5 ms·

The Big Business of Uyghur Genocide Denial

95 points by theobeers 5y ago

theobeers 5y ago
Relevance to HN: this article is the product of an investigation into a network of organizations involved in Uyghur genocide denial, at the center of which sits Neville Roy Singham, founder of Thoughtworks. edit: I should note that I find some of the evidence presented in this article thin, and some of the connections that it draws less direct than one might expect. But I think there's enough to the story that it merits greater scrutiny.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Do we have to look so far as to dig up shady organizations that few know about? We have much more obvious ones like Disney or the NBA or the rest of Hollywood playing a clearer role in patronizing and legitimizing the actions of the CCP. This isn’t just executives either - celebrities like LeBron James who claim to be “progressive” are the first to turn a blind eye and follow the CCP PR playbook.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  The Big Business of Iraq WMD denial...it seems 20 years is long enough to forget a lesson about the US & European defense industry and the "human rights" research they fund.
- adharmad 5y ago
  And more recently Chamath Palihapitiya.
  - mthoms 5y ago
    I've not yet heard this allegation, do you have a relevant link? Edit: found it, never mind. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/chamath-palihapitiya-has-deep-business-ties-to-china.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/chamath-palihapitiya...
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      Honestly, that quote just sounds like Chamath being Chamath.
- theobeers 5y ago
  Keep in mind, this story is also about the hypocrisy and deeply compromised status of some activist groups that claim to be on the anti-imperialist left. It's not the same as corporations' cynically doing what they think is necessary to maintain access to the Chinese market.
  - heartbeats 5y ago
    There's no contradiction here. It's obvious that when the U.S. criticizes Chinese behavior, they do it in furtherance of some goal. Since power is a zero-sum game, assuming that it is happening, it follows then that stopping it would be beneficial to the U.S. and thus harmful for China. (If you're saying it isn't happening, then obviously China can't do anything to stop it, but at that point you're dealing with reverse conspiracy theories) Now, why should China do such a thing, that will (from first principles) only harm it? It's possible to arrive at such conclusions, but only from the perspective of what is best for the U.S., not China. The debate over the Uyghurs is actually just one large state trying to get the leg up on the other. People mustn't allow themselves to be used as pawns in a cynical game between others.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Is power really a zero-sum game? Launching the nukes would be bad for whoever they blew up, but bad for whoever launched them, too, particularly if whoever they launched them at launched their own. If the US were to release all the wrongly-convicted brown-skinned people, would that be good for China and bad for the US? Maybe it would be good for the US not to incarcerate innocent people who could be living productive, meaningful lives. They might even buy more Chinese factory output. And, likewise, if China stopped abusing its Uyghur citizens, that would certainly be good for that segment of Chinese society, and arguably for the rest. There must be plenty of Han who are (or would be if they knew) troubled by China's abuses, and maybe wonder if they're next. But it's hard to see how that would benefit the US. The fact is, neither China nor the US is monolithic. Anything that changes has winners and losers within each country. Private prisons would hate losing their massively profitable inmates. States would welcome the drop in drain on their budgets (provided their contracts with the private prisons did not mean it would incur penalties and cost them even more).
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  Google, don't forget they make an entirely separate chrome fork that adheres to the CCP's wishes and serve a completely different Google to Chinese citizens.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
macilacilove 5y ago
I wonder if video games will be more free to tell complementary "anti-CCP" stories now that games are mostly banned in mainland China anyway so the CCP has less leverage?
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I doubt the CCP has less leverage. Tencent owns a chunk of a lot of gaming companies (not just Epic, but they've been aggressive at buying a percentage of a lot of midsized companies.) Heck, selling a chunk of your gaming company to a Chinese company as a condition to get access to the Chinese market has been a standard practice. For larger companies, gaming is a division of a much larger company that still has business son China or relies on partners who do. I'd like to imagine their influence will wane, but China has been excellent at getting long term influence with a lot of dollars and euros.
- addicted 5y ago
  How many of these video games companies are independent? Most have been, and are being, snapped up by other companies. Microsoft's XBox division may not be allowed to sell games in China, but Microsoft Corp is still making money there. And then what about the truly independent games that do tell anti-CCP stories. What if the CCP demands that Microsoft and Sony not allow those games on their platform globally if they want to remain in China. Suddenly even independence is no protection. The CCP has taken down Github because of it hosting a single repo the CCP did not like, so this is hardly a stretch of the imagination for an industry that is run on walled gardens.
  - akoster 5y ago
    Like HRW_14’s comment [1] and yours it’s quite staggering all the investments China-based gaming companies own or own stakes in such as Tencent [2], let alone your GitHub example. What also concerns me is a similar relationship playing out in Hollywood with China-based corporates buying stakes in American film studios and movie theaters in the US [3]. Even before this large amount of Chinese money flowing into the industry, there was still a competition among studios to insure no content could accurately portray news in China such as the Uyghur Genocide or even portray China or a Chinese company as a villain [4]. Fortunately some filmmakers have fought back against calls to censor or change their films to appease the CCP or Chinese audiences [5] [6] but as you stated I imagine it would be near impossible for an indie filmmaker to distribute through a major studio or theater chain without making such changes without a lot of clout. Scary times for free expression or even reporting news and the truth about ongoing genocides accurately. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984784 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Foreign_gaming_investments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Foreign_gaming_investm... [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/09/how-hollywood-sold-out-to-china/620021/ https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/09/how-holl... [4] https://pen.org/report/made-in-hollywood-censored-by-beijing/ https://pen.org/report/made-in-hollywood-censored-by-beijing... [5] https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/sony-tarantino-edit-hollywood-china-1202203105/ https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/sony-tarantino-edit-hollyw... [6] https://deadline.com/video/judd-apatow-hollywood-censorship-international-china-saudi-arabia/ https://deadline.com/video/judd-apatow-hollywood-censorship-...
dirtyid 5y ago
[flagged]
- vanusa 5y ago
  Misdirection. There's plenty of information available about the situation in Xinjiang independent of the US DoS.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    [flagged]

95 points by theobeers 5y ago

Relevance to HN: this article is the product of an investigation into a network of organizations involved in Uyghur genocide denial, at the center of which sits Neville Roy Singham, founder of Thoughtworks. edit: I should note that I find some of the evidence presented in this article thin, and some of the connections that it draws less direct than one might expect. But I think there's enough to the story that it merits greater scrutiny.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Do we have to look so far as to dig up shady organizations that few know about? We have much more obvious ones like Disney or the NBA or the rest of Hollywood playing a clearer role in patronizing and legitimizing the actions of the CCP. This isn’t just executives either - celebrities like LeBron James who claim to be “progressive” are the first to turn a blind eye and follow the CCP PR playbook.

ashwagary 5y ago
The Big Business of Iraq WMD denial...it seems 20 years is long enough to forget a lesson about the US & European defense industry and the "human rights" research they fund.
adharmad 5y ago
And more recently Chamath Palihapitiya.
- mthoms 5y ago
  I've not yet heard this allegation, do you have a relevant link? Edit: found it, never mind. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/chamath-palihapitiya-has-deep-business-ties-to-china.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/chamath-palihapitiya...
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Honestly, that quote just sounds like Chamath being Chamath.
theobeers 5y ago
Keep in mind, this story is also about the hypocrisy and deeply compromised status of some activist groups that claim to be on the anti-imperialist left. It's not the same as corporations' cynically doing what they think is necessary to maintain access to the Chinese market.
- heartbeats 5y ago
  There's no contradiction here. It's obvious that when the U.S. criticizes Chinese behavior, they do it in furtherance of some goal. Since power is a zero-sum game, assuming that it is happening, it follows then that stopping it would be beneficial to the U.S. and thus harmful for China. (If you're saying it isn't happening, then obviously China can't do anything to stop it, but at that point you're dealing with reverse conspiracy theories) Now, why should China do such a thing, that will (from first principles) only harm it? It's possible to arrive at such conclusions, but only from the perspective of what is best for the U.S., not China. The debate over the Uyghurs is actually just one large state trying to get the leg up on the other. People mustn't allow themselves to be used as pawns in a cynical game between others.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Is power really a zero-sum game? Launching the nukes would be bad for whoever they blew up, but bad for whoever launched them, too, particularly if whoever they launched them at launched their own. If the US were to release all the wrongly-convicted brown-skinned people, would that be good for China and bad for the US? Maybe it would be good for the US not to incarcerate innocent people who could be living productive, meaningful lives. They might even buy more Chinese factory output. And, likewise, if China stopped abusing its Uyghur citizens, that would certainly be good for that segment of Chinese society, and arguably for the rest. There must be plenty of Han who are (or would be if they knew) troubled by China's abuses, and maybe wonder if they're next. But it's hard to see how that would benefit the US. The fact is, neither China nor the US is monolithic. Anything that changes has winners and losers within each country. Private prisons would hate losing their massively profitable inmates. States would welcome the drop in drain on their budgets (provided their contracts with the private prisons did not mean it would incur penalties and cost them even more).
0xdeadb00f 5y ago
Google, don't forget they make an entirely separate chrome fork that adheres to the CCP's wishes and serve a completely different Google to Chinese citizens.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

macilacilove 5y ago

I wonder if video games will be more free to tell complementary "anti-CCP" stories now that games are mostly banned in mainland China anyway so the CCP has less leverage?

HWR_14 5y ago
I doubt the CCP has less leverage. Tencent owns a chunk of a lot of gaming companies (not just Epic, but they've been aggressive at buying a percentage of a lot of midsized companies.) Heck, selling a chunk of your gaming company to a Chinese company as a condition to get access to the Chinese market has been a standard practice. For larger companies, gaming is a division of a much larger company that still has business son China or relies on partners who do. I'd like to imagine their influence will wane, but China has been excellent at getting long term influence with a lot of dollars and euros.
addicted 5y ago
How many of these video games companies are independent? Most have been, and are being, snapped up by other companies. Microsoft's XBox division may not be allowed to sell games in China, but Microsoft Corp is still making money there. And then what about the truly independent games that do tell anti-CCP stories. What if the CCP demands that Microsoft and Sony not allow those games on their platform globally if they want to remain in China. Suddenly even independence is no protection. The CCP has taken down Github because of it hosting a single repo the CCP did not like, so this is hardly a stretch of the imagination for an industry that is run on walled gardens.
- akoster 5y ago
  Like HRW_14’s comment [1] and yours it’s quite staggering all the investments China-based gaming companies own or own stakes in such as Tencent [2], let alone your GitHub example. What also concerns me is a similar relationship playing out in Hollywood with China-based corporates buying stakes in American film studios and movie theaters in the US [3]. Even before this large amount of Chinese money flowing into the industry, there was still a competition among studios to insure no content could accurately portray news in China such as the Uyghur Genocide or even portray China or a Chinese company as a villain [4]. Fortunately some filmmakers have fought back against calls to censor or change their films to appease the CCP or Chinese audiences [5] [6] but as you stated I imagine it would be near impossible for an indie filmmaker to distribute through a major studio or theater chain without making such changes without a lot of clout. Scary times for free expression or even reporting news and the truth about ongoing genocides accurately. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984784 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Foreign_gaming_investments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Foreign_gaming_investm... [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/09/how-hollywood-sold-out-to-china/620021/ https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/09/how-holl... [4] https://pen.org/report/made-in-hollywood-censored-by-beijing/ https://pen.org/report/made-in-hollywood-censored-by-beijing... [5] https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/sony-tarantino-edit-hollywood-china-1202203105/ https://www.indiewire.com/2020/01/sony-tarantino-edit-hollyw... [6] https://deadline.com/video/judd-apatow-hollywood-censorship-international-china-saudi-arabia/ https://deadline.com/video/judd-apatow-hollywood-censorship-...

dirtyid 5y ago

[flagged]

vanusa 5y ago
Misdirection. There's plenty of information available about the situation in Xinjiang independent of the US DoS.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  [flagged]