12 ms·

Anyone care to say what they believe should be done, or is this just another mad about things thread? Anyone have ideas? What is the solution?

yumraj 6y ago
Economic sanctions. Will the West do it? Not for Uyghurs. They didn’t do it for Tibetans nor for Hong Kong, they’re not going to do it for Uyghurs. However, given the increasing brazenness of China, I won’t be surprised if we see some actions within 3-5 years. Edit: 2 downvotes. Cool, China just spent $1 on me or is it 10 cents. What’s the going rate?
- wait_a_minute 6y ago
  The Biden administration levied sanctions on a couple CCP officials a few days ago.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  It's very likely that economic sanctions will cause more harm to the Chinese than the harm done to the Uyghurs, and has a poor record of it's intended regime change. They are not a solution to a humanitarian crisis.
  - pas 6y ago
    It's intention is not regime change. It's directly making slave labor unprofitable. Sure it's a whack-a-mole of sorts, but it at least makes things clear for everyone involved. So usually Joe Rando does not care when he is shopping, but at least he can't and doesn't fund more labor camps indirectly.
    - yorwba 6y ago
      > It's directly making slave labor unprofitable. That only works if sanctions apply to slave labor, but not to comparable non-slave-labor. Sanctions based on geographic region ("Made in China"/"Made in Xinjiang") ethnicity ("Made by Uyghurs") or product category (cotton) can't achieve that, because they don't apply differential pressure that allows non-enslaving businesses to outcompete enslaving ones (and then hire former slaves as free workers), they affect both equally. To make differential pressure work, the first step is knowing who you're dealing with, which means having dedicated inspection teams working their way down supply chains to record labor conditions on the ground. Once you do have that information, highly targeted sanctions can be used to force change.
      - pas 6y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't detailed enough. Sanctions help other countries', so let's say the Vietnamese cotton producers. > dedicated inspection teams That would be a very welcome development in international labor/human rights.
        yorwba 6y ago
        Helping other countries may be a good thing (although the Vietnamese government's human rights record isn't that great) but it doesn't offer a way out to current victims of forced labor, who can't just move to another country to benefit from the improved conditions there. Do you think they'd just get released once exploiting them becomes unprofitable? That would put a bunch of angry unemployed people on the streets, so the security services are unlikely to be in favor. The most likely path forward would be gradually transferring them into regular work, which works best if such work is available, i.e. there's no blanket ban making everything equally unprofitable.
        pas 6y ago
        Usually sanctioned countries have quite a lot of room for domestic economic growth, most obstacles are internal inefficiencies (like human rights abuses, inefficient ideology based policies), and naturally since the sanctions are a direct result of some alleged problem, as the problem is getting addressed the sanctions can be too. Diplomacy never rests.
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      >It's directly making slave labor unprofitable. At the cost of making a billion non-slave laborers also unprofitable. Sure, removing that billion from the labor pool may help other workers, but that's a huge sacrifice.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    Economic sanctions should aim at the top of Chinese society. Magnitsky type sanctions on officials. Things like preventing every political official or wealthy businessman and their family from travel, going to western universities and all these things they are now used to (and which they wouldn’t be happy to lose).
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      >Economic sanctions should aim at the top of Chinese society. Magnitsky type sanctions on officials. Though an improvement over blanket sanctions, I suspect the rich would use it as an excuse to squeeze more out of the poor. Additionally, I doubt the widespread abandonment of due process will truly make the people more friendly towards the West. You'd be targeting potentially millions, and any borderline case is a PR disaster. Imagine something like "mailman for forty years loses savings due to US attack."
- me_me_me 6y ago
  > Cool, China just spent $1 on me or is it 10 cents. What’s the going rate? With the current rampant nationalism in China - likely nothing. They created a self protecting system. Especially with introduction of the social credits.
- dang 6y ago
  You've seriously broken the HN guidelines. Please read the rules and stick to them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.
KlinkEastwood 6y ago
The answer is war. It's really that simple. Do we want to bear that cost? Personally my answer is please God no, but that doesn't mean war isn't the only real option.
- klyrs 6y ago
  We got South Africa to end apartheid without war. Let's try a boycott before getting all hot with a major nuclear power, right?
  - KlinkEastwood 6y ago
    Comparing the prc to south africa makes as much sense as me saying war between the usa and china is no biggie because the usa quickly won in Granada.
    - tim333 6y ago
      The CCP are quite image conscious. All people are really asking is that they treat the Uighurs in a normal manner rather than trying to overthrow the CCP.
      - KlinkEastwood 6y ago
        The CCp is not image conscious. That's honestly a totally asinine statement. That's like saying a mafia boss is image conscious because he threatens to murder anyone who speaks out about his crimes. And speak for yourself, I would like few political things more than to see the ccp overthrown and a bunch of apparatchiks hanged from the forbidden palace.
        dang 6y ago
        We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political/nationalistic/ideological/racial/whatever-this-is battle. We ban such accounts regardless of what they're battling for or against because it destroys the curious conversation this site is supposed to be for. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
nuller 6y ago
The first thing to do is to consider whether you would want to support the Olympics in 2021. Are you going to buy the products of the sponsors? Should the sponsors be called out on their support for genocide? The IOC claims the olympics is not about politics, which means they dont want to discuss the issue. However this is not a political issue. It is a human rights issue.
frongpik 6y ago
An unpopular answer: we can't do anything. This is about maturity of the mankind. Long ago it was expected to eat your enemies "to gain their power". Now it's labor camps for enemies of the state. Soon labor camps will be replaced by exile on remote islands (just like brits sent people they didn't like to australia). In distant future we'll just ignore the outcasts.
Debugreality 6y ago
Stop buying things from China - look for alternatives. Next time you buy something major look into where it is sourced. If there is something you buy a lot of from China look for an alternative.

yumraj 6y ago

Economic sanctions. Will the West do it? Not for Uyghurs. They didn’t do it for Tibetans nor for Hong Kong, they’re not going to do it for Uyghurs. However, given the increasing brazenness of China, I won’t be surprised if we see some actions within 3-5 years. Edit: 2 downvotes. Cool, China just spent $1 on me or is it 10 cents. What’s the going rate?

wait_a_minute 6y ago
The Biden administration levied sanctions on a couple CCP officials a few days ago.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
It's very likely that economic sanctions will cause more harm to the Chinese than the harm done to the Uyghurs, and has a poor record of it's intended regime change. They are not a solution to a humanitarian crisis.
- pas 6y ago
  It's intention is not regime change. It's directly making slave labor unprofitable. Sure it's a whack-a-mole of sorts, but it at least makes things clear for everyone involved. So usually Joe Rando does not care when he is shopping, but at least he can't and doesn't fund more labor camps indirectly.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    > It's directly making slave labor unprofitable. That only works if sanctions apply to slave labor, but not to comparable non-slave-labor. Sanctions based on geographic region ("Made in China"/"Made in Xinjiang") ethnicity ("Made by Uyghurs") or product category (cotton) can't achieve that, because they don't apply differential pressure that allows non-enslaving businesses to outcompete enslaving ones (and then hire former slaves as free workers), they affect both equally. To make differential pressure work, the first step is knowing who you're dealing with, which means having dedicated inspection teams working their way down supply chains to record labor conditions on the ground. Once you do have that information, highly targeted sanctions can be used to force change.
    - pas 6y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't detailed enough. Sanctions help other countries', so let's say the Vietnamese cotton producers. > dedicated inspection teams That would be a very welcome development in international labor/human rights.
      - yorwba 6y ago
        Helping other countries may be a good thing (although the Vietnamese government's human rights record isn't that great) but it doesn't offer a way out to current victims of forced labor, who can't just move to another country to benefit from the improved conditions there. Do you think they'd just get released once exploiting them becomes unprofitable? That would put a bunch of angry unemployed people on the streets, so the security services are unlikely to be in favor. The most likely path forward would be gradually transferring them into regular work, which works best if such work is available, i.e. there's no blanket ban making everything equally unprofitable.
        pas 6y ago
        Usually sanctioned countries have quite a lot of room for domestic economic growth, most obstacles are internal inefficiencies (like human rights abuses, inefficient ideology based policies), and naturally since the sanctions are a direct result of some alleged problem, as the problem is getting addressed the sanctions can be too. Diplomacy never rests.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    >It's directly making slave labor unprofitable. At the cost of making a billion non-slave laborers also unprofitable. Sure, removing that billion from the labor pool may help other workers, but that's a huge sacrifice.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  Economic sanctions should aim at the top of Chinese society. Magnitsky type sanctions on officials. Things like preventing every political official or wealthy businessman and their family from travel, going to western universities and all these things they are now used to (and which they wouldn’t be happy to lose).
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    >Economic sanctions should aim at the top of Chinese society. Magnitsky type sanctions on officials. Though an improvement over blanket sanctions, I suspect the rich would use it as an excuse to squeeze more out of the poor. Additionally, I doubt the widespread abandonment of due process will truly make the people more friendly towards the West. You'd be targeting potentially millions, and any borderline case is a PR disaster. Imagine something like "mailman for forty years loses savings due to US attack."
me_me_me 6y ago
> Cool, China just spent $1 on me or is it 10 cents. What’s the going rate? With the current rampant nationalism in China - likely nothing. They created a self protecting system. Especially with introduction of the social credits.
dang 6y ago
You've seriously broken the HN guidelines. Please read the rules and stick to them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.

KlinkEastwood 6y ago

The answer is war. It's really that simple. Do we want to bear that cost? Personally my answer is please God no, but that doesn't mean war isn't the only real option.

klyrs 6y ago
We got South Africa to end apartheid without war. Let's try a boycott before getting all hot with a major nuclear power, right?
- KlinkEastwood 6y ago
  Comparing the prc to south africa makes as much sense as me saying war between the usa and china is no biggie because the usa quickly won in Granada.
  - tim333 6y ago
    The CCP are quite image conscious. All people are really asking is that they treat the Uighurs in a normal manner rather than trying to overthrow the CCP.
    - KlinkEastwood 6y ago
      The CCp is not image conscious. That's honestly a totally asinine statement. That's like saying a mafia boss is image conscious because he threatens to murder anyone who speaks out about his crimes. And speak for yourself, I would like few political things more than to see the ccp overthrown and a bunch of apparatchiks hanged from the forbidden palace.
      - dang 6y ago
        We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political/nationalistic/ideological/racial/whatever-this-is battle. We ban such accounts regardless of what they're battling for or against because it destroys the curious conversation this site is supposed to be for. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nuller 6y ago

The first thing to do is to consider whether you would want to support the Olympics in 2021. Are you going to buy the products of the sponsors? Should the sponsors be called out on their support for genocide? The IOC claims the olympics is not about politics, which means they dont want to discuss the issue. However this is not a political issue. It is a human rights issue.

frongpik 6y ago

An unpopular answer: we can't do anything. This is about maturity of the mankind. Long ago it was expected to eat your enemies "to gain their power". Now it's labor camps for enemies of the state. Soon labor camps will be replaced by exile on remote islands (just like brits sent people they didn't like to australia). In distant future we'll just ignore the outcasts.

Debugreality 6y ago

Stop buying things from China - look for alternatives. Next time you buy something major look into where it is sourced. If there is something you buy a lot of from China look for an alternative.