4 ms·

I am amazed that this isn't a bigger political issue for discussion leading into the U.S. election. This is truly horrifying stuff. Anyone who tries to equivoc

I am amazed that this isn't a bigger political issue for discussion leading into the U.S. election. This is truly horrifying stuff. Anyone who tries to equivocate this with what is happening in the United States is not only wrong but morally bankrupt. This isn't even in the same ballpark as GITMO or illegal immigrant detention. This is orders of magnitude bigger and far more disturbingly intrusive and arbitrary. We have to do more to show China that this is not OK.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jhpriestley 6y ago
Gitmo was part of a larger war on terror, including the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which is estimated to have caused millions of deaths. Torture and arbitrary detainment have been widespread. One of the very few flagrant criminals to face prosecution in these war crimes was recently pardoned.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  “War on terror” was the marketing term the government used. “war for enhanced funding for military contractors” would be a better name.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Naming things in insulting ways to make them look worse generally isn't better, even if the insults are true.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Naming things with false claims to make them look better is worse.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  A larger war on terror that has included China to a degree I was unaware of until recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Peo...
CivBase 6y ago
I think complaining about China has been associated with Trump and his supporters, so a huge portion of the US population is highly critical of any anti-China sentiment because of the upcoming election.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It hasn't been. Recent polls show a strong bipartisan supermajority - 73% of the population and 68% of Democrats - have a negative view of China. And Biden hasn't been any more positive about China than Trump has. (https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/07/30/americans-fault-china-for-its-role-in-the-spread-of-covid-19/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/07/30/americans-faul...)
  - CivBase 6y ago
    That's still a pretty huge discrepancy across party lines. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the Democratic party is pro-China by any stretch of the imagination. I just think these elections tend to drive people on both sides towards extreme opinions as they seek to invalidate the opposition. It is common to see people marginalize issues that their opposition is campaigning on. Both sides are very guilty of it and there are plenty of high-profile examples in recent history. And I'm not trying to paint with broad strokes here. I think this is only a significant problem with the most extreme ends of the political spectrum. However, those ends tend to be the most vocal and they have a strong influence on how political issues get discussed.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      It's a phenomenon to be aware of, but it doesn't seem to be happening here. Democratic leaders have generally been in reasonably open favor of anti-China measures, even ones as controversial as the TikTok ban.
virtuous_signal 6y ago
I think there are multiple factors that will prevent the US from ever taking a united stance on it: 1) Republicans are probably louder about criticizing China but lose credibility when they don't speak up about (less severe, but still serious) issues such as police here brutalizing protesters. There also needs to be a reckoning with our own national overreaches after terrorist attacks such as the Patriot Act -- the Uighur camps were built in response to some attacks in the Xinjiang region, and I don't think Republicans have set a good example for how governments should respond to that. 2) Leftists and sympathizers who deflect with "But America..." with absolutely no sense of relative scale. This happens so much that it's a trope[1], and China is more than happy to feed this[2]. 3) In higher education and tech, sheer numbers of moderately patriotic Chinese citizens mean there can never be consensus. See what happened at Warwick [3] earlier this year with a student vote about Hong Kong. CSSA is at every large university here and they know how to organize. For an example re: Uighurs, some Chinese who have been fed a steady diet of state media since birth actually consider this story fake news (blind discussion [4]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes [2] https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/868566978/in-george-floyd-protests-china-sees-a-powerful-propaganda-opportunity https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/868566978/in-george-floyd-pro... [3] https://www.axios.com/hong-kong-british-university-chinese-student-opposition-72ad086b-ee61-4dda-9a46-529dc48c258b.html https://www.axios.com/hong-kong-british-university-chinese-s... [4] https://www.teamblind.com/post/Did-you-know-about-China-and-Uighur-abuse-VoM1bVvX https://www.teamblind.com/post/Did-you-know-about-China-and-...
- klyrs 6y ago
  > Leftists and sympathizers who deflect with "But America..." with absolutely no sense of relative scale. Are you sure? I looked into the prison population in the US and it's on par with the number of Uyghurs in these camps. And that's absolute numbers, not per capita.
  - dforrestwilson 6y ago
    A bad comparison.
jdietrich 6y ago
>Anyone who tries to equivocate this with what is happening in the United States is not only wrong but morally bankrupt. Xinjiang shares a land border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is a significant Uyghur separatist movement active in Xinjiang, backed by Al-Qaeda, Hizb Ut-Tahrir and the Pakistani Taliban. America might not commit human rights abuses on this scale domestically, but they certainly do it overseas. Would America be this restrained in the same circumstances?
- dforrestwilson 6y ago
  We haven’t wholesale imprisoned all Pashtuns and Arabs within the US. We also haven’t attempted to control their ability to have children. That would be genocide, which is what China is doing. Unequivocally. Emphatically. Yes, America has been more constrained.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Probably? There are lots of separatist movements in the US; I've never seen anyone propose that e.g. the Calexit campaigners need to be put in re-education camps, even though some polls have suggested up to a quarter of the state might support it. The government just kinda says "come on this is silly".
pkkim 6y ago
As the article says, China learned it from the US. In the past, they have justified it by saying that they're just doing the same thing that the US did in its War on Terror. I wish the US could lead on this with moral authority, but in order to credibly do so I think it will have to reckon with its own actions. If we instead simply redouble sanctions enforcement, that _could_ work but from the Chinese perspective it would be humiliating capitulation to force. More likely it would just strengthen the resolve of the CCP to continue on its path in Xinjiang.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  >I wish the US could lead on this with moral authority, but in order to credibly do so I think it will have to reckon with its own actions How does that work? Is there a global arbiter of moral authority? Is there an international court that can say "you now have moral authority; go forth and use it wisely"? Why can't China just say, no matter what..."no, we don't think you have moral authority"? Sincerely or not. Why wouldn't the Chinese government think it is the authority? I was just reading some of George Orwell's letters from the 1940s, and it's amazing to read his observations of the politics in Britain without the benefit of hindsight. Germany certainly didn't recognize Britain's moral authority to criticize them, in the context of their crumbling empire. I can't remember where I read an anecdote, but supposedly a Brit in one of their colonies was explaining to a draftee why the war was worth fighting, and they said something like "Each country should be ruled by its own people; Britons should rule Britain; Germans should rule Germany; but Germany has been upsetting the normal order of things..." And the African draftee went (it was implied) hmmm...
  - jlokier 6y ago
    > How does that work? Is there a global arbiter of moral authority? In a sense, yes there is a collective global arbitration process among many countries, consisting of international opinion, persuasiveness, respect, influence, trade relations, diplomacy, and generally all the things called "soft power". It's not a formal system, yet has considerable power to influence events inside countries nonetheless. Persuasiveness and respect are part of the mechanism by which such influence has an effect, and that's where percieved moral authority comes in. Rather than posit some judge that decides if a country does or does not have actual moral authority, perhaps it's more accurate to say the perception of moral authority is key component of effective influence. Interesting observation about Orwell's letters, btw.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jhpriestley 6y ago

Gitmo was part of a larger war on terror, including the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which is estimated to have caused millions of deaths. Torture and arbitrary detainment have been widespread. One of the very few flagrant criminals to face prosecution in these war crimes was recently pardoned.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
“War on terror” was the marketing term the government used. “war for enhanced funding for military contractors” would be a better name.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Naming things in insulting ways to make them look worse generally isn't better, even if the insults are true.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Naming things with false claims to make them look better is worse.
perl4ever 6y ago
A larger war on terror that has included China to a degree I was unaware of until recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Peo...

CivBase 6y ago

I think complaining about China has been associated with Trump and his supporters, so a huge portion of the US population is highly critical of any anti-China sentiment because of the upcoming election.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It hasn't been. Recent polls show a strong bipartisan supermajority - 73% of the population and 68% of Democrats - have a negative view of China. And Biden hasn't been any more positive about China than Trump has. (https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/07/30/americans-fault-china-for-its-role-in-the-spread-of-covid-19/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/07/30/americans-faul...)
- CivBase 6y ago
  That's still a pretty huge discrepancy across party lines. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the Democratic party is pro-China by any stretch of the imagination. I just think these elections tend to drive people on both sides towards extreme opinions as they seek to invalidate the opposition. It is common to see people marginalize issues that their opposition is campaigning on. Both sides are very guilty of it and there are plenty of high-profile examples in recent history. And I'm not trying to paint with broad strokes here. I think this is only a significant problem with the most extreme ends of the political spectrum. However, those ends tend to be the most vocal and they have a strong influence on how political issues get discussed.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It's a phenomenon to be aware of, but it doesn't seem to be happening here. Democratic leaders have generally been in reasonably open favor of anti-China measures, even ones as controversial as the TikTok ban.

virtuous_signal 6y ago

I think there are multiple factors that will prevent the US from ever taking a united stance on it: 1) Republicans are probably louder about criticizing China but lose credibility when they don't speak up about (less severe, but still serious) issues such as police here brutalizing protesters. There also needs to be a reckoning with our own national overreaches after terrorist attacks such as the Patriot Act -- the Uighur camps were built in response to some attacks in the Xinjiang region, and I don't think Republicans have set a good example for how governments should respond to that. 2) Leftists and sympathizers who deflect with "But America..." with absolutely no sense of relative scale. This happens so much that it's a trope[1], and China is more than happy to feed this[2]. 3) In higher education and tech, sheer numbers of moderately patriotic Chinese citizens mean there can never be consensus. See what happened at Warwick [3] earlier this year with a student vote about Hong Kong. CSSA is at every large university here and they know how to organize. For an example re: Uighurs, some Chinese who have been fed a steady diet of state media since birth actually consider this story fake news (blind discussion [4]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes [2] https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/868566978/in-george-floyd-protests-china-sees-a-powerful-propaganda-opportunity https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/868566978/in-george-floyd-pro... [3] https://www.axios.com/hong-kong-british-university-chinese-student-opposition-72ad086b-ee61-4dda-9a46-529dc48c258b.html https://www.axios.com/hong-kong-british-university-chinese-s... [4] https://www.teamblind.com/post/Did-you-know-about-China-and-Uighur-abuse-VoM1bVvX https://www.teamblind.com/post/Did-you-know-about-China-and-...

klyrs 6y ago
> Leftists and sympathizers who deflect with "But America..." with absolutely no sense of relative scale. Are you sure? I looked into the prison population in the US and it's on par with the number of Uyghurs in these camps. And that's absolute numbers, not per capita.
- dforrestwilson 6y ago
  A bad comparison.

jdietrich 6y ago

>Anyone who tries to equivocate this with what is happening in the United States is not only wrong but morally bankrupt. Xinjiang shares a land border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is a significant Uyghur separatist movement active in Xinjiang, backed by Al-Qaeda, Hizb Ut-Tahrir and the Pakistani Taliban. America might not commit human rights abuses on this scale domestically, but they certainly do it overseas. Would America be this restrained in the same circumstances?

dforrestwilson 6y ago
We haven’t wholesale imprisoned all Pashtuns and Arabs within the US. We also haven’t attempted to control their ability to have children. That would be genocide, which is what China is doing. Unequivocally. Emphatically. Yes, America has been more constrained.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Probably? There are lots of separatist movements in the US; I've never seen anyone propose that e.g. the Calexit campaigners need to be put in re-education camps, even though some polls have suggested up to a quarter of the state might support it. The government just kinda says "come on this is silly".

pkkim 6y ago

As the article says, China learned it from the US. In the past, they have justified it by saying that they're just doing the same thing that the US did in its War on Terror. I wish the US could lead on this with moral authority, but in order to credibly do so I think it will have to reckon with its own actions. If we instead simply redouble sanctions enforcement, that _could_ work but from the Chinese perspective it would be humiliating capitulation to force. More likely it would just strengthen the resolve of the CCP to continue on its path in Xinjiang.

perl4ever 6y ago
>I wish the US could lead on this with moral authority, but in order to credibly do so I think it will have to reckon with its own actions How does that work? Is there a global arbiter of moral authority? Is there an international court that can say "you now have moral authority; go forth and use it wisely"? Why can't China just say, no matter what..."no, we don't think you have moral authority"? Sincerely or not. Why wouldn't the Chinese government think it is the authority? I was just reading some of George Orwell's letters from the 1940s, and it's amazing to read his observations of the politics in Britain without the benefit of hindsight. Germany certainly didn't recognize Britain's moral authority to criticize them, in the context of their crumbling empire. I can't remember where I read an anecdote, but supposedly a Brit in one of their colonies was explaining to a draftee why the war was worth fighting, and they said something like "Each country should be ruled by its own people; Britons should rule Britain; Germans should rule Germany; but Germany has been upsetting the normal order of things..." And the African draftee went (it was implied) hmmm...
- jlokier 6y ago
  > How does that work? Is there a global arbiter of moral authority? In a sense, yes there is a collective global arbitration process among many countries, consisting of international opinion, persuasiveness, respect, influence, trade relations, diplomacy, and generally all the things called "soft power". It's not a formal system, yet has considerable power to influence events inside countries nonetheless. Persuasiveness and respect are part of the mechanism by which such influence has an effect, and that's where percieved moral authority comes in. Rather than posit some judge that decides if a country does or does not have actual moral authority, perhaps it's more accurate to say the perception of moral authority is key component of effective influence. Interesting observation about Orwell's letters, btw.