3 ms·

If you really want to know, feel free to reach out to me in private. See my profile. Twitter preferred.

by FooBarWidget 5y ago

BobbyJo 5y ago
What if I just 'kinda' want to know, for instance, in a comment thread?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  Then I'll be brief. Check out this thread to get an idea: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863939825221632 https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863939825221632 Check out Col Lawrence Wilkerson at the Ron Paul Institute, mark 22:20, on one of the reasons why the US was in Afghanistan (which borders Xinjiang): https://youtu.be/91wz5syVNZs?t=22m20s https://youtu.be/91wz5syVNZs?t=22m20s Check out Max Blumenthal, investigative journalist, on the quality of evidence surrounding Xinjiang: https://youtu.be/qZkxaEC1xjY https://youtu.be/qZkxaEC1xjY
  - yorwba 5y ago
    You really must be quite westernized if you can't talk about China anymore without using the US as a reference point, and have to rely on Westerners spreading lies about China in service of their own agenda to speak for you.
    - FooBarWidget 5y ago
      Well done, you completely ignored the actual argument in order to resort to ad hominem, while ignoring the fact that the first source doesn't use the US as the major comparison point, while also making evidence-free statements such as "westerners spreading lies". Exactly as I would expect from you.
      - yorwba 5y ago
        > first source doesn't use the US as the major comparison point, "The typical American answer to problems: bombs and bullets." https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863967180472324 https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/146586396718... "China went a different path. They didn't fire a single bullet or threw a single bomb, instead they used books and jobs." https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863970020114435 https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/146586397002... Which is a lie, carelessly slandering the policemen who valiantly risked their lives in the fight against terrorism. 新疆打掉一境外直接指挥的暴恐团伙 1人投降28人被歼 http://xjfy.chinacourt.gov.cn/article/detail/2015/11/id/4667385.shtml http://xjfy.chinacourt.gov.cn/article/detail/2015/11/id/4667... natded put it very well 13 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527720 Most of the online discussion centered around China is just US domestic political projection using an imaginary China as a mirror, or as a counterfactual which doesn't exist, and then there's the obvious propaganda too. RnaudBertrand seems to be using China only as an imaginary counterexample to the US invasion of Afghanistan. If you were just an average Westerner, mistaking that Twitter thread for an informed perspective would be an understandable mistake, buy I think you should be able to do better. > Exactly as I would expect from you. Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username.
        FooBarWidget 5y ago
        > Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username. You are right here, in my haste I recognized you for someone else who has been attacking me a lot lately. I apologize. > The typical American answer to problems: bombs and bullets. The US is a secondary supporting point, not the main point, which is Afghanistan and its terrorism problem. > Which is a lie, carelessly slandering the policemen who valiantly risked their lives in the fight against terrorism. This is an oversimplification rather than a lie. In the context of that tweet, what was referred to was: 1. Sending your military to foreign territory to kill the source of radicalization there. 2. The scale of the effort. While there have definitely been fighting in Xinjiang, it cannot be compared to the likes of the War on Terror. The former's violance was at least constrained to people who shoot back, while the latter involved the killing pf many innocent people. While you criticize the comparison with the US here, to completely take the US out of the picture in a description about Xinjiang would not be fair. For one, the US is a contributing factor in the creation of the terrorism problem in Xinjiang. Second, when one talks about counter-terrorism efforts, it only makes sense to compare the pros and cons of different approaches that have already tried. After all, it is a hard problem in which hard choices have to be made; nobody has succeeded in an approach which is completely free of violance or any kind of coercion. I suppose you could also compare to France, but I don't think it would make sense to skip over the most high-profile example.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    I took some time to read and watch the links and digest the info to respond: 1) I'm getting kind of conflicting signals from the sources. You promote the idea that these camps aren't what we know they are, the the third link, but the entirety of the your Twitter feed reads as a justification and comparison to the war in Afghanistan. I don't see how that would be an apt comparison unless these camps actually did exist, and actually did forcefully detain people (which means forced labor in China). 2) Let's assume they are forced re-education camps, since that's the least evil thing possible. You're comparison to Afghanistan as the 'The US uses bombs and bullets whereas China is doing things peacefully' is still bad. Afghanistan is a separate country without a government that we declared war on. The US generally follows strict rules of engagement, so it would be inaccurate to say we shot innocent people or killed them on purpose. The mission over there consisted much more of building infrastructure and public services than it did fighting. Xinjiang is within China's own borders, and benefits from already having a government and infrastructure, to a much larger degree than Afghanistan at least. 3) Let's ignore 2 and assume the US was evil in Afghanistan and China is doing everything as morally as possible in Xinjiang. Then why not let international inspection of the facilities? The UN was in Afghanistan, and oversaw a lot of our mission there. If it's the same in Xinjiang, but better, then why the secrecy? 4) People go along with the idea that evil things are happening in Xinjiang without much evidence because of two reasons: China has been caught doing everything claimed before already (organ harvesting, forced abortions, internment camps) and they don't just prove otherwise. Any international traveller can come to the US and visit any hospital, any prison (provided they are journalists at least) and any prisoner here has the freedom of expression to say anything they want to anyone they want. That isn't the case in China. Of course there is a lack of evidence of what's going on their now. That's China's MO.
    - FooBarWidget 5y ago
      (Part 1) You are raising very insightful issues. Arnaud's thread is an oversimplification. This comment is my best attempt at explaining the full picture, with the knowledge I have gathered in the past 3 years. - There are unacceptable practices going on, but of a different scale and kind than described in mainstream western reporting. - The terrorism issue is mixed up with the issues of Uyghur identity and separatism. - The goal is to address terrorism, identity and separatism at the same time, using a variety of measures. - There is difference between official policy and local implementation. Policy implementation in China is very distributed, with significant local leeway to interpret and implement. Due to incompetency rather than malice, there is significant collateral damage and impact on innocent people. Let's unpack the above. --- About the measures: - Terrorism is addressed through security: lots of weapons checks, barriers and surveillance everywhere. Though this is not the only measure. - Terrorism, identity and separatism are addressed through deradicalization, vocational training, government job programs and economic development. The thinking goes: if people's economic prospects become better (able to find jobs, more income) then they are less likely to fall for extremism and to harbor separatist sentiments. - Identity is addressed through patriotic education. There are prisons, deradicalization camps, vocational schools. Those are three different things. A major source of misunderstanding comes from the fact that western reporting lump all three together into "concentration/detention camps", while Chinese media and diplomats never talk about the first, seldomly about the 2nd, and usually about the 3rd. So when foreign media ask Chinese diplomats to elaborate on "concentration camps", and the diplomats say "we don't have those, we have vocational schools" then the diplomats are technically correct but there is already misunderstanding from the first second. Prisons are for convicted criminals and terrorists, e.g. those who set off bombs, and come with prison labor (as is usual in Chinese prisons, and many prisons around the world). Vocational schools teach skills and patriotic education. They are indeed voluntary. Vocational schools are often boarding schools. The most problematic facilities are the deradicalization camps. They are for people who have gotten in touch with extremism but haven't done anything concrete. They are sort of a "vocation school ++": they are mandatory and they "brainwash" you into believing that extremism is bad (e.g. they teach you ideas like: women have rights, killing people for their beliefs is bad). They are mandatory boarding schools but not prisons. This is not a contradiction: mandatory boarding schools exist in other parts of the world too. And the environment is less unpleasant than true prisons. Deradicalization camps probably are problematic for two reasons: 1. The criteria for what counts as "gotten in touch with extremism" is prprobably too broad, and so an amount of innocent people have been undeservedly rolled into deradicalization camps. 2. The people enrolled into them may not have committed a concrete crime yet. Chinese authorities say that their goal is to prevent terrorism from taking root rather than only acting after the fact. According to western thought, this practice is wholly unacceptable. However, commentators from Islamic countries, which have had a much longer and much more savage history with terrorism, criticize the western perspectice on the grounds that westerners underestimate the impact of terrorism. From the Chinese government's perspective, safe streets and social stability is more important than anything else: they view it as their duty to ensure that streets are safe (and a lot of the population agrees). The security measures probably come with a certain amount of racial profiling, e.g. Han can pass security checks unchecked while Uyghurs are checked more thoroughly. More on this later. --- At the same time, there is a significant amount of misrepresentation (and even outright lies) from western media. Some is deliberate, e.g. propaganda. Max Blumenthal highlighted the problems with the "x million" number, witness testimonies and more. There are real issues, but not to the extend alleged. Too many people have been undeservedly forced into deradicalization centers, but not "1 million" and they're neither prisons nor concentration camps. The BBC visited a vocational boarding school, painted it as a prison, then said people were not allowed to leave while literally showing footage of people leaving. There is no genocide: the population has grown quicker than Han, and it has been shown that Adrien Zenz's IUD number deliberately omitted a 0 (i.e. 80% should be 8%). Despite alleged systematic rape, killing etc by witnesses, there is a complete lack of a refugee crisis. Other reports are accidentally wrong: misinterpretations due to lack of understanding of China. For example many of ASPI's sattelite image concentration camp locations turn out to be schools, farms, etc. It seems that the criteria for identifying a "concentration camp" is "it has high walls, barbed wires and fences on windows". But Nathan Ruser, a young fellow who just came out of school and got recruited by ASPI for doing this "research", apparently didn't know that a great many normal buildings in China have these features.

If you really want to know, feel free to reach out to me in private. See my profile. Twitter preferred.

BobbyJo 5y ago

What if I just 'kinda' want to know, for instance, in a comment thread?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FooBarWidget 5y ago
Then I'll be brief. Check out this thread to get an idea: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863939825221632 https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863939825221632 Check out Col Lawrence Wilkerson at the Ron Paul Institute, mark 22:20, on one of the reasons why the US was in Afghanistan (which borders Xinjiang): https://youtu.be/91wz5syVNZs?t=22m20s https://youtu.be/91wz5syVNZs?t=22m20s Check out Max Blumenthal, investigative journalist, on the quality of evidence surrounding Xinjiang: https://youtu.be/qZkxaEC1xjY https://youtu.be/qZkxaEC1xjY
- yorwba 5y ago
  You really must be quite westernized if you can't talk about China anymore without using the US as a reference point, and have to rely on Westerners spreading lies about China in service of their own agenda to speak for you.
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    Well done, you completely ignored the actual argument in order to resort to ad hominem, while ignoring the fact that the first source doesn't use the US as the major comparison point, while also making evidence-free statements such as "westerners spreading lies". Exactly as I would expect from you.
    - yorwba 5y ago
      > first source doesn't use the US as the major comparison point, "The typical American answer to problems: bombs and bullets." https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863967180472324 https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/146586396718... "China went a different path. They didn't fire a single bullet or threw a single bomb, instead they used books and jobs." https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1465863970020114435 https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/146586397002... Which is a lie, carelessly slandering the policemen who valiantly risked their lives in the fight against terrorism. 新疆打掉一境外直接指挥的暴恐团伙 1人投降28人被歼 http://xjfy.chinacourt.gov.cn/article/detail/2015/11/id/4667385.shtml http://xjfy.chinacourt.gov.cn/article/detail/2015/11/id/4667... natded put it very well 13 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527720 Most of the online discussion centered around China is just US domestic political projection using an imaginary China as a mirror, or as a counterfactual which doesn't exist, and then there's the obvious propaganda too. RnaudBertrand seems to be using China only as an imaginary counterexample to the US invasion of Afghanistan. If you were just an average Westerner, mistaking that Twitter thread for an informed perspective would be an understandable mistake, buy I think you should be able to do better. > Exactly as I would expect from you. Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username.
      - FooBarWidget 5y ago
        > Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username. You are right here, in my haste I recognized you for someone else who has been attacking me a lot lately. I apologize. > The typical American answer to problems: bombs and bullets. The US is a secondary supporting point, not the main point, which is Afghanistan and its terrorism problem. > Which is a lie, carelessly slandering the policemen who valiantly risked their lives in the fight against terrorism. This is an oversimplification rather than a lie. In the context of that tweet, what was referred to was: 1. Sending your military to foreign territory to kill the source of radicalization there. 2. The scale of the effort. While there have definitely been fighting in Xinjiang, it cannot be compared to the likes of the War on Terror. The former's violance was at least constrained to people who shoot back, while the latter involved the killing pf many innocent people. While you criticize the comparison with the US here, to completely take the US out of the picture in a description about Xinjiang would not be fair. For one, the US is a contributing factor in the creation of the terrorism problem in Xinjiang. Second, when one talks about counter-terrorism efforts, it only makes sense to compare the pros and cons of different approaches that have already tried. After all, it is a hard problem in which hard choices have to be made; nobody has succeeded in an approach which is completely free of violance or any kind of coercion. I suppose you could also compare to France, but I don't think it would make sense to skip over the most high-profile example.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  I took some time to read and watch the links and digest the info to respond: 1) I'm getting kind of conflicting signals from the sources. You promote the idea that these camps aren't what we know they are, the the third link, but the entirety of the your Twitter feed reads as a justification and comparison to the war in Afghanistan. I don't see how that would be an apt comparison unless these camps actually did exist, and actually did forcefully detain people (which means forced labor in China). 2) Let's assume they are forced re-education camps, since that's the least evil thing possible. You're comparison to Afghanistan as the 'The US uses bombs and bullets whereas China is doing things peacefully' is still bad. Afghanistan is a separate country without a government that we declared war on. The US generally follows strict rules of engagement, so it would be inaccurate to say we shot innocent people or killed them on purpose. The mission over there consisted much more of building infrastructure and public services than it did fighting. Xinjiang is within China's own borders, and benefits from already having a government and infrastructure, to a much larger degree than Afghanistan at least. 3) Let's ignore 2 and assume the US was evil in Afghanistan and China is doing everything as morally as possible in Xinjiang. Then why not let international inspection of the facilities? The UN was in Afghanistan, and oversaw a lot of our mission there. If it's the same in Xinjiang, but better, then why the secrecy? 4) People go along with the idea that evil things are happening in Xinjiang without much evidence because of two reasons: China has been caught doing everything claimed before already (organ harvesting, forced abortions, internment camps) and they don't just prove otherwise. Any international traveller can come to the US and visit any hospital, any prison (provided they are journalists at least) and any prisoner here has the freedom of expression to say anything they want to anyone they want. That isn't the case in China. Of course there is a lack of evidence of what's going on their now. That's China's MO.
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    (Part 1) You are raising very insightful issues. Arnaud's thread is an oversimplification. This comment is my best attempt at explaining the full picture, with the knowledge I have gathered in the past 3 years. - There are unacceptable practices going on, but of a different scale and kind than described in mainstream western reporting. - The terrorism issue is mixed up with the issues of Uyghur identity and separatism. - The goal is to address terrorism, identity and separatism at the same time, using a variety of measures. - There is difference between official policy and local implementation. Policy implementation in China is very distributed, with significant local leeway to interpret and implement. Due to incompetency rather than malice, there is significant collateral damage and impact on innocent people. Let's unpack the above. --- About the measures: - Terrorism is addressed through security: lots of weapons checks, barriers and surveillance everywhere. Though this is not the only measure. - Terrorism, identity and separatism are addressed through deradicalization, vocational training, government job programs and economic development. The thinking goes: if people's economic prospects become better (able to find jobs, more income) then they are less likely to fall for extremism and to harbor separatist sentiments. - Identity is addressed through patriotic education. There are prisons, deradicalization camps, vocational schools. Those are three different things. A major source of misunderstanding comes from the fact that western reporting lump all three together into "concentration/detention camps", while Chinese media and diplomats never talk about the first, seldomly about the 2nd, and usually about the 3rd. So when foreign media ask Chinese diplomats to elaborate on "concentration camps", and the diplomats say "we don't have those, we have vocational schools" then the diplomats are technically correct but there is already misunderstanding from the first second. Prisons are for convicted criminals and terrorists, e.g. those who set off bombs, and come with prison labor (as is usual in Chinese prisons, and many prisons around the world). Vocational schools teach skills and patriotic education. They are indeed voluntary. Vocational schools are often boarding schools. The most problematic facilities are the deradicalization camps. They are for people who have gotten in touch with extremism but haven't done anything concrete. They are sort of a "vocation school ++": they are mandatory and they "brainwash" you into believing that extremism is bad (e.g. they teach you ideas like: women have rights, killing people for their beliefs is bad). They are mandatory boarding schools but not prisons. This is not a contradiction: mandatory boarding schools exist in other parts of the world too. And the environment is less unpleasant than true prisons. Deradicalization camps probably are problematic for two reasons: 1. The criteria for what counts as "gotten in touch with extremism" is prprobably too broad, and so an amount of innocent people have been undeservedly rolled into deradicalization camps. 2. The people enrolled into them may not have committed a concrete crime yet. Chinese authorities say that their goal is to prevent terrorism from taking root rather than only acting after the fact. According to western thought, this practice is wholly unacceptable. However, commentators from Islamic countries, which have had a much longer and much more savage history with terrorism, criticize the western perspectice on the grounds that westerners underestimate the impact of terrorism. From the Chinese government's perspective, safe streets and social stability is more important than anything else: they view it as their duty to ensure that streets are safe (and a lot of the population agrees). The security measures probably come with a certain amount of racial profiling, e.g. Han can pass security checks unchecked while Uyghurs are checked more thoroughly. More on this later. --- At the same time, there is a significant amount of misrepresentation (and even outright lies) from western media. Some is deliberate, e.g. propaganda. Max Blumenthal highlighted the problems with the "x million" number, witness testimonies and more. There are real issues, but not to the extend alleged. Too many people have been undeservedly forced into deradicalization centers, but not "1 million" and they're neither prisons nor concentration camps. The BBC visited a vocational boarding school, painted it as a prison, then said people were not allowed to leave while literally showing footage of people leaving. There is no genocide: the population has grown quicker than Han, and it has been shown that Adrien Zenz's IUD number deliberately omitted a 0 (i.e. 80% should be 8%). Despite alleged systematic rape, killing etc by witnesses, there is a complete lack of a refugee crisis. Other reports are accidentally wrong: misinterpretations due to lack of understanding of China. For example many of ASPI's sattelite image concentration camp locations turn out to be schools, farms, etc. It seems that the criteria for identifying a "concentration camp" is "it has high walls, barbed wires and fences on windows". But Nathan Ruser, a young fellow who just came out of school and got recruited by ASPI for doing this "research", apparently didn't know that a great many normal buildings in China have these features.