Meanwhile, the US military is planning how to deal with so-called "terrorists," many of whom were peasants sold to warlords to collect bounties, to die of old-age in Gitmo. Also, ripping children from their parents in migrant and asylum-seekers concentration camps. Pot, meet kettle.
While I agree both of those things are repulsive - the scales do not match up. There are 3 million people in camps in china, vs about 1000 at the height of gitmo. The border camps come a little closer in raw numbers - somewhere around 0.5 millions people per year, but they are detained for short periods of time. Estimates vary but we’re talking a few days.
Scale matters. Don’t try to downplay how completely fucked up these camps are.
That's what the US government claims, as such I'd take that number with a massive grain of salt because they have a vested interest in making China out as the "worse baddie" just like with surveillance, to make itself look like "the good guys" or at least "not as bad as China guys".
> vs about 1000 at the height of gitmo
That's quite a dishonest claim because Gitmo is only ONE out of many prisons like that, it ended up getting most of the spotlight due to geographical proximity to the US. But that doesn't mean that Gitmo was, or is, the only place like that, far from it [0].
And that doesn't even account for the thousands of drone victims, all just deemed "combatants" on the virtue of being "able-bodied" and too close to the "splash" [1].
With targets selected trough quite questionable methods [2].
In that context, China can't even compare to the US if China tried to. If you want to evade becoming a victim of these Chinese methods there's a very simple solution: Don't go to China.
The same doesn't work if you end up on the crosshairs of the US, as the US is applying these methods on a global basis through the most sophisticated global surveillance network in human history.
You're absolutely right: scale matters. The camps are not really comparable to gitmo.
They are perhaps more akin to the U.S prison system were thousands upon thousands of blacks and latinos are held, sometimes in isolation, sometimes for years, without charge. Pretty fucked up.
I hear you and agree. Two wrongs don’t make a right, so the fact that the US has done and does do very messed up things does not make what us happening to Chinese muslims any less disturbing.
Is it true, though? You are arguing that its baseless propaganda without refuting anything. Just that the evolution of the claims has gotten more severe. The best argument if so is just the truth. Link sources and publish things showing there really aren't 3 million people detained or that it's not a camp-style thing. The problem with Iraq is that Saddam simply could have told the truth and let UN inspectors in, but he often stonewalled and acted in a way that made it hard to not worry what he was doing...and oh, the whole invading another country thing.
The burden of proof is not on me to prove they aren't doing these things. The burden of proof is on those doing the accusing. As in the case of Huawei, there has not been one objective shred of proof. And no, I don't consider WaPo, NYT, and its ilk anywhere near objective journalism.
If the lack of proof is because the CCP is denying journalists access to Xinjiang, then how can there be any conclusive evidence?
Are they going to invade and bomb China to find the existence or non-existence of such evidence?
Look, I don’t know if you are arguing in good faith or you’re a person who shills for the Chinese government but I’ll assume the former.
The burden of proof, you say, is on those doing the accusing. Well, let’s see:
We have entire Uyghur villages with markets that are now no longer active. Many of the people are mysteriously gone.
We have tons of Uyghur families with relatives gone missing or reported arrested.
We have actual buildings that are being used as prisons for these Uyghurs.
We have testimony from people who were held in these camps. They say they saw many of those they knew.
We have video from inside these camps, and it’s pretty clear people are held there against their will.
NOW HERE IS THE KICKER:
It’s not US propaganda. The Chinese government has already been accused by the following groups:
Falun Dafa practitioners
Tibetan Buddhists
Christian Missionaries
and has “defended” itself for years with an army of disinfo agents, in some cases the “defenses” are extremely limited and lame. For example Tibetan buddhists are accused of being slaveholders. Falun Dafa is public enemy #1 because they “say being gay is bad” and “lead people to do self immolation”.
In reality, Falun Dafa is a peaceful religion that has long been persecuted, since 1999 when Jiang Xemin personally oversaw its destruction, including many of the same tactics, such as extrajudicial kidnappings and reeducation centers. The numbers were justas staggering.
So there are already multiple groups for 19 years that are being targeted by the CCP and we are supposed to think they are all making this up and the CCP isn’t targeting them?
It’s always the same story. Some small subgroup does some violence, or in the case of China, just merely shows some organization or protest (as Falun Dafa peacefully did against cartoons). That is enough for EVERY member of that group to now be targeted for indefinite detention, and worse.
Jews didn’t believe in the existence of Nazi concentration camps and no one could imagine a civilized country like Germany would do such a thing. Denying journalists access looks really bad.
Now to be fair, we are talking about internment and re-education camps, not concentration camps for Uyghurs. Probably something worse than what FDR did to the Japanese.
Thanks, reviewed. Sorry about the shilling comment. It was referencing to something the commenter themselves said, and others have also mentioned, given his recent comment history on several threads going back over a week:
Sorry, but I will not provide more information about myself than I have to. It doesn't matter anyhow since I will be accused of being a CCP _shill_ 50c poster anyway.
But I am confused about nationalistic flamewar as distinct from discussing the topic of the original post. Its veracity was actively questioned by the commenter in several comments, who asked for proof. Since the welfare of large numbers of people is at stake, it’s important to make sure whether this is happening or not. I am sure it would be the same conversation whether the nation was China, India, USA, and so on. If this is indeed not happening, that is very important also. In any case I thought I was directly addressing the topic. I am personally very far from nationalistic so I want to understand better how my comment comes across.
If a comment goes through the Uyghurs, Falun Gong and Tibet on its way to Nazis, I think it's safe to say that intellectual curiosity has fled, making the comment off topic for Hacker News.
Many vitally important topics are off topic for Hacker News. Most of them, in fact. This is a specific kind of website, for smaller, curious topics—the kind that are the first to drown in a political deluge.
This feels like an overly broad and disingenuous interpretation of the word shilling. He provided an alternative view, bolstered with facts (and yes, went overboard with Nazism comparisons).
There has been plenty of proof. See my other comments. There has not been any proof that they don't exist. If you're making a positive claim you need to add sources. Otherwise you're getting into a celestial teapot argument. "Can't disprove it so it has to be true."
Weird, maybe the number of Uighur people that have been remanded to these camps has increased over time.
Meanwhile, I don't get the sense that you want to discuss this in good faith, so I'll just end things here, but first I want to add that people who want to learn more about the Xinjiang internment camps should listen to this highly informative podcast: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/uncovering-china-s-sec...
The CCP (Chinese Communist Pary) is locking up people due to their ethnicity and/or beliefs.
Inside the concentration camps, they are attempting to indoctrinate the people into CCP dogma, and away from their traditional beliefs. They are also using them for slave labor.
Outside the camps, the CCP has installed suffocating surveilance systems to watch every action. They also have placed people into apartment blocks to watch their neighbors, installing card readers in the homes of people being watched that the watchers must swipe a card in to prove that they're being diligent.
It's important to understand the context for such actions. Right or wrong, heavy handed or not, there is always a context. On HN and other social media, users always seem to think there is some kind of inherent malice and genocidal intent in every Chinese action, which is utterly absurd.
In this particular situation, the context was 200 Han Chinese being ethnically cleansed in Xinjiang, dragged out of buses and cars and executed on the street while coming home from work, with 2000 more injured.
It'd be like if hundreds of white people were butchered by thousands of anonymous black people for the sole reason of being white in Detroit. What would be the appropriate government response to such an event? Mass incarceration? I mean, in such a context, can "re-education" camps not be viewed as a relatively mild response? This is not to say that it's an ideal response, but certainly it's not the worst an authoritative government could have done.
In response to your point about surveillance, the Urumqi riots began because a false rumour about the rape of two Uighur women in a Han Chinese factory spread on WeChat, fuelling hate, outrage and unrest. Because this is how things work in an uneducated population. Just look up the number of lynchings, burnings and stonings in rural Indian villages based off of false rumours spread on social media.
This is not the same country as your country, these are not the same people as your people. China is a developing nation with an uneducated but heavily interconnected population, a combination heavily conducive to destabilization from both internal and external actors. For this reason, their government will not hesitate to stamp out, censor, surveil whatever it is they need to in order to preserve stability. You can't judge China by the same standards as modern, highly educated western democracies - any attempt to do so is simply naive and misguided.
Please stop defending concentration camps. There is no defense. There's always context. No one commits genocide without a reason. Hitler, Stalin, Andrew Jackson--they all had what they believed were extraordinary situations that justified their atrocities.
You have also presented a completely one sided version of the events that led up the current situation.
Please stop invoking the term concentration camp. We all know the imagery that term conjures (perhaps that is the intent of users such as yourself). What the CCP is doing is in no way comparable to Auschwitz.
Ask yourself what is more likely:
1. The government of China is rounding up millions upon millions of Uighurs in hard labor camps, harvesting their organs and working them to death.
or
2. The government of China is trying to contain further unrest after what happened during the Urumqi riots by subjecting thousands of people to re-education, where they sit for hours each day reading and listening to government propaganda.
Do you really think any member of the CCP would find scenario #1 would be in China's best interest, especially given China's increasing exposure on the world stage? Any great defender of freedom and democracy in the world would salivate at the thought of scenario #1 as it would give them every excuse they could possibly need to "liberate" such an oppressed peoples.
>Please stop invoking the term concentration camp. We all know the imagery that term conjures (perhaps that is the intent of users such as yourself).
If you don't want people to say you're putting people in concentration camps, perhaps you shouldn't remove millions of people of a specific ethnicity from their homes in order to lock them up in a camp for an indefinite amount of time.
Uighurs have been clashing with the Chinese government for over a century. The government is just attempting to cement their grip on Xinjiang by wiping out Uighur identity to remove a rebellious element. Concentration camps rarely start out as death camps. When governments realize that the only real way to remove an ethnicity is to kill them, that's when they turn into extermination camps. The only real hope we have to prevent this, is to convince the Chinese government that the bad press isn't worth it.
>#1 as it would give them every excuse they could possibly need to "liberate" such an oppressed peoples.
There is no realistic scenario that leads to military intervention within the borders of a country with nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them.
The strongest possible interpretation of "You can't judge China by the same standards as modern, highly educated western democracies" is that it's wrong to judge China for locking up more than a million people of a specific ethnicity in concentration camps.
I'm not sure what other interpretation there is. As I said before, Andrew Jackson had similar justifications when he ordered the removal of Native Americans. It was wrong then despite the fact that America wasn't a modern democracy at the time (since most people lacked the right to vote).
And FDR had similar justifications when he rounded up Japanese Americans. That was wrong as well.
I'm not sure why it's so hard to reach a consensus that ethnic concentration camps should be universally condemned without devolving into a nationalistic flame war about who committed the worst atrocities.
Once again, context matters. The context of the sentence:
>"You can't judge China by the same standards as modern, highly educated western democracies"
was one of mass surveillance and the social media crackdown and absolutely does not pertain to any camps of any kind.
You are once again not responding to the strongest plausible interpretation of what I have said, instead choosing to argue against a straw-man and then repeating your point about how Andrew Jackson carried out genocide.
My apologies. Since that was your final paragraph I took it as your overall conclusion. I didn't realize that the quoted paragraph was exclusively referring to your point about surveillance.
So to be clear you unambiguously condemn the Chinese government for their role in operating ethnic internment camps, and while you disagree with the specifics, you agree that they are operating ethnic internment camps?
Also you don't think it's wrong to judge the Chinese government for doing this?
> So to be clear you unambiguously condemn the Chinese government for their role in operating ethnic internment camps, and while you disagree with the specifics, you agree that they are operating ethnic internment camps?
No. I don't unambiguously condemn the Chinese government for their role in operating ethnic internment camps because it is not at all unambiguous that this is what they are doing. Why should I?
What they are doing and what they are trying to accomplish is operating extremist "re-education" camps due to the many terrorist incidents in the region [1] including the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of Han Chinese (which, by the way, is never mentioned anywhere to contextualize the CCP's actions, nor is it condemned). I don't dispute that many people put there are indeed of ethnic Uighur in origin but their ideology is of primary concern, not their ethnicity. I do believe there is such a thing as "wrong-think" when it comes to extremist ideology. I don't dispute that many of them are likely innocent of harbouring extremist ideology and placed there against their will -I will always condemn the detainment of innocents.
>Also you don't think it's wrong to judge the Chinese government for doing this?
Before rushing to grab the pitchforks, let's pause for a second to consider two facts:
1. There were numerous religion-fuelled [2] terrorist incidents in the region (machete attacks, car bombs, plane hijackings, etc).
2. There were episodes of ethnic cleansing resulting in mass civilian casualties in the region, carried out by thousands of anonymous, unidentifiable ethnic minorities against Han Chinese (we know this because all the casualties were Han Chinese). Only a tiny fraction of those involved were ever held responsible for their actions and prosecuted.
What would be the appropriate way to handle the situation to prevent further loss of life and regional destabilization? Would you invite international condemnation and sanctions by placing millions of ethnic minorities into concentration camps, tearing them from their families in order to torture or work them to death? If it's obvious to any layman that this would only incite more international scrutiny, more terrorism, and more destabilization, don't you think it would be obvious to the policy planners in charge as well?
Contrary to common knowledge, China has dozens of culturally diverse, minority ethnic groups. Their cultures are often promoted and showcased as a matter of national pride. Almost none of them clash with the CCP, and tourism is in fact encouraged in those poorer, rural areas to help subsidize the locals' incomes. What could the CCP possibly hope to achieve by specifically targeting and crushing Uighur culture for the sole purpose of doing so?
The CCP, pragmatic as only an authoritarian, technocracy can be, opted for forceful "re-education" and augmented surveillance in order to prevent further terrorist events and to stamp out religious extremism. Is that really so hard to believe?
You may condemn the inevitable abuses carried out by individuals with authority within these camps, which occurs not as a matter of official policy but as a matter of human nature. You may condemn the CCP for being hard-handed in their response to domestic terrorism. You may condemn the inevitable but incidental detention of innocents which will result from such actions. You may not condemn the CCP based on unsubstantiated, editorialized headlines designed by the mainstream media to advance a political narrative.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_...
[2] "We have to conquer our own country and purify it of all infidels. Then, we should conquer the infidels' countries and spread Islam. The infidels who are usurping our countries have announced war against Islam and Muslims, forci...
You acknowledged that the Chinese government is operating ideological internment camps that happen to contain almost exclusively Uighur people who were taken there against their will and held without trial.
You refuse to condemn this, and you've provided justification for why they are necessary.
My original interpretation of your comment that was therefore correct with that caveat that you take issue with the term "concentration camp".
>You may condemn the inevitable abuses carried out by individuals with authority within these camps, which occurs not as a matter of official policy but as a matter of human nature
When there are systemic injustices it is appropriate to condemn the system. The vast majority of racial injustice in the US isn't a matter of official policy either, yet it's absurd that you would refuse to condemn the Justice system for the end result.
>editorialized headlines designed by the mainstream media to advance a political narrative.
Many non media groups have made similar allegations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Government of Turkey, and The US State Department. This isn't a media conspiracy theory.
Amnesty international interviewed over a hundred people who claim that their relatives are missing. They interviewed people who claimed to have been tortured in the camps. To me, that alone is enough evidence for the world to demand answers.
>You acknowledged that the Chinese government is operating ideological internment camps that happen to contain almost exclusively Uighur people who were taken there against their will and held without trial.
>You refuse to condemn this, and you've provided justification for why they are necessary.
My original interpretation of your comment that was therefore correct with that caveat that you take issue with the term "concentration camp".
First of all, why is my personal condemnation so important to you? I will not be coerced into making statements for the satisfaction of others, as I think it’s a disingenuous form of argument. It would be like me asking you to condemn the ethnic cleansing of Han Chinese by Uighers during the Urumqi riots -why should I need that condemnation from you and why should you need to vindicate yourself for me? I have already stated that I will always condemn the detainment of innocents. There should be enough information there for you to extrapolate what I do and do not condemn.
Secondly, in all of my comments, I have never denied that the Chinese government is operating ideological re-education camps. I have disputed accusations that they are primarily operate as ethnic concentration camps. I have also disputed the purpose, the scale, and the characterization of the camps. There is zero evidence that they “happen to contain almost exclusively Uighur people”, though I personally believe that many of them are, given the nature of the terrorist incidents in the region.
> My original interpretation of your comment that was therefore correct with that caveat that you take issue with the term "concentration camp".
This is your original interpretation of my comment:
>The strongest possible interpretation of "You can't judge China by the same standards as modern, highly educated western democracies" is that it's wrong to judge China for locking up more than a million people of a specific ethnicity in concentration camps.
Your original interpretation of my comment is still completely incorrect because I have never made the statement “it's wrong to judge China for locking up more than a million people of a specific ethnicity in concentration camps”. You keep trying to make it seem as though I’ve said this, but you can’t, because I didn’t.
>When there are systemic injustices it is appropriate to condemn the system.
Where is your proof that there are systematic injustices? Provide proof that three million Uigher Muslims have been put into concentration camps because of their ethnicity as an official policy of the CCP. Provide proof that they are being tortured and forced into hard labour as an official policy of the CCP. We’re not talking about the kind of proof that arises from “journalists” who have never set foot in the region. We’re not talking about the kind of proof that arises from satellite images either (not sure if you still remember all the satellite images of Saddam’s WMD facilities). If you believe that putting several thousand people into “re-education” camps against their will because of possible extremist ideology is an injustice, then you are free to condemn that if you wish.
> The vast majority of racial injustice in the US isn't a matter of official policy either, yet it's absurd that you would refuse to condemn the Justice system for the end result.
Why on earth would that be absurd? This argument makes no sense to me. If the US justice system worked 100% correctly the way it was intended to work, there would not be any racial injustices, correct? So why would it make sense to blame the US justice system for abuses that arose organically, despite what is written in law?
Arresting someone because of their skin colour is illegal according to US law. By your logic, the fact that individual police officers choose to racially profile people anyway should be blamed on the law? That’s simply not logical. Why would it be absurd to refuse to conde...
>Provide proof that three million Uigher Muslims have been put into concentration camps because of their ethnicity as an official policy of the CCP. Provide proof that they are being tortured and forced into hard labour as an official policy of the CCP.
This is completely insane. The equivalent argument is that there is no systemic racial injustice in the United States because the constitution officially requires equal treatment under the law.
>Without adequate proof, these allegations are no different and no better than a politically motivated conspiracy theory.
>It's enough evidence for the world to demand answers but it's not enough evidence for the wholesale indictment that's going on right now.
It's either an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory which of course requires no response, or enough evidence for the world to demand answers. It can't be both.
>a politically motivated conspiracy theory
For that to be true, the Trump administration, The government of Turkey, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and dozens of mainstream media outlets from dozens of countries would need to be working together.
Also are you familiar with the term Gish gallop, because that's what you're doing with this thread.
>This is completely insane. The equivalent argument is that there is no systemic racial injustice in the United States because the constitution officially requires equal treatment under the law.
That is not remotely an equivalent argument. The definition of systemic injustice is injustice which arises from from a system or structure of power such as a government or nation state. It implies that the institutions of society are the genesis of the injustice. There is no proof of systemic injustice at the scale of three million Uighers being detained and put into concentration camps due to their ethnicity. There might be proof of individuals within the system abusing their powers of authority.
>It's either an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory which of course requires no response, or enough evidence for the world to demand answers. It can't be both.
Conspiracy theory was your word -I would have chosen something more like “propaganda campaign of exaggerated facts”. Nonetheless, I disagree with the premise of your statement that it can’t be both. Conspiracy theories or propaganda campaigns do not preclude the asking of further questions.
>For that to be true, the Trump administration, The government of Turkey, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and dozens of mainstream media outlets from dozens of countries would need to be working together.
As I’ve said before, the Trump administration has no credibility whatsoever either in domestic or foreign policy. Nonetheless, the US still recognizes the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization.
Turkey is currently undergoing social unrest due to hyperinflation and a failing economy. Of course it would be in their interest to placate their people whichever way they can. Here is Turkey designating Eastern Turkestan’s (aka Xinjiang’s) Islamic movement as terrorists as recently as 2017 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDhxU4gwfzs. (Also, considering how Turkey is treating Kurdish minorities within its own borders, they are hardly a moral authority.)
As for Amnesty International and HRW, many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA. There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2]. This following paragraph provides a good summary of the criticism:
>In May 2014 an open letter was published criticising Human Rights Watch for what were described as its close ties to the government of the United States. The letter was signed by Nobel Peace Laureates Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Mairead Corrigan, former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans von Sponeck, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Richard A. Falk, and over 100 scholars and cultural figures. The letter highlighted a number of Human Rights Watch officials who had been involved in foreign policy roles in the US government, including Washington advocacy director Tom Malinowski, formerly a speechwriter for Madeleine Albright and a special adviser to Bill Clinton, and subsequently Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor to John Kerry, and HRW Americas advisory committee members Myles Frechette (a former United States Ambassador to Colombia) and Michael Shifter (former Latin America director for the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy). The letter contrasted HRW's criticism of Venezuela's candidacy for the United Nations Human Rights Council in a letter to Hugo Chávez to the lack of censure regarding the United States' tenure as a member of the Council, despite the US government's use of a "kill list" for designated enemies, ongoing usage of extraordinary renditions and the continued detention of combatants at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The signatories called on Human Rights Watch to ban those involved in formulat...
>I'm sorry that you feel overwhelmed by my arguments, but I have yet to see any evidence denying the accuracy of what I am saying, just appeals to emotion and the parroting of mainstream media headlines. You are free to disengage at any time. I will interpret the fact that you are accusing me of Gish Galloping and disengaging as a sign of both the accuracy and strength of my arguments.
I think that you should rethink this whole lone voice crying out in the wilderness/I unilaterally accept your concession thing.
Here's an example of what I mean by Gish Galloping. Pay close attention to the "without regard for accuracy of the arguments" part of the definition.
>As for Amnesty International and HRW, many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA. There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2].
You throw out a 3 claims in 2 sentences, and give citations that seem like they support those assertions. Yet when you go to link #2 the first sentence is "In 2005, Amnesty International claimed that the United States was a human rights offender." Sure there are allegations of bias, so you didn't technically lie, but there are more allegations of bias against the US than towards it.
No one could read that article as supporting your stance that Amnesty International is biased towards the US, but you didn't care about whether the source actually supports your argument. You're trying to fill your post with so many partially true assertions that I don't have the time or inclination to fact check all of them.
Then you make a very vague claim that "many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia". This is a meaningless statement that can't be disproved because it's too nebulous.
And here
>That is not remotely an equivalent argument. The definition of systemic injustice is injustice which arises from from a system or structure of power such as a government or nation state. It implies that the institutions of society are the genesis of the injustice. There is no proof of systemic injustice at the scale of three million Uighers being detained and put into concentration camps due to their ethnicity. There might be proof of individuals within the system abusing their powers of authority.
Your definition of systemic injustice is obtusely literal. Systemic injustice doesn't only come from the top down. A series of individual acts can create systemic injustice despite no official group policy. In fact most of what is referred to as systemic injustice is just that, a collection of individual acts that create an injustice despite there being no official political intent to do so.
There isn't really much point in you continuing to use debate tactics like this, we're deep enough in the weeds that it's just you and me. No reason to deny farting in an elevator with only 2 passengers.
> I think that you should rethink this whole lone voice crying out in the wilderness/I unilaterally accept your concession thing.
It’s true though, isn’t it? You’ve accused me of Gish Galloping when I’ve done no such thing. If you feel overwhelmed and cannot respond to my very cogent arguments, then you are free to disengage.
> Here's an example of what I mean by Gish Galloping. Pay close attention to the "without regard for accuracy of the arguments" part of the definition.
>You throw out a 3 claims in 2 sentences, and give citations that seem like they support those assertions. Yet when you go to link #2 the first sentence is "In 2005, Amnesty International claimed that the United States was a human rights offender."
You can google any one of those assertions. Those are three easily verifiable and widely known facts. Just three. Just because you have no knowledge of those facts does not make my point “Gish Galloping”.
>Sure there are allegations of bias, so you didn't technically lie, but there are more allegations of bias against the US than towards it.
Again. “You didn’t technically lie”. So what are you accusing me of doing then, lying in some other manner? I’ve simply stated that there is precedence of bias. Some of those biases include bias in favour of the US. These are my exact words: “There has been precedence of bias in both organizations”.
>No one could read that article as supporting your stance that Amnesty International is biased towards the US, but you didn't care about whether the source actually supports your argument.
Again with the arguing against straw-men. Show me the part where I say Amnesty International is biased towards the US. I simply state that there is precedence of bias, and my source [2] clearly demonstrates this. The purpose of that reference was that these are not organizations which are 100%, indisputably neutral and without bias. It's unproductive to put words in my mouth only to argue against them.
> You're trying to fill your post with so many partially true assertions that I don't have the time or inclination to fact check all of them.
I’ve systematically went through each and every one of your points and refuted them, with citations. You’ve appealed to emotion and recycled your headline assertions which I then had to further refute. You’ve provided no count-evidence and no citations. You can’t be bothered to check citations which you find dubious -why are you still engaged in this conversation?
>Then you make a very vague claim that "many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia". This is a meaningless statement that can't be disproved because it's too nebulous.
Fact: Both Amnesty International and HRW quote information from Radio Free Asia
Fact: Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA
It’s literally a 2 second google away. You’ll find RFA referenced everywhere in their articles concerning Xinjiang. I’ve provided references; laziness to verify my references does not make my statement “nebulous”.
>Again with the arguing against straw-men. Show me the part where I say Amnesty International is biased towards the US. I simply state that there is precedence of bias, and my source [2] clearly demonstrates this. The purpose of that reference was that these are not organizations which are 100%, indisputably neutral and without bias. It's unproductive to put words in my mouth only to argue against them.
What I'm going to say is going to sound like hyperbole, but I'm 100% serious.
I've been on HN since 2011. This is without a doubt the single worst argument I have ever seen.
We can't trust Amnesty international not to toe the US party line on China...because the US government thinks they're biased against the US government.
>We can't trust Amnesty international not to toe the US party line on China...because the US government thinks they're biased against the US government.
>I've been on HN since 2011. This is without a doubt the single worst argument I have ever seen.
Well yes, that is a pretty bad argument. I wonder who would claim such a thing? I certainly never have.
Anyway, this is not a very substantive post and it feels as though you’re just struggling to get the last word now.
I’m going to copy and paste my previous comment because everything I’ve said still applies here and you have still failed to address it:
> Again with the arguing against straw-men. Show me the part where I say Amnesty International is biased towards the US. I simply state that there is precedence of bias, and my source [2] clearly demonstrates this. The purpose of that reference was that these are not organizations which are 100%, indisputably neutral and without bias. It's unproductive to put words in my mouth only to argue against them.
If you require further clarification to aid in your comprehension, I will do my best to break it down for you.
> r/iamverysmart is that way.
I like how you came back 15 minutes later to add this line. That was a great comeback. I liked it, why delete it?
So your point is that we shouldn't trust Amnesty International because they aren't 100% indisputably neutral.
And as evidence that they don't meet that standard, you've pointed out that countries that they've criticised don't agree with that criticism.
I don't think that's what you meant because it's too stupid to comprehend. I think you were trying discredit Amnesty International, but you lacked the evidence, so you tried to tie them to the accusations against HRW.
You put a statement that Amnesty International and HRW are biased in the middle of a paragraph associating Amnesty International and HRW with the CIA, followed by a quote accusing HRW of pro US bias.
It's another well known shitty debate tactic.
"Bob and Jane are involved with conflict diamonds."
Then you provide a quote that shows Bob is a diamond smuggler and a link with more supporting evidence. Followed by a link that shows Jane investigates diamond smugglers.
You hope that no one will read the link, but if they do and they call you on it, you whine about how you weren't actually lying. Jane is involved with conflict diamonds. You never explicitly said she was a smuggler.
If feel like you're projecting with your comments about needing to get the last word btw.
You’re attempting to double down on your one Amnesty International point because I’ve proven you wrong on the 100 other unsubstantiated arguments you’ve to put forth and were subsequently unable to defend. I suppose it’s because this is the only one you think you’ve found some leverage on but again, you are wrong.
I’ll ask you again for the third time, show me the part where I accuse Amnesty of bias in favour only of the US.
Let’s say you’ve misinterpreted what I’ve said and then I proceed to clarify it. Is it honest of you or productive to continue arguing on the basis of your original misinterpretation? I’ve asked you many such questions in previous comments pointing out logical inconsistencies such as this and you’ve failed to respond to any of them, so I expect more of the same here.
The fact is, your interpretation of what I’ve said is not what I’ve said does not represent reality.
This is what I’ve said:
>As for Amnesty International and HRW, many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA. There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2]
Claims:
Amnesty International has sources affiliated with Radio Free Asia: True
Human Rights Watch has sources affiliated with Radio Free Asia: True
Radio Free Asia is funded by the US government and has roots in the CIA: True
There has been precedence of bias in both organizations: True
Fact: Both articles I’ve linked show that there has been precedence of bias both for and against the US. Maybe you got upset that I pulled an example of bias in favour of the US from the HRW article which caused you to conflate with bias in favour of the US from the AI article. In the end, it really doesn’t matter. It’s simply desperate nitpicking because both articles show precedence of bias both for and against the US: exactly what I’ve said.
From the article [2]:
>Criticism of Amnesty International (AI) includes claims of selection bias, as well as ideology and foreign policy bias against either non-Western countries or Western-supported countries. Governments that have criticised AI include those of Israel,[1][2] the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[3] China,[4] Vietnam,[5] Russia,[6] and the United States,[7]”
You accuse me of trying to discredit Amnesty. No. Both AI and HRW do good work, but they are not the infallible arbiters of truth that you presented them to be.
To make my point crystal clear, if I wanted to say “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are biased in favour of the US”, that would have been just as much effort as writing “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both have a precedence of bias”. No matter how much you wish I did, I didn’t write the former. Why? Because words matter and I chose deliberate words to express what I intended to say. You tunnel vision on your one point and insist on debating against self-erected straw-men over and over again because you have no other valid talking points.
> If feel like you're projecting with your comments about needing to get the last word btw.
No, because clearly your posts have been low in effort, stooping to name calling, accusations of lying, Gish Galloping, arguments from fallacy and claims that you "don't have the time or inclination to fact check all of them". You’ve contributed nothing substantive to the conversation for many comments now, instead choosing to nitpick with weak ‘gotchas’. This is in contrast to my posts which are still arguing the main topic of discussion and providing facts and citations. All of these are signs that you are unable to carry on the debate, and yet you are still here. Therefore, it’s only reasonable to assume that you are trying to get the last word.
>There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2]. This following paragraph provides a good summary of the criticism:
>In May 2014 an open letter was published criticising Human Rights Watch for what were described as its close ties to the government of the United States...
You directly called the paragraph that accuses HRW of "close ties to the government of the United States" a good summary of the criticism. You said "the criticism". Not "criticism of Human rights watch and not Amnesty International".
Every reasonable person will assume on first reading that you meant Amnesty International has also been accused of pro US bias.
The strongest reading of your argument is that you intended to say Amnesty International is biased towards the US but couldn't support your claim with evidence because all evidence points to the contrary. The alternate reading is that you somehow think that criticism by countries that they have accused of human rights abuses somehow makes them less credible because they don't meet the literally unattainable standard of being "100%, indisputably neutral", and I don't think you are that stupid. The source isn't "100%, indisputably neutral" is a tautology.
7 countries, including the US, that have been accused of human rights violations by Amnesty International dispute those accusations. That in no way negatively impacts their credibility with respect to them pushing a story that you believe is US propaganda. Yet for the current explanation of your argument to hold, you must believe that it does.
Please don't do this on HN. Tedious tit-for-tats that neither party can let go of don't gratify intellectual curiosity, nor is this a site for political battle.
I've noticed that after reading my post, you've changed the following sentence:
>That's not at all what systemic injustice means. You're just throwing out assertions that kind of sound like they might be right.
to
>Your definition of systemic injustice is obtusely literal. Systemic injustice doesn't only come from the top down. A series of individual acts can create systemic injustice despite no official group policy.
The complaint has now shifted to the fact that I'm using a literal definition. If we aren't to use the literal definition of systemic injustice, then what are we to use? Your own personal definition?
> In fact most of what is referred to as systemic injustice is just that, a collection of individual acts that create an injustice despite there being no official political intent to do so.
This is false. No one refers to systemic injustice as just groups of individuals doing bad things that results in injustice.
You said:
[...] the Urumqi riots began because a false rumour about the rape of two Uighur women in a Han Chinese factory spread on WeChat [...]
First, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaoguan_incident), the Shaoguan incident [...] was sparked by allegations of sexual assault on Han women by Uyghurs
and
[...] and rumours of an incident in which two female Han workers were sexually assaulted by six Uyghur co-workers [...]
Second, basic research makes me believe WeChat was released only in january 2011 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat). How could it be used in 2009 ?
I made this account just to reply to you, because as of now, I sincerely think you are either uninformed or lying.
> I made this account just to reply to you, because as of now, I sincerely think you are either uninformed or lying.
Gee, you sure got me there. Ok, so let's say you mercifully bestow upon me the benefit of the doubt that I did not remember the exact details of the incident.
How does that change the thrust of the argument?
The argument was the reason for mass surveillance and communication controls in the region is that social media was deliberately used to exaggerate facts and foment outrage, leading to the butchering of 200 innocent Han Chinese in the street and the injury of thousands more. How does your first point contradict that argument?
To your second point, once again. That detail is literally inconsequential. Substitute WeChat for [whatever social media platform they were using at the time to circulate videos]. I ask again, what exactly does that change?
I am not defensive of the status quo in China. I'm simply presenting an alternative viewpoint to the recent, ongoing anti-China media/social-media blitz campaign.
Sorry, but I will not provide more information about myself than I have to. It doesn't matter anyhow since I will be accused of being a CCP shill 50c poster anyway.
Apologies, I didn't mean to offend, I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from. Can you help me understand what makes the reports on the Chinese government's detention of Muslims propaganda rather than news?
It's my understanding that the Chinese government has acknowledged and even run television commercials, such as this one[1] about the camps. Chinese officials have also made several comments to Chinese newspapers about the existence of the camps[2, 3] and have commented that the purpose of those camps is "reeducation" and to "reform extremism" through labor. The comments also note the purpose of the camps is to prevent terrorism and "separatists" by forcing them to speak the language of the "homeland" which seems to indicate the camps are predominantly intended for Muslims.
Satellite images[4] of the camps indicate the rapid growth of the facilities and the existence of watch towers, redundant high walls, and barbed wire would least most reasonable people to agree these facilities are built to house people against their will. The Chinese government has also acknowledged as much. For example, the Government has repeatedly pointed to the "Opinions on Several Issues on the Application of Law in Cases of Terrorist Activities and Extremism Crimes"[5] as the legal justification for the imprisonment of "terrorist extremists." However one of the "extremist" activities that can be used to imprison someone is "inciting" people to hold a religious marriage ceremony. The document also allows for "administrative punishment" without a trial or conviction.
One analysis of arrests (using data reported by the Chinese government) showed 21% of all 2017 arrests in the country were in the Muslim region of Xinjiang.[6] Given the region accounts for only 1.5% of the total population of China the arrests of ethnic Muslims seems disproportionately high.
We admittedly don't have exact data on the number of people imprisoned against their will but people have been able to estimate given the number and size of facilities built and by using job postings/factory information available online.
Even if we only looked at the evidence provided by the Chinese government we can objectively conclude that:
(a) These labor camps exist;
(b) These camps detain people without a trial or conviction;
(c) The primary purpose of these camps is to "reform" ethnic Muslims living in the Xinjiang region; and
(d) At *least* 500,000 people from the region have been sent to these camps.
Given that the source of all of the information I've outlined above is the Chinese government can you be more specific about the "objective, conclusive evidence" you'd need to consider the information reliable?
>It's my understanding that the Chinese government has acknowledged and even run television commercials, such as this one[1] about the camps. Chinese officials have also made several comments to Chinese newspapers about the existence of the camps[2, 3] and have commented that the purpose of those camps is "reeducation" and to "reform extremism" through labor. The comments also note the purpose of the camps is to prevent terrorism and "separatists" by forcing them to speak the language of the "homeland" which seems to indicate the camps are predominantly intended for Muslims.
You seem to be under the false impression that I have denied the existence of the camps. I don’t, and nowhere have I done so. I dispute the scale and characterization of the camps. Namely: millions detained, hard labor, torture, organ harvesting. I have yet to see any objective evidence proving any of these allegations.
>Satellite images[4] of the camps indicate the rapid growth of the facilities and the existence of watch towers, redundant high walls, and barbed wire would least most reasonable people to agree these facilities are built to house people against their will.
Ok, so you have now proven that the Chinese government is building a detention facility at best, at worst a prison/concentration camp. Do they have the right to build prisons? Do they have the right to build prisons to house extremists and/or terrorists? We don’t know anything about who they are housing there or why amongst a multitude of other unknown variables. Also, prisons are indeed generally built to house people against their will.
>The Chinese government has also acknowledged as much. For example, the Government has repeatedly pointed to the "Opinions on Several Issues on the Application of Law in Cases of Terrorist Activities and Extremism Crimes"[5] as the legal justification for the imprisonment of "terrorist extremists." However one of the "extremist" activities that can be used to imprison someone is "inciting" people to hold a religious marriage ceremony. The document also allows for "administrative punishment" without a trial or conviction.
The context of that line precedes it (“using extremism to”), and the line is actually more nuanced than that. It mentions the word “masses”.
(5) Using extremism to commit any of the following conduct, is to be convicted and punished in accordance with Criminal Law article 120-4 as the crime of exploiting extremism to undermine the law:
1．Inciting or coercing the masses to hold religious ceremonies in place of marriage or divorce registration, or interfering with marital freedom;
In other words, one cannot force masses of people to hold religious ceremonies against their will, in lieu of official marriage registration. It also says interfering with marital freedom, for example things like arranged child marriages, are illegal. Stopping someone from marrying out of race or out of religion in the name of your religion would be also illegal. These scenarios are quite common and accepted in certain religions and are contrary to the CCP’s long-term goals of population integration (whether this is right or wrong is another argument). Yes, the term extremism is loosely defined and has been used and abused by many countries in recent history to justify certain actions. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, etc, etc.
> One analysis of arrests (using data reported by the Chinese government) showed 21% of all 2017 arrests in the country were in the Muslim region of Xinjiang.[6] Given the region accounts for only 1.5% of the total population of China the arrests of ethnic Muslims seems disproportionately high.
CHRD is headquartered in Washington D.C so you’ll excuse me if I have some doubts. Aside from that, from your [6] citation you’ve linked:
“According to Chinese government data, criminal arrests in Xinjiang accounted for an al...
In a climate where people are accusing others left and right of being shills and foreign agents, this comment crosses the line into personal attack. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like that here.
Edit: I saw your clarification downthread and believe you, but it's still bad to post like this. Most of the time, such comments don't have a benign meaning at all. If you're going to wade into such territory, the burden of proof is unfortunately on you to demonstrate good intent. (By "you" of course, I mean not you personally, but any of us.)
One, you should provide citations for the numbers specified in your claims, otherwise they are an ad absurdum argument.
And two, maybe the number did increase? It's been reported by multiple sources in multiple countries, and been addressed by the UN (see my previous comment with sources), I don't know what other burden of support you could logically need.
I keep seeing this and I ask at what point do we start shaming Chinese nationalists? I mean I would not walk down the street with a Nazi supporter at what point do we as humans say this is not right, the Chinese way is not right and I will not associate with any business or person who is Chinese. Are my thoughts misguided here? What else can an individual do to help this situation?
> I will not associate with any business or person who is Chinese.
I agree it's not right and everyone outside of China from governments all the way down to consumers ought to be doing more but I think we need to be careful with statements like the one above. The Chinese government is committing atrocities. Some Chinese citizens and companies are surely complicit but I don't think it's fair to judge an entire nationality based on the actions of those in power. I'm certain there are quite a lot of Chinese who disagree with what's happening but understandably cannot voice their opinion on the matter.
I wanted to clear up that I don’t actually think we should not associate with the Chinese I just more am thinking at some point it fell out of favour to be a nazi. You would not want to be associated with that. At what point will this happen wiTh the Chinese. And I fully understand that most people have very little control of how China is run. The same for Nazi Germany but eventually the world got the upper hand and all of Germany was forced to change. Some Nazi’s persist today but they are not strong because people will literally attack you.
You have the right to walk or not walk with whoever you want and associate with or not associate with whichever race you choose.
What makes you feel the need to have your thoughts publicly vindicated?
> I keep seeing this and I ask at what point do we start shaming Chinese nationalists
> the Chinese way is not right and I will not associate with any business or person who is Chinese
From this statement it seems as though you're trying to generate some kind of grass-roots support for that line of thinking? If that's the case, there are already well established communities for that, such as stormfront.
I am actually not trying to generate any grass roots support for anything. 2 days ago I saw a reddit post of a guy in New York dressed as a Nazi and the public attacked him and threw eggs at him until he ran off. I do not condone violence and it is the exact opposite of the world I want to live in. But at what point is the line crossed where our moral consciousness says I can no longer stand idle and I will not be associated with anyone from China. The German people endured this after the war. Just being from Germany was the only association needed to bring on dislike. Germany has worked extremely hard to move away from that stigma. Doing a Nazi salute in Germany today will get you charged. I don’t blame all the Germans for what happened in the past either but when the whole world was angry and hated them I also think it was justified. They earned their respect back over the years. I also am fully aware China is an oppressed country and most citizens are simply trying to survive in a rigged system. But perhaps it is time we pressure our businesses and the like who do deal with China and ask they refrain from doing business there. Of course money talks and this will likely never happen but out of favour fell Nazism perhaps to we can put enough shame on China to reconsider its ways.
> I will not associate with any business or person who is Chinese. Are my thoughts misguided here?
Yes, that's deeply misguided and, worse, totally unacceptable in HN comments. Conflating Chinese people with Nazis is beyond the pale, just as it would be for any nation.
Imagine what it would be like for someone with a background from China to be browsing HN and run across a statement like that. At least a minimal ability to put yourself in the other person's position is a prerequisite for participating in the community here.
I don't know what we can do to prevent HN from sliding into the hell of nationalistic flamewar. The problem is getting noticeably worse and it's deeply dismaying.
> I don't know what we can do to prevent HN from sliding into the hell of nationalistic flamewar. The problem is getting noticeably worse and it's deeply dismaying.
dang: its not an easy task for sure, and I agree it's deeply dismaying.
Politics, unlike FPGAs or software architecture, is something that anyone can have an opinion on. There is no barrier to entry and thus anyone and everyone who has ever consumed a news clip is free to participate with their strong opinions. Expertise is just a wikipedia article away. In the heat of the debate, there are often flashes of vitriol (i.e - some of my comments in this thread are needlessly provocative). Mainstream media headlines seem deliberately designed to illicit exactly the kind of nationalistic flamewar you describe.
In my estimation, China appears to be the current topic that people feel the most strongly about. Everyone desires a clearly defined ‘evil’ thing to rally against. I’m not sure what the solution is. Topics on politics+China cannot be banned as the website would immediately be accused of censorship and mollification due to conflicting interests (i.e YC China).
But if people are to discuss and debate contentious topics, they should do so in an informed and good faith manner - something which can only be manually enforced by mods. The current status quo of manual moderation and the flagging system seems to be working ok, but may be a constant and growing burden for mods to constantly educate, warn and ban users for inappropriate comments.
Maybe there could be an automated pre-warning pinned to the top of heavily flagged topics? I’ve seen it done on Reddit (for example [1]) to decent effect: a gentle reminder of the posting guidelines localized at the scene of, and tailored to the specific topic (since certain topics tend to draw in certain types of comments time and time again). It might allow users the opportunity to think twice about what they are about to post.
If you don't like the author. Ignore him. Here's a quote from the US Secretary of State:
"We watch the massive human rights violations in Xinjiang where over a million people are being held in a humanitarian crisis that is the scale of what took place in the 1930s. And we see American businesses and their technology being used to help facilitate that activity from the Chinese government. It’s something worthy of thinking about."
I don't know this guy specifically, but it's been reported by other sources. This is a real thing that's happening.
I find the general Chinese apologism on this site strange. Even if it were 13k why would it not be an issue that China is placing people in concentration camps? Not even to get into the argument about the reliability of the 13k number because that's just laughable given literally every source that isn't China's government disagrees with that.
There is not "general Chinese apologism" on HN. What there is, is divisiveness on China-related topics that is growing for social, geopolitical, and media reasons completely beyond the scope of this site. Moreover, the population on HN is majority Western (50% US, 30% Europe, 7% Australia/Canada, if I remember correctly), so views here are skewed in rather the opposite direction to what you suggest.
HN users don't have to hold any particular views on these topics but they absolutely have to treat each other respectfully, including by not calling names (such as "Chinese apologism"), and nationalistic flamewar is not permitted.
Even if the population follows that distribution it doesn't mean the comments follow a homogonous reflection of the dominant opinion of the population.
I apologize if the apologism comment went too far. It is my perception in reading HN comments, and is not meant to be a normative view of the facts, and especially not meant to be nationalist comment.
You also did not add anything to the discussion by trying to call me out as "disrespectful." This just further derails the discussion. I don't know what the goal of your comment was, but to get the discussion back on track I'll just add more sources to bolster my position and let any substantive discussion follow:
74 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadUS: we need to lock these people up because (gitmo) they're terrorists, or (border) they committed a felony.
Yep - they're completely equivalent!
Scale matters. Don’t try to downplay how completely fucked up these camps are.
That's what the US government claims, as such I'd take that number with a massive grain of salt because they have a vested interest in making China out as the "worse baddie" just like with surveillance, to make itself look like "the good guys" or at least "not as bad as China guys".
> vs about 1000 at the height of gitmo
That's quite a dishonest claim because Gitmo is only ONE out of many prisons like that, it ended up getting most of the spotlight due to geographical proximity to the US. But that doesn't mean that Gitmo was, or is, the only place like that, far from it [0].
And that doesn't even account for the thousands of drone victims, all just deemed "combatants" on the virtue of being "able-bodied" and too close to the "splash" [1].
With targets selected trough quite questionable methods [2].
In that context, China can't even compare to the US if China tried to. If you want to evade becoming a victim of these Chinese methods there's a very simple solution: Don't go to China.
The same doesn't work if you end up on the crosshairs of the US, as the US is applying these methods on a global basis through the most sophisticated global surveillance network in human history.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_prison_abuse_scandals
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-o...
[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n...
They are perhaps more akin to the U.S prison system were thousands upon thousands of blacks and latinos are held, sometimes in isolation, sometimes for years, without charge. Pretty fucked up.
You could actually observe, in real-time, the ramping up of accusations and headline hysterics in sequence:
1. 50k muslims detained
2. 100k muslims detained and put into re-education camps
3. 500k muslims arrested and put into concentration camps!
4. One million muslims torn out of homes and put into concentration camps and getting their organs harvested!
5. Three million muslims torn out of homes and put into concentration camps, getting organs harvested and being brutally tortured!
It's easy to see how Americans were so readily misled about Iraq.
If the lack of proof is because the CCP is denying journalists access to Xinjiang, then how can there be any conclusive evidence?
Are they going to invade and bomb China to find the existence or non-existence of such evidence?
The burden of proof, you say, is on those doing the accusing. Well, let’s see:
We have entire Uyghur villages with markets that are now no longer active. Many of the people are mysteriously gone.
We have tons of Uyghur families with relatives gone missing or reported arrested.
We have actual buildings that are being used as prisons for these Uyghurs.
We have testimony from people who were held in these camps. They say they saw many of those they knew.
We have video from inside these camps, and it’s pretty clear people are held there against their will.
NOW HERE IS THE KICKER:
It’s not US propaganda. The Chinese government has already been accused by the following groups:
and has “defended” itself for years with an army of disinfo agents, in some cases the “defenses” are extremely limited and lame. For example Tibetan buddhists are accused of being slaveholders. Falun Dafa is public enemy #1 because they “say being gay is bad” and “lead people to do self immolation”.In reality, Falun Dafa is a peaceful religion that has long been persecuted, since 1999 when Jiang Xemin personally oversaw its destruction, including many of the same tactics, such as extrajudicial kidnappings and reeducation centers. The numbers were justas staggering.
So there are already multiple groups for 19 years that are being targeted by the CCP and we are supposed to think they are all making this up and the CCP isn’t targeting them?
It’s always the same story. Some small subgroup does some violence, or in the case of China, just merely shows some organization or protest (as Falun Dafa peacefully did against cartoons). That is enough for EVERY member of that group to now be targeted for indefinite detention, and worse.
Jews didn’t believe in the existence of Nazi concentration camps and no one could imagine a civilized country like Germany would do such a thing. Denying journalists access looks really bad.
Now to be fair, we are talking about internment and re-education camps, not concentration camps for Uyghurs. Probably something worse than what FDR did to the Japanese.
Why should the world stand by and be silent?
Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here. And please keep nationalistic flamewar far away from this site.
Sorry, but I will not provide more information about myself than I have to. It doesn't matter anyhow since I will be accused of being a CCP _shill_ 50c poster anyway.
But I am confused about nationalistic flamewar as distinct from discussing the topic of the original post. Its veracity was actively questioned by the commenter in several comments, who asked for proof. Since the welfare of large numbers of people is at stake, it’s important to make sure whether this is happening or not. I am sure it would be the same conversation whether the nation was China, India, USA, and so on. If this is indeed not happening, that is very important also. In any case I thought I was directly addressing the topic. I am personally very far from nationalistic so I want to understand better how my comment comes across.
Many vitally important topics are off topic for Hacker News. Most of them, in fact. This is a specific kind of website, for smaller, curious topics—the kind that are the first to drown in a political deluge.
Meanwhile, I don't get the sense that you want to discuss this in good faith, so I'll just end things here, but first I want to add that people who want to learn more about the Xinjiang internment camps should listen to this highly informative podcast: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/uncovering-china-s-sec...
Inside the concentration camps, they are attempting to indoctrinate the people into CCP dogma, and away from their traditional beliefs. They are also using them for slave labor.
Outside the camps, the CCP has installed suffocating surveilance systems to watch every action. They also have placed people into apartment blocks to watch their neighbors, installing card readers in the homes of people being watched that the watchers must swipe a card in to prove that they're being diligent.
The only hysteria I see is in your post.
In this particular situation, the context was 200 Han Chinese being ethnically cleansed in Xinjiang, dragged out of buses and cars and executed on the street while coming home from work, with 2000 more injured.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_rio...
There are videos of this readily available.
It'd be like if hundreds of white people were butchered by thousands of anonymous black people for the sole reason of being white in Detroit. What would be the appropriate government response to such an event? Mass incarceration? I mean, in such a context, can "re-education" camps not be viewed as a relatively mild response? This is not to say that it's an ideal response, but certainly it's not the worst an authoritative government could have done.
In response to your point about surveillance, the Urumqi riots began because a false rumour about the rape of two Uighur women in a Han Chinese factory spread on WeChat, fuelling hate, outrage and unrest. Because this is how things work in an uneducated population. Just look up the number of lynchings, burnings and stonings in rural Indian villages based off of false rumours spread on social media.
This is not the same country as your country, these are not the same people as your people. China is a developing nation with an uneducated but heavily interconnected population, a combination heavily conducive to destabilization from both internal and external actors. For this reason, their government will not hesitate to stamp out, censor, surveil whatever it is they need to in order to preserve stability. You can't judge China by the same standards as modern, highly educated western democracies - any attempt to do so is simply naive and misguided.
You have also presented a completely one sided version of the events that led up the current situation.
Ask yourself what is more likely:
1. The government of China is rounding up millions upon millions of Uighurs in hard labor camps, harvesting their organs and working them to death.
or
2. The government of China is trying to contain further unrest after what happened during the Urumqi riots by subjecting thousands of people to re-education, where they sit for hours each day reading and listening to government propaganda.
Do you really think any member of the CCP would find scenario #1 would be in China's best interest, especially given China's increasing exposure on the world stage? Any great defender of freedom and democracy in the world would salivate at the thought of scenario #1 as it would give them every excuse they could possibly need to "liberate" such an oppressed peoples.
If you don't want people to say you're putting people in concentration camps, perhaps you shouldn't remove millions of people of a specific ethnicity from their homes in order to lock them up in a camp for an indefinite amount of time.
Uighurs have been clashing with the Chinese government for over a century. The government is just attempting to cement their grip on Xinjiang by wiping out Uighur identity to remove a rebellious element. Concentration camps rarely start out as death camps. When governments realize that the only real way to remove an ethnicity is to kill them, that's when they turn into extermination camps. The only real hope we have to prevent this, is to convince the Chinese government that the bad press isn't worth it.
>#1 as it would give them every excuse they could possibly need to "liberate" such an oppressed peoples.
There is no realistic scenario that leads to military intervention within the borders of a country with nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'm not sure what other interpretation there is. As I said before, Andrew Jackson had similar justifications when he ordered the removal of Native Americans. It was wrong then despite the fact that America wasn't a modern democracy at the time (since most people lacked the right to vote).
And FDR had similar justifications when he rounded up Japanese Americans. That was wrong as well.
I'm not sure why it's so hard to reach a consensus that ethnic concentration camps should be universally condemned without devolving into a nationalistic flame war about who committed the worst atrocities.
>"You can't judge China by the same standards as modern, highly educated western democracies"
was one of mass surveillance and the social media crackdown and absolutely does not pertain to any camps of any kind.
You are once again not responding to the strongest plausible interpretation of what I have said, instead choosing to argue against a straw-man and then repeating your point about how Andrew Jackson carried out genocide.
Do you see the problem?
So to be clear you unambiguously condemn the Chinese government for their role in operating ethnic internment camps, and while you disagree with the specifics, you agree that they are operating ethnic internment camps?
Also you don't think it's wrong to judge the Chinese government for doing this?
No. I don't unambiguously condemn the Chinese government for their role in operating ethnic internment camps because it is not at all unambiguous that this is what they are doing. Why should I?
What they are doing and what they are trying to accomplish is operating extremist "re-education" camps due to the many terrorist incidents in the region [1] including the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of Han Chinese (which, by the way, is never mentioned anywhere to contextualize the CCP's actions, nor is it condemned). I don't dispute that many people put there are indeed of ethnic Uighur in origin but their ideology is of primary concern, not their ethnicity. I do believe there is such a thing as "wrong-think" when it comes to extremist ideology. I don't dispute that many of them are likely innocent of harbouring extremist ideology and placed there against their will -I will always condemn the detainment of innocents.
>Also you don't think it's wrong to judge the Chinese government for doing this?
Before rushing to grab the pitchforks, let's pause for a second to consider two facts:
1. There were numerous religion-fuelled [2] terrorist incidents in the region (machete attacks, car bombs, plane hijackings, etc).
2. There were episodes of ethnic cleansing resulting in mass civilian casualties in the region, carried out by thousands of anonymous, unidentifiable ethnic minorities against Han Chinese (we know this because all the casualties were Han Chinese). Only a tiny fraction of those involved were ever held responsible for their actions and prosecuted.
What would be the appropriate way to handle the situation to prevent further loss of life and regional destabilization? Would you invite international condemnation and sanctions by placing millions of ethnic minorities into concentration camps, tearing them from their families in order to torture or work them to death? If it's obvious to any layman that this would only incite more international scrutiny, more terrorism, and more destabilization, don't you think it would be obvious to the policy planners in charge as well?
Contrary to common knowledge, China has dozens of culturally diverse, minority ethnic groups. Their cultures are often promoted and showcased as a matter of national pride. Almost none of them clash with the CCP, and tourism is in fact encouraged in those poorer, rural areas to help subsidize the locals' incomes. What could the CCP possibly hope to achieve by specifically targeting and crushing Uighur culture for the sole purpose of doing so?
The CCP, pragmatic as only an authoritarian, technocracy can be, opted for forceful "re-education" and augmented surveillance in order to prevent further terrorist events and to stamp out religious extremism. Is that really so hard to believe?
You may condemn the inevitable abuses carried out by individuals with authority within these camps, which occurs not as a matter of official policy but as a matter of human nature. You may condemn the CCP for being hard-handed in their response to domestic terrorism. You may condemn the inevitable but incidental detention of innocents which will result from such actions. You may not condemn the CCP based on unsubstantiated, editorialized headlines designed by the mainstream media to advance a political narrative.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_... [2] "We have to conquer our own country and purify it of all infidels. Then, we should conquer the infidels' countries and spread Islam. The infidels who are usurping our countries have announced war against Islam and Muslims, forci...
You refuse to condemn this, and you've provided justification for why they are necessary.
My original interpretation of your comment that was therefore correct with that caveat that you take issue with the term "concentration camp".
>You may condemn the inevitable abuses carried out by individuals with authority within these camps, which occurs not as a matter of official policy but as a matter of human nature
When there are systemic injustices it is appropriate to condemn the system. The vast majority of racial injustice in the US isn't a matter of official policy either, yet it's absurd that you would refuse to condemn the Justice system for the end result.
>editorialized headlines designed by the mainstream media to advance a political narrative.
Many non media groups have made similar allegations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Government of Turkey, and The US State Department. This isn't a media conspiracy theory.
Amnesty international interviewed over a hundred people who claim that their relatives are missing. They interviewed people who claimed to have been tortured in the camps. To me, that alone is enough evidence for the world to demand answers.
>You refuse to condemn this, and you've provided justification for why they are necessary. My original interpretation of your comment that was therefore correct with that caveat that you take issue with the term "concentration camp".
First of all, why is my personal condemnation so important to you? I will not be coerced into making statements for the satisfaction of others, as I think it’s a disingenuous form of argument. It would be like me asking you to condemn the ethnic cleansing of Han Chinese by Uighers during the Urumqi riots -why should I need that condemnation from you and why should you need to vindicate yourself for me? I have already stated that I will always condemn the detainment of innocents. There should be enough information there for you to extrapolate what I do and do not condemn.
Secondly, in all of my comments, I have never denied that the Chinese government is operating ideological re-education camps. I have disputed accusations that they are primarily operate as ethnic concentration camps. I have also disputed the purpose, the scale, and the characterization of the camps. There is zero evidence that they “happen to contain almost exclusively Uighur people”, though I personally believe that many of them are, given the nature of the terrorist incidents in the region.
> My original interpretation of your comment that was therefore correct with that caveat that you take issue with the term "concentration camp".
This is your original interpretation of my comment:
>The strongest possible interpretation of "You can't judge China by the same standards as modern, highly educated western democracies" is that it's wrong to judge China for locking up more than a million people of a specific ethnicity in concentration camps.
Your original interpretation of my comment is still completely incorrect because I have never made the statement “it's wrong to judge China for locking up more than a million people of a specific ethnicity in concentration camps”. You keep trying to make it seem as though I’ve said this, but you can’t, because I didn’t.
>When there are systemic injustices it is appropriate to condemn the system.
Where is your proof that there are systematic injustices? Provide proof that three million Uigher Muslims have been put into concentration camps because of their ethnicity as an official policy of the CCP. Provide proof that they are being tortured and forced into hard labour as an official policy of the CCP. We’re not talking about the kind of proof that arises from “journalists” who have never set foot in the region. We’re not talking about the kind of proof that arises from satellite images either (not sure if you still remember all the satellite images of Saddam’s WMD facilities). If you believe that putting several thousand people into “re-education” camps against their will because of possible extremist ideology is an injustice, then you are free to condemn that if you wish.
> The vast majority of racial injustice in the US isn't a matter of official policy either, yet it's absurd that you would refuse to condemn the Justice system for the end result.
Why on earth would that be absurd? This argument makes no sense to me. If the US justice system worked 100% correctly the way it was intended to work, there would not be any racial injustices, correct? So why would it make sense to blame the US justice system for abuses that arose organically, despite what is written in law?
Arresting someone because of their skin colour is illegal according to US law. By your logic, the fact that individual police officers choose to racially profile people anyway should be blamed on the law? That’s simply not logical. Why would it be absurd to refuse to conde...
This is completely insane. The equivalent argument is that there is no systemic racial injustice in the United States because the constitution officially requires equal treatment under the law.
>Without adequate proof, these allegations are no different and no better than a politically motivated conspiracy theory.
>It's enough evidence for the world to demand answers but it's not enough evidence for the wholesale indictment that's going on right now.
It's either an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory which of course requires no response, or enough evidence for the world to demand answers. It can't be both.
>a politically motivated conspiracy theory
For that to be true, the Trump administration, The government of Turkey, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and dozens of mainstream media outlets from dozens of countries would need to be working together.
Also are you familiar with the term Gish gallop, because that's what you're doing with this thread.
That is not remotely an equivalent argument. The definition of systemic injustice is injustice which arises from from a system or structure of power such as a government or nation state. It implies that the institutions of society are the genesis of the injustice. There is no proof of systemic injustice at the scale of three million Uighers being detained and put into concentration camps due to their ethnicity. There might be proof of individuals within the system abusing their powers of authority.
>It's either an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory which of course requires no response, or enough evidence for the world to demand answers. It can't be both.
Conspiracy theory was your word -I would have chosen something more like “propaganda campaign of exaggerated facts”. Nonetheless, I disagree with the premise of your statement that it can’t be both. Conspiracy theories or propaganda campaigns do not preclude the asking of further questions.
>For that to be true, the Trump administration, The government of Turkey, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and dozens of mainstream media outlets from dozens of countries would need to be working together.
As I’ve said before, the Trump administration has no credibility whatsoever either in domestic or foreign policy. Nonetheless, the US still recognizes the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization. Turkey is currently undergoing social unrest due to hyperinflation and a failing economy. Of course it would be in their interest to placate their people whichever way they can. Here is Turkey designating Eastern Turkestan’s (aka Xinjiang’s) Islamic movement as terrorists as recently as 2017 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDhxU4gwfzs. (Also, considering how Turkey is treating Kurdish minorities within its own borders, they are hardly a moral authority.)
As for Amnesty International and HRW, many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA. There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2]. This following paragraph provides a good summary of the criticism:
>In May 2014 an open letter was published criticising Human Rights Watch for what were described as its close ties to the government of the United States. The letter was signed by Nobel Peace Laureates Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Mairead Corrigan, former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans von Sponeck, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Richard A. Falk, and over 100 scholars and cultural figures. The letter highlighted a number of Human Rights Watch officials who had been involved in foreign policy roles in the US government, including Washington advocacy director Tom Malinowski, formerly a speechwriter for Madeleine Albright and a special adviser to Bill Clinton, and subsequently Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor to John Kerry, and HRW Americas advisory committee members Myles Frechette (a former United States Ambassador to Colombia) and Michael Shifter (former Latin America director for the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy). The letter contrasted HRW's criticism of Venezuela's candidacy for the United Nations Human Rights Council in a letter to Hugo Chávez to the lack of censure regarding the United States' tenure as a member of the Council, despite the US government's use of a "kill list" for designated enemies, ongoing usage of extraordinary renditions and the continued detention of combatants at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The signatories called on Human Rights Watch to ban those involved in formulat...
I think that you should rethink this whole lone voice crying out in the wilderness/I unilaterally accept your concession thing.
Here's an example of what I mean by Gish Galloping. Pay close attention to the "without regard for accuracy of the arguments" part of the definition.
>As for Amnesty International and HRW, many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA. There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2].
You throw out a 3 claims in 2 sentences, and give citations that seem like they support those assertions. Yet when you go to link #2 the first sentence is "In 2005, Amnesty International claimed that the United States was a human rights offender." Sure there are allegations of bias, so you didn't technically lie, but there are more allegations of bias against the US than towards it.
No one could read that article as supporting your stance that Amnesty International is biased towards the US, but you didn't care about whether the source actually supports your argument. You're trying to fill your post with so many partially true assertions that I don't have the time or inclination to fact check all of them.
Then you make a very vague claim that "many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia". This is a meaningless statement that can't be disproved because it's too nebulous.
And here
>That is not remotely an equivalent argument. The definition of systemic injustice is injustice which arises from from a system or structure of power such as a government or nation state. It implies that the institutions of society are the genesis of the injustice. There is no proof of systemic injustice at the scale of three million Uighers being detained and put into concentration camps due to their ethnicity. There might be proof of individuals within the system abusing their powers of authority.
Your definition of systemic injustice is obtusely literal. Systemic injustice doesn't only come from the top down. A series of individual acts can create systemic injustice despite no official group policy. In fact most of what is referred to as systemic injustice is just that, a collection of individual acts that create an injustice despite there being no official political intent to do so.
There isn't really much point in you continuing to use debate tactics like this, we're deep enough in the weeds that it's just you and me. No reason to deny farting in an elevator with only 2 passengers.
It’s true though, isn’t it? You’ve accused me of Gish Galloping when I’ve done no such thing. If you feel overwhelmed and cannot respond to my very cogent arguments, then you are free to disengage.
> Here's an example of what I mean by Gish Galloping. Pay close attention to the "without regard for accuracy of the arguments" part of the definition.
>You throw out a 3 claims in 2 sentences, and give citations that seem like they support those assertions. Yet when you go to link #2 the first sentence is "In 2005, Amnesty International claimed that the United States was a human rights offender."
You can google any one of those assertions. Those are three easily verifiable and widely known facts. Just three. Just because you have no knowledge of those facts does not make my point “Gish Galloping”.
>Sure there are allegations of bias, so you didn't technically lie, but there are more allegations of bias against the US than towards it.
Again. “You didn’t technically lie”. So what are you accusing me of doing then, lying in some other manner? I’ve simply stated that there is precedence of bias. Some of those biases include bias in favour of the US. These are my exact words: “There has been precedence of bias in both organizations”.
>No one could read that article as supporting your stance that Amnesty International is biased towards the US, but you didn't care about whether the source actually supports your argument.
Again with the arguing against straw-men. Show me the part where I say Amnesty International is biased towards the US. I simply state that there is precedence of bias, and my source [2] clearly demonstrates this. The purpose of that reference was that these are not organizations which are 100%, indisputably neutral and without bias. It's unproductive to put words in my mouth only to argue against them.
> You're trying to fill your post with so many partially true assertions that I don't have the time or inclination to fact check all of them.
I’ve systematically went through each and every one of your points and refuted them, with citations. You’ve appealed to emotion and recycled your headline assertions which I then had to further refute. You’ve provided no count-evidence and no citations. You can’t be bothered to check citations which you find dubious -why are you still engaged in this conversation?
>Then you make a very vague claim that "many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia". This is a meaningless statement that can't be disproved because it's too nebulous.
Fact: Both Amnesty International and HRW quote information from Radio Free Asia
Fact: Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA
It’s literally a 2 second google away. You’ll find RFA referenced everywhere in their articles concerning Xinjiang. I’ve provided references; laziness to verify my references does not make my statement “nebulous”.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/uighur-journa... https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/china-xi... https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideologica... learc83 ↗ >Again with the arguing against straw-men. Show me the part where I say Amnesty International is biased towards the US. I simply state that there is precedence of bias, and my source [2] clearly demonstrates this. The purpose of that reference was that these are not organizations which are 100%, indisputably neutral and without bias. It's unproductive to put words in my mouth only to argue against them. tepidandroid ↗ >We can't trust Amnesty international not to toe the US party line on China...because the US government thinks they're biased against the US government.
>I've been on HN since 2011. This is without a doubt the single worst argument I have ever seen. learc83 ↗ Because it was too snarky. tepidandroid ↗ You’re attempting to double down on your one Amnesty International point because I’ve proven you wrong on the 100 other unsubstantiated arguments you’ve to put forth and were subsequently unable to defend. I suppose it’s because this is the only one you think you’ve found some leverage on but again, you are wrong. learc83 ↗ >There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2]. This following paragraph provides a good summary of the criticism: dang ↗ Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19853449 and please stop. dang ↗ Please don't do this on HN. Tedious tit-for-tats that neither party can let go of don't gratify intellectual curiosity, nor is this a site for political battle. tepidandroid ↗ I will stop here out of respect for the moderator.
What I'm going to say is going to sound like hyperbole, but I'm 100% serious.
I've been on HN since 2011. This is without a doubt the single worst argument I have ever seen.
We can't trust Amnesty international not to toe the US party line on China...because the US government thinks they're biased against the US government.
Well yes, that is a pretty bad argument. I wonder who would claim such a thing? I certainly never have.
Anyway, this is not a very substantive post and it feels as though you’re just struggling to get the last word now.
I’m going to copy and paste my previous comment because everything I’ve said still applies here and you have still failed to address it:
> Again with the arguing against straw-men. Show me the part where I say Amnesty International is biased towards the US. I simply state that there is precedence of bias, and my source [2] clearly demonstrates this. The purpose of that reference was that these are not organizations which are 100%, indisputably neutral and without bias. It's unproductive to put words in my mouth only to argue against them.
If you require further clarification to aid in your comprehension, I will do my best to break it down for you.
> r/iamverysmart is that way.
I like how you came back 15 minutes later to add this line. That was a great comeback. I liked it, why delete it?
So your point is that we shouldn't trust Amnesty International because they aren't 100% indisputably neutral.
And as evidence that they don't meet that standard, you've pointed out that countries that they've criticised don't agree with that criticism.
I don't think that's what you meant because it's too stupid to comprehend. I think you were trying discredit Amnesty International, but you lacked the evidence, so you tried to tie them to the accusations against HRW.
You put a statement that Amnesty International and HRW are biased in the middle of a paragraph associating Amnesty International and HRW with the CIA, followed by a quote accusing HRW of pro US bias.
It's another well known shitty debate tactic.
"Bob and Jane are involved with conflict diamonds."
Then you provide a quote that shows Bob is a diamond smuggler and a link with more supporting evidence. Followed by a link that shows Jane investigates diamond smugglers.
You hope that no one will read the link, but if they do and they call you on it, you whine about how you weren't actually lying. Jane is involved with conflict diamonds. You never explicitly said she was a smuggler.
If feel like you're projecting with your comments about needing to get the last word btw.
I’ll ask you again for the third time, show me the part where I accuse Amnesty of bias in favour only of the US.
Let’s say you’ve misinterpreted what I’ve said and then I proceed to clarify it. Is it honest of you or productive to continue arguing on the basis of your original misinterpretation? I’ve asked you many such questions in previous comments pointing out logical inconsistencies such as this and you’ve failed to respond to any of them, so I expect more of the same here.
The fact is, your interpretation of what I’ve said is not what I’ve said does not represent reality.
This is what I’ve said:
>As for Amnesty International and HRW, many of their sources are affiliated with Radio Free Asia which is directly funded by the US government and has roots with the CIA. There has been precedence of bias in both organizations as found here [1] and here [2]
Claims:
Amnesty International has sources affiliated with Radio Free Asia: True
Human Rights Watch has sources affiliated with Radio Free Asia: True
Radio Free Asia is funded by the US government and has roots in the CIA: True
There has been precedence of bias in both organizations: True
Fact: Both articles I’ve linked show that there has been precedence of bias both for and against the US. Maybe you got upset that I pulled an example of bias in favour of the US from the HRW article which caused you to conflate with bias in favour of the US from the AI article. In the end, it really doesn’t matter. It’s simply desperate nitpicking because both articles show precedence of bias both for and against the US: exactly what I’ve said.
From the article [2]:
>Criticism of Amnesty International (AI) includes claims of selection bias, as well as ideology and foreign policy bias against either non-Western countries or Western-supported countries. Governments that have criticised AI include those of Israel,[1][2] the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[3] China,[4] Vietnam,[5] Russia,[6] and the United States,[7]”
You accuse me of trying to discredit Amnesty. No. Both AI and HRW do good work, but they are not the infallible arbiters of truth that you presented them to be.
To make my point crystal clear, if I wanted to say “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are biased in favour of the US”, that would have been just as much effort as writing “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both have a precedence of bias”. No matter how much you wish I did, I didn’t write the former. Why? Because words matter and I chose deliberate words to express what I intended to say. You tunnel vision on your one point and insist on debating against self-erected straw-men over and over again because you have no other valid talking points.
> If feel like you're projecting with your comments about needing to get the last word btw.
No, because clearly your posts have been low in effort, stooping to name calling, accusations of lying, Gish Galloping, arguments from fallacy and claims that you "don't have the time or inclination to fact check all of them". You’ve contributed nothing substantive to the conversation for many comments now, instead choosing to nitpick with weak ‘gotchas’. This is in contrast to my posts which are still arguing the main topic of discussion and providing facts and citations. All of these are signs that you are unable to carry on the debate, and yet you are still here. Therefore, it’s only reasonable to assume that you are trying to get the last word.
>In May 2014 an open letter was published criticising Human Rights Watch for what were described as its close ties to the government of the United States...
You directly called the paragraph that accuses HRW of "close ties to the government of the United States" a good summary of the criticism. You said "the criticism". Not "criticism of Human rights watch and not Amnesty International".
Every reasonable person will assume on first reading that you meant Amnesty International has also been accused of pro US bias.
The strongest reading of your argument is that you intended to say Amnesty International is biased towards the US but couldn't support your claim with evidence because all evidence points to the contrary. The alternate reading is that you somehow think that criticism by countries that they have accused of human rights abuses somehow makes them less credible because they don't meet the literally unattainable standard of being "100%, indisputably neutral", and I don't think you are that stupid. The source isn't "100%, indisputably neutral" is a tautology.
7 countries, including the US, that have been accused of human rights violations by Amnesty International dispute those accusations. That in no way negatively impacts their credibility with respect to them pushing a story that you believe is US propaganda. Yet for the current explanation of your argument to hold, you must believe that it does.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
>That's not at all what systemic injustice means. You're just throwing out assertions that kind of sound like they might be right.
to
>Your definition of systemic injustice is obtusely literal. Systemic injustice doesn't only come from the top down. A series of individual acts can create systemic injustice despite no official group policy.
The complaint has now shifted to the fact that I'm using a literal definition. If we aren't to use the literal definition of systemic injustice, then what are we to use? Your own personal definition?
> In fact most of what is referred to as systemic injustice is just that, a collection of individual acts that create an injustice despite there being no official political intent to do so.
This is false. No one refers to systemic injustice as just groups of individuals doing bad things that results in injustice.
First, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaoguan_incident), the Shaoguan incident [...] was sparked by allegations of sexual assault on Han women by Uyghurs and [...] and rumours of an incident in which two female Han workers were sexually assaulted by six Uyghur co-workers [...]
Second, basic research makes me believe WeChat was released only in january 2011 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat). How could it be used in 2009 ?
I made this account just to reply to you, because as of now, I sincerely think you are either uninformed or lying.
Gee, you sure got me there. Ok, so let's say you mercifully bestow upon me the benefit of the doubt that I did not remember the exact details of the incident.
How does that change the thrust of the argument?
The argument was the reason for mass surveillance and communication controls in the region is that social media was deliberately used to exaggerate facts and foment outrage, leading to the butchering of 200 innocent Han Chinese in the street and the injury of thousands more. How does your first point contradict that argument?
To your second point, once again. That detail is literally inconsequential. Substitute WeChat for [whatever social media platform they were using at the time to circulate videos]. I ask again, what exactly does that change?
Very interested in reading your response.
Well, nothing.
But you should really add that the Han population is seen as some sort of colonisation.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Sorry, but I will not provide more information about myself than I have to. It doesn't matter anyhow since I will be accused of being a CCP shill 50c poster anyway.
The lack of a cohesive and consistent narrative.
The current geopolitical climate.
It's my understanding that the Chinese government has acknowledged and even run television commercials, such as this one[1] about the camps. Chinese officials have also made several comments to Chinese newspapers about the existence of the camps[2, 3] and have commented that the purpose of those camps is "reeducation" and to "reform extremism" through labor. The comments also note the purpose of the camps is to prevent terrorism and "separatists" by forcing them to speak the language of the "homeland" which seems to indicate the camps are predominantly intended for Muslims.
Satellite images[4] of the camps indicate the rapid growth of the facilities and the existence of watch towers, redundant high walls, and barbed wire would least most reasonable people to agree these facilities are built to house people against their will. The Chinese government has also acknowledged as much. For example, the Government has repeatedly pointed to the "Opinions on Several Issues on the Application of Law in Cases of Terrorist Activities and Extremism Crimes"[5] as the legal justification for the imprisonment of "terrorist extremists." However one of the "extremist" activities that can be used to imprison someone is "inciting" people to hold a religious marriage ceremony. The document also allows for "administrative punishment" without a trial or conviction.
One analysis of arrests (using data reported by the Chinese government) showed 21% of all 2017 arrests in the country were in the Muslim region of Xinjiang.[6] Given the region accounts for only 1.5% of the total population of China the arrests of ethnic Muslims seems disproportionately high.
We admittedly don't have exact data on the number of people imprisoned against their will but people have been able to estimate given the number and size of facilities built and by using job postings/factory information available online.
Even if we only looked at the evidence provided by the Chinese government we can objectively conclude that:
Given that the source of all of the information I've outlined above is the Chinese government can you be more specific about the "objective, conclusive evidence" you'd need to consider the information reliable?[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REGM8I2iMjU
[2A - Requires Google Translate] http://www.chinaxinjiang.cn/zixun/xjxw/201810/t20181016_5707...
[2B - "Full" English Transcript is missing significant portions compared to 2A] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/16/c_137535720.htm
[3] http://wap.xjdaily.com/xjrb/20181111/118479.html
[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-01/satellite-images-expo...
[5] tepidandroid ↗ >It's my understanding that the Chinese government has acknowledged and even run television commercials, such as this one[1] about the camps. Chinese officials have also made several comments to Chinese newspapers about the existence of the camps[2, 3] and have commented that the purpose of those camps is "reeducation" and to "reform extremism" through labor. The comments also note the purpose of the camps is to prevent terrorism and "separatists" by forcing them to speak the language of the "homeland" which seems to indicate the camps are predominantly intended for Muslims.
You seem to be under the false impression that I have denied the existence of the camps. I don’t, and nowhere have I done so. I dispute the scale and characterization of the camps. Namely: millions detained, hard labor, torture, organ harvesting. I have yet to see any objective evidence proving any of these allegations.
>Satellite images[4] of the camps indicate the rapid growth of the facilities and the existence of watch towers, redundant high walls, and barbed wire would least most reasonable people to agree these facilities are built to house people against their will.
Ok, so you have now proven that the Chinese government is building a detention facility at best, at worst a prison/concentration camp. Do they have the right to build prisons? Do they have the right to build prisons to house extremists and/or terrorists? We don’t know anything about who they are housing there or why amongst a multitude of other unknown variables. Also, prisons are indeed generally built to house people against their will.
>The Chinese government has also acknowledged as much. For example, the Government has repeatedly pointed to the "Opinions on Several Issues on the Application of Law in Cases of Terrorist Activities and Extremism Crimes"[5] as the legal justification for the imprisonment of "terrorist extremists." However one of the "extremist" activities that can be used to imprison someone is "inciting" people to hold a religious marriage ceremony. The document also allows for "administrative punishment" without a trial or conviction.
The context of that line precedes it (“using extremism to”), and the line is actually more nuanced than that. It mentions the word “masses”.
(5) Using extremism to commit any of the following conduct, is to be convicted and punished in accordance with Criminal Law article 120-4 as the crime of exploiting extremism to undermine the law: 1．Inciting or coercing the masses to hold religious ceremonies in place of marriage or divorce registration, or interfering with marital freedom;
In other words, one cannot force masses of people to hold religious ceremonies against their will, in lieu of official marriage registration. It also says interfering with marital freedom, for example things like arranged child marriages, are illegal. Stopping someone from marrying out of race or out of religion in the name of your religion would be also illegal. These scenarios are quite common and accepted in certain religions and are contrary to the CCP’s long-term goals of population integration (whether this is right or wrong is another argument). Yes, the term extremism is loosely defined and has been used and abused by many countries in recent history to justify certain actions. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, etc, etc.
> One analysis of arrests (using data reported by the Chinese government) showed 21% of all 2017 arrests in the country were in the Muslim region of Xinjiang.[6] Given the region accounts for only 1.5% of the total population of China the arrests of ethnic Muslims seems disproportionately high.
CHRD is headquartered in Washington D.C so you’ll excuse me if I have some doubts. Aside from that, from your [6] citation you’ve linked:
“According to Chinese government data, criminal arrests in Xinjiang accounted for an al...
Edit: I saw your clarification downthread and believe you, but it's still bad to post like this. Most of the time, such comments don't have a benign meaning at all. If you're going to wade into such territory, the burden of proof is unfortunately on you to demonstrate good intent. (By "you" of course, I mean not you personally, but any of us.)
And two, maybe the number did increase? It's been reported by multiple sources in multiple countries, and been addressed by the UN (see my previous comment with sources), I don't know what other burden of support you could logically need.
I agree it's not right and everyone outside of China from governments all the way down to consumers ought to be doing more but I think we need to be careful with statements like the one above. The Chinese government is committing atrocities. Some Chinese citizens and companies are surely complicit but I don't think it's fair to judge an entire nationality based on the actions of those in power. I'm certain there are quite a lot of Chinese who disagree with what's happening but understandably cannot voice their opinion on the matter.
What makes you feel the need to have your thoughts publicly vindicated?
> I keep seeing this and I ask at what point do we start shaming Chinese nationalists
> the Chinese way is not right and I will not associate with any business or person who is Chinese
From this statement it seems as though you're trying to generate some kind of grass-roots support for that line of thinking? If that's the case, there are already well established communities for that, such as stormfront.
Yes, that's deeply misguided and, worse, totally unacceptable in HN comments. Conflating Chinese people with Nazis is beyond the pale, just as it would be for any nation.
Imagine what it would be like for someone with a background from China to be browsing HN and run across a statement like that. At least a minimal ability to put yourself in the other person's position is a prerequisite for participating in the community here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I don't know what we can do to prevent HN from sliding into the hell of nationalistic flamewar. The problem is getting noticeably worse and it's deeply dismaying.
dang: its not an easy task for sure, and I agree it's deeply dismaying.
Politics, unlike FPGAs or software architecture, is something that anyone can have an opinion on. There is no barrier to entry and thus anyone and everyone who has ever consumed a news clip is free to participate with their strong opinions. Expertise is just a wikipedia article away. In the heat of the debate, there are often flashes of vitriol (i.e - some of my comments in this thread are needlessly provocative). Mainstream media headlines seem deliberately designed to illicit exactly the kind of nationalistic flamewar you describe.
In my estimation, China appears to be the current topic that people feel the most strongly about. Everyone desires a clearly defined ‘evil’ thing to rally against. I’m not sure what the solution is. Topics on politics+China cannot be banned as the website would immediately be accused of censorship and mollification due to conflicting interests (i.e YC China).
But if people are to discuss and debate contentious topics, they should do so in an informed and good faith manner - something which can only be manually enforced by mods. The current status quo of manual moderation and the flagging system seems to be working ok, but may be a constant and growing burden for mods to constantly educate, warn and ban users for inappropriate comments.
Maybe there could be an automated pre-warning pinned to the top of heavily flagged topics? I’ve seen it done on Reddit (for example [1]) to decent effect: a gentle reminder of the posting guidelines localized at the scene of, and tailored to the specific topic (since certain topics tend to draw in certain types of comments time and time again). It might allow users the opportunity to think twice about what they are about to post.
Might be something to consider.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bkmdtr/joe_biden_...
Official number is 13k [1], but people think those jaw dropping estimations from religious groups are more believable.
[1] https://www.apnews.com/0e3b005d281345278ed470823096ec9b
"We watch the massive human rights violations in Xinjiang where over a million people are being held in a humanitarian crisis that is the scale of what took place in the 1930s. And we see American businesses and their technology being used to help facilitate that activity from the Chinese government. It’s something worthy of thinking about."
A complete and utter lack of credibility.
I find the general Chinese apologism on this site strange. Even if it were 13k why would it not be an issue that China is placing people in concentration camps? Not even to get into the argument about the reliability of the 13k number because that's just laughable given literally every source that isn't China's government disagrees with that.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...
[2] https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1S925K
[3] https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2019/03/290713.htm
I've been labelled as Chinese apologist, US spy, Russian troll, and Western separatists. How ironic is it?
HN users don't have to hold any particular views on these topics but they absolutely have to treat each other respectfully, including by not calling names (such as "Chinese apologism"), and nationalistic flamewar is not permitted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I apologize if the apologism comment went too far. It is my perception in reading HN comments, and is not meant to be a normative view of the facts, and especially not meant to be nationalist comment.
You also did not add anything to the discussion by trying to call me out as "disrespectful." This just further derails the discussion. I don't know what the goal of your comment was, but to get the discussion back on track I'll just add more sources to bolster my position and let any substantive discussion follow:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/at-least-12000...
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/muslims-in-china-p...
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/china-s-xinjiang-...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06gds2h
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/28/a-summer-vacation-in-ch...
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-06-20/ree...
https://www.ft.com/content/ac0ffb2e-8b36-11e8-b18d-0181731a0...
https://chinachange.org/2018/08/10/a-call-for-a-un-investiga...