I've been trying to move away from purchasing Chinese manufactured products, recognizing that doing so is a microeconomic action that will not have an effect on the macroeconomic situation.
The most effective method I've found is to always buy used, does anyone else have other solutions?
I hate headlines like that. It is obvious. Almost everything is bigger than I know. If I know that 40% of everything I buy comes from China, it is not surprising that some of the remaining 60% also come from China. That means that the amount of things that I buy that comes from China is bigger than I know.
Xinjiang is the laboratory for these new surveillance technologies.
Just in case anyone else wants to scare the shit out of themselves about the prospect of some sort of techno-totalitarian future for the Chinese people.
I mean, this isn't the first group the CPC has done this to. We only have to look back a bit to Tibet to see a proto version of what's happening now in Xinjiang. And no one really talks about that anymore. Heck, they're still "re-educating" Tibetans now [0].
So no, I don't think anyone will be looking back on any of this with embarrassment and sadness anytime soon.
I do hope I'm wrong, but history has made me a cynic.
Nothing will change here. We are too comfortable with cheap Chinese goods that we will just cast this out of our minds. Same thing happened with coffee as well. Its not like people werent aware that coffee used slave labour but oh well what about the quality of life. The great western values of democracy, freedom and human rights have a very cheap price tag.
The type of blatant despotism and extreme, ubiquitous human rights violations will lead to tensions. Especially in light of something like coronavirus where they’ve been frantically secretive.
The craziest part is the news about Lens in Xinjiang (They polish the iPhone glass).
In perspective, millions of Americans are touching the front surface of the work of slaves every day.
I wonder how that percentage compares to ~200 years ago with American clothing being a product of slavery.
The only way you can have pushback against this is with coordinated leadership.
China will forever be able to hammer any nail that speaks alone, because they are so economically powerful now (because of mistaken centralization by the global manufacturing decision makers).
Not forever. Their economic growth will end due to demographic, technological, and geopolitical reasons. They are aging rapidly due to one child which makes their labor cost 8 times (inflation adjusted) what it cost in 2000 and most of the countries with any wealth who china would export to are post consumption because they are also rapidly aging. Automation has made it cheaper for many industries to produce goods closer to end markets rather than ship it half way around the world. Geopolitically countries like the us have lost interest in the doctrine of free trade and covid-19 in particular sped this up by exposing the vulnerabilities of long supply chains for critical supplies.
Not forever but long enough. Note that they are involved in numerous regions economically and politically, placing different debt-traps. The one child policy is also removed. Automation is good, yet it is not as cheap as slavery. I don't see anything like you described will happen anytime soon without major changes of political powers, policies across the globe.
Debt they can't collect on. Its already over. They may have had a few more years without covid but now its over. Just like with japan in the late 80s people haven't caught up to the situation on the ground yet.
The only media outlet that has pieced together the full story is NTD media.
The story is that:
- there are about 16 million Uighurs
- 1 million at a time are rotated through prisons ("organ banks") where they are blood-typed and the women sterilized (live births are down 90% already)
How does China pay for all this?
- millions are in labor camps, separate from the detention centers
- matching organs are sold (with free replacements) to foreign buyers, primarily the Middle East, as "halal organs" since Uighurs are Muslim. The ideal age is considered to be about 28 yo, so anybody that "dies" or "disappears" around 28 yo was likely harvested.
- to genocide Uighurs in 1 - 2 generations, and to reclaim Xinjiang region for other people (Himalayan rivers are being dammed and diverted to Xinjiang to irrigate it, which will cause drought in India, Pakistan and other countries)
- to move onto the next ethnic or religious group when there's no more organ donors around 28 yo (like the Falun Gong population, which was previously targeted)
The answer to, "How can the CCP do such things?" is that they're technocrats who believe in the logic of such actions , thus monsters. Even Xi himself did forced labor as a child after his father was imprisoned. As a result, he sent his family to Canada and Australia because they're not safe in China.
Ultimately, this genocide will be corrosive enough for the West to decouple from China. There's simply no way to overlook this forever, or pretend it's not happening. The CCP's goal here is to surpass the US, then to harvest your organs next.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 44.4 ms ] threadThe most effective method I've found is to always buy used, does anyone else have other solutions?
Xinjiang is the laboratory for these new surveillance technologies.
Just in case anyone else wants to scare the shit out of themselves about the prospect of some sort of techno-totalitarian future for the Chinese people.
So no, I don't think anyone will be looking back on any of this with embarrassment and sadness anytime soon.
I do hope I'm wrong, but history has made me a cynic.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54260732
The type of blatant despotism and extreme, ubiquitous human rights violations will lead to tensions. Especially in light of something like coronavirus where they’ve been frantically secretive.
In perspective, millions of Americans are touching the front surface of the work of slaves every day.
I wonder how that percentage compares to ~200 years ago with American clothing being a product of slavery.
The only way you can have pushback against this is with coordinated leadership.
China will forever be able to hammer any nail that speaks alone, because they are so economically powerful now (because of mistaken centralization by the global manufacturing decision makers).
The story is that:
- there are about 16 million Uighurs
- 1 million at a time are rotated through prisons ("organ banks") where they are blood-typed and the women sterilized (live births are down 90% already)
How does China pay for all this?
- millions are in labor camps, separate from the detention centers
- matching organs are sold (with free replacements) to foreign buyers, primarily the Middle East, as "halal organs" since Uighurs are Muslim. The ideal age is considered to be about 28 yo, so anybody that "dies" or "disappears" around 28 yo was likely harvested.
- human hair is sold internationally
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/us/china-hair-uyghur-cpb-trnd...
What is the goal?
- to genocide Uighurs in 1 - 2 generations, and to reclaim Xinjiang region for other people (Himalayan rivers are being dammed and diverted to Xinjiang to irrigate it, which will cause drought in India, Pakistan and other countries)
- to move onto the next ethnic or religious group when there's no more organ donors around 28 yo (like the Falun Gong population, which was previously targeted)
The answer to, "How can the CCP do such things?" is that they're technocrats who believe in the logic of such actions , thus monsters. Even Xi himself did forced labor as a child after his father was imprisoned. As a result, he sent his family to Canada and Australia because they're not safe in China.
Ultimately, this genocide will be corrosive enough for the West to decouple from China. There's simply no way to overlook this forever, or pretend it's not happening. The CCP's goal here is to surpass the US, then to harvest your organs next.