
A Death Sentence for a Life of Service - petethomas
https://livingotherwise.com/2019/01/22/death-sentence-life-service/
======
m-p-3
Pinned to IPFS in case the website goes down or is overloaded, and to provide
another mean of accessing the story

[https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmWB7zV9o8if2FTptyt2B7PpuMhnSXiFEiPEdXp...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmWB7zV9o8if2FTptyt2B7PpuMhnSXiFEiPEdXp7k9KGUC/)

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csense
Western companies make too much money by shipping jobs out to cheap Chinese
labor for Western politicians to care that the Chinese government often
executes dissidents and sells their organs.

~~~
philwelch
That's a stone-cold take right there. That might have been the case in maybe
the early 90's at the very latest, but things have changed since then.

Not the part about executing dissidents and selling their organs. I don't know
a lot about the organs, but they're an authoritarian government and they
always have been. That ship sailed when Nixon decided to stop pretending that
the Nationalists were the legitimate government of China. (Except Chiang Kai-
Shek was still alive at that point, and he was also an authoritarian dictator
who executed dissidents, so...).

And yeah, in general, I'm on board with the "let's not trade with
dictatorships that kill dissidents" idea. Except the US tried that, too, with
the embargo on Cuba. The US even agreed to unconditionally take in any Cuban
refugees who reached the dry land of Florida. Did it make a difference? No.
Would it have made a difference if Canada and Western Europe joined the
embargo? Also probably not.

But the part about "shipping jobs out to cheap Chinese labor" is extremely
dated. Chinese manufacturing isn't a cost-cutting alternative anymore; it's,
in some cases, the global state of the art. There is no country on earth that
can match China's capacity for manufacturing or construction. Putting an
embargo on Shenzhen at this point would be as crippling to Western economies
as putting an embargo on Silicon Valley. Possibly more. It's not just that it
would be more expensive--the infrastructure doesn't exist, and even if we
built it out again, we wouldn't do as good of a job at it.

To make matters worse, China has the most population, the most industrial
capacity and the ability to construct infrastructure more cheaply and
efficiently than any other nation on earth. If you embargo them, you
immediately do two things: you remove any incentive they have to maintain
friendly diplomatic relations with literally anyone else and you free up much
of that industrial capacity for military uses. The population factor is even
worse than you'd guessed based on raw population count because they have such
a high ratio of men to women, particularly among military-age age cohorts.

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morpheuskafka
We all ought to stop saying "Xinjian, China" or "Uyghur region of China." The
proper name is (occupied) East Turkestan[1], which is not rightfully part of
China.

For all the talk about North Korea (which is by all means a despicable
county), China not only treats its citizens (people who live in actual China)
as badly as NK, but it illegally occupies East Turkestan and threatens to
invade Taiwan if anyone questions their 2+2=5 stance that they control it. We
ought to offer refuge to the Uyghur people, or better yet use our military
forces to help them retake control of their county.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan)

~~~
Mediterraneo10
In the 1990s I might have been sympathetic to insisting on the name "East
Turkestan" and being idealistic about an end to the Chinese presence there.
However, as I have seen personally from traveling in the region, China simply
moved too many Han people into it already. That’s that, it’s over. The
situation would nearly be like insisting that Kaliningrad is rightfully German
after the Soviet Union managed to change its population demographics
overwhelmingly and obscure so much of its pre-Soviet history.

~~~
yummypaint
If that's the case, then the discussion should be about reparations

~~~
CharlesColeman
Perhaps not yet. If the colonization is mostly post-1990s (like the GP
suggests), then it seems reasonable to insist that the colonists themselves
leave. They're not innocent. It's only when you get to later generations,
children and grandchildren that didn't choose to be born where they were, that
it gets complicated to the point that there are no good solutions.

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siruncledrew
The Xinjiang situation doesn't have a lot of pragmatic options aside from
going down a path akin to Crimea or Bosnia.

From what I can tell:

\- Xinjiang is 90% uninhabited grassland and desert; so we're talking about a
big region with a lot of emptiness.

\- China's value is the New Silk Road railroad from Asia -> Europe travels
through Urumqi in Xinjiang, and the region is part of China's Western
Development Strategy to enhance its economy.

\- Geopolitically: surrounded by Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, and Pakistan. Basically even if "annexed" by any surrounding
nations, Xinjiang would still be governed by a pseudo-"termless president"
unitary state.

\- Demographically: There's going to be an inflection point between the
"native" population and the Han Chinese population. Having a bunch of new
people into the neighborhood and receive favoritism isn't bound to win over
locals. That could also push the "native" population to emigrate to
neighboring countries with language and cultural similarities.

\- If Xinjiang declared independence, which would likely start elevated
conflict with China, then I could see Russia (+ the '-stans') supporting
Xinjiang (covertly or overtly) if that means gaining a new "puppet state" in
East Turkestan, and having greater control over the Eurasian Land Bridge
railroads.

\- Growing Islamic radicalization or "imported terrorism" in Xinjiang from
fellow Sunni Islam countries (e.g. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia) would
be a death sentence for any hope of negotiation, as China would only double-
down on their grasp and it would turn the region into another Syria.

\- There is no compelling reason for the U.S. or Western Europe to send any
military forces to Xinjiang because there is nothing to gain aside from karma.
It's high-risk political suicide to enter into such a war post-Middle East
when there is low demand for coal and enough domestic resources for
oil/natural gas.

\- Since the most major cities in Xinjiang are also the highest percentage
areas of Han Chinese (like Urumqi), losing them in an independence initiative
for East Turkestan would mean most Uyghurs would lose access to those economic
sources and probably have to re-rely on agriculture. If China decided to
blockade Turkestan (like U.S. to Cuba), then Russia (and ex-USSR) would be the
new economic lifeline for the region.

------
microtherion
I have an Uyghur acquaintance, and I keep wondering whether I should reach out
to him, or whether contacts with foreigners are likely to make his life more
difficult.

~~~
loup-vaillant
If you could establish a secure channel, perhaps?

~~~
jacobush
That could really get you in trouble.

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hd4
I realize leaving one's homeland is not ideal or desirable but is leaving an
option for the Uighur, either through Pakistan (who, while I realize they are
an ally of China, also happen to be Muslim) or Kazakhstan or any other
adjoining country?

Surely if the oppression is getting this bad that people are being killed then
the wiser course of action is to find somewhere out of the reach of the
Chinese state?

~~~
lazyasciiart
It's not as easy as it sounds a) to get out of reach you have to get your
whole family out of reach, or accept that they may be punished on your behalf
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-
east/china-u...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/china-
uighur-repression-espionage-informants-muslim-terrorism-a8626526.html) b) to
get into anywhere else legally you need travel documents from the Chinese
government, or to apply for asylum which isn't a given - or you can choose to
live illegally in one of the neighboring countries, which often means that any
children you have will not be citizens of that country and China may not grant
them citizenship either. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/world/asia/china-
uighurs-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/world/asia/china-uighurs-
sweden-asylum.html)

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dsfyu404ed
Honest question: Has there ever been an example of mass internment, non-
activists "disappearing" and other things like we're seeing in Xinjiang that
wasn't followed by genocide?

Edit: Genocide is probably the wrong word but the point is that events like
we're seeing in China tend to be followed by other event that leave a lot of
people who'd done nothing wrong dead.

~~~
maxxxxx
The internment of Japanese people in the US during WW2 didn't lead to genocide
but that's probably an exception.

~~~
nipponese
Americans of Japanese ancestry. _

~~~
Retric
That’s a fairly nominal way of defining ethnicity.

However, it was not limited to just Americans. Oddly, _in Hawaii, where
150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population,
only 1,200 to 1,800 were also interned._

~~~
loeg
Not limited to, no, but the majority interned were US citizens. Yes, the
internment was mostly limited to west coast mainlanders; Hawaii's economy
would have fallen over if its Japanese-American population was interned.

------
xrd
Does anyone know if the "Gang of Four" who wrote the seminal book "Design
Patterns"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns))
intended to share the same name with the ignominious Gang of Four from Chinese
history
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four),
as noted in this article)? Was this a hidden reference? Or, was this
obliviousness on their part? Or, were they branded that way without their
consent?

~~~
lazyasciiart
I don't think they came up with it -
[http://wiki.c2.com/?GangOfFour](http://wiki.c2.com/?GangOfFour)

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hd4
I see the usual mass-flagging/mass-downvoting of the thread and all the
comments of any thread talking negatively about China/Xinjiang is occurring.
Wondering whether HN will step in or whether the admins here even consider
doing so within their remit?

~~~
sctb
We're absolutely willing to oppose organized and targeted manipulation of
votes/flags (and we write a ton of software and meta-moderation features to do
so), but that's not what's happening. What's happening is legitimate division
and difference of opinion. If it weren't so then it wouldn't be a
controversy—and sure it is.

Edit: I don't actually see the pattern of downvoting that you're describing in
this particular thread.

~~~
hd4
Thank you for clarifying that. I apologize, did not intend to cry wolf, but I
did notice at one point all the comments were getting downvoted.

