My friend is a total succdem, and we got to talking about the usual stuff like UBI, work, economy, and all that. So I remarked about all the good things China has been doing when it came to green tech, poverty alleviation, and all that. Woo boy. That's when the genocide accusations came out. I tried to link him BayArea451's video but he refused to watch it because he said it was Chinese propaganda. He then told me I wasn't thinking critically and that all my talking points came from China and all my sources must be paid off by China. I gave him proof that actually all of his sources where paid by the US and that shutted him up. I doubt I got through to him but good lord the state of western chauvinism. It's like they don't actually believe in anything or have any of their own opinions, you try to argue with them and their eyes just glaze over. You know what really pisses me off though is I'm in a chat group that this guy mods. And he's not going to ban me. He thinks I'm a literal genocide denier but he won't ban me, because he's a fuckin lib. Can't even stand up for the shit they claim to care about.
Sorry for that rant, but man, I'm tired of how effective this propaganda campaign has been. Everyone in the west has brain worms.
"I’m sorry but you ask “what is credible” and then post a video of a guy using the worst vocoder and wearing a ski mask and glasses like he’s in a ransom video, and it’s over an hour long with less than 25k views? That would honestly make a good comedy bit, worked right. I’m not saying it’s maybe not a good source, but honestly I’m not watching that."
-u/fawx
This is what BayArea415 looks like to libs and even leftists. Don't use him as a source, you won't persuade anyone.
Yeah linking to walls of text, twitter threads, non-mainstream videos, google drives, grayzone articles etc. only works for people who are predisposed to having their mind changed and/or already trusting of those sources. So instead of linking to what most people will perceive as "untrustworthy" sources, 99% of the time it's better to just take the primary sources and arguments from them and convey them yourself.
Drake no: referring people to a well-sourced and researched article on "communismisgood . net"
Drake yes: digging out the sources from that article and referring people to those directly so they aren't scared off
So I do think there is forced internment in Xinjiang, but the crazy things Zenz or some of the Uyghur diaspora says are ridiculous. The following is a paraphrase of a very good comment I saw on the critical theory subreddit that imo is what you should say that both acknowledges the actions the Chinese state has taken as wrong but also highlights the distortions of those actions seen in most western media (including distortions used by some imo vulgar anti-imperialist media which I would throw bayarea451, grayzone , qiao etc into that also do completely inadequate research):
Some of the sources used to rebut forced internment or that what is happening to the Uyghurs is actually not that bad are, frankly, embarrassing. Understanding China is extremely difficult and one would be surprised how ill-informed one can end up being by doing what would for other subjects be considered sufficient. Because most people are not experts on China or the CCP or Xinjiang or the Uyghurs and because it is in fact a specialist subject, people are easily swayed by reading lists or articles covered with a thin veneer of expertise. Even the most politically sympathetic China scholar wouldn't even wipe their ass with this stuff.
One of the biggest problems for wading through the morass that is "wtf is going in Xinjiang" is that many in the West and in Uyghur expatriate communities make sensational points that are easily called into question (e.g. mass organ theft, that there are no radical Islamist Uyghurs, that there are 2 million in internment camps being tortured 24/7, that there is a mass genocide similar to the holocaust, etc). These kinds of outrageous and conspiratorial claims are typical of expatriate communities that seek regime change in their homelands (occupied or not) or were otherwise persecuted (e.g. Falun Gong). They should be read as such, but you simply have to dig deeper than that. To compound the problem, there is an all-out information war between China and the West and politically cretinous people in the West use Xinjiang and the Uyghurs as propaganda tools for their own ends.
These more outlandish claims are unfortunate because they are easy to refute and make it easier to sow doubt about the more realistic and well-evidenced claims, such as: that there are hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in re-education camps at least; that these camps are forced; that vocational training is the least of what goes on there; that the relationship between Xinjiang (the Dzungharian basin primarily, but the Uyghur region increasingly since the 1980s [read Judd Kinzley]) and eastern China is fundamentally based on material extraction that should be characterized as colonial and exploitative (the reason for Xinjiang's incorporation into China is of course related to the more distant Qing conquests, but also to the discovery of massive resource wealth conducted by Soviet survey teams in the early 20th century); that Uyghurs have been predominantly left out of Xinjiang's economic gains; that many Han people are extremely racist toward Uyghurs inside and outside of Xinjiang; that Uyghurs have a point in resisting Han migration and settler colonialism to Xinjiang; that Uyghur cultural identity and language have been under assault for a long time; that there was a broader sense of collective identity in southern Xinjiang before 1921 based around the tazkirah tradition [read Rian Thum]; that some Uyghurs are, in fact, Islamic militants and have joined ISIS; that Uyghur expatriate groups are authentically Uyghur but also express the desires of Western political actors. That these claims are not considered common knowledge is unfortunate as they are very well-evidenced and supported by research done almost entirely by left wing scholars.
If you are genuinely interested in understanding this subject and also in having strong opinions about it, you have to do the bare minimum. You have to read at least a plurality of the work of James Millward, Mark Elliott, Dru Gladney, Pamela Kyle Crossley, Rian Thum, Gardner Bovingdon, Judd Kinzley, Darren Byler, Sean Roberts, Ildikó Bellér-Hann, David Brophy, Justin Jacobs, and Elise Anderson. I can give others.
If you want to read from someone who is basically a Maoist and also an eminent China historian, you can read Rebecca Karl here. I think you should also make a genuine effort to read what Uyghurs themselves have to say, while keeping in mind the desire of 99% of expatriates is to create an independent East Turkestan and that this narrative fits US global imperial ambitions and desire to constrain China. Read Uyghur poetry (see Joshua Freeman), past and present.
Zenz is a problematic researcher for reasons already said in many other places, but you simply can't stop your research into this topic at his background (or assume that because the numbers he estimates are way too high, there's nothing going on at all) or the background of some conservative thinktank.
Linking a list of articles and reddit posts from someone on r /Sino on this topic is just not enough. Likewise, and I'm sorry for saying this so crassly, but saying that most sources about Uyghur genocide are from Radio Free Asia or directly funded by the US government for the purpose of regime change (as someone like BayArea451 does) basically shows you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and are nothing more than a cheap propagandist and don't really care to put in the work to understand complex issues. Yes, RFA is propaganda and can pretty much be ignored, but actual scholars doing actual research do not take RFA seriously and resist using the term "genocide" and they've still come to similarly disturbing conclusions as to what has happened and is happening.
Tldr: you need to actually read if you want to be taken seriously on this topic and that goes for both the people who uncritically cite zenz and the think tank community, and the people who do utter shit attempts at "debunking". Check out critical China scholars.
So what I'm getting from this is that because of the history of violence and extremism in the region, China has taken to re-educating the Uyghurs because it doesn't want to loose control over a resource rich region. It's better than bombing people in the name of freedom like the US but obviously I can see how that isn't a pretty situation. You said "that there are hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in re-education camps at least; that these camps are forced; that vocational training is the least of what goes on there" can you elucidate on that last point especially. What more is going on there?
Yeah so the camps are afaik a diverse system. There are facilities that are more like weekend centers, and ones that are basically prisons. Both have little choice in whether you go or not, there's constant heavy surveillance and police presence and when you are told to go you go. Who goes for what appears pretty arbitrary (you can find police reports with large lists of infractions, and police officers complaining that the people they arrested don't know why they were arrested and neither do they, and complaints about having too high quotas, the fact that there's a quota system in the cities imo is some of the the clearest evidence they are forced) outside of if you try and mess with the state process you go to one that's more like a prison. If you are reluctant to go, you can also just be harassed until you say yes. The reason to say vocational training is the least of what goes on is that the training (which to be sure is real) mystifies the actual factors of internment. There's been interviews with officials where they slip up and admit that the trainings are primarily to prevent crime and train migrant workers. The slip there is that they gave people jail sentences for the potential to commit crime, and the fact that these migrant laborers are very susceptible to coercion. In addition the education in the facilities is also geared towards instilling a very particular idea of indigenous Xinjiang culture, one that is highly regulated on what is and is not legitimate expression (much more regulated compared to the Mao era for example).
Further, what counts as a crime and separatist or radical Islamic behavior is extremely broad, and that results in coercion re: the camps (i.e. if you will not go the weekend center for x reason, that's suspicion and gets you on the bad side of the police so you're more likely to go to jail, or if you don't take up employment by migrating to some industrial center further east well that's also suspicion). Even outside the facilities, life in the cities has been extremely securitized with checks, police searches etc.
If you want some first hand testimony, there was a Chinese clubhouse room (which is going to prioritize more wealthy Han and Uyghur citizens since you needed an iPhone and invite codes to get in) recently that had several hours of discussion on people's personal thoughts and experiences in Xinjiang before it was banned. (For an older testimony, see here), and things really stepped up in 2017 (one thing that is striking to me is a re-enforcement of segregationist policies under the auspice of security, for example having Han only express lanes on highways whereas any car with an ethnic minority in it gets redirected to a lane where they will be subject to security checkpoints). The testimony also gives a little more info on how (at least to the person speaking) the quota system works, I'll put that here:
People say that every village has quotas. You are compelled to find a certain number of people who will “volunteer” to work in the system. So there is a certain number who will also be sent to work in the camps. Even some people from inner China are also forced to come back to work. There is no real reason for the current concentration camps. It is just that every police station has a quota for how many need to be in the camps. So many people (that have been taken) either made some small mistake or committed a small crime. They just make up the number and type it in. Some people with a religious background are just dragged away until none of them are left. Then the second wave starts with those who have “illegal culture.” Then there is a third wave if the numbers are still not enough and the quota hasn’t been filled. Then the fourth…
And here is a testimonial from a Hui Muslim that visited the area in 2016:
What I want to say is that I was actually fortunate enough to have gone to southern Xinjiang in 2016. At that time, these sorts of activities (detentions, etc.) had not yet started on such a large scale. As a mainlander, the first thing I saw when I arrived there is that every street in places like Kashgar was strictly controlled. There were checkpoints on every street. I took some pictures of a mosque and old men walking nearby. To my surprise, there were very large armed vehicles that were patrolling the city 24 hours per day. So I took a video of the patrol. Then I was immediately surrounded. I don’t know if it was the police or some security personnel [My note: there are also private security companies active in Xinjiang, for example Eric Prince has a Hong Kong company that was hired to train police in Xinjiang]. They came to me and told me that I must delete the images that I just took. I’m just an ordinary person, and even I felt a real sense of fear. Of course, in contrast to what our Uyghur countrymen feel, the things I encountered were actually very trivial. We had a Han tour guide, and when we were coming up to a checkpoint he told them all the people in our car was Han. [Ed’s note: which was a lie, since the speaker is Hui.] And later, after we went through, he joked that it was good we didn’t say we were Uyghur. This made my heart ache.
And lastly I'll also put this statement from a Han person whose family works in the Public Security Bureau:
My family works for the Public Security Bureau. I am a younger Han person, but I can remember how (authorities) have dealt with Xinjiang people. Their attitude is to treat them as foreigners.
(Back then,) when a Uyghur came to our city, the entire Public Security Bureau would enter a state of emergency. First, if a Uyghur wanted to find a hotel, the police would go question them as quickly as possible. Basically, most people would not be able to stay. They would be deported back to Xinjiang (around the time when the mass internments began). After they were sent to Xinjiang, all of their personal property would be seized by the Public Security Bureau.
How do I know this? Once, when I was hanging out in the police station, a colleague of a relative gave me lamb kebabs. When I asked why he had them, he said it was because he expelled a Xinjiang man today, so the lamb skewers they seized belonged to us now. He had so little empathy for the Uyghurs. So do most people, except for those of us chatting here.
I myself went abroad for about two years, and then I learned about the concentration camps in Xinjiang. I have been thinking about what I should do about the situation. So I’ve started to do some simple volunteer work. I will not disclose with which organization, but basically, I call the local Xinjiang government and ask if they can confirm this or that. I ask about specific people who are missing. Through this kind of action, you can help verify cases and raise international awareness of the situation in Xinjiang. I think its effect is very small, so I also want to know if any of you here can share with me your approach to helping Uyghurs in a practical way.
I'm hoping all the audio of the call will be put online soon (a few twitter accounts and academics I trust were on the call and have access to the audio).
I don't really think it's necessary for people to pore over extensive amounts of academic sources on this issue.
The bottom line is that "the crazy things Zenz or some of the Uyghur diaspora say" is what the mainstream narrative is. These are currently contributing to an already prevalent anti-China sentiment in the West that is fueling a massive increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. Western governments are using this to justify increased military spending, sanctions, and bans on products coming out of Xinjiang. Companies are getting pressured to cut ties with anything that has Uyghur labour involved. People are sending money to shady human rights/separatist orgs. Knowing enough to push back against the atrocity propaganda effectively is all that's needed.
Having the one true correct nuanced take on Xinjiang is nice and all but at the end of the day, we can't do shit about what's going on in Xinjiang and there are plenty of human rights abuses happening in our own backyard that we could be dedicating our time/effort on instead.
Best comment I’ve read on the issue across any platform. Will def use it as a jumping point to dig deeper and become better informed. Bless for such an intelligent nuanced take
-Soulja
I got in an argument with my partner about Sean King, Xinjiang, whether murdering Asian sex workers has anything to do with China... I feel you
I normally wouldn't have gone off on him like I did, but after seeing that news I was not in the mood to hear any racist propaganda from any western liberals.
Framing concern over the Uyghur issue as racist propaganda is very unproductive IMO. Lets be real libs aren’t the ones committing anti-Asian violence on the ground here, and every lib or leftist I know who is concerned about the Xinjiang situation is not holding it against Chinese people as a race. That’s absurd and approaches “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism” territory tbh. The racist people here in America attacking Asians do not give a fuck about Uyghur muslims. I would bet my life that China’s policy in Xinjiang did not motivate the the guy who committed mass murder yesterday. My advice would be not to alienate your friends over an issue you aren’t informed on. He sounds nice for not kicking you out of the chat tbh
-Soulja
Eh, I guess I was being a bit of a tit about it. I've had a raw nerve after reading about that shooting, but Imma try and not be a bitch to people for being uninformed on things I'm at best only slightly more informed on. Cheers.
Perfectly reasonable reaction to the news, many of us are pissed off and exhausted by the violence. It’s a nice reminder that many of our lib friends are hurting just as much. You aren’t a bitch brother, bless
-Soulja
Literally arguing with a dude I know who's a huge punk but also a huge lib. Sent me the fake drone footage video and I debunked it and now his argument has come down to "but tiananmem square"
"what's happening in Xinjiang is bad but is not a systematic murder of people (holocaust, rwanda, etc) and what the US is doing in Syria is worse" is about all I could spare for liberals
For me it's "what we do to immigrants and their children is worse" but yeah
Are you saying "whatabout syria?" When people have no knowledge of american atrocities yet care so much about xinjiang, it contributes to Cold War 2.0 discourse and is worse than if they had not said anything at all about Xinjiang. They are usually not explicitly American chauvinists, they are just parroting what the US news tells them, but there is no significant difference in the final analysis.
No, I meant that in my experience most libs will just crow on about whataboutism and act like they've won the argument like a debatelord who detects a fallacy.
You know what really pisses me off though is I’m in a chat group that this guy mods. And he’s not going to ban me. He thinks I’m a literal genocide denier but he won’t ban me, because he’s a fuckin lib.
He’s being a normal friend and you’re pissed about it lol neither of you know for a fact if genocide is actually occurring. Pretty much all the info we have on what’s happening in Xinjiang is either CIA propaganda or CCP propaganda.
Really the only point you can argue to possibly change your friend or anyone else’s mind on is that the CIA is fucking around heavy in the region and has a proven history of making this exact type of claim up to further an agenda.
But that also doesn’t mean every single thing the CIA says is false either lol what China’s government is doing to the Uyghurs is sus at best. The official CCP party line of “re-education” and “integration” should give anyone pause, especially a leftist. China’s leadership can be doing fucked up shit, they aren’t beyond reproach because of some bullshit China vs US rivalry.
The CCP and US government are both extremely powerful institutions and leftists simping for a powerful institution is cringe. We should be fighting on behalf of the Chinese, Uyghur, and American people, not fucking Xi Jinping or Joe Biden.
-Soulja
The CCP and US government are both extremely powerful institutions and leftists simping for a powerful institution is cringe. We should be fighting on behalf of the Chinese, Uyghur, and American people, not fucking Xi Jinping or Joe Biden.
Maybe consider that 90% of the Chinese people support the party? You speak as if there is room here to detach the party from the Chinese which is the same shit you see the reactionaries on Reddit who "only hate the government and not the people".
The people are behind the government. We know this, you know this, stop pretending there is room to "criticize the CCP" without casting doubt onto the Chinese people themselves who currently hold the government and their leader in high regard.
You say we should be fighting on behalf of the Chinese people. The Chinese people are behind the government, both literally as working for and with it and supporting it. What now?
I mean conflating popular support with whether something is right or wrong is a tricky logic to follow. I mean the people off every country in the world are behind the governments that govern them, that's kinda a obvious dummy sentence. No institution should be free from criticism, regardless of what the popular support they have.
I generally think the Chinese government does a good job, but some policies are somewhat problematic.
stop pretending there is room to “criticize the CCP” without casting doubt onto the Chinese people themselves who currently hold the government and their leader in high regard.
Anti-Zionism is anti-semitism type logic at work here again. The Chinese people can support their government for dramatically raising their standard of living and still not be responsible for the possible abuses its government is committing.
The Chinese people are behind the government, both literally as working for and with it and supporting it. What now
Lmao every Chinese person doesn’t work for the government dude, you live in a black and white world where the CCP can do no wrong. Some day you will realize a country’s government and its citizens are not inextricably linked—even with the citizens who support it.
-Soulja
The Chinese people can support their government for dramatically raising their standard of living and still not be responsible for the possible abuses its government is committing.
Why do you think that is the only reason they support the government? Some shit thread here a few days ago was pushing CIA talking points over AOC and Tibet and nobody stops to consider neither the Chinese or Tibetans want independence. Same thing here if you think the Chinese only support the government because their income went up.
Make a better argument other than the Chinese only like their government because they are earning more, maybe there are more reasons and policies they support too.
Lmao every Chinese person doesn’t work for the government dude, you live in a black and white world where the CCP can do no wrong. Some day you will realize a country’s government and its citizens are not inextricably linked—even with the citizens who support it.
Maybe you should tell that to the Chinese that overwhelmingly support their government. You are bending your back backwards trying to avoid admitting the reactionary "I hate the government not the people".
My point is the government is made by the people and supported by the people. By casting doubt on the government you are casting doubt on the people.
Nobody actually cares about your liberal virtue signaling here. You write shit like what China does should give a leftist pause, which is only true of a "leftist" that doesn't know history. Maybe the 25th time the great USA claims another country is committing crimes we should listen because maybe this time around the CIA is right?
You should have this stance based on the history of US imperialism alone. Real Iraq WMD moment here couple with Reddit virtue signaling liberalism.
Okay maybe all Chinese people hate Muslims, clearly you’re the expert here lmao clown
-Soulja
Of all the countries in the world right now I don't think china needs our PR help. Seems to me the best thing to do is draw out conclusions like ok, so let's for the sake of argument say that china there are problems xinjiang. What are we going to do solve this. Cold war and cause coups all over the planet that will ruin more lives by orders of magnitude? War with china causing a nuclear holocaust? Implode the world economy? The only way to get china to stop these abuses would be to maintain over all good relationship while pressing them on the issues where we can do the most good. That's the only rational approach to this a liberal could take.
Next point should be that what is going on between China in the west has nothing to do with the well being of muslims. Western countries have zero respect for muslim lives and murder them rotinuely. Like, does anyone actually believe mike pompeo is concerned about the lives of Muslims? That's simply an absurd assertion. When the west thought they could control china and turn a profit there every was fine, but when they determined that china was becoming successful and independent the anti china rhetoric went up to 11. This is a terrible reason to be anti china and people in the third world caught in the middle of this giant pissing match are going to die despite having nothing to do with it.
Of all the countries in the world right now I don’t think china needs our PR help
Pushing back against the genocide narrative isn't so much about supporting China as it is about combating the Yellow Peril sentiment that at this point has become quite prevalent in Western countries and is almost certainly contributing to the massive rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. The supposed genocide is also being used to justify governments increasing military spending, calling for sanctions, and companies cutting ties with Xinjiang companies that employ Uyghurs. Finally, I also see this as an opportunity to educate people to become more critical of the media they consume so that they don't fall for it as easily the next time stuff like this makes the news rounds.
This. China does not need to become America's boogeyman, the bourgeoisie does. Fighting this othering and scapegoating is precisely why its important to know what works in this talking point.
I was just trying to give other avenues to push back against anti china sentiment.
Yeah that's fair. I just wanted to emphasize that in addition to the points you brought up, it's still important to directly address baseless smears against China and accusations based on flawed/weak evidence.
