27 ms·

China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet

444 points by adventured 6y ago

bzb5 6y ago
> over half a million people were trained as part of the project in the first seven months of 2020 - around 15% of the region’s population In the meantime countries such as Spain “enjoy” 50% unemployment of the young.
- bognition 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that the Spanish gov't forcibly enroll youths in labor camps?
  - bwilli123 6y ago
    What is Conscription then? Or compulsory National Service?
    - hnlmorg 6y ago
      I'm not going to voice support for compulsory national service but at least their purpose isn't to purge the social identity of an entire ethnic minority. Which, if you actually dig a little deeper into the Tibet issue, is exactly what China is trying to achieve (and having some success at too).
  - trasz 6y ago
    Funny how you arrived at “forcibly” while there’s not a single proof this program is forced on anyone.
    - marksbrown 6y ago
      So China has a free press now to find such proof! How silly of us. This myopic, appeasement view of an authoritarian regime has been shown time and again through our history to not end well.
      - trasz 6y ago
        So what you are saying is that if there's no free press, it's a valid reasoning to just invent things out of thin air and assume they are true, like in this case with "forced labor".
        marksbrown 6y ago
        There's no free press in China, not elsewhere dear.
rvz 6y ago
> A notice posted to the website of Tibet’s regional government website last month said over half a million people were trained as part of the project in the first seven months of 2020 - around 15% of the region’s population. Of this total, almost 50,000 have been transferred into jobs within Tibet, and several thousand have been sent to other parts of China. Many end up in low paid work, including textile manufacturing, construction and agriculture. I guess this is what actual 'oppression' looks like.
- phillnom 6y ago
  There isn't just one type of oppression, so saying stuff like "actual" oppression does nothing but to disparage other types of oppression.
- duxup 6y ago
  What do you mean by "actual 'oppression'" ?
- R0b0t1 6y ago
  Their nomadic lifestyle is probably a lot less stressful than wage labor in a city. That's why they don't want to, and the oppression is forcing them to.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Miner49er 6y ago
What China has done to Tibet is horrible. One thing that is missing from this article is how they are doing this? How are they coercing people? Are they literally dragging them out of their homes? Threatening them? Or are they just offering them opportunities that are actually preferable to their current conditions, and the people are accepting them?
- paganel 6y ago
  Is this a genuine question? I don’t want to be snarky, but you are aware of the fact that government-imposed “mass labour” has almost always meant “forced labor” (I’m sure there might be some punctual exceptions, but the conclusion is the same), no?
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Is Roosevelts New Deal 'forced labor'?
    - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
      > The government documents reviewed by Reuters put a strong emphasis on ideological education to correct the “thinking concepts” of laborers. “There is the assertion that minorities are low in discipline, that their minds must be changed, that they must be convinced to participate,” said Zenz, the Tibet-Xinjiang researcher based in Minnesota. > One policy document, posted on the website of the Nagqu City government in Tibet’s east in December 2018, reveals early goals for the plan and sheds light on the approach. It describes how officials visited villages to collect data on 57,800 laborers. Their aim was to tackle “can’t do, don’t want to do and don’t dare to do” attitudes toward work, the document says. It calls for unspecified measures to “effectively eliminate ‘lazy people.’” I don't remember the bit in history class where Roosevelt discussed forceful re-education.
      - newen 6y ago
        I don't think you'd want to whitewash Zenz as a Tibet-Xinjiang researcher when he is known to have said that he is on a religious mission against China. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/ https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-...
Aperocky 6y ago
Welp, Adrian Zenz strikes again. If you haven't heard of this guy, he's a fellow at 'Victim of Communism Foundation Memorial', set up and paid by US. Anecdotally, private businesses in China very much dislike taking in labor transfers (more or less a gov initiative) - because they had to provide housing, specific food (halal, etc), and even religious facilities while paying the same. The labor quality is not nearly as high as one on the market. This is essentially China's answer to increase employment for the remote regions. Of course they would 'suggest the transfers have coercive elements.' The same pay and benefits simply doesn't exist in the region, why would anyone want to go? /s
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  Reuters explicitly says that it has "corroborated Zenz’s findings and found additional policy documents, company reports, procurement filings and state media reports that describe the program". I understand that Zenz may be controversial, but are you suggesting that Reuters in general is suspect because it's speaking out about this?
- beatle_sauce 6y ago
  Please take information with a grain of salt that tries to discredit the researcher, without even mentioning the actual argument. You might not agree with his world view, but Zenz found hard evidence of repression in Xinjiang and uncovered a Chinese government financed program for forced sterilization. If you are Chinese, be aware that any state-control model that works in Tibet or Xinjiang might also be transferred to other parts of China. The current political trajectory might continue. Xi Jinping is still young, he might be president for the next 30 years.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Yes, in the study he claimed 80% of all China's IUD happened in Xinjiang, where simple math resulted in 8.7%. link to his report: https://web.archive.org/web/20200629192118/https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Zenz-Internment-Sterilizations-and-IUDs.pdf?x60014 https://web.archive.org/web/20200629192118/https://jamestown... link to actual source that Zenz himself used: https://preview.redd.it/xkytzc0iuna51.png?width=1425&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f9b19dd2f0fb0b2e1bf531faac00feaed397664 https://preview.redd.it/xkytzc0iuna51.png?width=1425&format=... Make it what you will.
liminal 6y ago
Han supremacy has all the markings of other supremacist movements and will unfortunately need to be confronted. Not sure when the world will work up the courage to do so, though.
- pc86 6y ago
  Not until China stops manufacturing everything, and I'm thinking by then it will be too late.
  - foepys 6y ago
    I fear it already is too late. China was brave enough to take Hong Kong in one swift motion. The international response has been so weak that China is already eyeing Taiwan. Just yesterday they flew with 18 fighter jets and a bomber across the unofficial but mutually agreed border between Taiwan and China. This is unprecedented. If the situation doesn't deescalate quickly, we might see a war soon and if push comes to shove, the US could be in the middle of it.
    - justicezyx 6y ago
      > Just yesterday they flew with 18 fighter jets and a bomber across the unofficial but mutually agreed border between Taiwan and China. There is no official border between these 2 "countries". They both officially claim they own the the other. And China has made it plain that, as long as Taiwan is not pursuing independence, everything can be made as usual. That's backed by many popular demand from the ordinary people. It's like US wont allow USSR to deploy nukes in Cuba. As long as you Cuba dont do that, US are OK with the communism on the island. Otherwise, sorry, you are risking the whole life for this whatever ideology you are pursuing.
    - crocodiletears 6y ago
      The US could just extract a few key TSMC engineers, turn its facilities into a crater, and back out. I don't think anyone wants to start WWIII with China over an exiled Chinese government living on an island that's less than 200 miles from the Chinese mainland other than an occupied Taiwanese people. I'm not even certain that the US could land a force in the area, given China's investment in defensive missile installations.
newen 6y ago
Great, yet another China bad article that paints what is probably a jobs and reeducation program to modernize Tibet as something much more sinister. Edit: Reeducation might be something as normal as going from an agricultural society to a modern one. Reeducation sounds very sinister, I'm sure, but Tibet was a feudal society just 60 years ago. Also "reeducation" is entirely my phrasing and has connotations different from say "job training" or "education", which I could have easily used. You can make almost any government program sound super sinister, especially when there are translation complications thrown into the mix.
- bouncycastle 6y ago
  What is a "reeducation program"? What are they being "re-educated about"?
  - floren 6y ago
    Being alive, eventually.
    - trasz 6y ago
      It appears it’s mostly the language, interaction with various services and institutions, and skills necessary to get a job.
      - bouncycastle 6y ago
        What language? If they have their own language, wouldn't there be plenty of jobs where they can just use their own language?
        stann 6y ago
        Are you pretending not to see how a language outside your tribe opens up more opportunities. The entire tribes of Africa and South America underwent the same massive foreign language reeducation now being demonized
logicallee 6y ago
I think the million+ uighers in concentration camps are a precise analogy for death camps run by you know who in the 20th century. The u.s. should tell China, hey you hid your concentration camps really well, we totally just found out like today, but the thing is we can't let this go on so you have to free all your concentration camps in 18 months or we come invade. Sorrrry. We totally didnt know you were doing this. Take your time. What's China going to do? Keep up its million people in concentration camps? It'll totally say "hahaha that's funny we dont have any concentration camps though" and then free its concentration camps by deadline. I think that's how it should play out. Of course it is not what's happening. Everyone is turning a blind eye including me and people in this thread. The last time I suggested this course of action I was downvoted. Guys, a million people is SO MANY. I mean ignoring fifty or a hundred thousand people is one thing. But a million? - Edit: this is not a hawkish sentiment. Obviously the suggestion is absurd.
- burlesona 6y ago
  I don’t think the US alone has any appetite for a land war in China, nor does the rest of the world. They have such a huge population, it would be very, very hard to win a war like that. If they were to confront China directly, I would guess the US and the west are much more likely to take a containment approach like they did with the USSR.
  - logicallee 6y ago
    You don't have to have any appetite for a land war to say you gotta free your concentration camps within 18 months or we have to come invade. It's a million people.
    - sobellian 6y ago
      If it isn't a credible threat it won't be very effective. Gathering a coalition to embargo China would be a more credible threat, but even that requires some legwork to develop an alternative set of trading partners.
    - 6y ago
kumarvvr 6y ago
Is it a sign of internal struggles that China is trying to foment foreign relations 'situations' to divert attention? I really wish the world would rescue Tibet from China.
- convery 6y ago
  Ye, but how could one possibly do that?
  - oxymoran 6y ago
    Break the great firewall. Show the Chinese citizens exactly what the CCP is doing and hope that they revolt. Starlink should have the power to do that very soon.
    - rvz 6y ago
      Nope. It is a country by country basis and requires permission from the CCP. Without it they can blow the satellites up that are sending these signals into China. From [0] > The Chinese government would have to agree to let SpaceX build antenna dishes, or ground links, to send and receive data to and from the company's spacecraft. But that nation routes internet access for its 1.37 billion inhabitants through "the Great Firewall," a censorship technology that blocks foreign news, mentions of citizen uprisings (like the Tiananmen Square Massacre), or anything else Chinese officials don't like on the web. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-constellation-china-threat-2016-11?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-co...
    - ta8507 6y ago
      Starlink is a Musk project. So is Tesla's Giga production facility in Shanghai. Will he want to be forced to choose between them?
      - dbuder 6y ago
        That factory is probably already at total loss at this point, Musk does like to lean on his workers though, maybe he gets along with the CCP and he is famous enough that it is effectively guanxi.
meesles 6y ago
I'm seeing a lot of flagged comments and repeated commenters seeming to exaggerate viewpoints and stir up discord in this thread. I'm not always on the 'china bad' train but it seems like their social engineering efforts have reached HN. Readers, please double-check your sources and form your own opinions beyond repeating what you read in an HN thread.
- colesantiago 6y ago
  citation needed, who are these people?
- 49531 6y ago
  The problem I am having is that articles like this make it to the front page of HN while not providing any sources of their own. We've seen a sharp uptick in anti-Chinese rhetoric over the last couple of years and most of it seems to be coming from the US State Dept. I have no special place in my heart for China, but this is too reminiscent of US propaganda tactics used to justify invasion in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
  - bobbyz 6y ago
    but, but, muh data!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- edwinyzh 6y ago
  For the record, I'm a pro-CCP Chinese who turned from a CCP hater. I hated it because I was young, saw some bad things happened in the past, and read too much biased, anti-CCP opinions. I've become an advocate of CCP after I learned some history, after having a deeper and broader understanding of all the things, after seeing what happened in the past ten, especially in the past 2 years, and so on. You can check my HN profile and can easily tell that I'm not pretend to be, but is actually independent of CCP. My father is a member of CCP though. Before my age of 30 or so, the one thing that I do the most when I'm home is to argue with him about the badness of CCP. I'm older now, and it turned out that he's opinion was right, although he wasn't able to convince me - I came to my conclusion on my own, by self-thinking, reading, and observing. I'm not saying that CCP is perfect, I still hate the Great firewall, but it's a complex issue that I'm not going to expand on it here. Anyone who's with an open mind and is curious about my change (I know a lot of people changed like me), feel free to ask any question.
apexalpha 6y ago
The whole Tibet situation is such a horrible one. From our Western perspective it feels so wrong that they're essentially trying to extinguish an entire culture and 'fitting' it into China. But we also can't say anything because China makes all our stuff. Plus, China isn't going to be impressed when the old Imperial continent with 140 ex-colonies and the current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases are going to lecture them about occupying a territory. For China Tibet is a buffer between India and them and it is where most of their water comes from, so they're never going to let any foreign entity control it. Seems out of the question. I live in a European area that was 'assimilated' into a bigger country and forced to use their language and customs. This was over 150 years ago for my area now. And most people don't remember it and just go with the flow of the country they are born in. I hope for all Tibetans that there will be some sense of regional pride remaining (and allowed) as they find a way to live as part of China.
- zigzagzog 6y ago
  We don't say anything because we'd have to admit that the same process is also happening to western nations through policies of multiculturalism and mass migration.
- baxterprong 6y ago
  I think we don't confront China because we'd have to admit that the same process of cultural annihilation is also happening to western nations through multiculturalism and mass migration.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >From our Western perspective it feels so wrong that they're essentially trying to extinguish an entire culture and 'fitting' it into China. Yeah, kinda like Hawaii. (Not to mention Native Americans' lands, civilization, and culture). Or, well, Mexico. Sure, it's, "whataboutism". Which is an improvement on the our-shit-doesn't-smell-besides-that-was-back-a-while-ago-so-we-get-to-keep-it-now "Western perspective". Or the "sure-we-can-get-to-our-shady-stuff-but-at-some-other-time-now-let's-talk-as-if-only-those-bad-countries-do-such-things". >Plus, China isn't going to be impressed when the old Imperial continent with 140 ex-colonies and the current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases are going to lecture them about occupying a territory. Yeah, that's the problem I'm talking about. >For China Tibet is a buffer between India and them and it is where most of their water comes from, so they're never going to let any foreign entity control it. Seems out of the question. Yes. Plus they have old claims to the area (as valid as a claim can be). Populations whose countries have wars and bases and proxy states and/or colonies all over the world (where they have absolutely no place to be), are in a "glass house" place to throw stones at what China does in its immediate borders...
tinza123 6y ago
You would think if China does something like this they might do a better job keeping it a secret. Any links to a credible source? All I find is "Hundreds of document" and opinions of some "Experts". And again, Adrian Zenz, who is by no means "independent", just check the guy's track record.
- munificent 6y ago
  Optics only matters if there are consequences.
rtx 6y ago
This could be in response of India creating Tibetan special forces division. India wants to create a Tibetan rebellion in case of war. https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-use-of-secret-guerrilla-force-sff-in-ladakh-signals-a-larger-design-to-contain-china/497104/ https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-use-of-secret-guerrilla-f...
- dirtyid 6y ago
  This is a separate generalized poverty alleviation scheme that started last year. Tibetan with exile influence gets tossed in the XJ style patriotic re-education system.
  - rtx 6y ago
    Communist always have the best branding.
- actuator 6y ago
  That is not new, the wiki article mentions it existing from 1962: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Frontier_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Frontier_Force
ta8507 6y ago
Imagine in an alternate world, it is 1937 and America imports most of its products from Nazi-run Germany, because they are better at producing them at lower cost. There have been persistent rumours of mistreatment of Jews, particularly on the periphery of their empire, but the reports are disparate and refuted by the Germans. Every year more and more evidence is mounting of German nationalism and forced labour, but surely it's just exaggerated and it will all just work itself out in time? What is the rest of the world to do? Do people have the appetite to give up their access to cheap goods?
- croes 6y ago
  You do know that most of the Europeans didn't have a problem with Germany's antisemitism. What do you think why germany had such a big jewish community and culture in the first place? Because they were driven out of the other countries and could live freely in Germany. But also in Germany the hate finally prevailed.
  - bobbyz 6y ago
    Be real. They don't/didn't
    - croes 6y ago
      Antisemitism was/is widespread in Europe. Germany was long time a safe haven for the Jews. What do you think, why german and jiddish share so many words and similarities?
thereyougo 6y ago
Forty-six per cent of the world’s population depend upon rivers originating in Tibet, including the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong rivers. https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ixjuq2/china_forces_500000_tibetans_into_labour_camps/g67ock3/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ixjuq2/china_for...
safog 6y ago
All the international signaling so far is that they're not willing to do anything about Chinese domestic issues. Other than a critical word (often not even that) at the UN, what have the EU / Russia / SE Asia / Arab states done? And if no one is even willing to call China out on its shenanigans, why would they stop? They'll just get even more emboldened. HK, Tibet, Uighurs are resolved, so the next stop clearly is Taiwan. If Taiwan's independence is eroded and the US doesn't step in militarily, it's game over.
atemerev 6y ago
So, they prepare for a land war. "Military-style training", groups of 10 and 30, logistics, ideological instruction... the end goal looks quite obvious.
dimitar 6y ago
I'm currently reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History and the origins are the following: * Initially they had a huge amount of prisoners and shortage of workers in key regions. Naturally they had them work in remote areas. * The real motivation is economic - the central planners simply loved the flexibility of slave labor - they could start pet projects quickly. They wanted to complete vanity projects that made no economic sense like the Belomorcanal. Their need for hard currency also meant that they needed raw resources for export, most of which were in faraway, underdeveloped regions. * Repressive organs found that they were strongly incentivised to send even more people to the camps. * There was obviously no free media - which meant that any excess was covered up or spun as success - for example Gorky acknowledged that prisoners don't have the proper skills or tools, but somehow claimed that ideology and superb management created wonders. This eventually emboldened the government to enslave even more people. In short they created a slave economy. It wasn't by design, in so far that the leaders of the country didn't explicitly wish the return of slavery and serfdom, but there was a spiral of reinforcing incentives in the system. Just like the USSR of the 20s and 30s China is desperate to create economic growth at all costs, will eventually run out of cheap rural labor[0], on which it used to rely for the last few decades and is not beholden to either national or international opinion. Who can stop the CPC from reintroducing slavery or serfdom? The Gulag system developed over 10 years to reach it its classical form, we may well see the first steps. Economist Evsey Domar famously created a model where high labour demand and lots of available land creates incentives for landowners to reintroduce serfdom [1] as they didn't want to compete with each other. Is China's capital being accustomed to cheap labourers migrating from poor rural areas the reason why rural minorities are now forced into labour by the government? [0]: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/rural-population-percent-of-total-population-wb-data.html https://tradingeconomics.com/china/rural-population-percent-... - this is the total rural population, but I assume eventually many of the remaining people will be old or average-off Han that like it in the villages. [1]: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/63299/causesofslaveryh00doma.pdf?sequence=1&origin=publication_detail https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/63299/causeso...
- dirtyid 6y ago
  >will eventually run out of cheap rural labor Premier Li KeQiang revealed this year over 600m Chinese still live on 1000RMB a month. China will _never_ run out of cheap labour. The reality is, even at the height of Chinese export economy 10 years ago, manufacturing "only" employed ~400M workers. China has more cheap work force than _global_ demand. These poverty alleviation / sinicization programs are just that. They're trying to reign in minorities in frontier regions with separatism risk. The vocational training salaries compensates better than the aforementioned 600m on 1000RMB per month. The mass of Han rural poor looking for migrant work opportunities would riot if they found out how much minorities are "privileged" in these programs. Many are already pissed at the affirmative action privileges afforded to minorities in many facets of life.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
It has been sad to learn about the U.S. fighting fires in CA with prison labor. It is sad for a number of reasons, but in situations like this it removes moral standing of the US to criticize others, because clearly there is little introspection happening. The US houses 25% of the world’s prison population, how much more law and order do we need? Why do our prisoners labor for our governments and companies? Is this forced?
- nate_meurer 6y ago
  Prison work release programs in the US have no fucking resemblance to forced labor in chinese concentration camps. US prison work release programs are strictly voluntary, are paid (a pathetic pittance, but still paid), and prisoners can use the work experience to support applications for early parole. In many cases the work experience is valuable for gaining employment after parole. The natural result is that these programs are popular with inmates, in spite of insultingly low pay. Since you didn't bother to support your strawman (or should we call it a scarecrow?) with any citations: https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires-without-1-an-hour-prison-labor/ https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires...
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    For those interested, hourly pay for prisoners in the US can legally be as low as $0.04. Three orders of magnitude away from citizen wages, i.e. a citizen working 3 days ~= 10 years prison labor. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/
    - nate_meurer 6y ago
      Yes, as I said above, and as the link I gave said, the pay is insultingly, embarrassingly low. And yet work release programs remain highly popular among US inmates. It allows inmates -- even violent felons in some cases -- to do meaningful work outside the prison, gain credit for their debt to society, and gain work experience they can use later. Yes the pay is way too low, and yes these voluntary programs are often very valuable to the inmates. Both these things can be true simultaneously. Read the link I gave you for a start. You got anything more to say about your bullshit comparison to concentration camps? Or are you going to go on pretending that low wages was your only point?
onedognight 6y ago
A few days ago[0]: > New York City Police Department Officer Charged with Acting As an Illegal Agent of the People’s Republic of China > The Defendant Reported to Officials with the PRC Consulate About the Activities of Chinese Citizens in the New York Area and Assessed Potential Intelligence Sources for the PRC Within the Tibetan Community in New York and Elsewhere [0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/new-york-city-police-department-officer-charged-acting-illegal-agent-people-s-republic-china https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/new-york-city-police-departme...
- loceng 6y ago
  Relevant to their global ambitions: "Chinese database details 2.4 million influential people, their kids, addresses, and how to press their buttons" - https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/15/china_shenzhen_zhenhua_database/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/15/china_shenzhen_zhenhu...
  - onepointsixC 6y ago
    Make no mistake, such a database exists fo tech workers, scientists, and other creators of valuable IP.
ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
That's why I'm so hopeless about Hong Kong, much worse than that has been happening for a LONG time in Tibet and Xinjiang and nothing has happened, slowly people will forget all of these things and all that is left will be a picture (see Tian'AnMen massacre).
iliveinchina 6y ago
Tibetan history, like Chinese history, is complicated. On the subject of Tibetan assimilation: what most people think of Tibet - that is the current Tibetan autonomous region of the PRC - is actually only about 1/3 of what many Tibetans would call "Tibet." What is culturally and ethnically Tibetan actually stretches across Qinghai province, as well as large swaths of Sichuan, and part of Yunnan and Gansu. If you go to these regions and talk to Tibetans, they will tell you you are in Amdo, Kham, etc, even though you may be in the administrative province of, for example, Sichuan. Residents will still sometimes even use these designations on their postal envelopes. There are some historical reasons for the way Tibet is currently defined, but "Tibet" was also chopped up into a much smaller contemporary "tibet" for, er, strategic reasons. If you are interested in the big 3 Tibetan regions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C-Tsang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C-Tsang
- platinumrad 6y ago
  "What is culturally and ethnically Mongolian actually stretches across the Middle East, as well as large swaths of Russia and Europe." It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims.
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    Right, "It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims." Doing this will extinguish multiple continents...
  - iliveinchina 6y ago
    The point is these areas are still pretty actively Tibetan today, not just historically. Is there a contiguous region stretching from Mongolia deep into the Middle East and to Europe where a high percentage of the population (like a quarter or more) speaks Mongolian as their native language? I know that might be true for a small area surrounding Mongolia in Russia, but I think the comparison stretching into the Middle East and Europe is not accurate. Qinghai is still almost a quarter Tibetan (a percentage that has probably been consistently shrinking in recent history due to migration) and is almost as large, area-wise, as the formal Tibetan autonomous region.
curiousgal 6y ago
I wonder where all the people begging others not to forget about the Holocaust are. The fact that such astrocities still exist proves that remembering past ones is self-serving in a sense.
nafizh 6y ago
The comments on HN on Chinese aggression are so pathetic. They are conducting a systemic genocide by UN definition on Uighur muslims, and coercing people to make cheap products. Yet, you come here, and you see, oh US, Europe did this too. SMH.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  Agreed. Most of the discussion focuses on comparisons to the west. Classic whataboutism, false equivalency and deflection. You see this on every critical post about the CCP across the Internet. It is an effective way to derail a discussion. Even if HN's guidelines prohibit "nationalistic flamewars", these arguments are allowed by moderators.
riverskytop 6y ago
lmao the quoted source is from "Adrian Zenz". Typical western media propaganda piece
biggio 6y ago
On Amazon and other online shops there should be clear display of where the product is made. It is currently not the case.
quattrofan 6y ago
And the world does nothing. Lucky the third reich wasn't the workshop of the world.
warninglights 6y ago
Do people in hackernews understand GOP is doing anti-china propaganda campaign before the election. CIA has back channels everywhere. The OP history is like a list 1000 anti-china posts. Even reuters reporter history is staggeringly one sided. Please see for yourself. How many of you have been to these places being discussed?
noobface1337 6y ago
One of my favourite publications is The Grayzone https://thegrayzone.com/ https://thegrayzone.com/ it helps to remind me that BS such as these https://narratively.com/the-literally-unbelievable-story-of-the-original-fake-news-network/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB https://narratively.com/the-literally-unbelievable-story-of-... are still being orchestrated by the US today. In it, they have also reported about the Xinjiang situation, which you can all read here: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/ https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-... Since I know that reading is not HN's forte, what basically it says is that there is no solid evidence for what's been reported about Xinjiang, and most of what's reported is basically lies fabricated by one Adrian Zenz. The same Adrian Zenz quoted in this Reuters article. It's really kinda funny what people hold up as evidence these days, no wonder why the world is going against the 'intelligence' from the 5-eye countries.

444 points by adventured 6y ago

bzb5 6y ago

> over half a million people were trained as part of the project in the first seven months of 2020 - around 15% of the region’s population In the meantime countries such as Spain “enjoy” 50% unemployment of the young.

bognition 6y ago
Are you suggesting that the Spanish gov't forcibly enroll youths in labor camps?
- bwilli123 6y ago
  What is Conscription then? Or compulsory National Service?
  - hnlmorg 6y ago
    I'm not going to voice support for compulsory national service but at least their purpose isn't to purge the social identity of an entire ethnic minority. Which, if you actually dig a little deeper into the Tibet issue, is exactly what China is trying to achieve (and having some success at too).
- trasz 6y ago
  Funny how you arrived at “forcibly” while there’s not a single proof this program is forced on anyone.
  - marksbrown 6y ago
    So China has a free press now to find such proof! How silly of us. This myopic, appeasement view of an authoritarian regime has been shown time and again through our history to not end well.
    - trasz 6y ago
      So what you are saying is that if there's no free press, it's a valid reasoning to just invent things out of thin air and assume they are true, like in this case with "forced labor".
      - marksbrown 6y ago
        There's no free press in China, not elsewhere dear.

rvz 6y ago

> A notice posted to the website of Tibet’s regional government website last month said over half a million people were trained as part of the project in the first seven months of 2020 - around 15% of the region’s population. Of this total, almost 50,000 have been transferred into jobs within Tibet, and several thousand have been sent to other parts of China. Many end up in low paid work, including textile manufacturing, construction and agriculture. I guess this is what actual 'oppression' looks like.

phillnom 6y ago
There isn't just one type of oppression, so saying stuff like "actual" oppression does nothing but to disparage other types of oppression.
duxup 6y ago
What do you mean by "actual 'oppression'" ?
R0b0t1 6y ago
Their nomadic lifestyle is probably a lot less stressful than wage labor in a city. That's why they don't want to, and the oppression is forcing them to.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Miner49er 6y ago

What China has done to Tibet is horrible. One thing that is missing from this article is how they are doing this? How are they coercing people? Are they literally dragging them out of their homes? Threatening them? Or are they just offering them opportunities that are actually preferable to their current conditions, and the people are accepting them?

paganel 6y ago
Is this a genuine question? I don’t want to be snarky, but you are aware of the fact that government-imposed “mass labour” has almost always meant “forced labor” (I’m sure there might be some punctual exceptions, but the conclusion is the same), no?
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Is Roosevelts New Deal 'forced labor'?
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    > The government documents reviewed by Reuters put a strong emphasis on ideological education to correct the “thinking concepts” of laborers. “There is the assertion that minorities are low in discipline, that their minds must be changed, that they must be convinced to participate,” said Zenz, the Tibet-Xinjiang researcher based in Minnesota. > One policy document, posted on the website of the Nagqu City government in Tibet’s east in December 2018, reveals early goals for the plan and sheds light on the approach. It describes how officials visited villages to collect data on 57,800 laborers. Their aim was to tackle “can’t do, don’t want to do and don’t dare to do” attitudes toward work, the document says. It calls for unspecified measures to “effectively eliminate ‘lazy people.’” I don't remember the bit in history class where Roosevelt discussed forceful re-education.
    - newen 6y ago
      I don't think you'd want to whitewash Zenz as a Tibet-Xinjiang researcher when he is known to have said that he is on a religious mission against China. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/ https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-...

Aperocky 6y ago

Welp, Adrian Zenz strikes again. If you haven't heard of this guy, he's a fellow at 'Victim of Communism Foundation Memorial', set up and paid by US. Anecdotally, private businesses in China very much dislike taking in labor transfers (more or less a gov initiative) - because they had to provide housing, specific food (halal, etc), and even religious facilities while paying the same. The labor quality is not nearly as high as one on the market. This is essentially China's answer to increase employment for the remote regions. Of course they would 'suggest the transfers have coercive elements.' The same pay and benefits simply doesn't exist in the region, why would anyone want to go? /s

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
Reuters explicitly says that it has "corroborated Zenz’s findings and found additional policy documents, company reports, procurement filings and state media reports that describe the program". I understand that Zenz may be controversial, but are you suggesting that Reuters in general is suspect because it's speaking out about this?
beatle_sauce 6y ago
Please take information with a grain of salt that tries to discredit the researcher, without even mentioning the actual argument. You might not agree with his world view, but Zenz found hard evidence of repression in Xinjiang and uncovered a Chinese government financed program for forced sterilization. If you are Chinese, be aware that any state-control model that works in Tibet or Xinjiang might also be transferred to other parts of China. The current political trajectory might continue. Xi Jinping is still young, he might be president for the next 30 years.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Yes, in the study he claimed 80% of all China's IUD happened in Xinjiang, where simple math resulted in 8.7%. link to his report: https://web.archive.org/web/20200629192118/https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Zenz-Internment-Sterilizations-and-IUDs.pdf?x60014 https://web.archive.org/web/20200629192118/https://jamestown... link to actual source that Zenz himself used: https://preview.redd.it/xkytzc0iuna51.png?width=1425&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f9b19dd2f0fb0b2e1bf531faac00feaed397664 https://preview.redd.it/xkytzc0iuna51.png?width=1425&format=... Make it what you will.

liminal 6y ago

Han supremacy has all the markings of other supremacist movements and will unfortunately need to be confronted. Not sure when the world will work up the courage to do so, though.

pc86 6y ago
Not until China stops manufacturing everything, and I'm thinking by then it will be too late.
- foepys 6y ago
  I fear it already is too late. China was brave enough to take Hong Kong in one swift motion. The international response has been so weak that China is already eyeing Taiwan. Just yesterday they flew with 18 fighter jets and a bomber across the unofficial but mutually agreed border between Taiwan and China. This is unprecedented. If the situation doesn't deescalate quickly, we might see a war soon and if push comes to shove, the US could be in the middle of it.
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    > Just yesterday they flew with 18 fighter jets and a bomber across the unofficial but mutually agreed border between Taiwan and China. There is no official border between these 2 "countries". They both officially claim they own the the other. And China has made it plain that, as long as Taiwan is not pursuing independence, everything can be made as usual. That's backed by many popular demand from the ordinary people. It's like US wont allow USSR to deploy nukes in Cuba. As long as you Cuba dont do that, US are OK with the communism on the island. Otherwise, sorry, you are risking the whole life for this whatever ideology you are pursuing.
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    The US could just extract a few key TSMC engineers, turn its facilities into a crater, and back out. I don't think anyone wants to start WWIII with China over an exiled Chinese government living on an island that's less than 200 miles from the Chinese mainland other than an occupied Taiwanese people. I'm not even certain that the US could land a force in the area, given China's investment in defensive missile installations.

newen 6y ago

Great, yet another China bad article that paints what is probably a jobs and reeducation program to modernize Tibet as something much more sinister. Edit: Reeducation might be something as normal as going from an agricultural society to a modern one. Reeducation sounds very sinister, I'm sure, but Tibet was a feudal society just 60 years ago. Also "reeducation" is entirely my phrasing and has connotations different from say "job training" or "education", which I could have easily used. You can make almost any government program sound super sinister, especially when there are translation complications thrown into the mix.

bouncycastle 6y ago
What is a "reeducation program"? What are they being "re-educated about"?
- floren 6y ago
  Being alive, eventually.
  - trasz 6y ago
    It appears it’s mostly the language, interaction with various services and institutions, and skills necessary to get a job.
    - bouncycastle 6y ago
      What language? If they have their own language, wouldn't there be plenty of jobs where they can just use their own language?
      - stann 6y ago
        Are you pretending not to see how a language outside your tribe opens up more opportunities. The entire tribes of Africa and South America underwent the same massive foreign language reeducation now being demonized

logicallee 6y ago

I think the million+ uighers in concentration camps are a precise analogy for death camps run by you know who in the 20th century. The u.s. should tell China, hey you hid your concentration camps really well, we totally just found out like today, but the thing is we can't let this go on so you have to free all your concentration camps in 18 months or we come invade. Sorrrry. We totally didnt know you were doing this. Take your time. What's China going to do? Keep up its million people in concentration camps? It'll totally say "hahaha that's funny we dont have any concentration camps though" and then free its concentration camps by deadline. I think that's how it should play out. Of course it is not what's happening. Everyone is turning a blind eye including me and people in this thread. The last time I suggested this course of action I was downvoted. Guys, a million people is SO MANY. I mean ignoring fifty or a hundred thousand people is one thing. But a million? - Edit: this is not a hawkish sentiment. Obviously the suggestion is absurd.

burlesona 6y ago
I don’t think the US alone has any appetite for a land war in China, nor does the rest of the world. They have such a huge population, it would be very, very hard to win a war like that. If they were to confront China directly, I would guess the US and the west are much more likely to take a containment approach like they did with the USSR.
- logicallee 6y ago
  You don't have to have any appetite for a land war to say you gotta free your concentration camps within 18 months or we have to come invade. It's a million people.
  - sobellian 6y ago
    If it isn't a credible threat it won't be very effective. Gathering a coalition to embargo China would be a more credible threat, but even that requires some legwork to develop an alternative set of trading partners.
  - 6y ago

kumarvvr 6y ago

Is it a sign of internal struggles that China is trying to foment foreign relations 'situations' to divert attention? I really wish the world would rescue Tibet from China.

convery 6y ago
Ye, but how could one possibly do that?
- oxymoran 6y ago
  Break the great firewall. Show the Chinese citizens exactly what the CCP is doing and hope that they revolt. Starlink should have the power to do that very soon.
  - rvz 6y ago
    Nope. It is a country by country basis and requires permission from the CCP. Without it they can blow the satellites up that are sending these signals into China. From [0] > The Chinese government would have to agree to let SpaceX build antenna dishes, or ground links, to send and receive data to and from the company's spacecraft. But that nation routes internet access for its 1.37 billion inhabitants through "the Great Firewall," a censorship technology that blocks foreign news, mentions of citizen uprisings (like the Tiananmen Square Massacre), or anything else Chinese officials don't like on the web. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-constellation-china-threat-2016-11?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-co...
  - ta8507 6y ago
    Starlink is a Musk project. So is Tesla's Giga production facility in Shanghai. Will he want to be forced to choose between them?
    - dbuder 6y ago
      That factory is probably already at total loss at this point, Musk does like to lean on his workers though, maybe he gets along with the CCP and he is famous enough that it is effectively guanxi.

meesles 6y ago

I'm seeing a lot of flagged comments and repeated commenters seeming to exaggerate viewpoints and stir up discord in this thread. I'm not always on the 'china bad' train but it seems like their social engineering efforts have reached HN. Readers, please double-check your sources and form your own opinions beyond repeating what you read in an HN thread.

colesantiago 6y ago
citation needed, who are these people?
49531 6y ago
The problem I am having is that articles like this make it to the front page of HN while not providing any sources of their own. We've seen a sharp uptick in anti-Chinese rhetoric over the last couple of years and most of it seems to be coming from the US State Dept. I have no special place in my heart for China, but this is too reminiscent of US propaganda tactics used to justify invasion in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
- bobbyz 6y ago
  but, but, muh data!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
edwinyzh 6y ago
For the record, I'm a pro-CCP Chinese who turned from a CCP hater. I hated it because I was young, saw some bad things happened in the past, and read too much biased, anti-CCP opinions. I've become an advocate of CCP after I learned some history, after having a deeper and broader understanding of all the things, after seeing what happened in the past ten, especially in the past 2 years, and so on. You can check my HN profile and can easily tell that I'm not pretend to be, but is actually independent of CCP. My father is a member of CCP though. Before my age of 30 or so, the one thing that I do the most when I'm home is to argue with him about the badness of CCP. I'm older now, and it turned out that he's opinion was right, although he wasn't able to convince me - I came to my conclusion on my own, by self-thinking, reading, and observing. I'm not saying that CCP is perfect, I still hate the Great firewall, but it's a complex issue that I'm not going to expand on it here. Anyone who's with an open mind and is curious about my change (I know a lot of people changed like me), feel free to ask any question.

apexalpha 6y ago

The whole Tibet situation is such a horrible one. From our Western perspective it feels so wrong that they're essentially trying to extinguish an entire culture and 'fitting' it into China. But we also can't say anything because China makes all our stuff. Plus, China isn't going to be impressed when the old Imperial continent with 140 ex-colonies and the current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases are going to lecture them about occupying a territory. For China Tibet is a buffer between India and them and it is where most of their water comes from, so they're never going to let any foreign entity control it. Seems out of the question. I live in a European area that was 'assimilated' into a bigger country and forced to use their language and customs. This was over 150 years ago for my area now. And most people don't remember it and just go with the flow of the country they are born in. I hope for all Tibetans that there will be some sense of regional pride remaining (and allowed) as they find a way to live as part of China.

zigzagzog 6y ago
We don't say anything because we'd have to admit that the same process is also happening to western nations through policies of multiculturalism and mass migration.
baxterprong 6y ago
I think we don't confront China because we'd have to admit that the same process of cultural annihilation is also happening to western nations through multiculturalism and mass migration.
coldtea 6y ago
>From our Western perspective it feels so wrong that they're essentially trying to extinguish an entire culture and 'fitting' it into China. Yeah, kinda like Hawaii. (Not to mention Native Americans' lands, civilization, and culture). Or, well, Mexico. Sure, it's, "whataboutism". Which is an improvement on the our-shit-doesn't-smell-besides-that-was-back-a-while-ago-so-we-get-to-keep-it-now "Western perspective". Or the "sure-we-can-get-to-our-shady-stuff-but-at-some-other-time-now-let's-talk-as-if-only-those-bad-countries-do-such-things". >Plus, China isn't going to be impressed when the old Imperial continent with 140 ex-colonies and the current imperial top-dog with 800 foreign military bases are going to lecture them about occupying a territory. Yeah, that's the problem I'm talking about. >For China Tibet is a buffer between India and them and it is where most of their water comes from, so they're never going to let any foreign entity control it. Seems out of the question. Yes. Plus they have old claims to the area (as valid as a claim can be). Populations whose countries have wars and bases and proxy states and/or colonies all over the world (where they have absolutely no place to be), are in a "glass house" place to throw stones at what China does in its immediate borders...

tinza123 6y ago

You would think if China does something like this they might do a better job keeping it a secret. Any links to a credible source? All I find is "Hundreds of document" and opinions of some "Experts". And again, Adrian Zenz, who is by no means "independent", just check the guy's track record.

munificent 6y ago
Optics only matters if there are consequences.

rtx 6y ago

This could be in response of India creating Tibetan special forces division. India wants to create a Tibetan rebellion in case of war. https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-use-of-secret-guerrilla-force-sff-in-ladakh-signals-a-larger-design-to-contain-china/497104/ https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-use-of-secret-guerrilla-f...

dirtyid 6y ago
This is a separate generalized poverty alleviation scheme that started last year. Tibetan with exile influence gets tossed in the XJ style patriotic re-education system.
- rtx 6y ago
  Communist always have the best branding.
actuator 6y ago
That is not new, the wiki article mentions it existing from 1962: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Frontier_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Frontier_Force

ta8507 6y ago

Imagine in an alternate world, it is 1937 and America imports most of its products from Nazi-run Germany, because they are better at producing them at lower cost. There have been persistent rumours of mistreatment of Jews, particularly on the periphery of their empire, but the reports are disparate and refuted by the Germans. Every year more and more evidence is mounting of German nationalism and forced labour, but surely it's just exaggerated and it will all just work itself out in time? What is the rest of the world to do? Do people have the appetite to give up their access to cheap goods?

croes 6y ago
You do know that most of the Europeans didn't have a problem with Germany's antisemitism. What do you think why germany had such a big jewish community and culture in the first place? Because they were driven out of the other countries and could live freely in Germany. But also in Germany the hate finally prevailed.
- bobbyz 6y ago
  Be real. They don't/didn't
  - croes 6y ago
    Antisemitism was/is widespread in Europe. Germany was long time a safe haven for the Jews. What do you think, why german and jiddish share so many words and similarities?

thereyougo 6y ago

Forty-six per cent of the world’s population depend upon rivers originating in Tibet, including the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong rivers. https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ixjuq2/china_forces_500000_tibetans_into_labour_camps/g67ock3/ https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ixjuq2/china_for...

safog 6y ago

All the international signaling so far is that they're not willing to do anything about Chinese domestic issues. Other than a critical word (often not even that) at the UN, what have the EU / Russia / SE Asia / Arab states done? And if no one is even willing to call China out on its shenanigans, why would they stop? They'll just get even more emboldened. HK, Tibet, Uighurs are resolved, so the next stop clearly is Taiwan. If Taiwan's independence is eroded and the US doesn't step in militarily, it's game over.

atemerev 6y ago

So, they prepare for a land war. "Military-style training", groups of 10 and 30, logistics, ideological instruction... the end goal looks quite obvious.

dimitar 6y ago

I'm currently reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History and the origins are the following: * Initially they had a huge amount of prisoners and shortage of workers in key regions. Naturally they had them work in remote areas. * The real motivation is economic - the central planners simply loved the flexibility of slave labor - they could start pet projects quickly. They wanted to complete vanity projects that made no economic sense like the Belomorcanal. Their need for hard currency also meant that they needed raw resources for export, most of which were in faraway, underdeveloped regions. * Repressive organs found that they were strongly incentivised to send even more people to the camps. * There was obviously no free media - which meant that any excess was covered up or spun as success - for example Gorky acknowledged that prisoners don't have the proper skills or tools, but somehow claimed that ideology and superb management created wonders. This eventually emboldened the government to enslave even more people. In short they created a slave economy. It wasn't by design, in so far that the leaders of the country didn't explicitly wish the return of slavery and serfdom, but there was a spiral of reinforcing incentives in the system. Just like the USSR of the 20s and 30s China is desperate to create economic growth at all costs, will eventually run out of cheap rural labor[0], on which it used to rely for the last few decades and is not beholden to either national or international opinion. Who can stop the CPC from reintroducing slavery or serfdom? The Gulag system developed over 10 years to reach it its classical form, we may well see the first steps. Economist Evsey Domar famously created a model where high labour demand and lots of available land creates incentives for landowners to reintroduce serfdom [1] as they didn't want to compete with each other. Is China's capital being accustomed to cheap labourers migrating from poor rural areas the reason why rural minorities are now forced into labour by the government? [0]: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/rural-population-percent-of-total-population-wb-data.html https://tradingeconomics.com/china/rural-population-percent-... - this is the total rural population, but I assume eventually many of the remaining people will be old or average-off Han that like it in the villages. [1]: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/63299/causesofslaveryh00doma.pdf?sequence=1&origin=publication_detail https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/63299/causeso...

dirtyid 6y ago
>will eventually run out of cheap rural labor Premier Li KeQiang revealed this year over 600m Chinese still live on 1000RMB a month. China will _never_ run out of cheap labour. The reality is, even at the height of Chinese export economy 10 years ago, manufacturing "only" employed ~400M workers. China has more cheap work force than _global_ demand. These poverty alleviation / sinicization programs are just that. They're trying to reign in minorities in frontier regions with separatism risk. The vocational training salaries compensates better than the aforementioned 600m on 1000RMB per month. The mass of Han rural poor looking for migrant work opportunities would riot if they found out how much minorities are "privileged" in these programs. Many are already pissed at the affirmative action privileges afforded to minorities in many facets of life.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

It has been sad to learn about the U.S. fighting fires in CA with prison labor. It is sad for a number of reasons, but in situations like this it removes moral standing of the US to criticize others, because clearly there is little introspection happening. The US houses 25% of the world’s prison population, how much more law and order do we need? Why do our prisoners labor for our governments and companies? Is this forced?

nate_meurer 6y ago
Prison work release programs in the US have no fucking resemblance to forced labor in chinese concentration camps. US prison work release programs are strictly voluntary, are paid (a pathetic pittance, but still paid), and prisoners can use the work experience to support applications for early parole. In many cases the work experience is valuable for gaining employment after parole. The natural result is that these programs are popular with inmates, in spite of insultingly low pay. Since you didn't bother to support your strawman (or should we call it a scarecrow?) with any citations: https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires-without-1-an-hour-prison-labor/ https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires...
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  For those interested, hourly pay for prisoners in the US can legally be as low as $0.04. Three orders of magnitude away from citizen wages, i.e. a citizen working 3 days ~= 10 years prison labor. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/
  - nate_meurer 6y ago
    Yes, as I said above, and as the link I gave said, the pay is insultingly, embarrassingly low. And yet work release programs remain highly popular among US inmates. It allows inmates -- even violent felons in some cases -- to do meaningful work outside the prison, gain credit for their debt to society, and gain work experience they can use later. Yes the pay is way too low, and yes these voluntary programs are often very valuable to the inmates. Both these things can be true simultaneously. Read the link I gave you for a start. You got anything more to say about your bullshit comparison to concentration camps? Or are you going to go on pretending that low wages was your only point?

onedognight 6y ago

A few days ago[0]: > New York City Police Department Officer Charged with Acting As an Illegal Agent of the People’s Republic of China > The Defendant Reported to Officials with the PRC Consulate About the Activities of Chinese Citizens in the New York Area and Assessed Potential Intelligence Sources for the PRC Within the Tibetan Community in New York and Elsewhere [0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/new-york-city-police-department-officer-charged-acting-illegal-agent-people-s-republic-china https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/new-york-city-police-departme...

loceng 6y ago
Relevant to their global ambitions: "Chinese database details 2.4 million influential people, their kids, addresses, and how to press their buttons" - https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/15/china_shenzhen_zhenhua_database/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/15/china_shenzhen_zhenhu...
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  Make no mistake, such a database exists fo tech workers, scientists, and other creators of valuable IP.

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago

That's why I'm so hopeless about Hong Kong, much worse than that has been happening for a LONG time in Tibet and Xinjiang and nothing has happened, slowly people will forget all of these things and all that is left will be a picture (see Tian'AnMen massacre).

iliveinchina 6y ago

Tibetan history, like Chinese history, is complicated. On the subject of Tibetan assimilation: what most people think of Tibet - that is the current Tibetan autonomous region of the PRC - is actually only about 1/3 of what many Tibetans would call "Tibet." What is culturally and ethnically Tibetan actually stretches across Qinghai province, as well as large swaths of Sichuan, and part of Yunnan and Gansu. If you go to these regions and talk to Tibetans, they will tell you you are in Amdo, Kham, etc, even though you may be in the administrative province of, for example, Sichuan. Residents will still sometimes even use these designations on their postal envelopes. There are some historical reasons for the way Tibet is currently defined, but "Tibet" was also chopped up into a much smaller contemporary "tibet" for, er, strategic reasons. If you are interested in the big 3 Tibetan regions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C-Tsang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C-Tsang

platinumrad 6y ago
"What is culturally and ethnically Mongolian actually stretches across the Middle East, as well as large swaths of Russia and Europe." It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  Right, "It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims." Doing this will extinguish multiple continents...
- iliveinchina 6y ago
  The point is these areas are still pretty actively Tibetan today, not just historically. Is there a contiguous region stretching from Mongolia deep into the Middle East and to Europe where a high percentage of the population (like a quarter or more) speaks Mongolian as their native language? I know that might be true for a small area surrounding Mongolia in Russia, but I think the comparison stretching into the Middle East and Europe is not accurate. Qinghai is still almost a quarter Tibetan (a percentage that has probably been consistently shrinking in recent history due to migration) and is almost as large, area-wise, as the formal Tibetan autonomous region.

curiousgal 6y ago

I wonder where all the people begging others not to forget about the Holocaust are. The fact that such astrocities still exist proves that remembering past ones is self-serving in a sense.

nafizh 6y ago

The comments on HN on Chinese aggression are so pathetic. They are conducting a systemic genocide by UN definition on Uighur muslims, and coercing people to make cheap products. Yet, you come here, and you see, oh US, Europe did this too. SMH.

aww_dang 6y ago
Agreed. Most of the discussion focuses on comparisons to the west. Classic whataboutism, false equivalency and deflection. You see this on every critical post about the CCP across the Internet. It is an effective way to derail a discussion. Even if HN's guidelines prohibit "nationalistic flamewars", these arguments are allowed by moderators.

riverskytop 6y ago

lmao the quoted source is from "Adrian Zenz". Typical western media propaganda piece

biggio 6y ago

On Amazon and other online shops there should be clear display of where the product is made. It is currently not the case.

quattrofan 6y ago

And the world does nothing. Lucky the third reich wasn't the workshop of the world.

warninglights 6y ago

Do people in hackernews understand GOP is doing anti-china propaganda campaign before the election. CIA has back channels everywhere. The OP history is like a list 1000 anti-china posts. Even reuters reporter history is staggeringly one sided. Please see for yourself. How many of you have been to these places being discussed?

noobface1337 6y ago

One of my favourite publications is The Grayzone https://thegrayzone.com/ https://thegrayzone.com/ it helps to remind me that BS such as these https://narratively.com/the-literally-unbelievable-story-of-the-original-fake-news-network/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB https://narratively.com/the-literally-unbelievable-story-of-... are still being orchestrated by the US today. In it, they have also reported about the Xinjiang situation, which you can all read here: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/ https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-... Since I know that reading is not HN's forte, what basically it says is that there is no solid evidence for what's been reported about Xinjiang, and most of what's reported is basically lies fabricated by one Adrian Zenz. The same Adrian Zenz quoted in this Reuters article. It's really kinda funny what people hold up as evidence these days, no wonder why the world is going against the 'intelligence' from the 5-eye countries.