4 ms·

I agree. I've not seen a single piece of indisputable evidence - virtually everything has been "take our word for it" or some indistinct satellite photo of a b

I agree. I've not seen a single piece of indisputable evidence - virtually everything has been "take our word for it" or some indistinct satellite photo of a building. Considering that an anti-China stance is part of Trump's strategy, and intelligence agencies have been caught lying countless times (e.g. Iraq's WMD) to further their agenda, there's no good reason to believe these accusations. The Chinese are certainly a totalitarian regime, and it is certain that the people of Xinjiang are not in a good state, and there are certainly political prisoners there. But, as you mentioned, the numbers I've heard of 1-2 million prisoners (there are 10 million Uyghurs in total) in concentration camps and slave labor etc seem extremely exaggerated. Pretty much everyone in china has a phone with a camera, including Uyghurs. You'd think at least a few videos of indisputable evidence would be leaked. If you want to accuse a nation of a holocaust, you must have strong evidence. And on a tangential note, the US has the world's largest prison population, at 22% of the world's prisoners, and a disproportionate number are black. The Chinese could also spin the situation and say that the Americans are running concentration camps for blacks and be on similar footing. People mistake the frequency and breadth of repetition of a narrative as a measure of truth value, and the three letter agencies take advantage of this human bias, hence the downvotes for your salient comment. It's not easy to take a contrarian stance in these times.

thoughtstheseus 6y ago
Pretty sure there is no such thing as indisputable evidence. What evidence would suffice for you though?
- Aunche 6y ago
  Take a look at the "UN report" that was referenced in the article. It looks like they just interviewed 8 villagers in different villages to estimate the number of people being detained and extrapolated that to all of Xinjiang. Any evidence less handwavy than that would be a good start. https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-uyghurs-other-ethnic-minorities-forced-into-re-education-programs/ https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-uyghu...
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > Any evidence less handwavy than that would be a good start. There are leaked Chinese government documents: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/ch... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50511063 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50511063 Satellite photos: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/china-internment-camps-muslim-uighurs-satellite/569878/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/ch... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellite-images-investigation-xinjiang-detention-camps https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellit... Open source Chinese government documents, such as budgets and construction bids: https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-re-education-campaign-in-xinjiang/ https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-... But if that's not good enough, please organize an independent investigation team to go to Xinjiang and find out, and tell me how that goes.
    - colordrops 6y ago
      It behooves the accusers to provide solid evidence, not the audience. I don't see anything in your links that shows much evidence of slave labor or millions in concentration camps.
      - ardy42 6y ago
        > It behooves the accusers to provide solid evidence, not the audience. Is that supposed to be response to this? >> But if that's not good enough, please organize an independent investigation team to go to Xinjiang and find out, and tell me how that goes. If it was, then I'll spell out what was meant by my sarcasm: the Chinese government won't allow anyone to conduct a systematic independent investigation, and are quite capable of fatally interfering with such a project. If you set your standard so high as to either require such an investigation or a confession, you've conveniently put yourself in a position to unreasonably deny almost crime or violation anyone's made an attempt to hide. > I don't see anything in your links that shows much evidence of slave labor or millions in concentration camps. Estimates vary on the exact total population of the camps, but the lowest credible ones I've seen have been in several hundreds of thousands. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china-forced-labor-camps-uighurs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china...: > Accounts from the region, satellite images and previously unreported official documents indicate that growing numbers of detainees are being sent to new factories, built inside or near the camps, where inmates have little choice but to accept jobs and follow orders.... > Independent accounts from inmates who have worked in the factories are rare. The police block attempts to get near the camps and closely monitor foreign journalists who travel to Xinjiang, making it all but impossible to conduct interviews in the region. And most Uighurs who have fled Xinjiang did so before the factory program grew in recent months. > But Serikzhan Bilash, a founder of Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, an organization in Kazakhstan that helps ethnic Kazakhs who have left neighboring Xinjiang, said he had interviewed relatives of 10 inmates who had told their families that they were made to work in factories after undergoing indoctrination in the camps.... > “It’s not as though they have a choice of whether they get to work in a factory, or what factory they are assigned to,” said Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who studies Xinjiang and visited the region in April. > He said it was safe to conclude that hundreds of thousands of detainees could be compelled to work in factories if the program were put in place at all of the region’s internment camps.... > The documents detail plans for inmates, even those formally released from the camps, to take jobs at factories that work closely with the camps to continue to monitor and control them. The socks, suits, skirts and other goods made by these laborers would be sold in Chinese stores and could trickle into overseas markets. > Kashgar [a city with a population of over 500,000], an ancient, predominantly Uighur area of southern Xinjiang that is a focus of the program, reported that in 2018 alone it aimed to send 100,000 inmates who had been through the “vocational training centers” to work in factories, according to a plan issued in August.
- colordrops 6y ago
  I could have said "anything but circumstantial weak evidence" and my point would have been the same.
stagehn 6y ago
You are massively understating the quality of the extant evidence, meaning you are either ignorant or dishonest about this situation

thoughtstheseus 6y ago

Pretty sure there is no such thing as indisputable evidence. What evidence would suffice for you though?

Aunche 6y ago
Take a look at the "UN report" that was referenced in the article. It looks like they just interviewed 8 villagers in different villages to estimate the number of people being detained and extrapolated that to all of Xinjiang. Any evidence less handwavy than that would be a good start. https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-uyghurs-other-ethnic-minorities-forced-into-re-education-programs/ https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-uyghu...
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Any evidence less handwavy than that would be a good start. There are leaked Chinese government documents: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/ch... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50511063 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50511063 Satellite photos: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/china-internment-camps-muslim-uighurs-satellite/569878/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/ch... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellite-images-investigation-xinjiang-detention-camps https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellit... Open source Chinese government documents, such as budgets and construction bids: https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-re-education-campaign-in-xinjiang/ https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-... But if that's not good enough, please organize an independent investigation team to go to Xinjiang and find out, and tell me how that goes.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    It behooves the accusers to provide solid evidence, not the audience. I don't see anything in your links that shows much evidence of slave labor or millions in concentration camps.
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > It behooves the accusers to provide solid evidence, not the audience. Is that supposed to be response to this? >> But if that's not good enough, please organize an independent investigation team to go to Xinjiang and find out, and tell me how that goes. If it was, then I'll spell out what was meant by my sarcasm: the Chinese government won't allow anyone to conduct a systematic independent investigation, and are quite capable of fatally interfering with such a project. If you set your standard so high as to either require such an investigation or a confession, you've conveniently put yourself in a position to unreasonably deny almost crime or violation anyone's made an attempt to hide. > I don't see anything in your links that shows much evidence of slave labor or millions in concentration camps. Estimates vary on the exact total population of the camps, but the lowest credible ones I've seen have been in several hundreds of thousands. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china-forced-labor-camps-uighurs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china...: > Accounts from the region, satellite images and previously unreported official documents indicate that growing numbers of detainees are being sent to new factories, built inside or near the camps, where inmates have little choice but to accept jobs and follow orders.... > Independent accounts from inmates who have worked in the factories are rare. The police block attempts to get near the camps and closely monitor foreign journalists who travel to Xinjiang, making it all but impossible to conduct interviews in the region. And most Uighurs who have fled Xinjiang did so before the factory program grew in recent months. > But Serikzhan Bilash, a founder of Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, an organization in Kazakhstan that helps ethnic Kazakhs who have left neighboring Xinjiang, said he had interviewed relatives of 10 inmates who had told their families that they were made to work in factories after undergoing indoctrination in the camps.... > “It’s not as though they have a choice of whether they get to work in a factory, or what factory they are assigned to,” said Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who studies Xinjiang and visited the region in April. > He said it was safe to conclude that hundreds of thousands of detainees could be compelled to work in factories if the program were put in place at all of the region’s internment camps.... > The documents detail plans for inmates, even those formally released from the camps, to take jobs at factories that work closely with the camps to continue to monitor and control them. The socks, suits, skirts and other goods made by these laborers would be sold in Chinese stores and could trickle into overseas markets. > Kashgar [a city with a population of over 500,000], an ancient, predominantly Uighur area of southern Xinjiang that is a focus of the program, reported that in 2018 alone it aimed to send 100,000 inmates who had been through the “vocational training centers” to work in factories, according to a plan issued in August.
colordrops 6y ago
I could have said "anything but circumstantial weak evidence" and my point would have been the same.

stagehn 6y ago

You are massively understating the quality of the extant evidence, meaning you are either ignorant or dishonest about this situation