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Xinjiang is prototype for fully totalitarian state: Taiwan minister
- OliverTowers 6y agoEveryone is too afraid to even comment
- ironSkillet 6y agoI think a more likely explanation is that the article is very short, and the assertion in the title is neither novel nor controversial (at least from my read of general sentiment in this forum).
- throw2876534 6y agoI’m often afraid to express my skepticism that most of what we know about Xinjiang comes from Adrian Zenz, because doing so makes people think I actually support those policies.
- Robotbeat 6y agoInteresting that the censorship is so effective that we only have one good source, according to you. That's not exactly encouraging...
- bakuninsbart 6y agoAlmost all of the extreme allegations are levelled by Zenz, Uighur seperatist organizations, and ASPI, an australian think-tank. Other sources do include people visiting there[1], including news-teams[2] and third-nation observers[3], but there claims usually get casually dismissed as a bad source for one reason or the other. Chinese media obviously isn't a good source either. Now Zenz is an evangelical fundamentalist who once wrote he's on a crusade against the CPC. His studies often times don't really follow scientific standards. For example, for his claim that 2 million Uighurs are held in concentration camps, he interviewed 8 Uighur refugees, and extrapolated from the numbers they believe to be detained from their villages to the whole region. Both ASPI and Zenz when accusing the chinese government of genocide via forced sterilization completely glared over the fact that it is the enforcement of the two-child-policy. And they do so knowingly, because if you read between the lines of their reports, it is quite obvious that all the women interviewed already had 2 or more children. It is extremely difficult to get an accurate picture of what is going on there. - Security is definetely extremely tight in the whole region, and "brainwashing camps" are admitted to exist by the government. Many international Xinjiang without an obvious agenda think something very fishy is going on, but the exact scale, method and goal are completely obfuscated by lies and propaganda from both sides. [1] https://medium.com/@jerry_grey2002/abc-four-corners-tell-the-world-analysis-1529e8aaf316 https://medium.com/@jerry_grey2002/abc-four-corners-tell-the... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmId2ZP3h0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmId2ZP3h0c [3] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1168522.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1168522.shtml
- Eugeleo 6y agoNot sure why you are getting downvoted — I didn't know about this lack of sources and took all of the information about the region for granted. Thanks for reminding me that even things that sound plausible (or especially those things) need to be reviewed, toO!
- Robotbeat 6y agoDo not take a post on HN for granted that only cites a Medium post, a YouTube video, and Chinese state media as evidence AGAINST wrongdoing by the Chinese govt. Actual journalistic sources, based on interviews with former detainees, etc, validate the claim that China is undertaking a campaign of demographic genocide against predominantly Muslim minorities: https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c
- Robotbeat 6y agoThis just isn’t true. The ethnic cleansing in the Uyghur regions is well-documented by several independent sources. EDIT: Here’s one: https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c And BTW, your sources include a Medium post, a YouTube video, and Chinese govt controlled media. These are hardly reputable journalistic sources.
- dirtyid 6y agoYour article literally is an example of what the OP cited: - Multiple citations from Zenz (+Pompeo for bonus points) - Entire article revolves around testimony of those with 2+ children being subjected to family planning policies (IUD / sterilizations etc). - Mentions "now-abandoned ‘one child’ policy" without providing context of that new "Two-Child" policy is in affect for everyone, with no minority exemptions. - Claims 30 interviews reveals how wide spread the practice is. Hint: you can interview 1.3 billion Han Chinese to see how wide spread family planning program was for the last 40 years. We already know from leaked internal papers the purpose of these camps, the reality is, the camps themselves are boring techno authoritarian reeducation camps (like in France), but the threshold for manufacturing consent requires something meatier like literal genocide. There's sufficient state-level intelligence capability to actually verify the scope of the camps, but western media insists on quoting the same few unsubstantiated sources + Pompeo musings while conveniently omitting facts that goes against the narrative. I.e. recently ASPI "slave labour" study, casually glosses over that the minimum hourly wage from contracts was equivalent to basic salary at Foxconn and 2x annual GDP of prefecture the workers are from. Because the mental image for a prisoner stamping license plates for 50c an hour is different than $20 an hour.
- phantomathkg 6y agoHow about trying to visit Xijiang yourself and see it yourself?
- labster 6y agoYou first.
- pas 6y agoAren't the checkpoints and the camps there and functioning? (BBC video report?) Don't people have to install whatever spy apps on their phones? Is that not totalitarian enough?
- biscotti 6y agoWell Microsoft did supply the facial recognition tech to keep order in these camps. [1] They seem totalitarian enough to suck up all that telemetry, what makes us think they wouldn't be totalitarian enough to sanction its use against us? So you know the BBC has spent the last two months race baiting. They were once a most treasured institution of my nation now they've lost respect and their future is in jeopardy - you only have to view the hash #DefundTheBBC to see how they're actions have sullied them. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-china-muslim-crackdown-ai-partnership-complicit-2019-4?op=1&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-china-muslim-crack...
- throwaway1997 6y agoThe National Security Law prevents me from implying that Taiwan may be different from China.
- dang 6y agoSingle-purpose accounts are not allowed on HN, and neither are accounts that use HN primarily for political or ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20primarily%20test&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Your account looks like it has been doing both of those things. Please don't do that on HN.
- throwaway1997 6y agoThanks dang. I will cease to use this throwaway account and therefore no longer speak about China truthfully due to safety concerns.
- nujabe 6y agoBecause dang will ban anyone espousing anti-Chinese sentiments, under the guise of 'provoking nationalistic flame wars'. I truly believe there is a conflict of interest somewhere between YC and the CCP because the knee jerk sensorship is quite disturbing.
- MR4D 6y agoInteresting viewpoint considering your comment is still visible.
- frequentnapper 6y agoShe specifically warns about chinese companies inflitrating infrastructure and the Canadian govt just handed over our embassy security to them: https://nationalpost.com/news/chinese-government-owned-firm-wins-6-8m-contract-to-supply-security-equipment-to-canada-embassies#:~:text=from%20our%20team.-,Chinese%20government%2Downed%20firm%20wins%20%246.8M%20contract%20to%20supply,customs%20offices%20in%20160%20countries https://nationalpost.com/news/chinese-government-owned-firm-....
- mc32 6y agoSomeone had to say it. For decades Taiwan has played coy, not wanting to anger its larger neighbor who’s got missiles pointed its way and often war-games invasions. It feels like CNs actions in HK and XJ are laying bare any pretensions, so Taiwan is hoping the West will come to its aid if the day comes. Previous admins have been hesitant to upset commerce, one hopes we don’t have to find out if the current admin has the appetite to engage. But who knows how bent they are on annexing the “renegade province”.
- kube-system 6y agoAt least they're not networked. The potential threat model seems a lot easier to manage.
- frequentnapper 6y agostill, to be handing over money to a chinese govt owned and subsidized company at the cost of our own perfectly capable industry who can't compete with their subsidies is just foolish.
- Alkhwarizmi 6y agoFUCK THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT OF CHINA! There I said it, it wasn’t that hard. Unless this gets censored...
- ideals 6y agoSo I am at once digital minister, that's my day job. But I'm also moonlighting as a civic hacker," Tang said. "I see myself as a channel, as a bridge, as a Lagrangian point between civic movements on one side and government on the other." I wish we had people like her running things in the US.
- labster 6y agoFor those who don’t know, Audrey Tang wrote the first implementation of the Raku language in Haskell back in the day. She’s really smart, and I’d put her in charge of just about anything.
- est 6y agoShe also wrote a Perl6 implementation IIRC
- ISL 6y agoPerl 6 is now Raku. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raku_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raku_(programming_language)
- userbinator 6y agoThe mention of Audrey Tang made me misparse the title as "Xinjiang.js prototype" a few more times than I would otherwise.
- biscotti 6y agoSo if Antifa was the militant wing of the German Communist Party in the 1930s [1] and it is they who weaponised race to use black people as shieldmoms in insurrection against the west, why does tech tolerate obscenities such as Django project banner [2]? As far as I can see, only the FSF and Ubuntu hasn't pushed this. They haven't coralled folk under the pretense of "hey fellow white people" when they're not white. They don't run organisations such as Revolution Systems. They don't shame good folk and cast them out for dissent. Our leaders seem to consent or even encourage our software being politicised subjecting it to a group-think leadership comprimised by those who would cancel others with dishonesty and buzzwords rather than rebuttal. Regardless of happy spaces ingroup dogmas that don't mix are a massive issue so I do not blame China for attempting to resolve a situation. It makes me suspicious the media which at this stage is on its knees push this story, self-preservation? Only 1 in 5 muslims in the UK are in full time work [3], we have large parallel societies now and this fact alone terrorises the national conscience and damages trust. Our government is scared to tackle the issue and sits on reports of a subtle genocides of our peoples [4]. ~30,000 bairns sexually assaulted or raped but there are claims this number is north of 500,000. It cannot be racial prejudice. London is majority non-native and Birmingham (that gave Siemens his break) joins it next year. It seems more akin to a Jizra. I'm convinced I am in a simulation now. As one who values critical thinking and Stoicism I cannot believe that everyone is OK playing along with this. I have lost respect for so many that I looked up to. What on earth is Bill Gates upto? [5] [1] https://www.dw.com/en/trumps-antifa-accusations-spark-debate-in-germany-the-movements-birthplace/a-53665573 https://www.dw.com/en/trumps-antifa-accusations-spark-debate... [2] https://www.djangoproject.com/ https://www.djangoproject.com/ [3] https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/10/06/20-percent-british-muslims-employed-full-time/ https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/10/06/20-percent... [4] https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300239 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300239 [5] https://twitter.com/jonkirbysthlm/status/1287735860688019458?s=20 https://twitter.com/jonkirbysthlm/status/1287735860688019458...
- dang 6y agoPlease stop posting like this to HN. It's not what this site is for.
- usui 6y agoThis article notes that Tang is a digital minister and has experience with information technology. My impression is that Taiwan has a very healthy and balanced demographic of politicians. I have seen Taiwanese mathematicians, doctors, engineers, and chemists fill important government roles involving the spotlight and advocacy. It seems that people of technical expertise in Taiwan have an equally viable chance at entering politics and policy-making. This is not to say that scientists, engineers, or doctors make for better policymakers. Perhaps there is a case to be made that career politicians have skillsets that validate the need to specialize in politics. However, the stereotype of career politicians is that of ignorance with no understanding of subject matter for the things that they make policies for. This impression was cemented further after the hearing between Zuckerberg and Congress about Facebook. This video even plays it for laughs: "Zuckerberg explains the internet to Congress", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncbb5B85sd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncbb5B85sd0. For the government to help its people, it needs to incentivize diversity within its ranks so that it can understand the variety of issues that it faces. It also needs to be able to adapt to changing realities. Regarding what Tang talks about: I frequently think that what is happening over there are the emulations of unethical experiments (I hear the TV show Black Mirror is similar) that the Western world would never be able to pull off. Regardless of where one stands on this issue, I do not think it can be denied that a lot can be learned about how these systems operate at scale or how the machine runs. From the reports and stories that we get to hear about, it seems like the Chinese government is implementing technology at scales that most countries could ever dream of doing. Or rather, most countries could only dream of creating technological systems of control with the degree of acceptance by the populace, with degree of penetration and overall dissemination. Western governments have implemented comparable systems, like the ones that Edward Snowden pointed out. However, if governments did not worry about hiding questionable activity, maybe it could double down on the level of sophistication and expand on its capabilities.
- lowdose 6y agoChina also made the life of almost a billion Chines better by a factor of 50 in 30 years time. > I frequently think that what is happening over there are the emulations of unethical experiments that the Western world would never be able to pull off. Could you point to a specific year in the 20th century after WW II that no Western government was conducting an unethical experiment? I seriously cannot think of an example so Im open to the fact you know more about my known unknowns.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- galaxyLogic 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan : "In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ROC transitioned from a one-party military dictatorship to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- winrid 6y agoDidn't read article yet, but when I was in Xinjiang it was an area with very high security (more cameras, more police with guns, giant vehicle barricades around elementary schools). If you ask the locals, they'll tell you it's to protect them from the Uighurs. It seems the conflict there is (was?) a real problem, with Han Chinese being murdered regularly with some communities having to put the men on watch at night.
- wnscooke 6y agoNot true. The Han were not being murdered by Uighurs regularly. And every housing development has a gate and guardhouse, almost always has been like that since the danwei days. What is true is that the Han have been scared into fearing the Uighur by twisted news reporting. And once they are scared, any action by a minority looks scary. It’s also true that Uighur have lashed out after horrible treatment at the hands of the incoming Han. It’s understandable but regrettable, especially when the news reports only the one side. And yet, there are plenty of good relationships between the two peoples, but we never hear about that either. There are people on the ground trying to overcome hatred.
- winrid 6y agoSure, just sharing observations. The schools for example had officers with submachine guns when it was time to let out, and giant vehicle barricades. I suppose this could be to scare people. But that's what's there.
- pas 6y agoYou had not talked to the locals, as they are in the concentration camps. You talked to those that the CCP transplanted there to slowly (meaning rapidly) dilute and replace the population with good comrades.
- winrid 6y agoPoor word choice. You're correct.
- amai 6y agoClockwork Mandarin: Russian original: https://les.media/articles/863622-zavodnoy-mandarin https://les.media/articles/863622-zavodnoy-mandarin Englisch translation: https://bylinetimes.com/2019/11/18/beyond-orwells-worst-nightmares-how-china-uses-artificial-intelligence-to-commit-genocide/ https://bylinetimes.com/2019/11/18/beyond-orwells-worst-nigh... German translation: https://www.dekoder.org/de/article/uiguren-kasachen-china-xinjiang https://www.dekoder.org/de/article/uiguren-kasachen-china-xi...