As fellow humans, there is no way to look at this situation and find something positive. The actions of the CCP need to be condemned. If you disagree with this point, we are fundamentally at odds.
To those complaining about the anti-China narrative, it's the CCP (government) which are at fault, not the people. I think we should always make it very clear that it's not the Chinese people we take issue with and we are not condemning people based on race.
As for actions taken against China and masquerading behind human-rights to justify them, I think it's okay to temporary align ourselves with those whose actions align with our ideology, even if the motivation is different. Life is about compromise and we're going to find very few allies if we will only work with people perfectly aligned with our own motivations.
We ought to condemn China for it's human rights abuses. We should also condemn Israel for similar abuses, which it's doing out in the public. Keeping 2 million people in a virtual concentration camp in Gaza, with no hope.
> To those complaining about the anti-China narrative, it's the CCP (government) which are at fault, not the people
What would you say if the people widely supported it? Do you have evidence otherwise?
Most mainlanders don't seem to care at all, that's pretty common knowledge and not some fear of speaking out issue. There's plenty of online forums where they anonymously express themselves and widely mock and criticise the government yet you won't find many being about Xinjiang province other than what the West is reporting on it.
Have you spent much time on the Chinese internet?
So to go back to my question, if it's actually the people who support this, do you consider them the enemy too?
> So to go back to my question, if it's actually the people
> who support this, do you consider them the enemy too?
It's a tough one. There's a lot of misinformation and propaganda out there in China and until people have a balanced idea of what the various truths are, I don't know if it can be held against them. They are likely told that they are all extremists from the only authoritative source they have available to them, you can understand why they hold the views they hold (even if we would agree they are not nice views to hold).
That said, there are people out there that hold extreme views I don't agree with (in many different social circles/cultures). As long as they don't act on these ideas and are able to be productive members of society, then it's enough to agree to disagree.
In general we need a better approach towards radicalization, and for that in my opinion we should try to solve problems internally first. Western society for example has extreme far-right and extreme far-left minorities, it's not yet clear how we step these people back from the edge (i.e. violence).
This isn't unique to Chinese mainlanders. If you look at other countries: U.S, Sri Lanka, Israel, Brazil, France etc., you're going to find a significant portion of the population that seems to support far-right populism based on ethnic nationalism.
Look at Trump, who is currently attempting to push an anti-China narrative in the US, but still gave Xi Jinping the green light to build camps for the Uighurs, and said it was "exactly the right thing to do." [1]
Should we judge them? Are they our enemy? I don't know. But this seems to be a systematic bias that pervades humanity in general.
This is one of the most cleanly straightforward and mature posts I've read on HN in awhile. And quite practical too, particularly that last portion. Also, agreed.
* * * But can you trust the source. It is after all a model, who's entire career revolves around faking appearances for the camera. A determined news team and a suitably sympathetic model could have produced a similar report on any story. Perhaps find a more credible source to support.
> His uncle ... believes the video could galvanise public opinion in the same way that footage of the police treatment of George Floyd became a powerful symbol of racial discrimination in the US.
The worrying thing is, protests like those for George Floyd won't be possible to happen within China, and even if they happen overseas, most people inside China won't even be aware of them.
With the information control in place, long lasting suppression against minorities is one of the most terrifying things that can happen.
Also turns out that the uncut bodycam footage leaked yesterday isnt damming evidence of racial anything in the case of George Floyd. The body footage shows a standard arrest gone bad because the suspect was currently overdosing on fentanyl and having a panic attack.
Hopefully some people start to feel a little bit embarrassed over there reactions and support of violent riots.
If you're interested in this topic, I strongly suggest you all read The China Crisis By: James R. Gorrie It provides amazing insight into what's happening in the region & what we can expect to see over the coming years.
The CCP has two things that keeps them afloat: Chinese nationalism (and lets admit that the US really is out to get them at this point) and the economy.
In 20 years China may very well be completely technologically independent rendering economic sanctions impotent and foreigners aren't going to be able to change any Chinese minds.
Change will have to come from within the CCP, it always amused me that those HK protesters were talking more to the foreign press than trying to infiltrate the mainland bureaucracy.
And I'm guessing if the West and Russia had waited, the Nazis would have stopped putting people in concentration camps too? The CCP is exactly the same party that still covers up the 1989 Tienanmen Square Massacre - they can't even admit their previous failings.
> it always amused me that those HK protesters were talking
> more to the foreign press than trying to infiltrate the
> mainland bureaucracy.
It's hard to find any amusement in the HK situation at all.
I am not aware of any scenario where the Communist dictatorship has listened to reason or has allowed the infiltration of it's mainland media. Their entire dictatorship is based on narrative - whilst it's positive, they stay in power over the people and army. Any deviation throws their rule into question, which is why they crush it at any cost.
You can use GitHub since it’s one of the few platforms (if not the only) that won’t be blocked in China and Microsoft is very unlikely to censor your repository.
WeChat and other social media will of course shadowban messages containing a link to your repo (assuming it become popular enough to be noticed) but you can find creative ways to bypass the blacklisting (e.g. share link in a picture, with spaces in the link, forking the repo and sharing the forked one, etc.)
Why do we think expats would be interested in this? What's the point anyway?
Shouldn't we use this evidence instead to wake people up on the impacts of consumerism?
Didn't we allow China to become what it is today due to how we buy things (all things are made in China today?) and how companies are constantly seeking to reduce costs and in some cases irresponsibly? What have we said to those companies?
This is the issue, it is not a matter of convincing the Chinese people their government is a problem it is a matter of convincing politicians in the Western world that China is truly a problem and pressuring corporations at stock holder meetings the same.
Both need to be told the same thing, doing business in China is not acceptable. Corporations can be forced to change course by stock holders and national or state governments, governments can only be changed by pressure on the political parties in each.
* I own both Tesla and Apple products, my statement on not buying an Apple product made in China needs to be expanded. I will not buy an Apple product or another Tesla until both leave China or the Chinese government changes direction; which I believe will only get worse if the believe the US government slides in weakness or non interventionist form
Just follow the works of "leading Xinjiang expert" Adrian Zenz, who is repeatedly mentioned in this BBC article and given huge amounts of airtime by news orgs around the world. By his own account he can't speak any dialect or read Chinese but he is the goto expert on the matter.
The main paper of his routinely quoted on by the media is published in the Journal of Political Risk. It mainly draws on Google translations of open source government data, there's strangely mentions of Bible verses in it.
You might also be interested in his main job as an evangelic missionary teaching theological students, his position at an anti-communism foundation with dubious funding sources, an online phd from a university with a very similar name as Cambridge (his wiki page even looks to the actual Cambridge), his homophobic statements, other statements on how he is on a mission from God to "save" China and his published book: "Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation"*
I'm not sure if it's worth debating this topic here on HN anymore because it's really becoming pointless and pure ideological propaganda where no one wants to debate in good faith (much like this article with basically nothing of substance, a guy got caught with weed and now has a call phone inside jail? Throw in some Adrian Zenz quotes and call it a day)
Previous threads have people boldly proclaiming with no evidence whatsoever that "_millions_ of Uyghurs have been sterilised in the last year, what has any other country done even close to that?", leaving the absurdity of that behind, the responses with numerous sources and good faith debate are CSS censored into oblivion.
This BBC article is propaganda, there's literally no any evidence whatsoever it's true, by their own words deep into the text. The public is being buttered up for yet another two decades of war, with Iraq WMD levels of proof of why it should happen and the populace lap it up again.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner was invited over a year ago[1] to Xinjiang, she still hasn't gone, China is still asking her to come and hopefully she'll make it by the end of 2020 [2]
Dozens of countries, many not even aligned with China have sent a joint letter to the UN [3] saying their investigations showed nothing like what is claimed in the Western media.
Muslim countries are praising their efforts to control terrorism in the region.[3]
Given your question, I'd ask a counter-question: Is it worth trying to convince people that's there's a lot more here than the headlines and it's far more about the challenge to US hegemony more than anything else? Why is everything presented always with some terrifyingly evil implication that's ends up generally quite mundane when you actually read into it.
There's more satellites than ever before (you can academically launch a 0.5U cubesat over China for $12,000) and yet no one seems to have any satellite evidence of these 1.5 million people supposedly detained. I'm guessing they're in caves or something? Everything presented is flimsy and speaks to a much larger game, a game many tacitly acknowledge deep down and think the ends justify the means, lies or not. WMD's or not, many somehow justify that travesty to themselves in a strange post-purchase rationalisation.
That loudspeaker broadcasting fun "facts" is an interesting way to reeducate captives. IIRC, the consensus among most Western experts is that this type of brainwashing isn't effective.
Perhaps, just a thought, that is because it's not intended for brainwashing as that term is usually used, but simple behavior modification. The difference being that it's not about inducing belief in the content of propaganda, but constantly underlining what beliefs it is acceptable to demonstrate outward compliance with, while other avenues demonstrate the cost of non-compliance.
The brainwashing doesn't happen to the people that are directly subject to it, but to the ones raised in an environment surrounded by people who, if they aren't true believers but are still around to be seen as models, have been cowed into behavioral conformance.
It's just one component of indoctrination. China also has experiences with prior re-education and work movements. Xi himself was sent to Yunnan (Down to the Countryside Movement) the TLDR is he's a believer. Work camps work, especially on impressionable generations. That's how you create red guards, and why CCP has been trying to ram patriotic education down HK throats. I feel like west likes to reaffirm anecdotes from Chinese cabbies who bitch about the dark times, when in reality those times also forged many believers. People conflate failed economic reforms with failed indoctorination movements. China of that era had much better success re-engineering souls than development - the former merely requires rhetoric which is free, whereas the latter requires capital which is not. Neither words or capital are constraints anymore. Uyghurs also skew young being exempt from family planning policy, so reeducating the youngest generation will shift the entire regions sentiment in 10-20 years assuming the region receives commiserate economic development - hence the vocational training component.
I've been wondering how I could bring this up with the mainland Chinese I know. It's particularly difficult, because for some of them I'm in a supervisory/managerial role, but I don't want to put pressure on them, which would raise all sort of other ethical dilemmas and would likely not be effective. Anyone else can share experiences?
In a workplace environment, it is completely inappropriate.
Second of all, why? What do you wish to discuss? What would you like to happen? What do these people have to do with it?
If you're in the U.S., do you have anything useful to discuss regarding Guantanamo Bay and the many other U.S. black sites or the Mexican concentration camps run at the border? Do you think those are appropriate conversation pieces to bring up if they don't occur naturally? How would you feel if someone brought them up as if to teach you or make you aware of them as if you didn't know or had any affect whatsoever on their existence?
There is a comparable situation with Americans, many people are unaware of the Tulsa massacre, and the reaction I've seen from people first hearing about it is mostly anger at it not being taught.
Personally I'd be thankful to know of censored history, particularly if it is occurring and being censored right now, in a democracy.
There are two outcomes:
1: They really will not know what you're talking about and think you're crazy and just hate Chinese people (this is common).
2: They will somewhat know what you're talking about, and have a massive list of bad things your country has done/is still doing, and you won't be happy (this is also common, but slightly less common)
If you were good friends, you can mention this and drop it and try to move on. If you're doing this at work, it won't end well for anyone involved, and it'll be doubly bad if you're in an authority position.
> They will somewhat know what you're talking about, and have a massive list of bad things your country has done/is still doing, and you won't be happy
Ignoring the "at work" part, you can then both realize that you should acknowledge and fight against any country doing bad things and that these bad things are not excused because other countries (or people) are also doing bad things. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Why would you want to bring that up with them specifically?
Not advocating that people should look the other way, but I wouldn't like superiors associating me with the deeds of the government of China.
It might have been a good idea to actually support the protests for freedom in Hong Kong, but the "west" looked extremely weak here, laden with its own problems.
edit: Just to clarify, I wouldn't bring up Hong Kong either...
In my experience a lot of the population is very anti-Uighur and they wouldn't care that much. In the run up to this people have been conditioned by images of violent protests in the region. They have been demonized as religious fanatics. Religion in of itself is a big no-no in China. You combine that with anti-Muslim sentiment and a different ethnicity and it's pretty easy to demonize a group.
To convince them you'd really have to go into details and explain just how unjust the whole ordeal is. Most pro-govt people's default assumption will be they're doing a good job taking care of bad people.
Even the notion that someone of a different religion and ethnicity who might not speak the language should be rightfully considered a Chinese citizen deserving all the same freedoms is a tough sell.
From a moral perspective, that's maybe one thing. From a legal it might be another - you might be construed as discriminating against them or harassing them based on their ethnicity, which is in fact valid; if they weren't chinese you wouldn't be discussing it with them. So in that sense I really would think carefully. In fact, don't.
If they bring it up themselves, for or against that slightly changes things but frankly if they're supportive of the oppression then doing anything other than telling them "keep that opinion to yourself" is a minefield. Taking them on will most likely blow up in your face. (edit: no 'most likely' about it. It will).
If they are against it and wish to discuss it with you and what to do, it's still a danger (I can't say why, more a feeling) and I'd advise them to contact/join an external group, or their MP/representative etc. and leave it at that. Shit like this discussed at work is bad news, I don't see how doing it can make things better.
Anyone who disagrees and can make a better suggestion, I'm very willing to learn from.
Edit: to those downvoters, I'm NOT saying don't discuss it, I'm saying don't do so at work. It is deeply unlikely anything helpful will come of for anyone, but it is very likely to damage your reputation or even lose you your job.
Speak up! Sure, but in the right place and to those whose job it is to make a difference.
What does it have to do with ethnicity? He said "mainland Chinese", which is a form of citizenship. I think that all sides would agree that a good fraction of people from Taiwan are ethnically Chinese. As far as I know, citizenship is not a protected class (outside of certain treaties).
As for it being a good idea... nope. I wouldn't put myself in a situation where the Chinese government calls my employer and politely asks them to reassign me to the Antarctic branch. It's not a democracy, normal citizens have no power, and expecting your coworkers to do so is putting them and yourself in danger.
These are some of the thoughts I've been having as well. On the other hand I'm actually generally interested in how this situation is communicated in China? How much and what do they know about it (note that they left China some years ago).
I have to say I also find it chilling to say we can't discuss topics which have political implications for fear of it being construed of harassment. I have been frequently asked about political events/situations in Germany (where I come from), without it feeling like harassment at all.
My suggestion is that you shouldn't bother. The Chinese people would not believe the Western media narrative on Xinjiang (XJ), which also doesn't really have credible sources if look deeper into their "facts" [0]. And it is increasingly clear that the XJ narrative is a US-backed propaganda rather than factual reporting [1]. Most of us would consider the western people being brainwashed into believing whatever the media puts out about XJ, just as much as the English speaking westerners think about us. Please ponder about this: can I, as a Chinese, easily change your media-fed opinion on XJ? Yet I am trying my best here (because I procrastinate).
The video shown by the BBC about the official visit to the vocational training center implants a subliminal message of "bad things are happening here" with eerie BGM and horror-movie-like filter. Your system 1, i.e. your fast, instinctive and emotional mind [2] would also be tricked by that too. Regardless of what's happening there, do you really think this is the way of objective, bias-free reporting?
Personally, I do not like the way they train these people. Westerners would never understand this culturally. But when compared to the war effort instigated by the US against Islamic nations, vocational training is IMHO a much better alternative against terrorism. XJ used to have a terrorism problem, and it's now much safer.
I would suggest you guys to travel in XJ after opening up, if possible, it is an incredible place to visit. If not then there are plenty of local people on youtube vlogging their daily lifes.
Don't. There's nothing they can do about it. The CCP will disappear them if they try. Don't put them at risk by even talking to them about it.
This is a problem to be handled at the diplomatic level between govts, by govts concerned about human rights abuses using various forms economic and diplomatic leverage and pressure to effect change. You can pressure your own govt to do that if want.
It's a losing battle. Without going into workplace relationships, the public perception of the Chinese population to their government is overwhelmingly positive. I've experienced it in my own friends and relatives, even those who have gone to university in North America for degrees like law. For an outsider without cultural understanding, it's nearly impossible.
It's hard to change minds when the education system doesn't support free thinking that challenges authority, when identity is caught up with national pride and the us vs them mentality. That's why it's important to use language like CCP instead of China to separate the people from the government.
The most common defense is whataboutism. Talk about Uigher camps in Xingjiang or the Hong Kong protests? "But America has racism, and police beatdowns." The argument against democracy is that the people aren't educated enough to handle voting, for example and bring up covid cases in the US.
I had a conversation a while back with my cousin, who didn't like Morey's (NBA GM) comments about Hong Kong and supported the Rockets ban.
me: "But it's his personal opinions, can't he say what he wants?"
cousin: "No, because he's a known person. It's like Xi saying California isn't a part of the US."
cousin: "That's fine, because everybody knows it's not true. We'll just think he's dumb."
cousin (jokingly): "that's just the cultural difference between east and west"
Unfortunately, it's hard to bring up any real nuanced conversation, and especially hard to change any minds. (i.e. like how none of the HK protestors key demands were to actually separate, something many people in China thought)
On one extreme, you don't know if they tend to distrust Western media while trusting Chinese state media. If it is important not to compromise your relationship with them, don't pass off any of the news as your opinion, but report about the Western reporting on the Uighurs, trying also not to signal that you trust these reports or these media outlets.
I think it’s perfectly normal in companies to share news and whatnot in various group chats. We often share news related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the virus, BLM, Trump, etc. We don’t all share the same political views, but we’re all adults.
Readit News
To those complaining about the anti-China narrative, it's the CCP (government) which are at fault, not the people. I think we should always make it very clear that it's not the Chinese people we take issue with and we are not condemning people based on race.
As for actions taken against China and masquerading behind human-rights to justify them, I think it's okay to temporary align ourselves with those whose actions align with our ideology, even if the motivation is different. Life is about compromise and we're going to find very few allies if we will only work with people perfectly aligned with our own motivations.
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What would you say if the people widely supported it? Do you have evidence otherwise?
Most mainlanders don't seem to care at all, that's pretty common knowledge and not some fear of speaking out issue. There's plenty of online forums where they anonymously express themselves and widely mock and criticise the government yet you won't find many being about Xinjiang province other than what the West is reporting on it.
Have you spent much time on the Chinese internet?
So to go back to my question, if it's actually the people who support this, do you consider them the enemy too?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-30/why-many-in-china-sup...
> who support this, do you consider them the enemy too?
It's a tough one. There's a lot of misinformation and propaganda out there in China and until people have a balanced idea of what the various truths are, I don't know if it can be held against them. They are likely told that they are all extremists from the only authoritative source they have available to them, you can understand why they hold the views they hold (even if we would agree they are not nice views to hold).
That said, there are people out there that hold extreme views I don't agree with (in many different social circles/cultures). As long as they don't act on these ideas and are able to be productive members of society, then it's enough to agree to disagree.
In general we need a better approach towards radicalization, and for that in my opinion we should try to solve problems internally first. Western society for example has extreme far-right and extreme far-left minorities, it's not yet clear how we step these people back from the edge (i.e. violence).
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Look at Trump, who is currently attempting to push an anti-China narrative in the US, but still gave Xi Jinping the green light to build camps for the Uighurs, and said it was "exactly the right thing to do." [1]
Should we judge them? Are they our enemy? I don't know. But this seems to be a systematic bias that pervades humanity in general.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53138833
His family haven't heard from him in 5 months, it seems quite extreme for a small amount of popularity.
> Perhaps find a more credible source to support.
Just to name a few: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inmP0LvZEhY
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmId2ZP3h0c&feature=youtu.be
[3] https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1284784810200838145
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50511063
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/world/asia/china-xinjiang...
This is what China wants you to see. Now think about what they don't watch you to see.
[0] https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1284784810200838145
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The worrying thing is, protests like those for George Floyd won't be possible to happen within China, and even if they happen overseas, most people inside China won't even be aware of them.
With the information control in place, long lasting suppression against minorities is one of the most terrifying things that can happen.
Hopefully some people start to feel a little bit embarrassed over there reactions and support of violent riots.
In 20 years China may very well be completely technologically independent rendering economic sanctions impotent and foreigners aren't going to be able to change any Chinese minds. Change will have to come from within the CCP, it always amused me that those HK protesters were talking more to the foreign press than trying to infiltrate the mainland bureaucracy.
And I'm guessing if the West and Russia had waited, the Nazis would have stopped putting people in concentration camps too? The CCP is exactly the same party that still covers up the 1989 Tienanmen Square Massacre - they can't even admit their previous failings.
> it always amused me that those HK protesters were talking
> more to the foreign press than trying to infiltrate the
> mainland bureaucracy.
It's hard to find any amusement in the HK situation at all.
I am not aware of any scenario where the Communist dictatorship has listened to reason or has allowed the infiltration of it's mainland media. Their entire dictatorship is based on narrative - whilst it's positive, they stay in power over the people and army. Any deviation throws their rule into question, which is why they crush it at any cost.
Edit: Grammar
It’s possible.
After the Trail of Tears, I don’t think anyone would have believed the US would fight a Civil War and change so much.
Give China a hundred years and who knows what will happen.
Taiwan was a dictatorship until the late 90s. All China needs is that one leader to put things in motion.
WeChat and other social media will of course shadowban messages containing a link to your repo (assuming it become popular enough to be noticed) but you can find creative ways to bypass the blacklisting (e.g. share link in a picture, with spaces in the link, forking the repo and sharing the forked one, etc.)
Shouldn't we use this evidence instead to wake people up on the impacts of consumerism?
Didn't we allow China to become what it is today due to how we buy things (all things are made in China today?) and how companies are constantly seeking to reduce costs and in some cases irresponsibly? What have we said to those companies?
Disclaimer: I'm from Europe.
Both need to be told the same thing, doing business in China is not acceptable. Corporations can be forced to change course by stock holders and national or state governments, governments can only be changed by pressure on the political parties in each.
* I own both Tesla and Apple products, my statement on not buying an Apple product made in China needs to be expanded. I will not buy an Apple product or another Tesla until both leave China or the Chinese government changes direction; which I believe will only get worse if the believe the US government slides in weakness or non interventionist form
The main paper of his routinely quoted on by the media is published in the Journal of Political Risk. It mainly draws on Google translations of open source government data, there's strangely mentions of Bible verses in it.
You might also be interested in his main job as an evangelic missionary teaching theological students, his position at an anti-communism foundation with dubious funding sources, an online phd from a university with a very similar name as Cambridge (his wiki page even looks to the actual Cambridge), his homophobic statements, other statements on how he is on a mission from God to "save" China and his published book: "Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation"*
I'm not sure if it's worth debating this topic here on HN anymore because it's really becoming pointless and pure ideological propaganda where no one wants to debate in good faith (much like this article with basically nothing of substance, a guy got caught with weed and now has a call phone inside jail? Throw in some Adrian Zenz quotes and call it a day)
Previous threads have people boldly proclaiming with no evidence whatsoever that "_millions_ of Uyghurs have been sterilised in the last year, what has any other country done even close to that?", leaving the absurdity of that behind, the responses with numerous sources and good faith debate are CSS censored into oblivion.
This BBC article is propaganda, there's literally no any evidence whatsoever it's true, by their own words deep into the text. The public is being buttered up for yet another two decades of war, with Iraq WMD levels of proof of why it should happen and the populace lap it up again.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner was invited over a year ago[1] to Xinjiang, she still hasn't gone, China is still asking her to come and hopefully she'll make it by the end of 2020 [2]
Dozens of countries, many not even aligned with China have sent a joint letter to the UN [3] saying their investigations showed nothing like what is claimed in the Western media.
Muslim countries are praising their efforts to control terrorism in the region.[3]
Given your question, I'd ask a counter-question: Is it worth trying to convince people that's there's a lot more here than the headlines and it's far more about the challenge to US hegemony more than anything else? Why is everything presented always with some terrifyingly evil implication that's ends up generally quite mundane when you actually read into it.
There's more satellites than ever before (you can academically launch a 0.5U cubesat over China for $12,000) and yet no one seems to have any satellite evidence of these 1.5 million people supposedly detained. I'm guessing they're in caves or something? Everything presented is flimsy and speaks to a much larger game, a game many tacitly acknowledge deep down and think the ends justify the means, lies or not. WMD's or not, many somehow justify that travesty to themselves in a strange post-purchase rationalisation.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un-idUSKCN1T...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang-rights-idU...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang-rights-idU...
*Available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Worthy-Escape-Believers-Raptured-Trib...
The brainwashing doesn't happen to the people that are directly subject to it, but to the ones raised in an environment surrounded by people who, if they aren't true believers but are still around to be seen as models, have been cowed into behavioral conformance.
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Second of all, why? What do you wish to discuss? What would you like to happen? What do these people have to do with it?
If you're in the U.S., do you have anything useful to discuss regarding Guantanamo Bay and the many other U.S. black sites or the Mexican concentration camps run at the border? Do you think those are appropriate conversation pieces to bring up if they don't occur naturally? How would you feel if someone brought them up as if to teach you or make you aware of them as if you didn't know or had any affect whatsoever on their existence?
Personally I'd be thankful to know of censored history, particularly if it is occurring and being censored right now, in a democracy.
Quite. Just as it would have been vulgar to bring up the Holocaust with a German tourist in Switzerland or Italy in 1940.
If you were good friends, you can mention this and drop it and try to move on. If you're doing this at work, it won't end well for anyone involved, and it'll be doubly bad if you're in an authority position.
Ignoring the "at work" part, you can then both realize that you should acknowledge and fight against any country doing bad things and that these bad things are not excused because other countries (or people) are also doing bad things. Two wrongs don't make a right.
(I'm aware you did not claim that they did.)
Not advocating that people should look the other way, but I wouldn't like superiors associating me with the deeds of the government of China.
It might have been a good idea to actually support the protests for freedom in Hong Kong, but the "west" looked extremely weak here, laden with its own problems.
edit: Just to clarify, I wouldn't bring up Hong Kong either...
(But I would not suggest discussing unless you are close friends beyond work)
To convince them you'd really have to go into details and explain just how unjust the whole ordeal is. Most pro-govt people's default assumption will be they're doing a good job taking care of bad people.
Even the notion that someone of a different religion and ethnicity who might not speak the language should be rightfully considered a Chinese citizen deserving all the same freedoms is a tough sell.
You need to approach it from that mindset.
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If they bring it up themselves, for or against that slightly changes things but frankly if they're supportive of the oppression then doing anything other than telling them "keep that opinion to yourself" is a minefield. Taking them on will most likely blow up in your face. (edit: no 'most likely' about it. It will).
If they are against it and wish to discuss it with you and what to do, it's still a danger (I can't say why, more a feeling) and I'd advise them to contact/join an external group, or their MP/representative etc. and leave it at that. Shit like this discussed at work is bad news, I don't see how doing it can make things better.
Anyone who disagrees and can make a better suggestion, I'm very willing to learn from.
Edit: to those downvoters, I'm NOT saying don't discuss it, I'm saying don't do so at work. It is deeply unlikely anything helpful will come of for anyone, but it is very likely to damage your reputation or even lose you your job.
Speak up! Sure, but in the right place and to those whose job it is to make a difference.
As for it being a good idea... nope. I wouldn't put myself in a situation where the Chinese government calls my employer and politely asks them to reassign me to the Antarctic branch. It's not a democracy, normal citizens have no power, and expecting your coworkers to do so is putting them and yourself in danger.
The video shown by the BBC about the official visit to the vocational training center implants a subliminal message of "bad things are happening here" with eerie BGM and horror-movie-like filter. Your system 1, i.e. your fast, instinctive and emotional mind [2] would also be tricked by that too. Regardless of what's happening there, do you really think this is the way of objective, bias-free reporting?
Personally, I do not like the way they train these people. Westerners would never understand this culturally. But when compared to the war effort instigated by the US against Islamic nations, vocational training is IMHO a much better alternative against terrorism. XJ used to have a terrorism problem, and it's now much safer.
I would suggest you guys to travel in XJ after opening up, if possible, it is an incredible place to visit. If not then there are plenty of local people on youtube vlogging their daily lifes.
[0]: https://twitter.com/DanielDumbrill/status/128826906429753753... [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/hwi7ub/i_am_soph... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
Source: am Chinese living in China, sitting in a coffee shop and procrastinating. Edit: typo.
And how is the western concern for human rights abuses in Xinjiang being covered by the Chinese media?
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This is a problem to be handled at the diplomatic level between govts, by govts concerned about human rights abuses using various forms economic and diplomatic leverage and pressure to effect change. You can pressure your own govt to do that if want.
It's hard to change minds when the education system doesn't support free thinking that challenges authority, when identity is caught up with national pride and the us vs them mentality. That's why it's important to use language like CCP instead of China to separate the people from the government.
The most common defense is whataboutism. Talk about Uigher camps in Xingjiang or the Hong Kong protests? "But America has racism, and police beatdowns." The argument against democracy is that the people aren't educated enough to handle voting, for example and bring up covid cases in the US.
I had a conversation a while back with my cousin, who didn't like Morey's (NBA GM) comments about Hong Kong and supported the Rockets ban. me: "But it's his personal opinions, can't he say what he wants?" cousin: "No, because he's a known person. It's like Xi saying California isn't a part of the US." cousin: "That's fine, because everybody knows it's not true. We'll just think he's dumb." cousin (jokingly): "that's just the cultural difference between east and west"
Unfortunately, it's hard to bring up any real nuanced conversation, and especially hard to change any minds. (i.e. like how none of the HK protestors key demands were to actually separate, something many people in China thought)