> The government denies the claims, saying people are willingly attending special “vocational schools” which combat “terrorism and religious extremism”.
This is from the opening lines of the article. Every excuse the government provides seems to provide is similarly transparent. Roads close because they've "melted". Filming is not allowed, because of "military exercises". I don't know who they think they're fooling.
It's not meant to fool you. It's meant to make it harder to object and report on. If they say, "you can't go there," that opens avenues of progress. You can say "great, show me the rule" or write a story about how the military forbid them from going to see. But if "the road melted," you can only comply or accuse them of being liars, and you can only write a story that says "their excuse was dubious." It also allows the reporter a face-saving out if they wish to take it. Nobody ever believes there is a melted road or is meant to believe it.
Would you please stop posting political flamebait to HN? You've done it often enough that I'm starting to wince when I recognize your username in a thread.
I understand why people like to try to conflate Trump with people like Putin or Xi, it'd be laughable if it weren't so far off course and an injustice to the vast human rights atrocities going on in Russia and China as a matter of routine that were instigated by Putin and Xi.
Trump will be gone in two to six years. He isn't a ruler, he was democratically elected President. There is no scenario where he remains, Trump is not a dictator or ruler just like George W. Bush (accused by the left) and Obama (accused by the right) were not.
Further, Trump wasn't elected by a fake extreme majority as with Putin, he squeaked by courtesy of the electoral college system. His opposition spent three times as much money as he did and had nearly all of the media on their side. He is popularly and very openly opposed by nearly all elites in the US, all media, all talkshow hosts, the large majority of pundits, all celebrities and nearly all large media companies. Trump is not placing his opposition into prison or silencing them (even if he wishes he could, he can't), see: Schumer, Pelosi, Harris, Feinstein, Clinton, Booker, Bezos, Soros, Reid Hoffman, Tom Steyer, and a thousand other prominent examples. Snoop pretended to kill Trump in a music video, try something equivalent to that in China or Russia, see how long you last. Every celebrity in Hollywood routinely attacks Trump and his policies, often viciously, with zero legal consequence. In China they disappear prominent people for a tiny fraction of that behavior.
Can you imagine what would happen to a prominent musician in China that made the first lady of China (Peng Liyuan) a stripper in a music video, as recently was the case with Melania? Most likely they'd never be heard from again. What did Trump do about it? Nothing, T.I. will continue on expressing his views and art.
The First Amendment is clearly very much alive and well in the US.
There is a mountain of anti-Trump sentiment and protest across the US and has been for two years now. It is not being silenced or stopped, it's on nearly every TV channel 24/7 and it's all over the US Internet.
Now please contrast that with Xi and Putin vs their opposition, domestic protest, what you're allowed to do in opposition in China and Russia, and so on.
> There is a mountain of anti-Trump sentiment and protest across the US and has been for two years now. It is not being silenced or stopped, it's on nearly every TV channel 24/7 and it's all over the US Internet.
To be more precise, i am pretty sure since he took office 640 days ago, there has not been a single day where there wasn't some negative trump story in the papers, a quick shot or mock clip on some late night TV show or some outrage on Twitter.
Notice how you're not actually talking about Trump, but are instead talking about the United States? You're not really making the point that Trump is any different than Putin or Xi, just that he operates in a place that doesn't let him express himself the same way. That the US is a different place than Russia was not my point, and I wouldn't argue it either.
Trump, Putin, Xi, Erdogan, etc are all the same breed. The US, Russia, China, and Turkey are different places. The same set of beliefs/tactics/views/attitudes will produce the different outcomes in different environments.
One thing you should consider is your faith the the abstract notion of "rule of law". What you're seeing with Trump is that lots of people don't really care about abstract high-minded principles, they only care that their guy is in power. Laws and conventions will be discarded in his favour.
One thing that has really changed in my mind over the last two years is finally understanding Weimar Germany. I used to be perplexed at how an advanced society can fall like that, but seeing 2 years of "progress" under Trump, I can't imagine what terrible outcomes a decade or two of Trumpism will produce.
> Further, Trump wasn't elected by a fake extreme majority as with Putin, he squeaked by courtesy of the electoral college system. His opposition spent three times as much money as he did and had nearly all of the media on their side. He is popularly and very openly opposed by nearly all elites[...]
I wonder if this is better or worse.
Trump is like the ALDI version of the other two and this low afford leaders seems to become a thing in the west while you need to push and control people in the east. I wonder what the implications will be once those new western ALDI leaders caused enough damage. What did we learn? How can we prevent this?
Prevent what? Trump and the recent rise of right-leaning populist leaders in Europe (Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Switzerland partly, Slovakia...) was simply the will of the people. Its not "fake news" that has elected these forces, it was the failure of the former mid-left/mid-right government parties to listen to their people and they have been voted out of office rightfully.
> Its not "fake news" that has elected these forces, it was the failure of the former mid-left/mid-right government parties to listen to their people and they have been voted out of office rightfully.
There has been signs of Russian meddling via propaganda though.
Nevertheless it’s the people who voted.
If said people don’t wake up and realize that they are being played as “useful idiots” to destabilize their own country ...
> Its not "fake news" that has elected these forces, it was the failure of the former mid-left/mid-right government parties to listen to their people and they have been voted out of office rightfully.
Besides the fact that foreign propaganda has played a relevant role, all the countries besides Italy are very good off. The east European countries have been hanging from the EUs tit for years and have grown into good prospering members now. And Switzerland and Austria never had any problems to begin with.
This whole movement grew out of prosperity. Same goes for the US.
Now that they are in force, they either mess up (cutting down democracy wherever it's possible, damaging legal institutions, spreading hate against minorities, hurting the economy)or are on the way there, see Italy. Meanwhile spitting in the faces of those who fed them (see east EU and Italy).
How can you call anything of that "rightful" is beyond me.
>The satellite photograph was discovered by researchers looking for evidence of that system on the global mapping software, Google Earth.
Presumably the NRO and NGA also knew about this place, likely as it was being built. It's a shame that imagery backing up human rights violations never comes out of the IC unless it's congruent with American foreign policy of the day.
Independent organizations then end up relying on Google Maps of all things, which can be downright glacial in its update frequency. It's promising that some NGOs are striking partnerships directly with commercial providers now:
Wonder what will happen with it as Google try to gain more of a presence in China. Judging by the reports on how search is being handled, I’d bet there is flexibility in Googles position.
Why was this article hidden from the front page? A similar satellite journalism article from the BBC about a killing in west Africa was allowed on the front page a few weeks ago.
> Why was this article hidden from the front page? A similar satellite journalism article from the BBC about a killing in west Africa was allowed on the front page a few weeks ago.
Because it's about China, and information about Chinese human rights abuses is apparently considered "nationalistic flamebait."
HN moderation has nothing to do with what YC is doing in China, as anyone can see by looking back through the many years' worth of comments I've posted. The macro political climate has changed; HN moderation hasn't. The standards are a flatline, to the point of janitorial tedium.
Sad that American greed is funding this... It is only the beginning though. Us or our children will be in those camps (or ones like them) someday. All funded by our dollars for a bunch of materialistic crap that now (or soon) will be sitting in our landfills and oceans...
When will the US and the EU strongly condemn these human rights abuses? I mean, we condemned the Soviet Union strongly again and again even though it was the world's second largest economy with the world'a largest military and nuclear arsenal, why does China get a free pass?
It's not just the money from trade. It's the political power and blind self destructive yet predictable force of pride (saving face). Traditionally, the mainstream media and academia would be the rallying force behind this nation and it's citizens denouncing something like this. Both of these entities are now heavily partisan globalists whose ideals (along with greedy crony capitalists) have perpetuated this reality. To condemn this short sighted consequence would be admitting a flaw in their ideology which would cost them political power and even worse, to have to admit they were wrong. (Where is my progressive utopia hiding this time around?)
I have a problem seeing how globalist media have perpetuated Chinese human rights abuses towards Muslims. I would say the Chinese Communist Party is not globalist, and I see the media and academia rallying against China more than politicians do. I can't name a politician vehemently against globalism being against what the CCP is doing to these Muslims.
And why do globalists have no qualms about condemning Myanmar's persecution of Muslims? Aung San Suu Kyi enjoyed a lot of Western support for decades before the genocidal acts.
Strange how so many of us in the US that seem so compassionate toward immigrants (legal and illegal) and refugees and denounce any opposition in the name of compassion and love for all, the people who protest and boycott anyone that opposes their views. These are the same people who are buying iPhones and other things from China whose sales basically sponsor massive human rights violations like this.
Do we not realize what hypocrites we are? We are funding the very actions and ideals that we vehemently oppose. All of us Silicon Valley residents who are so supportive of inclusion, acceptance and rights... Many of us work for the very companies that sponsor the exact opposite values on over a billion people. And we claim that we aren't tribal nationalists? What are we then? Why are our strong moral convictions so geographically limited?
We should ask ourselves and anyone around us who claims to believe in a cause for freedom, rights and equality to please explain why our beliefs don't go beyond the boundaries of the United States (or other western countries). Is it fake virtue? Is it blind apathy created by materialism and greed? It is nationalism, stateism, racism ETC? What is it? Shouldn't there be stories about things like this in the liberal media on a daily bases. Liberal ideas don't apply to China apparently. I dare to think how China may be different today if for the last 18 months, the Mainstream media covered stories like this one in place of all the millions of largely fluff partition anti Trump ones. My opinion is that at the very least least a large amount of pressure would have been put on China to address at least some of this trend. Perhaps our country country would have found some common ground and actually moved toward a center on a least something. All the while helping millions of Chinese citizens at the same time.
How is ignoring this situation and actually sponsoring it financially ok with the average American citizen (regardless of party affiliation)?
[TLDR: not the fear of the religion. If you can't control people's thoughts, you can't control people.] People should really learn religion is just a political tool. replace the word 'muslim' with any other religion and you will find many examples of the same- which may give you a clue why totalitarian states do this. Not certainly to fight "terrorism"
The camps, and BBC mentions this too, is less about Uyghur identity but about imprisoning Muslim followers to stop following Islam, you can tell because they've taken in Kazakh Chinese too and likely devout Muslim Hui who are basically Muslim Han Chinese
This situation is absolutely disgusting. China will stamp out the Muslim religion, and anyone not preemtively converting will be destroyed. Indeed probably a lot more than that. Where does it end?
I have made the decision to support the Chinese as little as I can, and fight the regime where I can. In my field, academia, this can actually matter a lot. I encourage you to do the same.
Muslims arent the most popular people right now, but the parallels to another religious ethnicity in history are too strong.
Dont be the one, years from now, having to claim that we did not know.
We know. We see. We know where this ends, it is not the first time.
Do what you can.
I agree that it's rather appalling, but it's not just an 'anti-Muslim'. They have been making claims and asserting themselves wherever and whenever they can. They have a proven track record of incarcerating or killing anyone (dissident or otherwise) that doesn't fit into their mould of chinese ideology.
I feel really sorry for these people in Xinjiang. A friend of mine (American Chinese born in China and left in the 1980s) is working on a similar story about Xinjiang (he works for Buzzfeed which has an office in Beijing) and he has been denied the renewal of his Work Visa just a few months back so he is back in New York now still figuring out a way to get into China. In China people outside of Xinjiang in general have no idea what is going on in Xinjiang except that it has become "peaceful". And many Han people in China actually like the idea that the government is doing something about Xinjiang because of the incidents happened in Kunming, etc. In Xinjiang they even have a separate security-check channel (a much faster one e.g. without checking the luggages, etc) for you if you are Han Chinese v.s. if you are Uyghur. This further reinforces the reality bubbles for the Han Chinese where Uyghurs are viewed as potentially dangerous, and they deserve the current treatment because they oppose the Central Government, and reinforces the reality bubbles for the Uyghurs that the Han Chinese are more superior and this is what happens when there are people in your community opposing the Central Government (i.e. the extremists). Now that I have lived in China for a while I can see that reality bubbles are extremely ubiquitous here (one example: so many tech conferences here are branded as "international" so for the none-tech Chinese people they were surprised when I, coming from Singapore, told them I had never heard of the "X International Conference" took place in some Tier 2 city; I had the chance to visit one before and it was just filled with Chinese people and bad English translations). I'm starting to believe the main function of the Central Government in China is to mass-control the reality bubbles of its citizens. Economy and everything else actually come second.
And since I saw a lot of comments about Trump here, I just want to point out that if Trump runs for president as a Democrat, which he will certainly do in order to maximise his chances in the case that the previous president is a Republican (also, if he were to do so he will do everything he could to appear extremely left-wing and liberal), as a President from the Democratic Party he will certainly use Xinjiang as among the many main reasons to start a trade war with China (which we will soon see that he and his friends will benefit hugely from). The main difference would be that everyone on the Internet will cheer for him when he starts the trade war, and there won't be as many people as there are now who had experienced the bursting of their reality bubbles back in 2016. Reality bubbles are ubiquitous in the west too. The difference here is that no central system is trying to control these reality bubbles. Instead, the problem in the west is that there are platforms like Facebook which, for the sole purpose of their business interest (e.g. user retention), reinforce people's reality bubbles to be more monochrome with views on things that is very one-sided. But given the rapid advancement in technologies and an increasingly larger proportion of the human population becoming more intelligent and intellectual, eventually platforms like Facebook will collapse as everything becomes more decentralised.
And I'm looking forwards to something like this happening in China too in the next 30 years. I heard from friends working in AliCloud that they are doing some experimental projects to build an AI for decentralised governance for the Central Government. Sounds ironic but this may just be the best way to combat corruption and improve the Chinese economics and for Xi to make sure him and his friends continue to stay in power. The Central Government will be rebranded as an organisation in charge of these decentralised AI governments for cities designed to serve its citizens' needs and there will be no need to mass-control the reality bubbles of Chinese citizens. And there will be no need to resort to doing horrible things to places like Xinjiang and Tibet too.
This is from the opening lines of the article. Every excuse the government provides seems to provide is similarly transparent. Roads close because they've "melted". Filming is not allowed, because of "military exercises". I don't know who they think they're fooling.