
China 'holding at least 120,000 Uighurs in re-education camps' - ghostcluster
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/at-least-120000-muslim-uighurs-held-in-chinese-re-education-camps-report
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reallymental
So IF the future favours China, and IF the west lets it happen without
outright/proxy war, and China wins... with all these ML techniques in hand,
and with all of our digital footprints slapped around everywhere, am I
paranoid to assume that even this comment can be construed to have 12%
negative sentiment towards the CCP? And the cut off for "Normal Dissident
Sentiment Levels" was 10% so I'm going to one of their camps?

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runeb
That assumes China becomes the world. Seems far fetched. But assuming western
countries would not follow their practices also seems far fetched. I feel the
west already does much of the surveillance China does, only not as openly. Our
camps are reserved for terrorists for the time being. Pray that term does not
get expanded.

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nashashmi
It does not seem so far fetched in current times. Nationalism,
Racial/political/group supremacy, opinion extremism/supremacy leads to wide
scale divide. And has always been the achilles heal leading to the fall of
many nations throughout history.

Unity, even the unity found in Russia, China, and North Korea, has caused
nations to reach higher levels of greatness and prosperity.

Hence, the reason China is so concerned about dissent.

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toasterlovin
Authoritarians don't quash dissent so that their nation can achieve higher
levels of greatness and prosperity. They do it to maintain control.

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nashashmi
maintain control

TO

achieve higher levels of greatness and prosperity

Atleast that is what the Chinese Communist Party is all about. They are
significantly engineering and technical backgrounds, not politicians. They
cannot weave and deceive through people issues.

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toasterlovin
So what you're telling me is that all the politicians figured out that they
need to get an engineering degree in order to have viable political career?

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nashashmi
Actually what I am trying to say is that politics in China runs very
differently than it does in other countries.

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toasterlovin
What I’m saying is that “we’re doing this bad thing to further the greatness
of China” is a justification for what’s going on, not an explanation. I mean,
if a thief took your wallet, would you believe them when they explained that
they did so for safekeeping?

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castle-bravo
What's the difference between a re-education camp and a concentration camp?
Under what circumstances could Chinese treatment of Uighurs be considered
genocide? Is there a red line of moral outrage that if crossed, would result
in a boycott of Chinese products, or will we continue to buy iPhones no matter
what crime is perpetrated by the CCP?

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anthonyleecook
If we look back to WW2 and Nazi, US did still conduct trade with Nazi Germany,
but the trade volume fell between 1929 to 1938, when US started putting up
protectionist policy (soooo eerily similar to China today). when Nazi invaded
Czechoslovakia, FDR slapped a 25% tariff on Nazi (but it wasn't an embargo).

Let's hope this time if China invades any country (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea,
Vietnam), we contain and hopefully counter right away.

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downrightmike
If that happens get ready to watch ram/ssd prices to go through the roof.

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seanmcdirmid
Laojiao and laogai have been something that China has done since forever.
Probably just as many Han in it as well, it’s a nice way for officials to make
some extra spending money. I don’t see anything new in this article, those
camps have probably been there forever. Why do you think many Uighurs hate the
Chinese government in the first place?

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anthonyleecook
But with the (official) dictatorship in China, is this concentration camps
reincarnated? Nazi reincarnated? Xitler is a real thing?

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neilsimp1
For now, I would say no, only because nobody is getting exterminated. For now.

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castle-bravo
This is a hypothetical question unrelated to China's activities in Xinjiang:
If I take an ethnic group off their land, put them in camps, force them to
perform hard labour and prevent them from raising children, but do not murder
any of them, could that be considered extermination?

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cromwellian
Culture extermination. They’re basically trying to erase the ethnic Muslim
culture but not necessarily the people. In that respect it’s not much
different than what the US OR Australians did to indigenous peoples.

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anthonyleecook
Are you seriously whataboutism events that happened few hundred years ago????
Wow. And you work for google. God help us all

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cromwellian
Hell no and you are interpreting what I said in a crazy fashion. I said
they’re trying to exterminate their culture, likening it to similar attempts
in the past is not whataboutism.

If there was a holocaust happening where people were being put into camps and
gassed and I said “this is just like what the Nazis did”, it would not be
whataboutism.

If I compared it to the Japanese internment of WW2, it would not be
“whataboutism”

I don’t think you really understand what “whataboutism” is.

Whataboutism seeks to divert attention and justify what is being done by the
fact that other wrongs are being done. My comment is not trying to diminish in
anyway what they’re doing, but explain what it is they’re trying to achieve by
analogy to policies like Stolen Generations or forced assimilations.

I’m not trying to say “we’re just as bad so don’t criticize them”, I’m saying
“this is horrible, here’s why, look up the history of how this turned out for
others”

sheesh

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Mikeb85
The Guardian citing a US-funded propaganda outlet reporting on an ethnic group
that the US/Saudi Arabia use and fund in order to undermine the Chinese state.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but this is likely a propaganda piece, and no
more credible than someone simply writing what they want on the internet.

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tome
Do you know what sort of paper the Guardian is? Favouritism towards the US is
not something they're famous for.

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laretluval
Wikipedia says: Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit international
broadcasting corporation and propaganda apparatus of the United States[2] that
broadcasts and publishes online news, information, and commentary to listeners
in East Asia while "advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy."

