
China’s Re-education Camps - dqpb
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-re-education-camps-1535497220
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ocschwar
In Weimar Germany, there was a Keynesian jobs program very much akin to FDR's
Civilian COnservation Corps - a jobs program to perform forestry work and
prepare rural areas for the hiking and skiing that's so popular there to this
day. One of the program's mottoes was "Arbeit macht frei", meaning "this work
will free Germany of the economic woes affecting us right now."

When that same motto was put on the gates at Auschwitz, the intent was to
reassure prisoners that the camp was NOT a slave camp.

The point is that we should not bother calling these re-education camps. We
all know what they are. THey're going to do what all camps do once they
enclose large numbers of people.

~~~
dmix
Are you suggesting China is on track to commit genocide against an ethnic
minority because they established reeducation camps? A better example of the
next tier is the gulags, you know, actual work camps... mass murder is quite
the leap.

I know it's popular today to call everyone Nazis whenever they show the
slightest signs of analogous behaviour...but isn't re-education bad enough as
it is? Shouldn't we focus on the issue at hand and challenge it's merits? Just
saying "hurr-durr China = Nazis" is a big distraction that ignores the context
of how this came about (ie, under a pretext of suppressing terrorism) and
glosses over the countless other ways this is distinct from historical death
camps.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Are you suggesting China is on track to commit genocide against an ethnic
> minority because they established reeducation camps?

I'm pretty sure the upthread poster is saying (and I'm not endorsing every
element of this, only my understanding of the message) that China is _in the
process_ of committing genocide against the Uighur population, and the “re-
education” camps are a component of that operation with a thin pretext.

> A better example of the next tier is the gulags

The gulag was not, as whole, specifically targeted at resisters against an
ethnic displacement policy targeting a particular ethnic group; it was a tool
in political repression, but it wasn't narrowly targeted at repressing
political resistance to policy targeting a particular ethnic group on the
basis of core elements of the shared identity defining the ethnicity.

So, while both are manifestations of authoritarianism, they are arguably
different in fairly critical ways as relates to the inference that I've it the
other is part of a genocidal strategy.

OTOH, the gulag was, very early on, integral in the anti-kulakization effort
that, while notionally targeting an economic class, apparently also had
political and ethnic aspects and was arguably directly tied to a Soviet-
directed genocide in Ukraine (the Holodomor), so I'm not sure, even if one
accepts the analogy with the gulag, that's historically a justified argument
_against_ the camps being a leading sign of imminent genocide.

~~~
Sag0Sag0
Most historians agree that the Holodomor was not a genocide, just a famine.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Why would you see something like that? Not only not true, but in defense of
mass murder? I can’t even fathom the agenda - defense of Russia’s reputation?

~~~
timavr
Soviet history is very tricky subject to study.

Russian State aka Kiev’s Russia started in Ukraine, so saying Russia starved
Ukraine is like saying USA starved California, if somehow California got
independent and the rest of country blocked food stuffs.

~~~
394549
> Russian State aka Kiev’s Russia started in Ukraine, so saying Russia starved
> Ukraine is like saying USA starved California, if somehow California got
> independent and the rest of country blocked food stuffs.

That's ridiculous, almost like saying World War II was a civil war between two
Germanic tribes (the Germans and Anglo-Saxons) or between Roman ones (French,
Spanish, and Italians). You can't honestly and accurately claim a modern union
by pointing back at an _ancient_ political union. You also have to account
that many political unions, until recently, were empires, that dominated many
distinct nations of people.

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gwbas1c
I know we don't like to talk about politics on Hacker News...

But: This. Is. Fascism.

~~~
rudolfwinestock
No, it's not. It's Communism.

Granted, the difference isn't much in terms of human rights.

I don't have the reference handy, but I remember reading about a priest who
had the dubious distinction of having survived both a Nazi concentration camp
as well as a Communist concentration camp. In his opinion, the Communist camp
was worse. In addition to the hard labor, other physical hardships, and the
ever-present threat of death, the Communists added brainwashing. “At least the
Germans didn't try turning you into a Nazi.”

Don't forget. Cuba and Vietnam have the same system in operation. Ask anyone
in the exile communities in the United States.

~~~
educationdata
How does this have anything to do with Communism?

The Chinese Communist Party has the word "Communist" in its name, but it has
nothing to do with Communism.

~~~
oh_sigh
Communists historically seem to be big on re-education camps. The first ones
that spring to mind are in the USSR, post-war Vietnam, and these ones
currently in China. Have there been many re-education camps in capitalist
societies?

~~~
pizza
They're called prisons over here (the US), and we have privatized some of them
to generate profit, too. We have the largest incarcerated population in the
world -- not even by per capita. Additionally, the 13th amendment makes
slavery legal for the incarcerated, and many states take away the right for
the incarcerated/felons/ex-felons to vote.

There is actually a huge nation-wide prison strike currently going on (of
course, not even mentioned in popular news) right now that you might find
interesting -- check out their list of demands. California only just recently
abolished the ability to buy yourself out of jail - cash bail.

~~~
dmix
Are you saying US prisons are "re-education" camps or are you just taking the
opportunity to bring up some popular social issues in a weakly relevant "what-
about-ism".

~~~
denerio-a
His point is obvious, clear, and inarguable. If you can’t grasp it that’s on
you.

~~~
394549
> His point is obvious, clear, and inarguable. If you can’t grasp it that’s on
> you.

His point is definitely arguable and not at all obvious or clear: it rests on
conflating prisons with political re-education camps. The two things obviously
have similarities, but they also have _important_ differences.

~~~
donbright
how important are the differences really?

whether you are in a Chinese prison or a US prison does it really matter which
injust, ridiculous, hypocritical system put you there? does it really matter
what kind of grandiose intellectual contortions your captors use to justify
their behavior towards you? if you are being raped or beaten or worked until
you bleed do you really care what language they are using to scream at you
while they do it? does your family, who doesnt know where you are, and wont
see you for years, care what flag is flown over the walls that enclose you?

~~~
ardy42
> how important are the differences really?

The differences are very important. In one, the prisoners are ideally a threat
to the members of their society in some way: rapists, con artists, thieves. In
the other, the prisoners are only a threat to or a scapegoat for the already-
powerful rulers: intellectuals, dissidents, minorities.

> whether you are in a Chinese prison or a US prison does it really matter
> which injust, ridiculous, hypocritical system put you there?

Yes it does, because they're not "injust, ridiculous, hypocritical" to
anywhere near the same degree.

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seibelj
It's impossible to say for certain where the next financial crisis will come
from, and when, but I bet there is a decent chance that a global meltdown
originates in China.

Autocratic, opaque, statistics no one believes, infrastructure spending for
cities and rails no one needs dictated by political hacks, entrenched
corruption, rising national debt... a few wrong moves and the house of cards
falls. The fact that the second largest economy is so radically different from
western capitalist countries makes it difficult to predict how it will evolve.
Democratic revolution could still happen.

~~~
ethbro
The problem with communism was a large country's economic system was too
complex to manage. Centralized control simply wasn't possible.

China skirted that by pivoting to a market economy under political direction.

On the plus side, this affords them the power to directly deflate asset
bubbles in a way democracies can't.

On the minus side, the lack of transparency and accountability increases
inefficiency and hides issues.

It remains to be seen which of these will triumph. If the increased power
offsets the inefficiencies, everything might stay fine. But if they fail to
notice or act on a major issue... it's a pretty fragile system.

~~~
polskibus
You forgot that China has big data tools to help them achieve centralisation.
That are using it on a very wide scale. No other authoritarian government had
such resources available before.

~~~
ethbro
I'm aware. I'm just suspicious of the human operation of such systems.

The world is complex. You can compress that complexity with tooling. But at
some point, you're increasing technical complexity in exchange for decreased
management complexity.

That isn't a guaranteed path to success.

~~~
polskibus
You can't compress the complexity, but they still try and the people are the
ones paying the price. This is not that different to policy planning done by
democratic countries, but more wholesome, on more levels. There are many
countries (ex-communist) that serve as a proof how it can go wrong without big
data.

~~~
ethbro
I think it's arguable you can compress the complexity.

Certainly something like Project Cybersyn [1] would have a much better chance
of success now than in the 70s. (Although admittedly, the CIA backed regime
change stopped it then)

And when I say compress complexity, I'm using it in an interchangeable sense
with "increase efficiency of those humans who do make decisions." There are a
huge number of actions that need to be taken -- but many require little or no
thought.

Automating those formulaic actions and only surfacing critical decisions with
relevant data qualifies as compressing complexity, imho.

Sadly, in China, this is being done in a politically paranoid police state.

One wonders what could happen if you had a computer-planned economy, some kind
of basic income, and individual freedom to spend the rest of ones labor.

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

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394549
Paywall bypass: [http://archive.is/bX0a0](http://archive.is/bX0a0)

