For instance, he suspects that videos that recently emerged of Uyghur forced labourers “came out too freely”, likening it to a “proof of life” video – a tactic used by the Chinese Communist Party to “divert international attention” away from what Sidick calls “distributed mass murdering”.
Everybody: Stupid tankies you can't call everything a pysop.
Also everybody: The only piece of visual evidence we have of our claim of genocide maybe a psyop to prove that there is no genocide.
I don't want to be the crazy guy who denies genocide but they're making it really hard to go along.
What get's me the most is that there's no discussion of ideology: We knew the Nazi's were killing the Jews because they were saying it since day 1. Why is China doing this to the Uighers? You can talk about Han chauvinism but then you have to account for why Han chauvinism shifted from assimilationist to exterminationist. Because historically the difference between Han and not Han was submission to the Chinese state. With the non-han other usually containing many people who used to be Han. What i'm saying is that Adrian Zenz needs to read theory.
What get’s me the most is that there’s no discussion of ideology: We knew the Nazi’s were killing the Jews because they were saying it since day 1. Why is China doing this to the Uighers? You can talk about Han chauvinism but then you have to account for why Han chauvinism shifted from assimilationist to exterminationist.
There's also the way the state propaganda differs: Nazi propaganda was just an endless stream of racist and fascist bile that painted everyone they disliked as some sort of vermin to be stamped out, whereas Chinese state propaganda is full of anti-racism campaigns and celebrations of culture and diversity (even if this crosses the line into commodification of minority cultures). How exactly are you going to manufacture consent for genocide when you're telling the people you need to go along with it how great your intended victims are and how everyone needs to peacefully coexist?
They're definitely altering Uyghur culture, at least. The area is pretty separatist while still being a part of China, which is even more of an issue given all the Silk Road stuff they're working on. The question for China, then, is how to remove that clash.
The American approach to this is military intervention, coups, drone strikes, etc. The Chinese approach is probably more like the Han assimilation you mentioned - China isn't going to kill all Uyghurs or make them give up their faith, Xi has said as much and they are still Chinese citizens. IMO, it still feels like imperialism, and China isn't developing the area for altruistic reasons, but in all likelyhood the quality of life for Uyghurs will improve as they're assimilated, not entirely unlike American immigrants tend to do, and comparing it to the Holocaust is sickening.
it still feels like imperialism, and China isn’t developing the area for altruistic reasons
There's a word for this: cultural genocide. And it's generally regarded as a bad thing, regardless of economic intentions or outcomes. I'm not gonna say that's what China's doing here, because no one knows anything about what's happening for some reason, but I will say that's a lot what this looks like.
Hahaha uh huh. I'm not sure how to argue against this, tbh. It's too blind to imperialism and colonialism I'm not sure where to start. I think the point is that the people aren't 'developing', they're 'being developed' in a way that is making their culture disappear. Most notably language, which is the classic canary in the genocidal coal mine.
Maybe you could offer your personal definition of cultural genocide?
The Armenian Genocide Museum defines cultural genocide as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations' or ethnic groups' culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction." wiki
I do not see that in Xinjiang.
When you talk about language, why is it bad for Uyghurs to learn Mandarin if that helps them better integrate and understand wider society?
For example, wouldn't it be better if migrants in the US who only speak Spanish were taught English so they can better interact with the rest of the population?
Additionally, that doesn't mean that your language is now banned either, just that your horizon broadens.
I mean, I don't complain about being taught English as a 2nd language at school.
Westerners are projecting their fucked up dynamics of race, culture, and language onto China instead of actually understanding the dynamics there ont heir own terms.
Shut the fuck up, you dumb piece of shit. Jesus. People are saying it's more complicated than your euro-centric, western media-addled brain. Disingenuous fucking hack.
Not exactly equivalent to “Shut the fuck up, you dumb piece of shit. Jesus… Disingenuous fucking hack.” but fair point.
I was a bit irked by “Westerners are projecting their fucked up dynamics of race, culture, and language onto China instead of actually understanding the dynamics there ont heir own terms.” handwaiving my experiences and understandings, rather than directly engaging with what I’m saying. Believe it or not, it’s possible to have a different opinion for reasons unrelated to misunderstanding, imperialism, or innate intelligence.
I know a few people from China, or whose parents are from China. And for some reason, funnily enough, we’ve talked about race before. And racism exists in China. It’s not some imperialist western thing to say that there is racism within China haha that’s absurd. And it of course plays into everything, as racism does.
Imo, I would counter the charge of ‘western imperialism addled brain’ with ‘leftist apologists unwilling to recognize obvious racism because that’s not a part of the promise of Chinese socialism’, but that’s a bit too spicy for me to spit without heavily couching it in statements like ‘but who among us really knows for sure’.
Obviously not equivalent, still. To be clear, I wasn't saying racism doesn't exist in China and I don't think that's what his comment was meant to mean either.
But let's just leave it at that.
People were saying that upthread, and other people were pointing out reasons that that's probably not true- but that is where the conversation was.
My point here isn't to say "they're not allowing people to learn their language", it's that we should refute that argument on the basis of whether that is or isn't happening, not on the basis that that wouldn't actualy be repression, which was how I took what you said.
Upvoting despite thinking you're going a little overboard with the "canary in the genocidal coal mine", because this is a difficult and important question. The solution here isn't obvious/simple, so I don't think people should be attacking each other so viciously.
There're many trade offs here (shit, I sound like a fucking economist). Spreading a lingua franca to a poor area to give people access to world literature, education, the ability to travel and pursue a better profession vs. saving a potentially endangered language. Promoting a more cosmopolitan, tolerant, egalitarian, modern culture vs. preserving a unique culture, avoiding disrupting existing families and ancient ways of life. Accelerating development vs. protecting a pristine environment and a less energy-intensive rural economy.
There are winners and losers in either scenario. If you imagine yourself as a young Uighur - would you want to destroy the old ways or remain backward? Leap forward into the great unknown or embrace the life you know and love? It's a genuinely hard choice.
I would conclude that some version of change, development, globalization is inevitable, at least in our current world. If Uighurs don't learn Mandarin, they'll learn English instead, which is even further away from their roots. Sweden making every Swede study English isn't genocide - so this isn't either. But at the same time such change should happen gradually, voluntarily. When it happens forcefully, it breeds rejection and resentment. Force IS justified if there are threats of fundamentalist/terrorist groups though, especially when they're backed by Americans and Saudis - the Uighur fighters, coming from China, were some of the most extreme in the Syrian Civil War, for instance. It's not a made-up threat.
It's also hard to make conclusions about what's really going on in Xinjiang - boo the lack of Chinese transparency and propaganda from every Western source, boooo!
There are just a bunch of red flags to me which, in a low-information context, make me skeptical/critical. Which I understand is not a popular thing to do within the broader context of u.s.-china relations rn (like americans beating the trade war drum), which this conversation is apparently positioned within despite that I’m neither haha
I appreciate your perspective, though, and I agree that everything is a tradeoff. That’s the nature of decision-making in a complex world.
You’re right, I don’t know what I would want if I were a Uighur. I’m frankly unsure what the Uighurs themselves want when it comes to this. From what I’ve read, a lot of them don’t like the camps, or at least a lot of them don’t like what they have to trade away to have access to the camps. It does strike me that Uighur voices, to the extent we have access to them, are the most important piece of the conversation. But, I understand we can’t trust what we hear, so, again, I dunno.
I know from people in my life, though, who are fighting ongoing colonialism, that they want to both keep ‘the old ways’ and ‘move forward’, and that those two things are not diametrically opposed. All cultures grow and evolve constantly, the key difference between that and imperialism is self-determination. The extent to which that is happening here is... unclear.
I’m pretty much done talking about this here, tbh. It’s obviously an important conversation, but I don’t have the emotional capacity for this haha. Obviously I agree it’s complex and nuanced and that people shouldn’t be so vicious, but I think that is just the nature of any ‘China’ conversation on the left right now, so I’m heading out. Thanks for your insight, and for the compassion :af-heart:
All cultures grow and evolve constantly, the key difference between that and imperialism is self-determination. The extent to which that is happening here is… unclear.
Very well put! Couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly my thinking.
Which I understand is not a popular thing to do within the broader context of u.s.-china relations rn (like americans beating the trade war drum), which this conversation is apparently positioned within despite that I’m neither haha
Yes, I'd be a lot more critical of China if the US media weren't constantly demonizing China for... existing, not just making questionable power moves.
I don’t have the emotional capacity for this
Totally understandable. Fighting is no fun. Cheers!
Thank you for the reminder, comrade haha not one of my most popular takes on this site ig. At least I got some other comments in here that ppl liked so people know I'm not just being a disingenuous anti-China person
The most basic, seemingly reliable facts about what’s happening:
schools in Xinxiang don’t teach the Uighur’s language
the camps and a lot of the development are focussed on sinicizing the Uighurs, explicitly
the main form of assimilation is making the Uighur’s ‘fit into the economy’, as if they’re not fine just how they are thank you very much haha
the Chinese government had consistently claimed the camps were about ‘combatting terrorism’, before pivoting to ‘it’s all about skills training and cultural assimilation etc.’
This is all pretty basic stuff that I think all ‘sides’ agree upon. And different people will read this differently, but to me it absolutely screams cultural genocide.
I don't think that's accurate though, according to what I've seen the schools are teaching Uyghur in schools still, and the camps are focused on jobs training. The whole combating of terrorism and skills training fit hand in hand with it there. You can see more here: https://medium.com/@sunfeiyang/breaking-down-the-bbcs-visit-to-hotan-xinjiang-e284934a7aab
I read that piece a while ago, thanks hahaha. No one is certain if the camps are voluntary, there’s no way to know that. And there’s a lot of evidence they aren’t.
Frankly, I see no reason to give the Chinese state the benefit of the doubt on this, just as many here see no reason not to.
Ultimately, there is too much we don’t know, which is damning in its own right imo.
I mean I'd assume that the streets aren't empty should prove that Zenz is a fucking liar and to err on the side of believing that the Chinese government isn't doing something heinous since they never have before to other minority populations at least as far as I'm aware
Zenz isn’t the only human on earth saying there’s something not quite right happening in XinJiang, despite what a lot of people seem to believe. He’s a major source, and one to be ignored, but he’s not literally the only source haha. And I knew he would come up, which is why in my list comment here I tried to stick to things that the Chinese government had explicitly stated themselves.
He isn't, but they lean on him very heavily, and I haven't seen many other prevailing anti-Chinese sources on Xinjiang in Western media. All the ones I've seen are anti-Communist.
You prove unequivocally that you're not doing the really bad thing it kinda looks like you might be doing. Like 90% of discourse around the camps is 'we don't really know what's happening' hahaha
You prove unequivocally that you’re not doing the really bad thing it kinda looks like you might be doing.
I mean like, they have. Everyone's ignored it. Also if I say, hey Gorn is murdering people and hiding their bodies in a secret place, HOW DO YOU PROVE THAT
I'd show you the secret place until people were more or less all confident that it's chill. I guess they're probably been doing this, but the people they let in keep condeming it? And I'm actually fully open to the possibility that they're only doing so for ideological reasons.
Also, I really don't want either of us to feel like 'ah hah! they give up! I won!' or 'but I can't let them have the last word!' but, for reasons entirely unrelated to the content of this conversation, I'm moving away from this conversation for now haha I hope that's cool. I'm sorry if this was a little heated, and I consider you a good comrade o7
Alright, cool, thanks for that. I’m very, very conflict averse haha and I was getting a little too heated in another thread with another comrade, so I’m stepping back
I totally see what you’re saying though, fwiw. I just wish we had some really, really clear evidence or something that could put it all to rest but... I guess that’s not exactly the nature of international politics under global capitalism hahaha shakes red fist :red-fist:
I’ll prolly remain skeptical for now. But continue to do my best self-educating and tossing aside any unfounded beliefs I find I hold! :af-heart:
I'm too skeptical to portion out my skepticism toward one superpower based on how skeptical I am of another hahaha, I'm just skeptical of power. All of it. But I hear you, and trust me... I despise the usa haha, it's more than just skepticism, which I'll freely admit. I'm not from the usa or China, so to me they're both just global superpowers except China's a lot more functional and probably better in most ways. And also the usa has tended to be imperialist, including against China obviously. China much, much less so. But China's also probably not 'better' in absolutely every dimension? idk
When I think of China I legit don't think of it in terms of the usa/compared to the usa. I sometimes wish that the usa didn't have to be a part of the conversation when talking about other countries, tbh
I'm also not trying to, like, universally condemn China when I talk about the camps, by any means. Like they still do things like health care, climate change mitigation, pandemic response apparently, and incarceration rates waaay better than the usa. Which I guess I should say if I'm criticizing something as controversial as the camps. I'm just... not convinced these camps are all they're cracked up to be hahaha my country has a long history of interning ethnic groups in camps for various reasons, and I think I just have a hard time accepting 'maybe this time the camps aren't so bad, actually' hahaha 🤷♂️
What exactly about this situation is unique compared to the dozens of other times the West has attempted to discredit them? There's literally like two or three sources on this that are pumping out lies and you can see them easily every time.
My dude, Xinjiang is fully open to visitors, just so you know. Plenty of people go there, and leave there.
Jerry's China has some stuff on this topic. He's an old white westerner, which helps remove some 'bias'. He also has a twitter account where he documents himself cycling across China: https://nitter.net/Jerry_grey2002
Here's a full interview with him by a VERY western-biased interviewer: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=L9AyqT6RC4E
China has invited all sorts of ambassadors and diplomats to come have a look at what they're doing in Xinjiang, so they're not hiding anything.
The US has warned a UN ambassador from visiting and taking a look for himself, because it will run counter to US interests. Seriously. https://www.ft.com/content/edfc99a2-8eff-11e9-a1c1-51bf8f989972
I hope some of that was useful, and I'm not trying to attack you.
Fwiw, I don’t trust old white people as sources more or less than other people haha. Thanks for not being attacky. I’ll check these out when I have time later. I didn’t realize just anyone could visit the camps any time, I’m amazed there’s so much controversy if that’s the case. Unless you’re referring to the region more generally? I’ll find out when I watch these hah
On what? That the Chinese government claims the camps are to combat terrorism and offer skills training? That the main goal is to make the Uighurs fit into the Chinese economy? Which is a form of sinicization, along with Mandarin and probably other tacit cultural knowledge taught in the camps? That's all pretty open imo I'm not gonna bother googling that for you haha that’s pretty much the list I posted
The only thing is ‘to what extent is Uighur-language education available?’ And it’s complex, and there’s very little information about it. But my reading doesn’t fundamentally change in either context, tbh
I won’t lie tho, I don’t particularly have the capacity for a struggle session right now. This is a famously frustrating one, too haha. No one really has much information (which is suspicious to me), and lots of people have strong feelings about whether it’s good or bad to criticize the camps, usually for broader reasons not necessarily specifically to do with XinJiang. It’s... a lot haha o7
I actually don't have a super firm opinion on this stuff. If you look at the top comment here right now, it's me saying what a shitty equivocation this is to the holocaust. It's nothing like that. But on the other hand, there is very little room to be critical of the camps on here which is frustrating. It's scary haha you don't want to say your thoughts cuz people are very quick to anger on the issue, for probably good reason I guess.
But they could have done day schools in communities, like every other 'skills training program' on earth, right? But they did something very different. Idk, I'm fine with being critical until we learn more. That's, like, a fine thing to do hahaha
The question is if you are trying to see this as something sinister China is doing or if they are trying to cope with a very real problem by further developing the region and thereby create more opportunities for the people in the region? For this, IMO it is surely beneficial to learn vocational skills so you can occupy better jobs and to know the common language of China.
I wouldn't say vocational training is always everywhere on earth done like you say, that is silly too. For example, for my apprenticeship I had to travel to another part of the country I live in as well, I don't know, wasn't that bad. This is not really uncommon either. But okay.
Not trying to be antagonistic on this, it definitely is complicated and I'm not saying China is doing everything perfectly either, but I err on the side of China handling this the best they can.
I think you and I are likely very similar in perspective, for real. But we're both just framing our statements from opposite places.
You seem to want to defend the state of China because they’re not as bad as like 99% of americans believe. Which is fair.
I seem to want to criticize the state of China because they definitely aren’t doing things perfectly. And every power structure needs to be criticized, and is prone to criticism. To me it’s impossible that any state, let alone a global superpower, could be untarnished by imperialist tendencies that need to be recognized.
I end up looking like an imperialist american I guess lmao which is deeply ironic, and you end up looking like China stan or something, even though, at the centre, we probably think very similarly.
This is a huge part of why I hate extremely charged conversations like this. Everyone’s being so fucking political instead of just saying the thing, and it makes my brain hurt haha.
And it’s a very, very emotional conversation for people so any amount of disagreement turns into ppl demeaning each other and assuming the other side is just brainwashed or something. It’s exhausting haha solidarity forever
I don't know anything about murder. I definitely never claimed people are being murdered, I've never seen evidence of that happening. 21 million is ironically most commonly discussed as the total number of ppl who live in XinJiang haha so that's kinda... sus? Not entirely sure what you're getting at tbh
the Chinese government had consistently claimed the camps were about ‘combatting terrorism’, before pivoting to ‘it’s all about skills training and cultural assimilation etc.’
Yeah this is more or less the case with specific regional dialects of Mandarin. It fuckin sucks but you're correct in saying that those dialects are still taught and learned at home. With regard to other languages, as opposed to dialects, I'm pretty sure that autonomous regions and historically minority-inhabited areas teach in both the minority language and Mandarin.
except ughyur culture isnt being targeted... but there are armed separatist groups that have killed at least a thousand people in a series of attacks and 5000 went to syria to fight for ISIS
some aspects of islam are disctinctly reactionary, this is true of every major religion and especially christianity, but in a socialist country religion should be freely acessible to all of the people, women's religous freedoms come before cultural rights that say they cannot be inams or must obey their husbands
china is handling a more serious terrorist threat than any western nation with much less violence and while promoting ugyhur and general muslim cultural themes in the region (in part as a diplomatic tool to appeal to central asian countries coupled with the BRI)
i think if we disregard cia sourced hit pieces emerging at the peak of american crisis its hasty and ignorant to call this genocide
Historically cultural genocide has been done in the name of nebulous but nice sounding ideas like 'progress,' 'civilisation,' or 'modernisation.' So you're again at the point of: What is the driving ideology? Does China still expect the non han to become sedentary rice farmers? Are they attempting to do this by force sedentarisation? The latter would actually explain how you get millions in something that could be described as camps.
theyre teaching socialist law in these "concentration camps", this is incompatible with treating women as second class citizens, if that is social imperialism its a very understandable form of it...
xinjiang has been explicitly mentioned by us mlitary as a target and one of our reasons for being in afganistan and its central to chinas development plan (BRI).
There are seperatists groups and the chinese state does persue groups that carry out attacks and there has been state repression in response
The Nazi's shifted from relocation to extermination easily.
and assimilation isn't great either. The schools in Canada/Australia that they forced First Nations/Aboriginal kids into were pretty damn close to genocide all on their own. If they didn't cross the line.
Imagine downvoting a comment saying 'the residential schools were bad' hahaha couldn't be a canadian leftist. The residential schools were 100% genocide; both cultural genocide, and just straight up genocide.
Everybody: Stupid tankies you can't call everything a pysop.
Also everybody: The only piece of visual evidence we have of our claim of genocide maybe a psyop to prove that there is no genocide.
I don't want to be the crazy guy who denies genocide but they're making it really hard to go along. What get's me the most is that there's no discussion of ideology: We knew the Nazi's were killing the Jews because they were saying it since day 1. Why is China doing this to the Uighers? You can talk about Han chauvinism but then you have to account for why Han chauvinism shifted from assimilationist to exterminationist. Because historically the difference between Han and not Han was submission to the Chinese state. With the non-han other usually containing many people who used to be Han. What i'm saying is that Adrian Zenz needs to read theory.
There's also the way the state propaganda differs: Nazi propaganda was just an endless stream of racist and fascist bile that painted everyone they disliked as some sort of vermin to be stamped out, whereas Chinese state propaganda is full of anti-racism campaigns and celebrations of culture and diversity (even if this crosses the line into commodification of minority cultures). How exactly are you going to manufacture consent for genocide when you're telling the people you need to go along with it how great your intended victims are and how everyone needs to peacefully coexist?
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They're definitely altering Uyghur culture, at least. The area is pretty separatist while still being a part of China, which is even more of an issue given all the Silk Road stuff they're working on. The question for China, then, is how to remove that clash.
The American approach to this is military intervention, coups, drone strikes, etc. The Chinese approach is probably more like the Han assimilation you mentioned - China isn't going to kill all Uyghurs or make them give up their faith, Xi has said as much and they are still Chinese citizens. IMO, it still feels like imperialism, and China isn't developing the area for altruistic reasons, but in all likelyhood the quality of life for Uyghurs will improve as they're assimilated, not entirely unlike American immigrants tend to do, and comparing it to the Holocaust is sickening.
There's a word for this: cultural genocide. And it's generally regarded as a bad thing, regardless of economic intentions or outcomes. I'm not gonna say that's what China's doing here, because no one knows anything about what's happening for some reason, but I will say that's a lot what this looks like.
Well then by that definition any development of a specific region with a distinct culture is cultural genocide.
I don't think that that is helpful.
Hahaha uh huh. I'm not sure how to argue against this, tbh. It's too blind to imperialism and colonialism I'm not sure where to start. I think the point is that the people aren't 'developing', they're 'being developed' in a way that is making their culture disappear. Most notably language, which is the classic canary in the genocidal coal mine.
Maybe you could offer your personal definition of cultural genocide?
Not my definition:
I do not see that in Xinjiang.
When you talk about language, why is it bad for Uyghurs to learn Mandarin if that helps them better integrate and understand wider society?
For example, wouldn't it be better if migrants in the US who only speak Spanish were taught English so they can better interact with the rest of the population?
Additionally, that doesn't mean that your language is now banned either, just that your horizon broadens.
I mean, I don't complain about being taught English as a 2nd language at school.
Westerners are projecting their fucked up dynamics of race, culture, and language onto China instead of actually understanding the dynamics there ont heir own terms.
lol @ ppl claiming racism doesn't exist in China
Shut the fuck up, you dumb piece of shit. Jesus. People are saying it's more complicated than your euro-centric, western media-addled brain. Disingenuous fucking hack.
Half of your comment: "Shut the fuck up, you dumb piece of shit. Jesus... Disingenuous fucking hack."
I mean you weren't coming in with a good faith argument either, were you?
Not exactly equivalent to “Shut the fuck up, you dumb piece of shit. Jesus… Disingenuous fucking hack.” but fair point.
I was a bit irked by “Westerners are projecting their fucked up dynamics of race, culture, and language onto China instead of actually understanding the dynamics there ont heir own terms.” handwaiving my experiences and understandings, rather than directly engaging with what I’m saying. Believe it or not, it’s possible to have a different opinion for reasons unrelated to misunderstanding, imperialism, or innate intelligence.
I know a few people from China, or whose parents are from China. And for some reason, funnily enough, we’ve talked about race before. And racism exists in China. It’s not some imperialist western thing to say that there is racism within China haha that’s absurd. And it of course plays into everything, as racism does.
Imo, I would counter the charge of ‘western imperialism addled brain’ with ‘leftist apologists unwilling to recognize obvious racism because that’s not a part of the promise of Chinese socialism’, but that’s a bit too spicy for me to spit without heavily couching it in statements like ‘but who among us really knows for sure’.
Obviously not equivalent, still. To be clear, I wasn't saying racism doesn't exist in China and I don't think that's what his comment was meant to mean either.
But let's just leave it at that.
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probably shouldve been all of it, these are wrecker level takes
There's a difference between being taught Mandarin and not being taught the Uyghur language.
I agree with your point broadly, but it's worth keeping a more open mind considering what (varying degrees of) repression of a culture can look like
Who says that in Xinjiang they are not being taught their local language anymore?
People were saying that upthread, and other people were pointing out reasons that that's probably not true- but that is where the conversation was.
My point here isn't to say "they're not allowing people to learn their language", it's that we should refute that argument on the basis of whether that is or isn't happening, not on the basis that that wouldn't actualy be repression, which was how I took what you said.
Upvoting despite thinking you're going a little overboard with the "canary in the genocidal coal mine", because this is a difficult and important question. The solution here isn't obvious/simple, so I don't think people should be attacking each other so viciously.
There're many trade offs here (shit, I sound like a fucking economist). Spreading a lingua franca to a poor area to give people access to world literature, education, the ability to travel and pursue a better profession vs. saving a potentially endangered language. Promoting a more cosmopolitan, tolerant, egalitarian, modern culture vs. preserving a unique culture, avoiding disrupting existing families and ancient ways of life. Accelerating development vs. protecting a pristine environment and a less energy-intensive rural economy.
There are winners and losers in either scenario. If you imagine yourself as a young Uighur - would you want to destroy the old ways or remain backward? Leap forward into the great unknown or embrace the life you know and love? It's a genuinely hard choice.
I would conclude that some version of change, development, globalization is inevitable, at least in our current world. If Uighurs don't learn Mandarin, they'll learn English instead, which is even further away from their roots. Sweden making every Swede study English isn't genocide - so this isn't either. But at the same time such change should happen gradually, voluntarily. When it happens forcefully, it breeds rejection and resentment. Force IS justified if there are threats of fundamentalist/terrorist groups though, especially when they're backed by Americans and Saudis - the Uighur fighters, coming from China, were some of the most extreme in the Syrian Civil War, for instance. It's not a made-up threat.
It's also hard to make conclusions about what's really going on in Xinjiang - boo the lack of Chinese transparency and propaganda from every Western source, boooo!
There are just a bunch of red flags to me which, in a low-information context, make me skeptical/critical. Which I understand is not a popular thing to do within the broader context of u.s.-china relations rn (like americans beating the trade war drum), which this conversation is apparently positioned within despite that I’m neither haha
I appreciate your perspective, though, and I agree that everything is a tradeoff. That’s the nature of decision-making in a complex world.
You’re right, I don’t know what I would want if I were a Uighur. I’m frankly unsure what the Uighurs themselves want when it comes to this. From what I’ve read, a lot of them don’t like the camps, or at least a lot of them don’t like what they have to trade away to have access to the camps. It does strike me that Uighur voices, to the extent we have access to them, are the most important piece of the conversation. But, I understand we can’t trust what we hear, so, again, I dunno.
I know from people in my life, though, who are fighting ongoing colonialism, that they want to both keep ‘the old ways’ and ‘move forward’, and that those two things are not diametrically opposed. All cultures grow and evolve constantly, the key difference between that and imperialism is self-determination. The extent to which that is happening here is... unclear.
I’m pretty much done talking about this here, tbh. It’s obviously an important conversation, but I don’t have the emotional capacity for this haha. Obviously I agree it’s complex and nuanced and that people shouldn’t be so vicious, but I think that is just the nature of any ‘China’ conversation on the left right now, so I’m heading out. Thanks for your insight, and for the compassion :af-heart:
Very well put! Couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly my thinking.
Yes, I'd be a lot more critical of China if the US media weren't constantly demonizing China for... existing, not just making questionable power moves.
Totally understandable. Fighting is no fun. Cheers!
:heart-sickle:
that ratio fam
Thank you for the reminder, comrade haha not one of my most popular takes on this site ig. At least I got some other comments in here that ppl liked so people know I'm not just being a disingenuous anti-China person
lol its all good fam I think you came around to a good faith eventually which I appreciate, just later on in the thread 😅
There's no cultural genocide happening, though, and the BBC tried really hard to make you think otherwise.
The most basic, seemingly reliable facts about what’s happening:
This is all pretty basic stuff that I think all ‘sides’ agree upon. And different people will read this differently, but to me it absolutely screams cultural genocide.
I don't think that's accurate though, according to what I've seen the schools are teaching Uyghur in schools still, and the camps are focused on jobs training. The whole combating of terrorism and skills training fit hand in hand with it there. You can see more here: https://medium.com/@sunfeiyang/breaking-down-the-bbcs-visit-to-hotan-xinjiang-e284934a7aab
I read that piece a while ago, thanks hahaha. No one is certain if the camps are voluntary, there’s no way to know that. And there’s a lot of evidence they aren’t.
Frankly, I see no reason to give the Chinese state the benefit of the doubt on this, just as many here see no reason not to.
Ultimately, there is too much we don’t know, which is damning in its own right imo.
I mean I'd assume that the streets aren't empty should prove that Zenz is a fucking liar and to err on the side of believing that the Chinese government isn't doing something heinous since they never have before to other minority populations at least as far as I'm aware
Zenz isn’t the only human on earth saying there’s something not quite right happening in XinJiang, despite what a lot of people seem to believe. He’s a major source, and one to be ignored, but he’s not literally the only source haha. And I knew he would come up, which is why in my list comment here I tried to stick to things that the Chinese government had explicitly stated themselves.
He isn't, but they lean on him very heavily, and I haven't seen many other prevailing anti-Chinese sources on Xinjiang in Western media. All the ones I've seen are anti-Communist.
I mean, I know that just as much as you do. I just have a different interpretation, I suppose. Nothing wrong with that.
I mean, how do you prove something you're not doing?
You prove unequivocally that you're not doing the really bad thing it kinda looks like you might be doing. Like 90% of discourse around the camps is 'we don't really know what's happening' hahaha
I mean like, they have. Everyone's ignored it. Also if I say, hey Gorn is murdering people and hiding their bodies in a secret place, HOW DO YOU PROVE THAT
I'd show you the secret place until people were more or less all confident that it's chill. I guess they're probably been doing this, but the people they let in keep condeming it? And I'm actually fully open to the possibility that they're only doing so for ideological reasons.
Also, I really don't want either of us to feel like 'ah hah! they give up! I won!' or 'but I can't let them have the last word!' but, for reasons entirely unrelated to the content of this conversation, I'm moving away from this conversation for now haha I hope that's cool. I'm sorry if this was a little heated, and I consider you a good comrade o7
So then I'd say well, he's lying about the secret place! It's a treadmill that no one wins, basically. It's hard to disprove.
It's okay, I'm honestly not heated at all. I know you mean well, and you are skeptical, but you aren't contemptuous.
Alright, cool, thanks for that. I’m very, very conflict averse haha and I was getting a little too heated in another thread with another comrade, so I’m stepping back
I totally see what you’re saying though, fwiw. I just wish we had some really, really clear evidence or something that could put it all to rest but... I guess that’s not exactly the nature of international politics under global capitalism hahaha shakes red fist :red-fist:
I’ll prolly remain skeptical for now. But continue to do my best self-educating and tossing aside any unfounded beliefs I find I hold! :af-heart:
I just think we're probably not going to get anything like that. I'd just ask if you remain skeptical, be double skeptical about whatever the US does!
I'm too skeptical to portion out my skepticism toward one superpower based on how skeptical I am of another hahaha, I'm just skeptical of power. All of it. But I hear you, and trust me... I despise the usa haha, it's more than just skepticism, which I'll freely admit. I'm not from the usa or China, so to me they're both just global superpowers except China's a lot more functional and probably better in most ways. And also the usa has tended to be imperialist, including against China obviously. China much, much less so. But China's also probably not 'better' in absolutely every dimension? idk
When I think of China I legit don't think of it in terms of the usa/compared to the usa. I sometimes wish that the usa didn't have to be a part of the conversation when talking about other countries, tbh
I'm also not trying to, like, universally condemn China when I talk about the camps, by any means. Like they still do things like health care, climate change mitigation, pandemic response apparently, and incarceration rates waaay better than the usa. Which I guess I should say if I'm criticizing something as controversial as the camps. I'm just... not convinced these camps are all they're cracked up to be hahaha my country has a long history of interning ethnic groups in camps for various reasons, and I think I just have a hard time accepting 'maybe this time the camps aren't so bad, actually' hahaha 🤷♂️
What exactly about this situation is unique compared to the dozens of other times the West has attempted to discredit them? There's literally like two or three sources on this that are pumping out lies and you can see them easily every time.
My dude, Xinjiang is fully open to visitors, just so you know. Plenty of people go there, and leave there.
Jerry's China has some stuff on this topic. He's an old white westerner, which helps remove some 'bias'. He also has a twitter account where he documents himself cycling across China: https://nitter.net/Jerry_grey2002 Here's a full interview with him by a VERY western-biased interviewer: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=L9AyqT6RC4E
China has invited all sorts of ambassadors and diplomats to come have a look at what they're doing in Xinjiang, so they're not hiding anything.
The US has warned a UN ambassador from visiting and taking a look for himself, because it will run counter to US interests. Seriously. https://www.ft.com/content/edfc99a2-8eff-11e9-a1c1-51bf8f989972
I hope some of that was useful, and I'm not trying to attack you.
Fwiw, I don’t trust old white people as sources more or less than other people haha. Thanks for not being attacky. I’ll check these out when I have time later. I didn’t realize just anyone could visit the camps any time, I’m amazed there’s so much controversy if that’s the case. Unless you’re referring to the region more generally? I’ll find out when I watch these hah
hey your interpretation seems lo line up more with the CIA narrative than the social and material reality.. haha kinda weird lol
I mean, it's either Zenz or someone affiliated with NED, Turkey or the US.
You don't by chance have a source on that handy?
On what? That the Chinese government claims the camps are to combat terrorism and offer skills training? That the main goal is to make the Uighurs fit into the Chinese economy? Which is a form of sinicization, along with Mandarin and probably other tacit cultural knowledge taught in the camps? That's all pretty open imo I'm not gonna bother googling that for you haha that’s pretty much the list I posted
The only thing is ‘to what extent is Uighur-language education available?’ And it’s complex, and there’s very little information about it. But my reading doesn’t fundamentally change in either context, tbh
I won’t lie tho, I don’t particularly have the capacity for a struggle session right now. This is a famously frustrating one, too haha. No one really has much information (which is suspicious to me), and lots of people have strong feelings about whether it’s good or bad to criticize the camps, usually for broader reasons not necessarily specifically to do with XinJiang. It’s... a lot haha o7
I actually don't have a super firm opinion on this stuff. If you look at the top comment here right now, it's me saying what a shitty equivocation this is to the holocaust. It's nothing like that. But on the other hand, there is very little room to be critical of the camps on here which is frustrating. It's scary haha you don't want to say your thoughts cuz people are very quick to anger on the issue, for probably good reason I guess.
But they could have done day schools in communities, like every other 'skills training program' on earth, right? But they did something very different. Idk, I'm fine with being critical until we learn more. That's, like, a fine thing to do hahaha
The question is if you are trying to see this as something sinister China is doing or if they are trying to cope with a very real problem by further developing the region and thereby create more opportunities for the people in the region? For this, IMO it is surely beneficial to learn vocational skills so you can occupy better jobs and to know the common language of China.
I wouldn't say vocational training is always everywhere on earth done like you say, that is silly too. For example, for my apprenticeship I had to travel to another part of the country I live in as well, I don't know, wasn't that bad. This is not really uncommon either. But okay.
Not trying to be antagonistic on this, it definitely is complicated and I'm not saying China is doing everything perfectly either, but I err on the side of China handling this the best they can.
I think you and I are likely very similar in perspective, for real. But we're both just framing our statements from opposite places.
You seem to want to defend the state of China because they’re not as bad as like 99% of americans believe. Which is fair.
I seem to want to criticize the state of China because they definitely aren’t doing things perfectly. And every power structure needs to be criticized, and is prone to criticism. To me it’s impossible that any state, let alone a global superpower, could be untarnished by imperialist tendencies that need to be recognized.
I end up looking like an imperialist american I guess lmao which is deeply ironic, and you end up looking like China stan or something, even though, at the centre, we probably think very similarly.
This is a huge part of why I hate extremely charged conversations like this. Everyone’s being so fucking political instead of just saying the thing, and it makes my brain hurt haha.
And it’s a very, very emotional conversation for people so any amount of disagreement turns into ppl demeaning each other and assuming the other side is just brainwashed or something. It’s exhausting haha solidarity forever
He seems to be the only one claiming 21 million people have been murdered though, which seems pretty easy to veryify either way.
I don't know anything about murder. I definitely never claimed people are being murdered, I've never seen evidence of that happening. 21 million is ironically most commonly discussed as the total number of ppl who live in XinJiang haha so that's kinda... sus? Not entirely sure what you're getting at tbh
this isn't contradictory
In fact, teaching people skills that will help them better integrate into society is a very good deterrent of terrorism
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Yeah this is more or less the case with specific regional dialects of Mandarin. It fuckin sucks but you're correct in saying that those dialects are still taught and learned at home. With regard to other languages, as opposed to dialects, I'm pretty sure that autonomous regions and historically minority-inhabited areas teach in both the minority language and Mandarin.
except ughyur culture isnt being targeted... but there are armed separatist groups that have killed at least a thousand people in a series of attacks and 5000 went to syria to fight for ISIS
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-china/syria-says-up-to-5000-chinese-uighurs-fighting-in-militant-groups-idUSKBN1840UP]
some aspects of islam are disctinctly reactionary, this is true of every major religion and especially christianity, but in a socialist country religion should be freely acessible to all of the people, women's religous freedoms come before cultural rights that say they cannot be inams or must obey their husbands
https://time.com/3099950/china-muslim-hui-xinjiang-uighur-islam/
china is handling a more serious terrorist threat than any western nation with much less violence and while promoting ugyhur and general muslim cultural themes in the region (in part as a diplomatic tool to appeal to central asian countries coupled with the BRI)
i think if we disregard cia sourced hit pieces emerging at the peak of american crisis its hasty and ignorant to call this genocide
Historically cultural genocide has been done in the name of nebulous but nice sounding ideas like 'progress,' 'civilisation,' or 'modernisation.' So you're again at the point of: What is the driving ideology? Does China still expect the non han to become sedentary rice farmers? Are they attempting to do this by force sedentarisation? The latter would actually explain how you get millions in something that could be described as camps.
theyre teaching socialist law in these "concentration camps", this is incompatible with treating women as second class citizens, if that is social imperialism its a very understandable form of it...
xinjiang has been explicitly mentioned by us mlitary as a target and one of our reasons for being in afganistan and its central to chinas development plan (BRI).
There are seperatists groups and the chinese state does persue groups that carry out attacks and there has been state repression in response
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Uyghur_unrest
The Nazi's shifted from relocation to extermination easily.
and assimilation isn't great either. The schools in Canada/Australia that they forced First Nations/Aboriginal kids into were pretty damn close to genocide all on their own. If they didn't cross the line.
You can't just erase a culture and say it's okay.
Who's erasing a culture?
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Imagine downvoting a comment saying 'the residential schools were bad' hahaha couldn't be a canadian leftist. The residential schools were 100% genocide; both cultural genocide, and just straight up genocide.
Residential schools aren't good.