15 ms·
USA Sanctions Chinese Officials, Including Politburo Member, for Xinjiang Abuses
- onetimemanytime 6y agoOriginal announcement: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1055 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1055 Treasury Sanctions Chinese Entity and Officials Pursuant to Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act
- peroporque 6y agoGood to see that at least the USA has the balls to act against the "reeducation" camps. My country (Germany) should be the loudest voice against it, but as usual we say nothing and hope nobody notices.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoEveryone should be speaking out against them. The way China treats the Uighur is appalling. > The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. 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. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, the AP found, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/andrew-sullivan-china-is-a-genocidal-menace.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/andrew-sullivan-chin...
- cies 6y agoHypocrites (after the high up officials in charge of Guatanamo Bay are still walking unsanctioned).
- peroporque 6y agoI agree that the Falcons should be in prison, but there is a difference between putting a few hundred political extremists in jail, compared to a few million normal people based on their race. So, no, not "hypocrites".
- jlokier 6y agoWell, some of those in Guantanamo are political extremists. And some of them are probably normal people. https://www.dawn.com/news/1539457/still-at-guantanamo https://www.dawn.com/news/1539457/still-at-guantanamo
- peroporque 6y agoTrue, that's why I say the Falcons should be in jail. But the intention is to catch extremists, the flaw is to not follow due process. Whereas in China, the intention is to commit cultural genocide.
- luckylion 6y ago> few hundred political extremists Like in Abu Ghraib, where they created a torture dungeon for thousands of Iraqis, from common criminals to suspect rebels, generally without trial? This whole "no, it's just some really evil individuals that we tortured, we are the good guys here" narrative is disgusting.
- cies 6y ago> without trial this is the main point. both states like to do it without trial.
- thoughtstheseus 6y agoThat’s why state interests should be below individual interests. Otherwise what’s the point of a state?
- 6y ago
- stunt 6y agoViva human rights BUT only as long as it doesn't interfere with our interest. Let's supply and equip KSA with bombs to kill minorities and majorities in Yemen, and also blame Chinese for abuses against ethnic minorities. We are terrified to death of seeing tear gas on streets but we supply bombs to the Middle East. And don't get me wrong. I think anything to stop abuses in China is great. But, when I'm reminded about those double standards, I just realize it's all bullshit. I stopped reading politics. I only listen to people that talk about peace. Everyone else is after some hidden agenda.
- jacobush 6y agoWhat is acceptable is a sliding window. Too much cynicism, and we'll debate what country not to nuke next week.
- ReptileMan 6y agoAnd there will be some some US citizens in China arrested on various charges and the world will move on. It is not as if we are unfamiliar with this kabuki play
- Larrikin 6y agoKabuki is Japanese not Chinese
- ReptileMan 6y agoI am well aware. It is also slang for highly predictable events that always play out the same.
- baybal2 6y ago> some US citizens in China arrested on various charges China regularly arrests dozens of foreign citizens on bogus charges every month. This is what people saying that China's incarceration rate is so low forget to say. A foreigners in China has a much higher risk to be extra-judicially jailed. And yes, US government largely shows that it doesn't give a .... when its citizens are being jailed overseas, unless a huge media expose forces it to do so.
- oxymoran 6y agoThis is why I am never going to China. They were behind the Equifax hack and many other similar breaches. They are actively waging a cyber war against the the US and it’s citizens. They have all of our info so they can piece together who is sympathetic to their “cause” and who is a critic.
- pinkfoot 6y ago> China regularly arrests dozens of foreign citizens on bogus charges every month Care to list the 25+ people arrested in June?
- finnthehuman 6y agoImagine if 50 years from now the thing Trump is most remembered for is ending the US' blind eye towards China. Imagine if he's celebrated as the politician who finally acted on principal in a time when the rest of Washington was looking the other way because of cheap manufacturing. Hollywood was tailoring their products to appease the Chinese government and be allowed in the market, anyone who wanted to do business there like NBA owners and players were biting their tongues and hiding their political opinions. But not Trump, he turned the tide and made America care about human freedom again. Ok, fine, crazy thought. But it raises the question, why aren't any of our other leaders even pretending to try and be that person?
- skissane 6y agoI think another Trump decision which may be viewed as important by historians in 50+ years time is the establishment of the US Space Force.
- Retric 6y agoWhy does reorganization of Air Force Space Command into a separate organization seem like a big deal to you?
- skissane 6y agoWell, for one thing a separate organisation is likely to get more funding. It’s the nature of politics and bureaucracy. And increased military investment in space could produce flow-on benefits to the civilian side of the space industry If the dreams of people like Elon Musk come true, USSF may end up being a far more important organisation than AFSC ever was.
- hpcjoe 6y agoI wanted them to open an academy. Even though I am likely too old for it, I'd definitely apply to be a space cadet.
- baybal2 6y ago> Ok, fine, crazy thought. But it raises the question, why aren't any of our other leaders even pretending to try and be that person? Don't you think that's a very easy question to answer? A ton of money, an amount of money serious enough even for America to be made concerned. Pretty much everybody with stock market exposure, including pretty much anybody in USA who counts as an elite, will loose big time if one day Beijing presses the Delete button, and half of Fortune 500 vanishes. Remember, it was Apple out of everybody who was granted an exemption from punitive tariffs on China.
- dng88 6y agoNote first the site ask you to go to the text vet if you do not agree. Odd. But something to think about. “ undoubtedly have the bulk of their wealth in domestic assets “. Really? I am not sure and not fit the impression leaked by Switzerland
- Robotbeat 6y agoActions like these would be much more effective if we addressed our own human rights abuses like concentration camps of refugees and others at the border, rampant over-incarceration, and police brutality.
- bfieidhbrjr 6y agoNone of these are good, but they are far short of genocide of our own citizens.
- Robotbeat 6y agoSure, but it’s just way too easy for China to employ Whataboutism when we have concentration camps on our border. Without having the moral high ground, actions against much deeper abuses (even like genocide) ring hollow and appear like mere geopolitical maneuvering. Particularly when our POTUS actually supported the Uighur concentration camps according to folks who worked with him: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-china-detention-camp-xinjiang-2020-6?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-china-detention-camp-x...
- jfengel 6y agoHonestly, when we're incarcerating almost 1% of our nation, it's not at all clear that that's "far short of genocide". Especially when that 1% disproportionately falls on some racial groups, and that impact radiates out to further decimate those communities. And while it's not outright genocide, it contributes to a very high murder rate in those communities -- some of it committed directly by the government. If forced to draw some sort of moral hierarchy I'd say yes, it's still not quite up to the organized atrocities committed against the Uighurs. But our disorganized, systemic atrocities are vast, and every other first-world nation is horrified.
- Udik 6y agoAnd active support for other human rights abusing countries.
- throw_this_one 6y agoLaughable that they are even comparable. CCP is doing a legit population mindwiping. I agree on over-incarceration the most. Police brutality needs to be backed up by numbers, not just a video or two every year that gets shown 1 million times on all media. Most of those "refugees" are simply economic migrants. I don't blame them at all, but there's a point at which we need to have laws to see who/how people can get into this country to become a part of our society. Doing nothing and basically letting anybody who can walk here get in is NOT the answer.
- buran77 6y agoThe similarities with the actions taken against Japan in the late '30s and early '40s are uncanny. Those actions were taken with full understanding that they are most likely to provoke Japan into attacking US territories in the Pacific due to the need to relieve the economic chokehold and as a response to what the Japanese saw as an unprecedented insult (economic sanctions increasing in severity but in particular freezing Japanese assets in the US and assisting Japans biggest enemy, China). Wonder if eventually they will get the same result again.
- 1PlayerOne 6y agoUnlike Japan, the Chinese economy is bigger and will be self sustaining enough that a war with the US is unnecessary for that reason.
- throw_this_one 6y agoYup. And although I understand the Obama plan to build a consensus to take on their subversion... it's tough to let this continue on for much longer. Basically if China wants to be a world leader equal to or above the US, we need some guarantees that they aren't going to plunder the world for their own nationalism. If not, then they need to feel pain until they do.
- buran77 6y ago> if China wants to be a world leader equal to or above the US, we need some guarantees that they aren't going to plunder the world for their own nationalism. While I'm personally incompatible with many (most?) of the Chinese values as seen from the west, I'm sure most Chinese appreciate them as they came attached to personal prosperity like their parents never dreamed. You believe US values are or should be generally accepted by the world as "the gold standard" for everyone. Did you have to handwave anything and say "yeah, except that, and that, and..."? Or "but what about what they do?" This is a very self-centric view of the world. Chinese nationalism doesn't agree with me, but neither does yours. The difference between the 2 is that I'm on your nationalism's good (less bad?) side, so it suits me today. Most of the world is on their bad side and do not share your enthusiasm about your values. Many other Western countries are already distancing themselves from the US with regards to many actions (take as an example the Iran sanctions) because it turns out in the end it shares the same "plunder the world" principles. Perhaps a bit more carrot, less stick than the Chinese one. Even citizens are showing less and less appreciation for it in the streets. I applaud the fact that they are free to do it, not that they're fearing just less retaliation than the average Chinese would in the same position. I can't unsee that so many condemnation-worthy violations piggy-back on these real values, in the end making the whole thing a "chocolate-poop-cake". It has chocolate, everyone likes chocolate. Just pointing out the hypocrisy of assuming your personal world views and nationalism happen to be universally above the rest and the fix is for everyone else to "feel the pain" of our nationalism until they accept it. If that didn't sound a bit off then you would have used you regular account.
- Leary 6y agoA very limited/ target sanction against a few members. They should actually freeze the foreign assets of all Politburo members and work on technologies to circumvent the Great Fire wall inside China
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoWe don't need any more escalation. The anti-China hysteria in the West is getting really out-of-hand. This is dangerous stuff.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoThere's some hysteria, but there's also plenty of reasons to be highly wary of China, genocide of Uighurs among them.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoCalling it "genocide" is one of the ways the hysteria manifests itself.
- Retric 6y agoNo genocide is the correct term, the Chinese government is actively trying to destroy a group which is what genocide means. The United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such" including the killing of its members, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately imposing living conditions that seek to "bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part", preventing births, or forcibly transferring children out of the group to another group.[4][5][6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide Chinese actions to reduce births for example are very well documented.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
- dleslie 6y agoI don't think I've ever witnessed a HN discussion that has such a high density of heavily down-voted comments. Amazing.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agoThose supporting china use downvotes as a way of trying to suppress other opinions. I'm getting sick of it. It goes against the HN guidelines and is just a dishonest tactic.
- dleslie 6y agoI'm seeing my own observation getting downvoted heavily. Must be a nerve. ;)