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China suppression of Uighurs meets U.N. definition of genocide, report says

471 points by hkmaxpro 6y ago

wcerfgba 6y ago
> SIMON: People need to be careful using the word genocide. Why do you think it's justified and important to use it now? > ZENZ: I have long argued that the atrocity in the region is a cultural genocide, not a literal genocide. I do continue to believe that, generally speaking, the Chinese government does not intend to physically eradicate the Uighurs and Kazakhs, just to integrate, subjugate, dominate and assimilate them. However, this is coupled with a policy of ethnoracial domination, as the government has brought millions of Han Chinese settler in the regions with promises of high salaries, jobs and free housing. > The reason why now this has changed - we do need to probably call it a genocide - is quite simply because the evidence now, for the first time, very specifically meets one of the five criteria set forth by the United Nations Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide from 1948, which specifically says the suppression of birth.
- dleslie 6y ago
  This is similar to what happened to indigenous peoples here in Canada. For the most part, and while there are clear and heinous exceptions, the intent was to wipe out indigenous culture and society. Because it wasn't gas chambers it's been harder to get the general population to recognize what was/is happening. Also, forced sterilization is still a thing, particularly outside of urban health authorities. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-lawsuit-could-expand-1.5102981 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la...
  - hkmaxpro 6y ago
    In Canada, it’s due to the lack of proper or informed consent, and a class-action lawsuit is trying to correct that. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-lawsuit-could-expand-1.5102981 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la... In China, “[t]he population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply”: https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c And Uyghurs have to flee China just to speak out against this practice. Do you see a lawsuit coming in China? Huge difference.
    - dleslie 6y ago
      Canada had sterilization laws up to 1972; and the link I provided was to an article about that class action lawsuit. ;)
      - hkmaxpro 6y ago
        I don’t think it’s fair to compare China today with Canada almost 50 years ago. A lot of things have changed since then. Boston Marathon didn’t have women’s race until 1972. Our expectations today should be higher.
        dleslie 6y ago
        The last residential school didn't close until the 90s. There are far too many communities without clean drinking water, let alone access to quality education and health care. We still struggle to maintain obligations regarding indigenous land rights and safe guarding indigenous culture. Our expectations today should be higher.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  > The reason why now this has changed - we do need to probably call it a genocide - is quite simply because the evidence now, for the first time, very specifically meets one of the five criteria set forth by the United Nations Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide from 1948, which specifically says the suppression of birth. The timing for Zenz shift in opinion is very convenient. China removing family planning policy exemptions for minorities like Uighurs started back in 2017. The policy was proposed back in 2014 and saw some discussion among China watchers in the following years. This is not a new policy change, and one Zenz should be aware of for at least 5+ years. [1] https://time.com/4881898/china-xinjiang-uighur-children/ https://time.com/4881898/china-xinjiang-uighur-children/ [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/08/chinese-official-floats-plan-to-stabilize-fertility-among-some-uighurs/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/08/chinese-official-floats...
wcerfgba 6y ago
For UK citizens, there is an open petition to Parliament asking the UK Government to impose sanctions on China as a response: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300146 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300146
- ReptileMan 6y ago
  UK cannot simultaneously piss off Brussels and Beijing. Not going to happen. And UK is 1/6th of China economy.
  - oliwarner 6y ago
    The UK was 1/6. Back when we had a financial services sector, before we brucked it all up for blue passports. Strange how we ever punched that high. We only have 1/23 the people, and barely make anything ourselves these days.
    - magicsmoke 6y ago
      Gunships + British Raj. Would have lasted longer too if the UK didn't start the road to bankruptcy by entering WW1.
      - Johnjonjoan 6y ago
        Britain joined to stop Wilhelm making a blue water navy that could rival the royal navy. I don't think it's a given British hegemony would have lasted as long without joining ww1.
        magicsmoke 6y ago
        Germany's navy was never going to be more than Wilhelm's pet project because Germany's main threats were land based France and Russia. Britain joined because of honor over protecting Belgian neutrality, which shocked Germany diplomats who thought Britain would never fight over something with so little material gain for it.
sneak 6y ago
Per capita, the US imprisons approximately 20x more of its own ethnic minorities in a similar fashion. The numbers are so huge in China because the total population is so much larger. I think both desperately need to be addressed. It is painful for me to think that in all three of the richest, most populous, and largest countries on Earth, approximately zero of them have a full complement of human rights for all their inhabitants. We have such a long way to go as a species.
- Causality1 6y ago
  US prisons might be the worst prisons in the "first world" but they are a far sight from death camps. The US doesn't kill its prisoners and then harvest their organs for transplant. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/18/china-killing-prisoners-to-harvest-organs-for-transplant-tribunal-finds/#7101a59653d4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/18/china-kil...
  - steffandroid 6y ago
    > an independent tribunal Funded by whom?
  - monocasa 6y ago
    The only reason is that the lethal injection combo we use in the US doesn't leave the organs suitable for transplant because it stops the circulatory system for too long. There's some pushes among groups like the AMA to change that.
- chapium 6y ago
  Lets talk about china right now.
  - sneak 6y ago
    I don’t have any direct political ability to meaningfully influence policy in China. I, in theory, can participate in US elections and purportedly have some say in how things are done in the US. Additionally, I don’t have a language barrier to inciting others to action in the US. I think it’s a very hypocritical situation, and I wonder specifically about the who and the why for the huge anti-China campaign in the global west. I also think scale is important. Human rights violations against one person are bad. A system that imposed them against millions is worse. Both the US and China have such systems.
anonms-coward 6y ago
I mean the US literally killed 150k to 500k people in Iraq alone. What was that if not genocide. The US has been doing horrible things to other countries in the name of (war, spreading freedom and democracy) for a long time, e.g. dropping agent Orange in Vietnam. The US never faced any consequences. I think now that China is becoming powerful, it is learning that it can ignore world pressure the same way the US did and unfortunately China is doing well, not even facing any opposition from the Muslim countries. At this point China might be killing more innocent muslims then Israel ever did in Palestine.
- chapium 6y ago
  Lets talk about china right now.
  - garceus 6y ago
    China bad. America good. #Trump2020
balola 6y ago
#VICENewsTonight China’s Vanishing Muslims: Undercover In The Most Dystopian Place In The World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ
- agakshat 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing that. Really strongly recommend everyone to watch this video, a rare glimpse at the people inside this nightmare
oefrha 6y ago
It’s not like China didn’t have mandatory birth control on the ethnic majority.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  As a bonus, the mandatory birth controls were recently expanded to ethnic minorities as they were previously exempt.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    It's the other way around: rural ethnic minorities were previously allowed three children. This limit hasn't changed, but Han Chinese in rural areas are now allowed to have the same number of children.
    - Aperocky 6y ago
      Sounds like a genocide. /s
- hkmaxpro 6y ago
  Does China really treat ethnic majority and Uyghurs equally? > Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang > The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply > But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show. Some rural Muslims, like Omirzakh, are punished even for having the three children allowed by the law > Leaked data obtained and corroborated by the AP showed that of 484 camp detainees listed in Karakax county in Xinjiang, 149 were there for having too many children - the most common reason for holding them. Time in a camp — what the government calls “education and training” — for parents with too many children is written policy in at least three counties, notices found by Zenz confirmed > While fines also apply to Han Chinese, only minorities are sent to the detention camps if they cannot pay, according to interviews and data > Seven former detainees told the AP that they were force-fed birth control pills or injected with fluids, often with no explanation. Many felt dizzy, tired or ill, and women stopped getting their periods. After being released and leaving China, some went to get medical check-ups and found they were sterile https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c
sadmann1 6y ago
Whataboutism seems to be the key feature linking many posts here. It's not a convincing argument
- codekansas 6y ago
  Is it just me or does this happen for every article about anything China-related?
  - toiletfuneral 6y ago
    I do think it’s weird that a lot of the people most vocal about Uighur persecution were also the cheerleaders for every Middle East intervention as well as building concentration camps for undocumented immigrants. I have racist family who have historically hated Muslims that are enraged at China over this. You call this comment whataboutism if you want but the inconsistency is bizarre. (I am no fan of the Chinese the state at by any means)
  - baskire 6y ago
    I’ve noticed it to be the primary defense mechanism of China sympathizers. Funnily enough USSR used similar arguments
    - Can_Not 6y ago
      > Christian Christensen, Professor of Journalism in Stockholm, argues that the accusation of whataboutism is itself a form of the tu quoque fallacy, as it dismisses criticisms of one's own behavior to focus instead on the actions of another, thus creating a double standard. Those who use whataboutism are not necessarily engaging in an empty or cynical deflection of responsibility: whataboutism can be a useful tool to expose contradictions, double standards, and hypocrisy > Others have criticized the usage of accusations of whataboutism by American news outlets, arguing that accusations of whataboutism have been used to simply deflect criticisms of human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States or its allies. They argue that the usage of the term almost exclusively by American outlets is a double standard, and that moral accusations made by powerful countries are merely a pretext to punish their geopolitical rivals in the face of their own wrongdoing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
dis-sys 6y ago
Seriously, suppression of birth? According the exact same logic used by this ZENZ guy, China's majority group (Han) has been subjected to such "genocide" for decades. As a result of such "suppression", only 400 million Han Chinese were born in the last 30 years rather than the estimated 800+ million.
- graeme 6y ago
  There’s an obvious difference between suppressing births of all groups vs. suppressing only a particular group.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    It wasn't about "all groups" though, ethnic minorities (like the Uighur) were exempt or allowed to have more children.
    - graeme 6y ago
      Fair point, my comment was incorrect. I suppose the distinction I would draw is that the restrictions on Han births were imposed by a Han government. That seems different than imposing it on other groups.
- mroche 6y ago
  https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml Suppression of birth does not mean “limiting”, it means “preventing”. The actual U.N. article phrasing is as follows: Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group If the Chinese government was imposing sterilization on their own people in the native ethnic majority, then that too would qualify under that definition, as long as the intent to "physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" is proven (emphasis mine). The same need to prove intent applies to this situation with the Uighur people as well.
- whymauri 6y ago
  The U.N. guidelines for genocide extend beyond suppression of birth. You typically have to meet several of the guidelines, "with intent to destroy," for the UN to classify policy as genocidal. You can find them here: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml And even the U.N. guidelines are controversial in genocide study circles due to the ongoing academic debate on intent. Edit: Intent is the most fierce academic discussion in genocide studies. It's the first major academic topic introduce in Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (Adam Jones), which is the standard introductory book. Here's a collection of books, not even articles, primarily concerned with intent: * With Intent to Destroy: Reflecting on Genocide * The Khmer Rouge and the Crime of Genocide: Issues of Genocidal Intent with Regard to the Khmer Rouge Mass Atrocities * A Collective Theory of Genocidal Intent * On the Nature of Genocidal Intent Not to mention dozens of articles, symposia, proceedings, debates, book chapters, reviews, and more. The UN-defined "with intent to destroy" has become the most notorious and controversial phrase in genocide studies. Adam Jones pp 11-39, 49-51 is my recommended reading for a primer on the subject. It's online for free. [0] [0] http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf
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ReptileMan 6y ago
A lot of international politics/treaties enforcement boils down to - are you willing to bleed and die for that cause. Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. Even the tiny Iran and Cuba survived decades of sanctions.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. This just seems false. There are no ways to guarantee that they won't do something, but China, like everyone else, is vulnerable to international pressure. An optimistic historic parallel to which one could look is the Helsinki Accords, where diplomatic measures far short of war wrung what turned out to be dramatic human-rights concessions from the Soviets.
  - ReptileMan 6y ago
    It seems but it is not. China is ascending power whereas USSR was in the first stages of decay. The only game the big boys play is Realpolitik. And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all.
    - JadeNB 6y ago
      > And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all. Of course, there is no such thing as a binding international agreement—a state that feels itself empowered to abrogate an agreement will do so, regardless of anything that it has signed. As you say, in the end, the only sure-fire tool of enforcement is war, and even that is not sure fire, because victory in war is not guaranteed. Nonetheless, despite the many and flagrant violations of the Helsinki Accords, it is plausible to trace the beginning of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact directly to the accords.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. Even the tiny Iran and Cuba survived decades of sanctions There is one recent-ish historical exception: the SA Apartheid regime was brought down by the West without any land invasion. But invasion is no guarantee either; the Indian caste system, which makes apartheid look like Sunday school, survived the British occupation.
AHappyCamper 6y ago
I understand that China is extremely powerful both militarily and economically, but it just makes me so sad that such atrocities against humanity are occurring at the hands of a superpower, deep into the 21st century. Forgive my naiveté, but aren't we supposed to be past this type of thing as a species already? Wasn't that the whole point of the 20th century - to show us all the things we shouldn't be doing?
- baskire 6y ago
  Surprised trump doesn’t use this to place sanctions on China and up his base’s support.
  - Analemma_ 6y ago
    You think Trump or his base is concerned about genocide of Muslims? That’s giving them an awful lot of credit.
    - iamstupidsimple 6y ago
      I definitely do. At least Trump and his supporters have the had guts to stand up to China. Nobody else seems to be doing this.
      - belltaco 6y ago
        You mean by repeatedly praising Xi? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-china/trump-praises-chinese-president-extending-tenure-for-life-idUSKCN1GG015 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-china/trump-praises... Or by getting the US out of the TPP, which was meant to reduce China's influence on that part of the world? Or by asking him to help him get re-elected?
      - mcintyre1994 6y ago
        Obvious counter example would be Yemen, where he’s been fully behind Saudi Arabia continuing their genocide of a Muslim population.
CptObvious345 6y ago
If you dare point out that every contentious thread about China is brigaded by obvious professional Chinese propagandists, then dang (who is utterly determined to keep his head in the sand on this issue) will ban you. Stick a fork in hacker news. Its abject naevity about popular anonymous message boards has killed it.
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pozdnyshev 6y ago
"I have long argued that the atrocity in the region is a cultural genocide, not a literal genocide" Headline is extremely misleading.
- hkmaxpro 6y ago
  > The reason why now this has changed - we do need to probably call it a genocide - is quite simply because the evidence now, for the first time, very specifically meets one of the five criteria set forth by the United Nations Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide from 1948, which specifically says the suppression of birth
pozdnyshev 6y ago
>Adrian Zenz is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation HAHAHAHA
chvid 6y ago
"Adrian Zenz is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation." Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation? Ah ok. Just as there is no prejudice or bias of any kind slipping into your scientific research ...
- steffandroid 6y ago
  The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation counts all COVID-19 deaths worldwide as victims of communism, in case anyone was wondering how credible this organisation is.
  - infinity0 6y ago
    Source?
    - steffandroid 6y ago
      Their website. https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-the-chinese-communist-party-for-the-coronavirus-crisis https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-t... https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/press-releases/2020/4/10/international-human-rights-org-china-and-world-health-organization-coverup-fueled-global-pandemic https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/press-releases/2020/4/10/... > While the pandemic’s final human toll is still unknown, those who have perished from the outbreak must be included in the global count of 100 million deaths at the hands of Communism.
    - Semaphor 6y ago
      https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-the-chinese-communist-party-for-the-coronavirus-crisis https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-t... It’s a hilarious read: > If Beijing had given the real number of infected people and deaths, other countries would have recognized the danger, and taken necessary steps. No matter what transpired, eventually there was a warning, and most countries still took no steps until they had high numbers themselves. Hell, Italy could have been the warning and it would have helped.
yellow_lead 6y ago
A database of Uyghur victims is maintained here, with over 9000 entries. The site is also low on funds and in desperate need of donations. https://www.shahit.biz/eng/ https://www.shahit.biz/eng/
newen 6y ago
Hahaha, Zenz. People, please look at the sources before you go blindly believing the latest anti-China scare story. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/ https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-... > The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation. It was authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China. > As Washington ratchets up pressure on China, Zenz has been lifted out of obscurity and transformed almost overnight into a go-to pundit on Xinjiang. He has testified before Congress, providing commentary in outlets from the Wall Street Journal to Democracy Now!, and delivering expert quotes in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ recent “China Cables” report. His Twitter bio notes that he is “moving across the Atlantic” from his native Germany. https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1208837915687706624 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1208837915687706624
MintelIE 6y ago
Oh come on, China's a big powerful profitable country. And genocide has a special meaning, we can't just call any ethnic extermination a genocide, that'd be improper. China will just keep on killing their Uighurs and companies will keep doing business there. There's perks, too, I bet CEOs can get organs if they need them, CHEAP, these days, if they bring manufacturing into China.
geogra4 6y ago
I don't think it's "whataboutism" to question the validity of a source as cartoonishly biased as the victims of communism foundation. These are the people that claim every covid death is a victim of communism.
foobar_ 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Zenz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Zenz ... the china expert > Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation which links modern trends, including gender equality, homosexuality and bans on corporal punishment, to the power of the Antichrist. The more I look at it, history is one ethnic group against the other. The winners do what they want, the weak suffer as prisoners of war.
- garceus 6y ago
  Of course the US will use questionable sources when it comes to slandering China or any other countries it deems a threat...
- SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago
  Look at the edit history for that article. It’s not useful as a reference for this discussion. I mean, frankly, much of this discussion is probably not authentic either. These topics always attract people who will bend over backwards to defend genocide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
  - dang 6y ago
    "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- oefrha 6y ago
  In reply to a flagged sibling: what's there to see in the edit history? There was an edit war (or maybe I should use the plural, didn't look too closely), which is common on controversial topics, and judging from the talk page it has been resolved with a compromise. Bottom line, dude did coauthor that book, and even the title is telling enough. Also, unrelated, it's sad that any comment trying to discuss or question what's specifically in the article is quickly downvoted into oblivion -- except this one, curiously -- and only general threads suitable (or unsuitable) for any submission loosely on this topic remain. People are quick to post insinuations about astroturfing too, despite guidelines specifically banning that.
apta 6y ago
Another holocaust is being committed right in front of everyone. What will the world do now? Sit back and keep taking advantage of the benefits of cheap Chinese labour? Isn't it time to wake up and cut this barbaric behavior if we're going to claim we moved past what happened in WWII?
- ianleeclark 6y ago
  > Another holocaust is being committed right in front of everyone. What will the world do now? Sit back and keep taking advantage of the benefits of cheap Chinese labour? Note: I'm not defending this, and I'm not looking forward to the coming Chinese hegemony. However, what is the proposed alternative? It's obvious from the past few months just how deeply reliant western supply chains are on China. When the Dutch were at the height of power, they heavily invested into British manufacturing, only to later be taken over as the hegemonic power by the British. The British later did similar with the US, and, in combination with the world wars and exiting as the only possible creditor from WW2, the American hegemony was established. From Volcker onwards, the American economy increasingly turned to financialization and local communities came to be service-oriented economies. We're just historically at the end of a cyclical process of accumulation and China's up next.
  - apta 6y ago
    > It's obvious from the past few months just how deeply reliant western supply chains are on China. It's not just the West, but the world in general. Everyone should cut economic ties with them, that's the least we should do. At an individual level, we should boycott Chinese products as much as we can. There are efforts like https://www.reddit.com/r/avoidchineseproducts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/avoidchineseproducts/, which are a start, but we need more stringent measures. It's also obvious as another poster in this thread mentioned, the pro-Chinese propaganda being pushed on forums like this one. Any sentiment or comments that raises awareness against Chinese crimes and barbarism gets down voted. This should be a wakeup call, they're infiltrating everything.
- refurb 6y ago
  Are you willing to die or have your countrymen die to stop it? Because that’s likely what it would take.
knolax 6y ago
Why was "report says" just removed? It's in the headline of TFA and it was in the HN headline a minute ago. I'd consider it a salient piece of information given that the report isn't authored by the UN but by some christian fundamentalist. EDIT: it's back now.
- dang 6y ago
  It was never in the HN headline until I added it a minute ago (before I saw your comment btw—this is standard moderation).
resters 6y ago
Yet American prisons don’t meet the UN standard? Abu Garson, etc. All this hubbub about China’s human rights record is paving the way for Trump to stir up a fake conflict just before the election.
contingencies 6y ago
Objectively, it may be relevant to note that the rich history of the Silk Road includes numerous cultural genocides, the largest of which was contemporary with the coming of Islam. We have yet to even comprehend the vast trove of materials recovered from the region indicative of those past cultures, which includes a trove of languages, scripts and religious affiliations. An amazing international digitization project hosted by the British Library at has full document search capabilities. http://idp.bl.uk/ http://idp.bl.uk/ ... scholars are desperately needed to sort and interpret the material, which crosses the Chinese, Indian, Central Asian and Tibetan worlds in addition to endemic kingdoms. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/73/5d/59735daf093ccb7787c7deae823fd8f3.png https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/73/5d/59735daf093ccb7787c7... A fact little known amongst modern Chinese is that one of China's most celebrated poets, Li Bai, actually hailed from Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan). He relocated to Sichuan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai Other popularly remnant modern Chinese cultural links to this region from China include the coming of Buddhism and the fictionalized account Journey to the West, the romanticized export of silk technology, former military significance of 'blood (sweating) horses' and no doubt various contributions to medical, astronomic and scientific knowledge. The Uighurs, like hundreds of ethnic and cultural minorities globally, and dozens within China, are facing a difficult integration with the modern world surrounded by far more significant economic and cultural spheres. It's also objective to say that a minor Uighur-affiliated violent separatist group has been operating with a distinct anti-government position since at least the early 1990s, and prior to that the region was a victim of the Great Game: http://pratyeka.org/books/kazak-exodus/ http://pratyeka.org/books/kazak-exodus/ China historically allowed members of registered minority groups to be free of the one child policy, which otherwise affected all Chinese. The linked article asserts it is still being applied in Xinjiang and specifically against the Uighurs which is different to the rest of the country at present, but not historically. It would be good to see what the primary sources are on this. There are potentially reasonable grounds for an international relations argument that nominally recent anti-Uighur measures might be, at least in part, traced to immediately contemporary post-911 "anti-terror" rhetoric by the US providing global laisser-faire on rights suspensions and heavy-handed tactics. Conclusion: There is more to the story than a timely and simplistic villification, none of which excuses the actions being taken, but all of which add context.
thatiscool 6y ago
Europe Portrays Both America and Iran As Rogue States At the UN https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/europe-portrays-both-america-and-iran-rogue-states-un-163851 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/europe-portrays-b...
thatiscool 6y ago
“Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth”, - that is a propaganda technique. Some countries so desperately want chaos in Xinjiang as in HongKong.
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gabaix 6y ago
As of right now, the post is 3-hour old, has 391 votes, second only to another post in the top 60 posts, and yet is is ranked... #59. HN mods have likely flagged it as flamewar, or non relevant, or both, effectively contributing to the soft censorship on the topic. Content platforms have many challenges ahead of them.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  Only users can flag posts, mods can only unflag
  - gabaix 6y ago
    There is an option for mods to accelerate or slow the decay function of the post. This is a practice that all content platforms use and few know about. Burying content down, or removing from feed (for Facebook/YouTube) is a soft censoring that avoids user and regulatory backlash. I would like the platforms to be more transparent about the practice. They could display a ‘derank’ or ‘delisted’ label to all users.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > HN mods have likely flagged it as flamewar, or non relevant, or both, effectively contributing to the soft censorship on the topic. IIRC, HN has a couple of algorithms to automatically detect "flamewars," and I wouldn't be surprised if this post tripped one, since much of the discussion is flamewar-ish. I've been on forums where the moderators would remove "derailing" comments/threads, and I think this is a topic that probably needs that kind of moderation, unfortunately.
totetsu 6y ago
Don't worry people, according to the Chinese media, It's all western media lies. https://www.jfdaily.com.cn/news/detail?id=261301 https://www.jfdaily.com.cn/news/detail?id=261301 https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgjed/chn/zt/xjfk/t1767376.htm https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgjed/chn/zt/xjfk/t1767376.htm

471 points by hkmaxpro 6y ago

> SIMON: People need to be careful using the word genocide. Why do you think it's justified and important to use it now? > ZENZ: I have long argued that the atrocity in the region is a cultural genocide, not a literal genocide. I do continue to believe that, generally speaking, the Chinese government does not intend to physically eradicate the Uighurs and Kazakhs, just to integrate, subjugate, dominate and assimilate them. However, this is coupled with a policy of ethnoracial domination, as the government has brought millions of Han Chinese settler in the regions with promises of high salaries, jobs and free housing. > The reason why now this has changed - we do need to probably call it a genocide - is quite simply because the evidence now, for the first time, very specifically meets one of the five criteria set forth by the United Nations Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide from 1948, which specifically says the suppression of birth.

dleslie 6y ago
This is similar to what happened to indigenous peoples here in Canada. For the most part, and while there are clear and heinous exceptions, the intent was to wipe out indigenous culture and society. Because it wasn't gas chambers it's been harder to get the general population to recognize what was/is happening. Also, forced sterilization is still a thing, particularly outside of urban health authorities. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-lawsuit-could-expand-1.5102981 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la...
- hkmaxpro 6y ago
  In Canada, it’s due to the lack of proper or informed consent, and a class-action lawsuit is trying to correct that. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-lawsuit-could-expand-1.5102981 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/forced-sterilization-la... In China, “[t]he population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply”: https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c And Uyghurs have to flee China just to speak out against this practice. Do you see a lawsuit coming in China? Huge difference.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    Canada had sterilization laws up to 1972; and the link I provided was to an article about that class action lawsuit. ;)
    - hkmaxpro 6y ago
      I don’t think it’s fair to compare China today with Canada almost 50 years ago. A lot of things have changed since then. Boston Marathon didn’t have women’s race until 1972. Our expectations today should be higher.
      - dleslie 6y ago
        The last residential school didn't close until the 90s. There are far too many communities without clean drinking water, let alone access to quality education and health care. We still struggle to maintain obligations regarding indigenous land rights and safe guarding indigenous culture. Our expectations today should be higher.
dirtyid 6y ago
> The reason why now this has changed - we do need to probably call it a genocide - is quite simply because the evidence now, for the first time, very specifically meets one of the five criteria set forth by the United Nations Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide from 1948, which specifically says the suppression of birth. The timing for Zenz shift in opinion is very convenient. China removing family planning policy exemptions for minorities like Uighurs started back in 2017. The policy was proposed back in 2014 and saw some discussion among China watchers in the following years. This is not a new policy change, and one Zenz should be aware of for at least 5+ years. [1] https://time.com/4881898/china-xinjiang-uighur-children/ https://time.com/4881898/china-xinjiang-uighur-children/ [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/08/chinese-official-floats-plan-to-stabilize-fertility-among-some-uighurs/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/08/chinese-official-floats...

wcerfgba 6y ago

For UK citizens, there is an open petition to Parliament asking the UK Government to impose sanctions on China as a response: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300146 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300146

ReptileMan 6y ago
UK cannot simultaneously piss off Brussels and Beijing. Not going to happen. And UK is 1/6th of China economy.
- oliwarner 6y ago
  The UK was 1/6. Back when we had a financial services sector, before we brucked it all up for blue passports. Strange how we ever punched that high. We only have 1/23 the people, and barely make anything ourselves these days.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Gunships + British Raj. Would have lasted longer too if the UK didn't start the road to bankruptcy by entering WW1.
    - Johnjonjoan 6y ago
      Britain joined to stop Wilhelm making a blue water navy that could rival the royal navy. I don't think it's a given British hegemony would have lasted as long without joining ww1.
      - magicsmoke 6y ago
        Germany's navy was never going to be more than Wilhelm's pet project because Germany's main threats were land based France and Russia. Britain joined because of honor over protecting Belgian neutrality, which shocked Germany diplomats who thought Britain would never fight over something with so little material gain for it.

sneak 6y ago

Per capita, the US imprisons approximately 20x more of its own ethnic minorities in a similar fashion. The numbers are so huge in China because the total population is so much larger. I think both desperately need to be addressed. It is painful for me to think that in all three of the richest, most populous, and largest countries on Earth, approximately zero of them have a full complement of human rights for all their inhabitants. We have such a long way to go as a species.

Causality1 6y ago
US prisons might be the worst prisons in the "first world" but they are a far sight from death camps. The US doesn't kill its prisoners and then harvest their organs for transplant. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/18/china-killing-prisoners-to-harvest-organs-for-transplant-tribunal-finds/#7101a59653d4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/18/china-kil...
- steffandroid 6y ago
  > an independent tribunal Funded by whom?
- monocasa 6y ago
  The only reason is that the lethal injection combo we use in the US doesn't leave the organs suitable for transplant because it stops the circulatory system for too long. There's some pushes among groups like the AMA to change that.
chapium 6y ago
Lets talk about china right now.
- sneak 6y ago
  I don’t have any direct political ability to meaningfully influence policy in China. I, in theory, can participate in US elections and purportedly have some say in how things are done in the US. Additionally, I don’t have a language barrier to inciting others to action in the US. I think it’s a very hypocritical situation, and I wonder specifically about the who and the why for the huge anti-China campaign in the global west. I also think scale is important. Human rights violations against one person are bad. A system that imposed them against millions is worse. Both the US and China have such systems.

anonms-coward 6y ago

I mean the US literally killed 150k to 500k people in Iraq alone. What was that if not genocide. The US has been doing horrible things to other countries in the name of (war, spreading freedom and democracy) for a long time, e.g. dropping agent Orange in Vietnam. The US never faced any consequences. I think now that China is becoming powerful, it is learning that it can ignore world pressure the same way the US did and unfortunately China is doing well, not even facing any opposition from the Muslim countries. At this point China might be killing more innocent muslims then Israel ever did in Palestine.

chapium 6y ago
Lets talk about china right now.
- garceus 6y ago
  China bad. America good. #Trump2020

balola 6y ago

#VICENewsTonight China’s Vanishing Muslims: Undercover In The Most Dystopian Place In The World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ

agakshat 6y ago
Thank you for sharing that. Really strongly recommend everyone to watch this video, a rare glimpse at the people inside this nightmare

oefrha 6y ago

It’s not like China didn’t have mandatory birth control on the ethnic majority.

Aperocky 6y ago
As a bonus, the mandatory birth controls were recently expanded to ethnic minorities as they were previously exempt.
- yorwba 6y ago
  It's the other way around: rural ethnic minorities were previously allowed three children. This limit hasn't changed, but Han Chinese in rural areas are now allowed to have the same number of children.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Sounds like a genocide. /s
hkmaxpro 6y ago
Does China really treat ethnic majority and Uyghurs equally? > Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang > The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply > But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show. Some rural Muslims, like Omirzakh, are punished even for having the three children allowed by the law > Leaked data obtained and corroborated by the AP showed that of 484 camp detainees listed in Karakax county in Xinjiang, 149 were there for having too many children - the most common reason for holding them. Time in a camp — what the government calls “education and training” — for parents with too many children is written policy in at least three counties, notices found by Zenz confirmed > While fines also apply to Han Chinese, only minorities are sent to the detention camps if they cannot pay, according to interviews and data > Seven former detainees told the AP that they were force-fed birth control pills or injected with fluids, often with no explanation. Many felt dizzy, tired or ill, and women stopped getting their periods. After being released and leaving China, some went to get medical check-ups and found they were sterile https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c

sadmann1 6y ago

Whataboutism seems to be the key feature linking many posts here. It's not a convincing argument

codekansas 6y ago
Is it just me or does this happen for every article about anything China-related?
- toiletfuneral 6y ago
  I do think it’s weird that a lot of the people most vocal about Uighur persecution were also the cheerleaders for every Middle East intervention as well as building concentration camps for undocumented immigrants. I have racist family who have historically hated Muslims that are enraged at China over this. You call this comment whataboutism if you want but the inconsistency is bizarre. (I am no fan of the Chinese the state at by any means)
- baskire 6y ago
  I’ve noticed it to be the primary defense mechanism of China sympathizers. Funnily enough USSR used similar arguments
  - Can_Not 6y ago
    > Christian Christensen, Professor of Journalism in Stockholm, argues that the accusation of whataboutism is itself a form of the tu quoque fallacy, as it dismisses criticisms of one's own behavior to focus instead on the actions of another, thus creating a double standard. Those who use whataboutism are not necessarily engaging in an empty or cynical deflection of responsibility: whataboutism can be a useful tool to expose contradictions, double standards, and hypocrisy > Others have criticized the usage of accusations of whataboutism by American news outlets, arguing that accusations of whataboutism have been used to simply deflect criticisms of human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States or its allies. They argue that the usage of the term almost exclusively by American outlets is a double standard, and that moral accusations made by powerful countries are merely a pretext to punish their geopolitical rivals in the face of their own wrongdoing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

dis-sys 6y ago

Seriously, suppression of birth? According the exact same logic used by this ZENZ guy, China's majority group (Han) has been subjected to such "genocide" for decades. As a result of such "suppression", only 400 million Han Chinese were born in the last 30 years rather than the estimated 800+ million.

graeme 6y ago
There’s an obvious difference between suppressing births of all groups vs. suppressing only a particular group.
- luckylion 6y ago
  It wasn't about "all groups" though, ethnic minorities (like the Uighur) were exempt or allowed to have more children.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Fair point, my comment was incorrect. I suppose the distinction I would draw is that the restrictions on Han births were imposed by a Han government. That seems different than imposing it on other groups.
mroche 6y ago
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml Suppression of birth does not mean “limiting”, it means “preventing”. The actual U.N. article phrasing is as follows: Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group If the Chinese government was imposing sterilization on their own people in the native ethnic majority, then that too would qualify under that definition, as long as the intent to "physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" is proven (emphasis mine). The same need to prove intent applies to this situation with the Uighur people as well.
whymauri 6y ago
The U.N. guidelines for genocide extend beyond suppression of birth. You typically have to meet several of the guidelines, "with intent to destroy," for the UN to classify policy as genocidal. You can find them here: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml And even the U.N. guidelines are controversial in genocide study circles due to the ongoing academic debate on intent. Edit: Intent is the most fierce academic discussion in genocide studies. It's the first major academic topic introduce in Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (Adam Jones), which is the standard introductory book. Here's a collection of books, not even articles, primarily concerned with intent: * With Intent to Destroy: Reflecting on Genocide * The Khmer Rouge and the Crime of Genocide: Issues of Genocidal Intent with Regard to the Khmer Rouge Mass Atrocities * A Collective Theory of Genocidal Intent * On the Nature of Genocidal Intent Not to mention dozens of articles, symposia, proceedings, debates, book chapters, reviews, and more. The UN-defined "with intent to destroy" has become the most notorious and controversial phrase in genocide studies. Adam Jones pp 11-39, 49-51 is my recommended reading for a primer on the subject. It's online for free. [0] [0] http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf http://www.genocidetext.net/gaci_origins.pdf

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ReptileMan 6y ago

A lot of international politics/treaties enforcement boils down to - are you willing to bleed and die for that cause. Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. Even the tiny Iran and Cuba survived decades of sanctions.

JadeNB 6y ago
> Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. This just seems false. There are no ways to guarantee that they won't do something, but China, like everyone else, is vulnerable to international pressure. An optimistic historic parallel to which one could look is the Helsinki Accords, where diplomatic measures far short of war wrung what turned out to be dramatic human-rights concessions from the Soviets.
- ReptileMan 6y ago
  It seems but it is not. China is ascending power whereas USSR was in the first stages of decay. The only game the big boys play is Realpolitik. And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all.
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    > And they were not binding anyway. And I can assure you that USSR and the eastern bloc didn't comply at all. Of course, there is no such thing as a binding international agreement—a state that feels itself empowered to abrogate an agreement will do so, regardless of anything that it has signed. As you say, in the end, the only sure-fire tool of enforcement is war, and even that is not sure fire, because victory in war is not guaranteed. Nonetheless, despite the many and flagrant violations of the Helsinki Accords, it is plausible to trace the beginning of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact directly to the accords.
goatinaboat 6y ago
Unless we are willing to go to war - there are no viable ways to prevent China from doing whatever they feel like in the territory they control. Even the tiny Iran and Cuba survived decades of sanctions There is one recent-ish historical exception: the SA Apartheid regime was brought down by the West without any land invasion. But invasion is no guarantee either; the Indian caste system, which makes apartheid look like Sunday school, survived the British occupation.

AHappyCamper 6y ago

I understand that China is extremely powerful both militarily and economically, but it just makes me so sad that such atrocities against humanity are occurring at the hands of a superpower, deep into the 21st century. Forgive my naiveté, but aren't we supposed to be past this type of thing as a species already? Wasn't that the whole point of the 20th century - to show us all the things we shouldn't be doing?

baskire 6y ago
Surprised trump doesn’t use this to place sanctions on China and up his base’s support.
- Analemma_ 6y ago
  You think Trump or his base is concerned about genocide of Muslims? That’s giving them an awful lot of credit.
  - iamstupidsimple 6y ago
    I definitely do. At least Trump and his supporters have the had guts to stand up to China. Nobody else seems to be doing this.
    - belltaco 6y ago
      You mean by repeatedly praising Xi? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-china/trump-praises-chinese-president-extending-tenure-for-life-idUSKCN1GG015 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-china/trump-praises... Or by getting the US out of the TPP, which was meant to reduce China's influence on that part of the world? Or by asking him to help him get re-elected?
    - mcintyre1994 6y ago
      Obvious counter example would be Yemen, where he’s been fully behind Saudi Arabia continuing their genocide of a Muslim population.

CptObvious345 6y ago

If you dare point out that every contentious thread about China is brigaded by obvious professional Chinese propagandists, then dang (who is utterly determined to keep his head in the sand on this issue) will ban you. Stick a fork in hacker news. Its abject naevity about popular anonymous message boards has killed it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pozdnyshev 6y ago

"I have long argued that the atrocity in the region is a cultural genocide, not a literal genocide" Headline is extremely misleading.

hkmaxpro 6y ago
> The reason why now this has changed - we do need to probably call it a genocide - is quite simply because the evidence now, for the first time, very specifically meets one of the five criteria set forth by the United Nations Convention for the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide from 1948, which specifically says the suppression of birth

pozdnyshev 6y ago

>Adrian Zenz is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation HAHAHAHA

chvid 6y ago

"Adrian Zenz is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation." Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation? Ah ok. Just as there is no prejudice or bias of any kind slipping into your scientific research ...

steffandroid 6y ago
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation counts all COVID-19 deaths worldwide as victims of communism, in case anyone was wondering how credible this organisation is.
- infinity0 6y ago
  Source?
  - steffandroid 6y ago
    Their website. https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-the-chinese-communist-party-for-the-coronavirus-crisis https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-t... https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/press-releases/2020/4/10/international-human-rights-org-china-and-world-health-organization-coverup-fueled-global-pandemic https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/press-releases/2020/4/10/... > While the pandemic’s final human toll is still unknown, those who have perished from the outbreak must be included in the global count of 100 million deaths at the hands of Communism.
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-the-chinese-communist-party-for-the-coronavirus-crisis https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/voc-news/2020/4/5/blame-t... It’s a hilarious read: > If Beijing had given the real number of infected people and deaths, other countries would have recognized the danger, and taken necessary steps. No matter what transpired, eventually there was a warning, and most countries still took no steps until they had high numbers themselves. Hell, Italy could have been the warning and it would have helped.

yellow_lead 6y ago

A database of Uyghur victims is maintained here, with over 9000 entries. The site is also low on funds and in desperate need of donations. https://www.shahit.biz/eng/ https://www.shahit.biz/eng/

newen 6y ago

Hahaha, Zenz. People, please look at the sources before you go blindly believing the latest anti-China scare story. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/ https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-... > The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation. It was authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China. > As Washington ratchets up pressure on China, Zenz has been lifted out of obscurity and transformed almost overnight into a go-to pundit on Xinjiang. He has testified before Congress, providing commentary in outlets from the Wall Street Journal to Democracy Now!, and delivering expert quotes in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ recent “China Cables” report. His Twitter bio notes that he is “moving across the Atlantic” from his native Germany. https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1208837915687706624 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1208837915687706624

MintelIE 6y ago

Oh come on, China's a big powerful profitable country. And genocide has a special meaning, we can't just call any ethnic extermination a genocide, that'd be improper. China will just keep on killing their Uighurs and companies will keep doing business there. There's perks, too, I bet CEOs can get organs if they need them, CHEAP, these days, if they bring manufacturing into China.

geogra4 6y ago

I don't think it's "whataboutism" to question the validity of a source as cartoonishly biased as the victims of communism foundation. These are the people that claim every covid death is a victim of communism.

foobar_ 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Zenz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Zenz ... the china expert > Zenz co-authored the book Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation which links modern trends, including gender equality, homosexuality and bans on corporal punishment, to the power of the Antichrist. The more I look at it, history is one ethnic group against the other. The winners do what they want, the weak suffer as prisoners of war.

garceus 6y ago
Of course the US will use questionable sources when it comes to slandering China or any other countries it deems a threat...
SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago
Look at the edit history for that article. It’s not useful as a reference for this discussion. I mean, frankly, much of this discussion is probably not authentic either. These topics always attract people who will bend over backwards to defend genocide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
- dang 6y ago
  "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
oefrha 6y ago
In reply to a flagged sibling: what's there to see in the edit history? There was an edit war (or maybe I should use the plural, didn't look too closely), which is common on controversial topics, and judging from the talk page it has been resolved with a compromise. Bottom line, dude did coauthor that book, and even the title is telling enough. Also, unrelated, it's sad that any comment trying to discuss or question what's specifically in the article is quickly downvoted into oblivion -- except this one, curiously -- and only general threads suitable (or unsuitable) for any submission loosely on this topic remain. People are quick to post insinuations about astroturfing too, despite guidelines specifically banning that.

apta 6y ago

Another holocaust is being committed right in front of everyone. What will the world do now? Sit back and keep taking advantage of the benefits of cheap Chinese labour? Isn't it time to wake up and cut this barbaric behavior if we're going to claim we moved past what happened in WWII?

ianleeclark 6y ago
> Another holocaust is being committed right in front of everyone. What will the world do now? Sit back and keep taking advantage of the benefits of cheap Chinese labour? Note: I'm not defending this, and I'm not looking forward to the coming Chinese hegemony. However, what is the proposed alternative? It's obvious from the past few months just how deeply reliant western supply chains are on China. When the Dutch were at the height of power, they heavily invested into British manufacturing, only to later be taken over as the hegemonic power by the British. The British later did similar with the US, and, in combination with the world wars and exiting as the only possible creditor from WW2, the American hegemony was established. From Volcker onwards, the American economy increasingly turned to financialization and local communities came to be service-oriented economies. We're just historically at the end of a cyclical process of accumulation and China's up next.
- apta 6y ago
  > It's obvious from the past few months just how deeply reliant western supply chains are on China. It's not just the West, but the world in general. Everyone should cut economic ties with them, that's the least we should do. At an individual level, we should boycott Chinese products as much as we can. There are efforts like https://www.reddit.com/r/avoidchineseproducts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/avoidchineseproducts/, which are a start, but we need more stringent measures. It's also obvious as another poster in this thread mentioned, the pro-Chinese propaganda being pushed on forums like this one. Any sentiment or comments that raises awareness against Chinese crimes and barbarism gets down voted. This should be a wakeup call, they're infiltrating everything.
refurb 6y ago
Are you willing to die or have your countrymen die to stop it? Because that’s likely what it would take.

knolax 6y ago

Why was "report says" just removed? It's in the headline of TFA and it was in the HN headline a minute ago. I'd consider it a salient piece of information given that the report isn't authored by the UN but by some christian fundamentalist. EDIT: it's back now.

dang 6y ago
It was never in the HN headline until I added it a minute ago (before I saw your comment btw—this is standard moderation).

resters 6y ago

Yet American prisons don’t meet the UN standard? Abu Garson, etc. All this hubbub about China’s human rights record is paving the way for Trump to stir up a fake conflict just before the election.

contingencies 6y ago

Objectively, it may be relevant to note that the rich history of the Silk Road includes numerous cultural genocides, the largest of which was contemporary with the coming of Islam. We have yet to even comprehend the vast trove of materials recovered from the region indicative of those past cultures, which includes a trove of languages, scripts and religious affiliations. An amazing international digitization project hosted by the British Library at has full document search capabilities. http://idp.bl.uk/ http://idp.bl.uk/ ... scholars are desperately needed to sort and interpret the material, which crosses the Chinese, Indian, Central Asian and Tibetan worlds in addition to endemic kingdoms. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/73/5d/59735daf093ccb7787c7deae823fd8f3.png https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/73/5d/59735daf093ccb7787c7... A fact little known amongst modern Chinese is that one of China's most celebrated poets, Li Bai, actually hailed from Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan). He relocated to Sichuan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai Other popularly remnant modern Chinese cultural links to this region from China include the coming of Buddhism and the fictionalized account Journey to the West, the romanticized export of silk technology, former military significance of 'blood (sweating) horses' and no doubt various contributions to medical, astronomic and scientific knowledge. The Uighurs, like hundreds of ethnic and cultural minorities globally, and dozens within China, are facing a difficult integration with the modern world surrounded by far more significant economic and cultural spheres. It's also objective to say that a minor Uighur-affiliated violent separatist group has been operating with a distinct anti-government position since at least the early 1990s, and prior to that the region was a victim of the Great Game: http://pratyeka.org/books/kazak-exodus/ http://pratyeka.org/books/kazak-exodus/ China historically allowed members of registered minority groups to be free of the one child policy, which otherwise affected all Chinese. The linked article asserts it is still being applied in Xinjiang and specifically against the Uighurs which is different to the rest of the country at present, but not historically. It would be good to see what the primary sources are on this. There are potentially reasonable grounds for an international relations argument that nominally recent anti-Uighur measures might be, at least in part, traced to immediately contemporary post-911 "anti-terror" rhetoric by the US providing global laisser-faire on rights suspensions and heavy-handed tactics. Conclusion: There is more to the story than a timely and simplistic villification, none of which excuses the actions being taken, but all of which add context.

thatiscool 6y ago

Europe Portrays Both America and Iran As Rogue States At the UN https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/europe-portrays-both-america-and-iran-rogue-states-un-163851 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/europe-portrays-b...

thatiscool 6y ago

“Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth”, - that is a propaganda technique. Some countries so desperately want chaos in Xinjiang as in HongKong.

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gabaix 6y ago

As of right now, the post is 3-hour old, has 391 votes, second only to another post in the top 60 posts, and yet is is ranked... #59. HN mods have likely flagged it as flamewar, or non relevant, or both, effectively contributing to the soft censorship on the topic. Content platforms have many challenges ahead of them.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
Only users can flag posts, mods can only unflag
- gabaix 6y ago
  There is an option for mods to accelerate or slow the decay function of the post. This is a practice that all content platforms use and few know about. Burying content down, or removing from feed (for Facebook/YouTube) is a soft censoring that avoids user and regulatory backlash. I would like the platforms to be more transparent about the practice. They could display a ‘derank’ or ‘delisted’ label to all users.
ardy42 6y ago
> HN mods have likely flagged it as flamewar, or non relevant, or both, effectively contributing to the soft censorship on the topic. IIRC, HN has a couple of algorithms to automatically detect "flamewars," and I wouldn't be surprised if this post tripped one, since much of the discussion is flamewar-ish. I've been on forums where the moderators would remove "derailing" comments/threads, and I think this is a topic that probably needs that kind of moderation, unfortunately.

totetsu 6y ago

Don't worry people, according to the Chinese media, It's all western media lies. https://www.jfdaily.com.cn/news/detail?id=261301 https://www.jfdaily.com.cn/news/detail?id=261301 https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgjed/chn/zt/xjfk/t1767376.htm https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgjed/chn/zt/xjfk/t1767376.htm