Demanding an End to Uyghur Oppression
jacobinmag.com
We can oppose the saber-rattling and militarism of the US’s China hawks without downplaying the oppression of the Uyghur people.

Aren't there sources other than Adrian Zenz to use in this sort of centrist-socialist article? ('Xinjiang oppression is real but stop doing imperialism over it')

  • gammison [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    There are some documents Zenz straight up did get translated. He twists the presentation, but unfortunately the first citations of them were from him. The one citation of stuff related to Zenz in that article I see on a first look (the AP one about birth control rates skyrocketing) is real and you can access the archived version of the Chinese government statistics site it was pulled from (unfortunately only the archived version since then the Chinese government has blocked access to those statistic pages).

    There are also many non Zenz related sources in that article.

    Also, regardless of the personal history of the author (which imo is basically a soc dem convinced they could reform US policy during the Bush years from the inside, which is bs), I find it a bit ridiculous people in this thread are saying this is pro US intervention when throughout the piece the interviewer and interviewee are arguing against it (and what the interviewee is arguing for is basically liberal consumer driven boycotts) and the only Uyghur group they gave support for was a leftist one in the UK that's aligned with a bunch of groups that oppose the US war in Yemen.

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
        ·
        4 years ago

        It makes you look like hypocrites if you join the people saying that China is a nation of baby eaters and then say "But we shouldn't stop them from eating babies though". All you've done is made the case for intervention against the baby eating savages and then made people want to ignore you cause you dont want to solve the goddamn baby eating question.

    • queenjamie [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      There are also many non Zenz related sources in that article.

      Those "non Zenz related sources" either use Zenz or are mostly based off of two other sources: 1) a "study" done that estimated that 1 million people were being detained by interviewing ONLY EIGHT PEOPLE and extrapolating from there (https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-uyghurs-other-ethnic-minorities-forced-into-re-education-programs/), or 2) exile testimony, many of which are paid for by orgs such as the NED, etc (also the mainstream never lets us hear from Uyghurs who support the Chinese government, and there are a lot of them).

      And of course they throw in VICE as a source. Also Amnesty International lol. They even cite The Intercept, which itself cites Zenz lolol. People have dug into pretty much all of the "sources" and they've debunked all the ridiculous shit.

      As for the IUD claim, that comes from Zenz not being able to read, or more likely intentionally misrepresenting the data. He took an 8.7% number and turned it into 80%:

      According to the 2019 China Health Statistics Yearbook published by the National Health Commission – the original source of Zenz’s claim – the number of new IUD insertion procedures in Xinjiang in 2018 accounted for only 8.7 percent of China’s total. So Zenz’s “major finding” appeared to be off by a factor of 10, a staggering error that substantially undermined the explosive quality of his argument. (https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/18/us-media-reports-chinese-genocide-relied-on-fraudulent-far-right-researcher/).

      Like I said people have debunked all this shit and it's been made public for a while, especially in leftist circles. So you can't give the benefit of the doubt to an outlet like Jacobin that should know better. There are nuanced discussions to have about how China is handling Xinjiang, but citing all those ridiculous and already debunked sources is like trying to talk about racism in the US by saying "well despite only making up 13 percent of the population black people commit 50 percent of the crimes!"

    • Teekeeus
      ·
      30 days ago

      deleted by creator

      • gammison [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I've read that thread, and some of the stuff they said about him is a straight up lie. Like for example looking at his writing, he has rightfully called all those attacks terrorist attacks.

        • Teekeeus
          ·
          30 days ago

          deleted by creator

      • gammison [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        This literal regime disinfo warrior during the war on terror

        Give me the disinfo articles he wrote then, because all the articles I can find from him are lib shit saying things like "these programs suck, they could be better if we didn't do x y z" where x,y,z is basically the point of the program from the perspective of the state department. Like basically his entire body of work with USAID is "this thing sucks, why is no one listening to me that it sucks" which is absolutely liberal reform shit.