this listing of headlines: http://web.archive.org/web/20090828122112/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/health.html http://web.archive.org/web/20090828122112/http://www.chinada... There's also plenty of reporting in Western media quoting the China Daily article, e.g. by Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-organ-idUSTRE57P0EN20090826 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-organ-idUSTRE57P0EN... Now maybe what you're actually sceptical about is whether Falun Gong practitioners wre specifically targeting. I don't believe they were, it's just that there were a lot of them, so when membership was prohibited, a lot were sentenced to death and consequently had their organs harvested. They also had enough members abroad to complain loudly about it and get people to actually care, in contrast to most other human rights violations.

by admk 7y ago

vorpalhex 7y ago

So by forcing the use of illegal vpns, you can always be arrested. Or fired for not doing your job. It's not that everything is terrible in China, it's that the Chinese government is an oppressive regime with severe totalitarian bent. Those oppressive regimes which least interfere in the everyday are the most likely to continue existing - we've known this since ancient times. But censorship, ethnic camps, totalitarian power and mass surveillance do a reppressive regime make.

admk 7y ago
There are a few cases when it comes to arrests of VPN service owners, but zero incidents that I know of of VPN user being arrested. This is simply because the former breaks the law and the latter doesn't. Censorship is no secret, totalitarian power is hard to define, but ethnic camps and mass surveillance may or may not exist depending on the existance of direct evidence. Edit: Evidence is universal, and I suppose we can all agree that it is not dependent on me.
- malaxii 7y ago
  The existence of the camps is independent of whether you have evidence of them or not.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  There is no country I am aware of, including China, which denies the existence of the camps. China contends that they are voluntary "educational centers" that just happen to only contain Muslim Chinese who aren't allowed to leave and spend their days singing praises to Jinping.

jamoes 7y ago

Here's some direct evidence of the atrocity that is the Tiananmen Square massacre: https://i.imgur.com/E3D9BuH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/E3D9BuH.jpg. I'm sure you've seen the infamous "tank man" picture, which provides direct evidence that the PRC rolled tanks into Tiananmen Square. The above picture isn't as iconic, but it shows what the PRC did with those tanks: they crushed and killed anyone in their path.

admk 7y ago
I was refering to more recent events, e.g. FLG, organ harvesting, Uighurs, Hong Kong protests. I am aware (as told by many, I was too young to know) that there were numerous deaths and many more injured in that year.
- themacguffinman 7y ago
  > Uighurs https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48667221/inside-china-s-thought-transformation-camps https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48667221/inside...
- jamoes 7y ago
  This does a a good job at showing the huge number of people protesting in Hong Kong: https://gfycat.com/relievedcornychrysomelid-timelapse https://gfycat.com/relievedcornychrysomelid-timelapse
- dougmwne 7y ago
  That's very shocking to hear, but I'm not entirely surprised to hear that you doubt these events. The combination of censorship and propaganda is very effective. I try to keep an unbiased perspective and I am very aware of how the hidden motives of governments and media organizations can skew the news, even in the freest of countries. My best media-savvy sense is that all of the things you mention are in fact happening and that they are atrocities. For example, here's some good reporting the BBC did: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_cam... My broader point though is that you won't change your mind because your livelihood and freedom depends on you denying or ignoring the actions of your government. So just like in the VPN experiment, we can remove the wall, but you will not leave the prison. I feel sorry for you, individually and personally, though it's probably for the best that you're not interested in questioning these things too closely.

avar 7y ago

As a westerner outside China I'm not under the impression that the CPC cares much about your private or semi-private conversations with your friends and family, unlike notably the Stasi or early Soviet censorship. But I bet you'd be running a very different mental calculus before saying some of those things you'd say in closed circles on your widely-read blog under your own name. That's the thrust of what the GP is talking about, which I think you're taking a very selective view of in thinking that by "chilling effect" they're talking about Stasi-like censorship. Even if can get away with certain speech 99.9% of the time in a totalitarian regime just having to worry about the 0.01% has a huge chilling effect.

gurkendoktor 7y ago

> provide no direct evidence relating to the claimed atrocities commited by the government. I tried very hard to find actual direct evidence and to justify their claims ... but discovered none I'm genuinely curious about this. There are witness accounts of forced organ harvesting, and it's not too long ago that the government announced that it stopped the practice[1], implying that it was happening at least up until that point, and the rumors were correct. There's no way for external parties to verify that forced organ harvesting has ended as promised. When a government does not invite external observers to verify such an important matter, shouldn't anyone's gut feeling go on red alert? Has there ever been a case when a lack of gov't transparency wasn't a bad sign? Is it cultural bias on my end to assume the worst-case scenario? [1] https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/dk99ol0WsHPmCmdviXAReg https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/dk99ol0WsHPmCmdviXAReg?

69robots 7y ago

I believe the fear and anti-China sentiments stemmed from the the past history of the regime in China. It's okay to bear the "outsider" concept that as long as you are not doing something wrong then the gov won't do anything to you. However, please do keep in mind that if you are not voicing out for the others that are suppressed, then no one would voice out for you when you are the target of suppression. Assuming you had some sort of higher education, it's hard to gauge when will your interest conflicts with the central government's. The fact that people around the world are resisting and pressuring such regime is because the fear that it would spread its influence globally. I personally don't think the issue relates to the people itself, but I would not trust the central government at all. (Tienanmen square, "re-education camps", Surveillance, Censorship, Persecution of political dissidents) Conflict of interest: Hong Konger

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

Your link [1] goes to an exhaustively researched and documented conclusion that China is participating in "widespread or systematic" state-sponsored forced organ transplants, torture, and extermination, targeted specifically against Uyghurs and Falun Gong, "beyond any reasonable doubt." What were you trying to accomplish by posting that? Did you skim the first couple of pages outlining the claims, get bored, and assume their conclusions would match your beliefs? Or did you hope that no one would bother to read enough of the bloody dense thing to figure out what it actually said? Either way, you're lying when you say you "tried very hard to find actual direct evidence but discovered none."

admk 7y ago
I didn’t lie, and actually wasted my valuable time on this bloody dense thing and found it to be extremely biased and lacks solid evidence.
- yorwba 7y ago
  The report summarizes eyewitness testimonials given in front of the tribunal; I'm not sure what other evidence you expected. FWIW in 2009 China Daily, which as you may know is a party-owned newspaper, published an article on the practice of taking transplants from prisoners. Unfortunately the original article was not archived, but it appears in this listing of headlines: http://web.archive.org/web/20090828122112/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/health.html http://web.archive.org/web/20090828122112/http://www.chinada... There's also plenty of reporting in Western media quoting the China Daily article, e.g. by Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-organ-idUSTRE57P0EN20090826 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-organ-idUSTRE57P0EN... Now maybe what you're actually sceptical about is whether Falun Gong practitioners wre specifically targeting. I don't believe they were, it's just that there were a lot of them, so when membership was prohibited, a lot were sentenced to death and consequently had their organs harvested. They also had enough members abroad to complain loudly about it and get people to actually care, in contrast to most other human rights violations.