out of curiosity, what do you think it'll take for anyone to do something?
the marginalized groups in the 1940s examples weren't popular anywhere, until stumbling upon the true nature of the camps for other reasons and liberation, so I see some parallels here
We can’t really do anything for the Kurds in Turkey or people in South Sudan but you think we can somehow get China to change behavior? Not a chance. We can’t even act against Russia or Iran either, or even North Korea without tremendous repercussions.
Look at Venezuela. It’s starving its own people for political reasons, they have some oil, but we could survive without it... do you think we’re gonna go down there and do anything about it? Nope!
> do you think we’re gonna go down there and do anything about it? Nope!
You sound like you think that we aren't going to do anything because we just don't care, or at least don't care enough. But "doing anything about it" in Venezuela would mean an invasion. It would mean killing a bunch of people in the name of helping people. (Granted, at least some of those killed would be part of the problem. Still, killing people to help people has a pretty bad track record and a very moral foundation.)
In China, it would mean all-out war with a near-peer nation, which would probably result in nuclear war. While what China is doing is horrible, nobody wants to stop them at that price, and not because we don't care enough.
I think we agree. The calculus is the solution involves a cost orders of magnitude larger than the problem and we’re not willing to assume that cost over principle.
Venezuela is not starving its people for "political reasons". At least not anymore. That strikes me as a US talking point more than fact. Sure, the politics and economics of the leadership crushed the economy, but at this point, sticking with the program is nothing more than a megalomaniacal dictator clinging to power. Same old story
Do the non-muslim Chinese people want to do anything? If they don't, I don't see much happening here. No one seems to be able to exert serious international pressure on Chinese politics. It's a pretty hopeless cause, for me.
Seems like political and economic isolation for China might be effective, but who wants to do that when they offer the world cheap labor and manufacturing?
Well, Mike Pence denounced china on October 3 while speaking at the Hudson Institute[0]. He specifically mentioned the million people in detention in Xinjiang. I've provided a link to the video in case you want to watch.
> Its just meant to pacify us commoners? Am I wrong to think so?
I think so, but only because I think governments know how little "us commoners" actually care, beyond wanting to virtue signal and wanting to see politicians raise a stink about things.
No fan of the current administration, but there’s a massive difference between locking up and torturing millions of Muslims, and denying travel entry to citizens from certain majority-Muslim countries. Comparisons to the Japanese interment camps set up by FDR during WW2 would make more sense.
You're right, but it's still hypocritical to morally condemn a prejudicial action against a people while you're acting out of prejudice against the same people. Especially since this moral condemnation seems conveniently timed and aligned with an active trade war.
This Muslim ban came before the immigrant camps and migrant child detention centers, which Pence also supported. If we don't hold him accountable for hypocrisy, then who will?
Considering a formal apology was issued by the state department to the surviving Saint Louis passengers, are we destined to keep repeating history's mistakes?
Trump demonizes both China and Islam. So I'm not sure what the best play for the Republican party is here. If you praise the Chinese government then that's going too far. But if you criticize them then you have to soften your own Islamophobia.
Is he ready to offer the affected Uyghurs (Or even some large percentage of them) asylum in the US? I'm sure that if he made that offer, China would gladly exile them.
The truth is that China is too big, to economically important, and to powerful militarily for either countries or companies to do anything except talk or write.
So I except nobody will do anything that has any impact.
What makes you think that something can be done? Playing international police hasn't worked out since World War II. Having been to Xinjiang, racial tensions are high. It isn't out of the question that Chinese oppression is the only thing preventing the region breaking out into civil war. Who would want to take responsibility for that fallout?
A more recent parallel, the USA opening the doors to the WTO to China long after the Dalai Lama fled, and the next Dalai Lama imprisoned as a child so the government of China can start selecting the next leaders of Tibetan Buddhism.
NATO intervened to stop the war crimes in the Yugoslav civil war mostly because it was right on the doorstep to Western Europe. Other Arab countries had already intervened years earlier with some people/weapons since the arms embargo had to some extent disproportionately affected the Muslim populations (one common thread with this gulag). This aid /intervention was only possible due to the geographic circumstances of the former Yugoslavia - no outside forces are going to step into China, and stuff like the Opium Wars/forced open doors afterwards means very few in China want foreigners to come in and help.
I hate saying this, but China has gotten itself in a position where people won't do anything to it...even where people can't do anything to it.
Let's think about an individual/NGO-style boycott where you encourage a billion people to boycott Chinese goods. Could you even boycott Chinese goods? What phone would you buy? What computer? Even if the place of final assembly isn't China, what percentage of the parts would be Chinese?
If we're talking about countries doing something, it's hard to look past the huge economic ties in place. We'd be talking about really a drop in the S&P 500 that would make every recession look tiny. Apple needs China for iPhones, Amazon needs China for goods for its retail operation and server components (as well as Microsoft, Google, etc.), Huawei powers most of Europe's mobile infrastructure, Volvo is the largest company in Sweden and Chinese owned, Foreign Direct Investment from the US to China topped $100B in 2017... Would the US or EU take such a huge hit to their economy for the Uighurs?
As you noted, the Allies didn't come for the Jews. They came to contain a Germany that was taking over Europe. The Soviet Union was content to let Germany do as it pleased until it was attacked itself. The UK and France tried appeasing the Nazis while they took over Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Memelland. The US didn't join the war in Europe until Germany declared war against the US.
If China doesn't attack Taiwan, Japan, or India, I can't see us doing anything. Tibet happened and while we might have had some strong words about Tibet, we haven't done anything about it.
Plus, to be honest, it's hard to see us doing a lot when the right-wing in Europe and the US has started replacing Jews as their go-to "it's their fault" target with Muslims. Hatred is a terrible thing, but there has been growing anti-Muslim sentiment. While that doesn't rule out saving people, I think it does make it less likely.
This isn't meant to say that we shouldn't do anything. It's more that I don't think we (collectively, governmentally) have the will to do something given the huge economic ties in play.
Russia might provide some clues, but it's also important to remember that our economic ties with Russia are a lot simpler: Russia has natural resources. While we have applied some sanctions, Russia is still in Ukraine. Given the level of our reliance on China, I can't imagine we will bring might strong enough for China to really change.
I would love for someone to change my mind on this comment. I really hope this comment is just totally wrong.
I think nuclear weapons have significantly changed how large nation-states approach disagreements. :) Look at how the Cold War was won, and know that these things are played out over decades. iPhones might be assembled in China today, but that is clearly a huge liability going forward.
for many of us all we have to do is look no further than that phone in our hands and realize if we aren't even willing to forgo the luxury items that are sourced from this country then why should we hold our leaders to such standards?
edit: we had stories rallying for the workers protesting Google making software for the Chinese, why not rally against any manufacturer making product there? The tech sector is a place where it can bring pressure
The only thing that would probably have a chance of working is a large global coalition willing to take action simultaneously to sanction China's economy to the tune of at least being equivalent to a trillion dollars annually (whatever form that would need to take, a combination of targeting their companies, exports, imports, access to natural resources, banks, high level politicians, et al.). It would require at a minimum the US/Canada + EU + Japan + South Korea + AU/NZ. That gets you the majority of the global economy.
The big problem: it involves the world's consumers willingly punching themselves in the face at the same time. It might even throw the global economy into a deep recession and as a consequence kill a lot more people than the gulags are likely to. There are a lot of fallout problems in dealing with China, not least because they've historically shown a willingness to distribute any necessary pain upon their people to achieve party goals. There'd also have to be an elaborate verification program put in place, so China wouldn't continue their agenda in a more subtle manner; I don't see that sort of invasive foreign observation ever being allowed.
They've made a very conscious choice to eliminate the Uighur culture, as they did with Tibet before it. They have an end goal in mind, it's hard to imagine stopping them without upping the risks very high. Frankly I'm skeptical there is any way to stop them, I think they'd just take the pain and make it an us vs them conflict to convince the domestic population to absorb it (insert slogans here to drive loyalty during the great fight against the imperialists).
> It might even throw the global economy into a deep recession and as a consequence kill a lot more people than the gulags are likely to.
This isn't the last gulag of the CCP. We would never know how many future atrocities were prevented with proper diplomatic and economic sanctions against them.
I think you're right, and it illustrates a fundamental problem of the capitalist system—it is incapable of making value judgements on its own. "What about consumer choices?". Consumers, in general, are also not making value judgements when they buy something. Perhaps purchasing taps into something primal in us that we cannot intellectually override in the moment, just muse about after the fact. To wit, the market for ethical goods is miniscule, and most pick the product with the highest perceived cost/value ratio. What remains is government. While we don't tend to make value judgements when we shop, we do make them when we vote. Which is why it's crucial that governments have the power to regulate corporations' actions, also abroad.
What makes you think that the world cares so much about Uighur culture? Myanmar rohingya crisis is a clear proof that the world is not very keen to fight for human rights even when the cost is low (compared with a China conflict).
And this is the hard truth: If the rohingya were to be displaced in big numbers in the US or any of the developed countries(maybe with a few exceptions) I'm pretty sure they would be turned back/stopped at the border.
> out of curiosity, what do you think it'll take for anyone to do something?
Given that both our politicians and corporations are content with helping China cover this up at best, or are complicit in identification and imprisonment of the Uyghurs at worst, I don't know.
Perhaps if China invaded Taiwan or enabled NK in an attack on South Korea,
it would wake Western interests up.
the marginalized groups in the 1940s examples weren't popular anywhere, until stumbling upon the true nature of the camps for other reasons and liberation, so I see some parallels here