China won't allow airlines to say they fly to Taiwan. Western media frequently defer to PRC rules (the latest one: Top Gun sequel removing the taiwanese flag). John Cena had to publicly apologize because he referred to Taiwan as a country. Chinese vessels regularly violate territorial waters, and there is an ongoing spat with India around their borders.
The PRC is bullying the whole planet, and people are letting them do it in name of profit.
The status is controversial,
it's similar to Catalunya in Spain (see what happened to Catalan leader Puigdemont) or Flanders in Belgium, but Taiwan is not officially a country.
I think that if someone called Fort-de-France a country, France would correct them.
On the other side of the spectrum, if someone says that Vatican and San Marino are Italy, they would protest.
Yes, Spain would protest if you said Catalunya is a country, but you likely wouldn't be forced to make a public apology to protect your business in Spain.
I don't know much about catalonia or flanders, but don't they participate in the national government? Dissimilarly, taiwan hasn't participated in the chinese government? Correct me if I'm wrong, I've been under the impression they are not integrated with the mainland in any meaningful way governmentally.
I was looking it up as you replied and yeah, it seems like spain has judicial jurisdiction over catalonia and that is it. Huh. Thanks for the response.
This is disingenuous. You can't seriously claim there is no difference between Catalonia and Taiwan in their relationship to the broader national entity.
I didn't say there is no difference, I've specifically said that their status is similar.
Catalunya has a quite conflictual relationship with Spain and the level of conflict has raised in the past few years.
Catalonia is not a country, Taiwan is not a country.
Some of us might think that they deserve to be independent, but that's not their current political status, so calling Taiwan a country is technically wrong, just like calling Catalonia a country.
In this specific example, if John Cena said that Catalonia is a country, Spain would have protested and probably asked Cena to correct himself.
I mean, I understand that in US Taiwan is recognized as a country, in Italy Palestin is recognized as such too, but they are not officially sovereign countries and protest from mainland are to be expected because it's a very complicated international matter and of course China uses all the tools they have to support their position, just like the US.
Do you remember what happened when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel capital?
Conflicts over sovereignty on land are as old as the human race.
> Chinese vessels regularly violate territorial waters, and there is an ongoing spat with India around their borders.
If you are talking about India's spat with China in terms of territorial waters, I think the general consensus is that India is in excess of international law with its claims and China is conducting legal freedom of navigation operations just like the US does.
The SCS is an entirely different issue, where both China and Taiwan have made territorial claims that are largely illegal under international law.
See also: Australia. However it’s largely held that Australia have “won” despite China’s attempts at harming the Australian economy through many of the same tactics used against Lithuania.
The US views itself as the enforcer of UNCLOS for all navigable bodies of water in the entire world, a treaty it hasn't ratified.
It has tons of military bases in the SCS, a region not even close to it, compared to the furor when it becomes possible that China might build a single military base along Africa's atlantic coast.
It seems like a bit of a double standard to me.
I wish a good faith discussion about China was possible here, but I think that HN swings pretty jingoistic on these issues.
> The US views itself as the enforcer of UNCLOS for all navigable bodies of water in the entire world
50 years ago Americans were mass bombing North Vietnam, spraying toxic chemicals across large swathes, and generally killing. However, now America is a friend and trading partner to Vietnam and China is a bitter rival because China has many centuries of history bullying and brutally subjugating Vietnam and compared to that the US comes off looking ok. It doesn’t diminish how terrible and regrettable the Vietnam War was but it sure puts China’s long held attitude toward foreigners in stark relief!
If criticism of the US and the President were treated by the US with such vitriol and reprisals as China responds to criticisms of China and Xi then the world would be a smoldering crater.
I am not making a whataboutism claim. I am merely trying to figure out what our standard for "bullying" behavior is. If the standard for "bullying" behavior happens to also apply to the US and is the impetus for why Lithuana evacuated its embassy, then I would suggest they should evacuate their US embassy as well.
If there is a reason why Lithuania hasn't evacuated their US embassy, then I am just seeking to figure out what the standard is that makes China's behavior uniquely bad.
I think it is pretty undeniable that jingoistic rhetoric has increased in both China and the US in recent years.
> If there is a reason why Lithuania hasn't evacuated their US embassy, …
That is a simple one. The US is not hurting Lithuania the same way China is hurting Lithuania. This is the reason why Lithuania evacuated their Chinese embassy and not their US embassy.
Your question seems to imply that Lithuania drawn a big tally of the Chinese “moral failings” in general and decided to withdraw. This is not what happened.
Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open an embassy in their country. In response, the PRC recalled its ambassador in Vilnius, Shen Zhifei, and demanded that Lithuania recall its ambassador in Beijing, Diana Mickevičienė.
Following this Lithuania experienced a trade distruption. Shipments to and from Lithuania didn’t clear Chinese customs and invoices went unpaid. It goes as far that assemblies containing Lithuanian parts get blocked by the Chinese.
This is not rhetoric. This is not some feel-good measure to communicate displeasure with China in an abstract. This is a trade war.
Now I ask: is the US doing anything like this to Lithuania right now?
Hi dang, will be mindful to reply with more context, thank you for the warning. What can we do about commenters that spew misinformation or twist issues? Is there a report option?
You can flag, but you might have to have posted a little bit more in order to be able to do it. I am not sure what the guidelines are for flagging tbph
I don't think imprisoning a large proportion of a certain ethnic group due to BS laws around extremist ideology is all that different from imprisoning an even greater number of a different ethnic group (1 in 3 black men imprisoned) due to BS laws producing a 100:1 sentencing disparity based on which drug is more popular among a certain ethnic group.
I've been using the past tense this whole time, I am not claiming that it is occurring in the present.
In the 80s and 90s, 1 out of every 3 young black men was under current custody by the criminal justice system, and the lifetime rates were close to the 1 in 3. Today, you are correct that it is closer to 1 in 4 (although still above).
I don't think this makes a very large difference in my point.
"I don't think imprisoning a large proportion of a certain ethnic group due to BS laws around extremist ideology is all that different from imprisoning an even greater number of a different ethnic group (1 in 3 black men imprisoned) due to BS laws producing a 100:1 sentencing disparity based on which drug is more popular among a certain ethnic group."
You think 1 in 3 black men imprisoned is due to crack vs cocaine laws? Do you really believe that every single black person in prison in America was there because they were smoking crack?
In the 90s, the majority of people in federal prison were due to drug offenses, primarily cocaine. [0] The sentencing disparity was a big driver of these increase imprisonment rates.
But no, not all because of the disparity - but a large part. Illegal guns are another big offense sending lots of black people to prison.
> African Americans now serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense at 58.7 months, as whites do for a violent offense at 61.7 months [1]
So what percentage of black people were in prison because they were smoking crack? Why do you say it's "large"? Why don't you just say what the actual percentage was?
You needn’t look very far to answer your own question. Last year Chinese diplomats crashed a Taiwan national day party in Fiji held by Taiwan trade office staff. The Chinese were there photographing (Fijian) guests. Why would they do that except to bully politicians in the host country away from contact with Taiwan? The incident ended with the Chinese officials starting a fistfight over the display of a “false national flag.”
This is an almost mundane incident compared to ethnic genocide, but it’s illustrative of how they believe the can operate in the world. A flag “provoked” their diplomats so they are within their rights to trespass and commit assault? That’s bully diplomacy if anything is.
Okay, then I would claim referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. In the Holocaust, they killed 11 million people.
I wouldn't compare that to an attempt to end child marriage in India, for instance.
Some cultural practices should be ended. By contrast, people from a certain culture should not have their lives ended simply for being from that culture.
I'd encourage you to study up more on the literature and definitions around cultural genocide. You're conflating nuances in subjects. Anyone discussing the subject seriously is typically focusing on one group, usually non-native to an area forcing cultural change on another group for the purposes of, compliance, curbing, minimizing or destroying, the group. See events such as Uyghurs in China, Natives in Canada, Darfur etc. You may value the destruction of a culture such to kill a peoples as lesser than say, the holocaust, and I doubt anyone would slight you on that value judgement, never the less, these are distinct things and need to be discussed equally, even if you're unhappy with the context around phrasing.
No, they absolutely should not be discussed equally.
Darfur was an actual genocide, ie. a killing fields genocide. Native Americans were also killed at high rates, the "cultural genocide" came later.
Equating the killing of millions of people from a certain ethnic group with prohibiting certain practices (like France prohibiting the burqa or public expression of religion, like attempts to outlaw child marriage, etc.) is wrong.
You're seeking to launder the distaste people have for mass killings of an ethnic group into prohibitions of certain cultural practices which are not viewed nearly as negatively. There is no other reason to simply call it "genocide" without the (very important) "cultural" modifier.
Well it's wrong in your book, but it's not in mine, so where does that leave us? Reasonable people cannot disagree? I'm a dimwitted plebeian? Shall we reach for the white gloves?
Last I checked, folks were welcomed to their perspectives around here, we don't typically just go around telling people their opinions are "wrong".
It is my opinion that your opinion is wrong. You are telling me to not express that opinion.
But sure, we can agree to disagree about whether the killing of 6 million people of a specific ethnic group should be "discussed equally" with cultural genocide practices like Burqa bans in France, child marriage bans, or limits on having more than 3 children.
Sorry, I should have used the word "can" instead of "should" - As simply as possible what I was trying to convey is that cultural genocide can be discussed next to the holocaust in the context of genocide, the way an orange can be discussed next to an apple in the context of fruit. What I was trying to say is some people would say an apple is equally an orange in the context of fruit, not that some people might like orange more than apple, if that makes sense.
Fair enough. My intention was not to equate them, but merely to disagree that cultural prohibitions of any kind should be "compared equally" to genocides which kill people.
I think what's going on in Xinjiang is broader and much worse than merely trying to restrict certain "cultural" practices, but I also don't think it is a genocide with the intent to exterminate the Uyghur people.
Why is gene metaphorical here? Are people not a result of external stimuli? My understanding is that gene variants are involved in evolution often caused by extrinsic factors?
Let's recenter the definition of genocide. From google:
> the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group
Now to your points:
> religious conversion
1. No, forced religious conversion is not genocide in my book.
> Forced sterilization
2. Look, I'm not a fan of this law either, but sterilization in-lieu-of fine is one of the remedies in China for breaking the two (previously one)-child law and is also applied to Han Chinese. The Uyghur population is still growing at a faster rate than Han Chinese.
> the occasional organ harvesting
3. Awful and at large scale, absolutely a genocide. My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now?
1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide, which forced religious conversion certainly qualifies as. Not to mention wiping out a culture is part of an overall genocide, usually it's the objective.
2. Oh, so the Chinese are just enforcing their population control law? Then what are the internment camps for? And why the Uighur birth rate plummeting far faster than the reported national Chinese birthrate?
https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-we...
"Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone — compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show."
"UN human rights experts* said today they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged ‘organ harvesting’ targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China
The experts said they have received credible information that detainees from ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be forcibly subjected to blood tests and organ examinations such as ultrasound and x-rays, without their informed consent; while other prisoners are not required to undergo such examinations. The results of the examinations are reportedly registered in a database of living organ sources that facilitates organ allocation."
> 1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide,
1. Yes, referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. There's an obvious difference between killing 6 million people because of their ethnic background and outlawing a practice (say, child marriage in India or wearing a burqa in France) that happens to be a large part of a certain culture.
2. You're conflating a few different things I'm saying. The internment camps are for alleged violations of a lot of extremely broad and bullshit laws designed to target Uyghur people, as well as for violations of China's two-child law. I am not claiming that the internment camps are just for people violating China's two child law.
Your chart indicates that Uyghur birth rates are roughly the same as Han Chinese, not that they are being disproportionately suppressed below Han Chinese.
I'll defer to them then. If they've been doing it against Falun Gong in the recent past, I wouldn't put it past them to be doing it to the Uyghurs. That is obviously a crime against humanity. It is scary that we probably won't know the true extent of this for decades at least.
You're trivializing "cultural genocide" by comparing it to child marriage bans in India or Burqa bans in France. Cultural genocide is not just banning random specific practices, the near complete eradication of local languages or cultures by the French state throughout the 19th and 20th centuries is a better example or what the British did in Ireland. And if "cultural genocide" is not the appropriate name for that what would be a better one?
1. I think it is up for debate what the way France treats ethnic and religious minorities, and their extreme focus on eliminating any sense of cultural difference from the public sphere constitutes.
2. I am not saying that "cultural genocide" is not the appropriate term. Honestly, it probably is. I'm merely saying that "genocide" is not the appropriate term for a "cultural genocide."
The purpose in referring to the repression of the Uyghur's as a "genocide" without qualifiers is to try to take some of the distaste people feel for mass killings and apply it to this.
Then let’s clear up this whole debate. I meant to type cultural genocide, but it was late and I was sleepy so I said “ethnic” instead of “cultural.”
It’s trivial compared to the Communist Party’s ongoing cultural genocide against numerous ethnic minorities, involving imprisonment, slave labor, forced sterilization, “re-education,” family separation, forced marriages to Han Chinese men, and many other abhorrent conditions, but still terrifying that Chinese diplomats in another country think it’s okay to gate crash a party, photograph attendees (presumably for identification and retribution), and then start a fistfight because they were “provoked” by a “false national flag.”
I don’t need to take some of the distaste we have for the holocaust and apply it to this. It’s shameful and terrifying enough on its own.
If the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, involving forced labor,suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception and forced abortion does not qualify in your view as genocide than you are out of touch with the accepted definition of the word.
>> My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now?
Yet you seem to really like the "1 in 3 black men" behind bars headline, based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups. Even the authors state its' gone down significantly.
> If the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, involving forced labor,suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception and forced abortion does not qualify in your view as genocide than you are out of touch with the accepted definition of the word.
There are 2.5 million black people in prison in the US, compared to a high end estimate of 1.5 million Uyghurs. (To be fair, there are 3x as many black people as uyghurs, but you said largest-scale.)
I would not expect a population to increase while it is undergoing genocide.
> based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups
I've been consistent in using the past tense when referring to this study.
Is there a special law targeting Uyghurs? Or are Uyghurs (due to their religion) more likely to have higher birth rates that are in contravention of Chinese two-child law?
Another question - does a genocide necessarily require an actual reduction in the population of people being genocided?
I do agree that the strongest case is for (d) (or maybe c, actually), especially if Uyghur women are being sterilized with fewer than 2-3 births.
Are you a PRC-funded troll or misinformation spreader? You keep misinterpreting arguments here and posting silly (and wrong) rebuttals.
Nobody is calling disproportionate imprisonment "genocide" (we call them "lockdowns" LOL).
The "genocide" accusation against China is (these days) focused on / caused by (alleged) sterilization of its Uighur population. Which undoubtedly is a genocide (extermination of a lineage), if a bit more bloodless than e.g. Holocaust.
> Are you a PRC-funded troll or misinformation spreader?
You can't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you have evidence of abuse, you should send it to us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. If you don't, you should remember that the vast majority of these perceptions on the internet are completely imaginary. Either way, you should be editing such swipes out of your comments here.
What would be an appropriate response to someone who's posted several comments to the same top-level post, all of which are grossly misleading and/or complete strawmen?
Obviously I don't have evidence of "abuse" (is this even abuse? obviously people can be trolls without being big-co/gov funded) but I'd like to point out the above fact to other commenters who might not have noticed it otherwise.
In terms of posting to HN itself, an appropriate response would be to refute bad arguments with better arguments and/or incorrect information with correct information—or alternatively, to remember that to a first approximation, everyone is wrong on the internet, and just let it go. You don't need to do more than that for other commenters; they can take care of themselves.
If an account is behaving badly, such as by repeatedly breaking the site guidelines, sending a heads-up to hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it is also an appropriate response.
I'd need to see specific links. It's difficult to answer that generically, because who people call a 'shill' varies so much, and it's unquestionably the case that people frequently apply such terms to other commenters who in fact are posting in good faith. On the internet, someone having a sufficiently different background from you, and someone posting in bad faith, are basically indistinguishable.
I can't resist saying a couple general things though. First, I think you need to assume a smart audience. If someone's throwing an endless sequence of distracting objections at you (which is how I understand 'gish gallop'), that doesn't have a lot of persuasive power for a smart audience. You should trust readers to see that those are distractions, and limit yourself (at most) to pointing out that they're not relevant.
Second, if you're truly dealing with someone posting in bad faith, the time-honored internet adage explains what do to: don't feed the trolls. I would never underestimate the wisdom of that advice. It may be the wisest thing the internet has ever said.
> I'd need to see specific links. It's difficult to answer that generically
Sorry, no links; I was asking generically. (Though a couple pro-PRC guys on this page feel pretty close.)
> the time-honored internet adage explains what do to: don't feed the trolls. I would never underestimate the wisdom of that advice. It may be the wisest thing the internet has ever said.
Yup. (Well, immediately after anything posted by me, of course.) Sometimes hard to remember, though: Provocateurs provoke.
Anyway, forget all that for a while, and have a merry Christmas!
I disagree if the sterilization is applied even-handedly as an application of their two-child law. I am skeptical that a lineage is being exterminated if, at minimum, they can have replacement level number of births. The Uyghur population is growing faster than the Han population is.
But backing up a bit - really what I'm taking issue with is the word "genocide." We can call horrendous, human rights violating policies for what they are without having to fall back on calling something a "genocide."
Not everyone who disagrees with you is PRC funded. I would encourage you to look over the HN guidelines as you seem to have forgotten some of them. [0]
> The Uyghur population is growing faster than the Han population is.
This seems to be the crux of your argument justifying the PRCs sterilization policy. As others have noted forced sterilization is a crime against humanity regardless of reason. Justification of forced sterilization based on a believed “correct” ethnic ratio is abhorrent.
1. Saying a birth rate policy should be applied universally to all citizens of China is not justifying such a policy based on a 'believed “correct” ethnic ratio.'
2. My point about the growth of the Uyghur population was a separate point, which is that from my (apparently naive) understanding of what a genocide is, the population would typically decrease after it occurred, not increase.
3. Forced sterilization is ongoing in the criminal justice system in the US, at least as late as 2011. Don't think it is equivalent because it is not nearly as broad based, but in the 80s and 90s it was a not uncommon remedy offered (mostly) to black people to get probation instead of jail in exchange for sterilization, as well as just straight-up court mandated sterilization.
I also don't think the CCPs child policy is justified, but I do think that it should be within the realm of actions that the state can take.
You’re advocating for a position on China’s 2 child policy that, in America, would most certainly would be deemed unconstitutional under a disparate impact framework. I know we’re talking about China here, but most Western countries have recognized that you can target a subgroup without saying you’re targeting a subgroup. You’re basically arguing that the Holocaust would not be a genocide as long as Germany was universally applying its no [insert Jewish characteristic] policy.
Just to underscore my point here, almost every aspect of your viewpoint on the genocide China is committing is abhorrent and untenable if you believe in human rights.
So you are saying that having lots of children is intrinsic to being Uyghur? It's a Uyghur "characteristic"?
The US law around this issue is in flux, see for instance [0], where policies that were neutrally applied but impacted people a specific religion were ruled constitutional. This specific case was later rendered moot by congressional action.
Regardless, is the claim that China is conducting a genocide, or that its actions would be in violation of the Civil Rights Act if it were a US state? Are we enforcing the Civil Rights Act globally now?
US common law like disparate impact is always in flux - it’s common law. The minutiae of disparate impact edge cases is irrelevant under your argument where the universal application of the 2 child policy somehow requires China to round up, sequester in internment camps, and ultimately sterilize a particular group.
I won’t bother replying to the rest of your post about religious beliefs and children because it’s an attempt to derail the conversation by focusing on details that are relevant only to the particular framing you’re advancing.
No, I think such concerns are stupid. I also don't think the Uyghurs are "replacing the Han."
But I do find it interesting that China is apparently conducting the first genocide in history where the population being genocided is increasing rather than decreasing.
There are so many things, I could write an entire book. So here is one of literally thousands of crimes the CCP commits:
It sends armed fishing boats[0] into the territorial waters of other countries to plunder its fishes. At night, PRC boats turn off their (mandatory) transponders, enter the waters to steal fish, then leave the territorial waters and turn their transponders back on. At times, you can watch it life on marinetraffic.com
For instance, last year a huge fleets of PRC fishing vessels raided the nature reserve around the Galapagos Islands[1] and destroyed much of the fauna around the islands. Same tactic was used, they turn off their transponders, steal what they can, and then turn the transponders back on.
Again, this is just one tiny topic of thousands of crimes the CCP and their thugs commit on a daily basis.
The sooner the Chinese people are freed of that criminal organization, the better. Look at Taiwan: they are Chinese too, and they have one of the best run governments and most democratic systems in the world.
Also, I don't like that questions like your's are downvoted. Its a legitimate question and not everybody has the time to focus on PRC politics and the crimes of the CCP.
