Given your background and opinions on the matter, I'd be interested to hear what you think goes on in the large, barbed-wire lined, centers they regularly ship Uyghurs in and out of. Do you think they are genuinely good places meant to help an under privileged minority group?
Check out Col Lawrence Wilkerson at the Ron Paul Institute, mark 22:20, on one of the reasons why the US was in Afghanistan (which borders Xinjiang): https://youtu.be/91wz5syVNZs?t=22m20s
Check out Max Blumenthal, investigative journalist, on the quality of evidence surrounding Xinjiang: https://youtu.be/qZkxaEC1xjY
I took some time to read and watch the links and digest the info to respond:
1) I'm getting kind of conflicting signals from the sources. You promote the idea that these camps aren't what we know they are, the the third link, but the entirety of the your Twitter feed reads as a justification and comparison to the war in Afghanistan. I don't see how that would be an apt comparison unless these camps actually did exist, and actually did forcefully detain people (which means forced labor in China).
2) Let's assume they are forced re-education camps, since that's the least evil thing possible. You're comparison to Afghanistan as the 'The US uses bombs and bullets whereas China is doing things peacefully' is still bad. Afghanistan is a separate country without a government that we declared war on. The US generally follows strict rules of engagement, so it would be inaccurate to say we shot innocent people or killed them on purpose. The mission over there consisted much more of building infrastructure and public services than it did fighting. Xinjiang is within China's own borders, and benefits from already having a government and infrastructure, to a much larger degree than Afghanistan at least.
3) Let's ignore 2 and assume the US was evil in Afghanistan and China is doing everything as morally as possible in Xinjiang. Then why not let international inspection of the facilities? The UN was in Afghanistan, and oversaw a lot of our mission there. If it's the same in Xinjiang, but better, then why the secrecy?
4) People go along with the idea that evil things are happening in Xinjiang without much evidence because of two reasons: China has been caught doing everything claimed before already (organ harvesting, forced abortions, internment camps) and they don't just prove otherwise. Any international traveller can come to the US and visit any hospital, any prison (provided they are journalists at least) and any prisoner here has the freedom of expression to say anything they want to anyone they want. That isn't the case in China. Of course there is a lack of evidence of what's going on their now. That's China's MO.
(Part 2) As for "incompetence rather than malice":
There is a saying that aptly summarizes the issue: the central government told the Xinjiang authority to cut the hair, but they cut the entire head instead.
Local governments and police forces in China tend to be overzealous in implementing central policy. This is either because they're eyeing a promotion by showing how well they've reached KPIs, or because they're risk averse and don't want to deal with being punished for allowing a terrorist to slip through the cracks.
They also tend to brush with a broad stroke, hence lots of collateral damage which catches innocents in the process.
These are long standing issues and occur outside Xinjiang too, though slowly improving over time as competency improves. But it's especially bad in Xinjiang because:
1. Competent people don't want to be in Xinjiang: they tend to move elsewhere.
2. The central government wanted the terrorism issue under control as fast as possible. Incompetent officials and policemen focus on a singular goals and can't be bothered with something like collateral damage.
It's neither a racism nor official policy issue because:
- The head of Xinjiang is a Uyghur, and lots of government officials and policemen are Uyghurs. Uyghur policemen are trying to cut corners by racially profiling their own ethnicity.
- Official policy is give minorities preferential treatmenf through something similar to affirmative axtion. Minorities were exempt from the One Child Policy and they receive extra points on university exams. Laws are applied more leniently to minorities. This is not new and has been the case since the PRC's founding in 1949.
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Forced labor is limited to prison labor. Deradicalization centers have no prison labor as far as I know. There is no evidence of cotton, tomato or solar panel forced labor. My contact in Xinjiang is pretty furious about the recent US ban because this ban actually harms the lives of normal Uyghurs who make a living through these products.
Regarding international visits and transparency: there have been international visits.
Delegations from many non-western countries (including many islamic countries) have visited and said everything was fine, even saying they're impressed by the level of safety and development. A few years ago the UN sent a counter-terrorism expert to visit, who then wrote a positive report.
Of course, there are complications:
- The US protested that the report is not valid because a human rights expert should have been sent instead. They also protested that maybe we shouldn't send anybody to Xinjiang at all, because if the report turns out to be positive then that will give China undeserved legitimacy. Hmm.....
- Visits by non-western delegations are considered untrustworthy by western countries. The rhetoric goes that non-western countries have been bought by China. But this notion deprives those countries of their agency, and ignores the fact that friendly relations between China and the global south started way before China was rich.
If you ask me, the entire situation has been so thoroughly politicized that a neutral, objective inspection by foreign countries is not possible. Western countries won't accept any other outcome than "millions of Uyghurs are being genocided". There are a lot of dishonest reporters out there.
Which brings us to the next point...
At the same time, China distrusts western countries' neutrality and objectivity, and so they are incentivized to become less transparent.
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Regarding transparency and secrecy:
The west is essentially punishing China for being transparent. They used to divulge more about Xinjiang, but after a series of dishonest western media reports and propaganda, they became increasingly wary to the point where they'd rather shut everything down and making things more opaque. This becoming more opaque extends to issues beyond Xinjiang as well: as the US increasingly sanctions China using data obtained through transparency, China becomes more opaque in response.
China has always been clumsy in its communication with the west (though the opposite is also true). The issue of transparency is a long-standing issue. The Chinese government, and more generally Chinese people, tend to respond to any controversy by staying silent rather than through rebuttals. In Chinese culture, speaking is silver and silence is gold — a bit the opposite of many western cultures. Staying silent doesn't necessarily mean covering up: it means they gave up on communicating and are going their own way.
But of course, this behavior only makes westerners more suspicious, where silence is seen as evidence of sinister practice.
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Regarding China's reputation of having been caught and therefore deserves a guilty until innocence proven attitude:
Is "having caught" really true? You mentioned internment camps but that very issue is under dispute. So let's ignore that one for now.
Forced abortions: if you're talking about the One Child Policy, then that hardly counts has "having been caught in the act". The One Child Policy and its implications have always been public knowledge. I find this example very weird.
Organ harvesting: these claims come from Falun Gong. But where is the evidence?
There was organ harvesting, but not the kind alleged by Falun Gong. What they did was using organs of already-executed prisoners, which I agree is questionable but it's also on a whole different level than killing random people for their organs, as Falun Gong alleged. More importantly, China stopped this practice around 2015 on its own volition.
I assert that the claim that China cannot be trusted on the grounds of past crimes, is very dubious if you look deeply into the actual evidence. There are a lot of allegations without evidence. Some allegations are based on true underlying issues, but heavily distorted. Some are straight up lies. The bad reputation is built on a pile of sand, with very few actual bricks in the pile.
I saw on the ground in China early 2020 how the entire COVID issue was massively distorted by foreign media. The entire Li Wenliang censorship story was misrepresented. Wuhan was allegedly full of dead bodies which have been covered up, and everybody was forced by the government to stay at home rather than voluntarily doing so. No.
It is true that western countries tend to be more transparent (though I question your assertion that any journalist can visit any jail; can they visit Guantanamo?). But concluding that opaqueness is automatically sinister is also a stretch. This notion is especially problematic because the US is abusing transparency of foreign countries for the sake of upholding its own supremacy and for imposing sanctions, rather than as a way to truly encourage good and just governance.
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The end. As you can see, the Xinjiang issue is complex, and consists of a mix of many different issues. Multiple facts which appear contradictory are actually true at the same time.
I spent 2 days writing this. As you can imagine, with all this complexity it's really difficult to explain to most people what's going on.
(Part 1) You are raising very insightful issues. Arnaud's thread is an oversimplification. This comment is my best attempt at explaining the full picture, with the knowledge I have gathered in the past 3 years.
- There are unacceptable practices going on, but of a different scale and kind than described in mainstream western reporting.
- The terrorism issue is mixed up with the issues of Uyghur identity and separatism.
- The goal is to address terrorism, identity and separatism at the same time, using a variety of measures.
- There is difference between official policy and local implementation. Policy implementation in China is very distributed, with significant local leeway to interpret and implement. Due to incompetency rather than malice, there is significant collateral damage and impact on innocent people.
Let's unpack the above.
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About the measures:
- Terrorism is addressed through security: lots of weapons checks, barriers and surveillance everywhere. Though this is not the only measure.
- Terrorism, identity and separatism are addressed through deradicalization, vocational training, government job programs and economic development. The thinking goes: if people's economic prospects become better (able to find jobs, more income) then they are less likely to fall for extremism and to harbor separatist sentiments.
- Identity is addressed through patriotic education.
There are prisons, deradicalization camps, vocational schools. Those are three different things. A major source of misunderstanding comes from the fact that western reporting lump all three together into "concentration/detention camps", while Chinese media and diplomats never talk about the first, seldomly about the 2nd, and usually about the 3rd. So when foreign media ask Chinese diplomats to elaborate on "concentration camps", and the diplomats say "we don't have those, we have vocational schools" then the diplomats are technically correct but there is already misunderstanding from the first second.
Prisons are for convicted criminals and terrorists, e.g. those who set off bombs, and come with prison labor (as is usual in Chinese prisons, and many prisons around the world).
Vocational schools teach skills and patriotic education. They are indeed voluntary. Vocational schools are often boarding schools.
The most problematic facilities are the deradicalization camps. They are for people who have gotten in touch with extremism but haven't done anything concrete. They are sort of a "vocation school ++": they are mandatory and they "brainwash" you into believing that extremism is bad (e.g. they teach you ideas like: women have rights, killing people for their beliefs is bad). They are mandatory boarding schools but not prisons. This is not a contradiction: mandatory boarding schools exist in other parts of the world too. And the environment is less unpleasant than true prisons.
Deradicalization camps probably are problematic for two reasons:
1. The criteria for what counts as "gotten in touch with extremism" is prprobably too broad, and so an amount of innocent people have been undeservedly rolled into deradicalization camps.
2. The people enrolled into them may not have committed a concrete crime yet. Chinese authorities say that their goal is to prevent terrorism from taking root rather than only acting after the fact. According to western thought, this practice is wholly unacceptable. However, commentators from Islamic countries, which have had a much longer and much more savage history with terrorism, criticize the western perspectice on the grounds that westerners underestimate the impact of terrorism. From the Chinese government's perspective, safe streets and social stability is more important than anything else: they view it as their duty to ensure that streets are safe (and a lot of the population agrees).
The security measures probably come with a certain amount of racial profiling, e.g. Han can pass security checks unchecked while Uyghurs are checked more thoroughly. More on this later.
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At the same time, there is a significant amount of misrepresentation (and even outright lies) from western media.
Some is deliberate, e.g. propaganda. Max Blumenthal highlighted the problems with the "x million" number, witness testimonies and more. There are real issues, but not to the extend alleged. Too many people have been undeservedly forced into deradicalization centers, but not "1 million" and they're neither prisons nor concentration camps. The BBC visited a vocational boarding school, painted it as a prison, then said people were not allowed to leave while literally showing footage of people leaving. There is no genocide: the population has grown quicker than Han, and it has been shown that Adrien Zenz's IUD number deliberately omitted a 0 (i.e. 80% should be 8%). Despite alleged systematic rape, killing etc by witnesses, there is a complete lack of a refugee crisis.
Other reports are accidentally wrong: misinterpretations due to lack of understanding of China. For example many of ASPI's sattelite image concentration camp locations turn out to be schools, farms, etc. It seems that the criteria for identifying a "concentration camp" is "it has high walls, barbed wires and fences on windows". But Nathan Ruser, a young fellow who just came out of school and got recruited by ASPI for doing this "research", apparently didn't know that a great many normal buildings in China have these features.
You really must be quite westernized if you can't talk about China anymore without using the US as a reference point, and have to rely on Westerners spreading lies about China in service of their own agenda to speak for you.
Well done, you completely ignored the actual argument in order to resort to ad hominem, while ignoring the fact that the first source doesn't use the US as the major comparison point, while also making evidence-free statements such as "westerners spreading lies". Exactly as I would expect from you.
Most of the online discussion centered around China is just US domestic political projection using an imaginary China as a mirror, or as a counterfactual which doesn't exist, and then there's the obvious propaganda too.
RnaudBertrand seems to be using China only as an imaginary counterexample to the US invasion of Afghanistan.
If you were just an average Westerner, mistaking that Twitter thread for an informed perspective would be an understandable mistake, buy I think you should be able to do better.
> Exactly as I would expect from you.
Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username.
> Interesting, I didn't think you'd even recognize my username.
You are right here, in my haste I recognized you for someone else who has been attacking me a lot lately. I apologize.
> The typical American answer to problems: bombs and bullets.
The US is a secondary supporting point, not the main point, which is Afghanistan and its terrorism problem.
> Which is a lie, carelessly slandering the policemen who valiantly risked their lives in the fight against terrorism.
This is an oversimplification rather than a lie. In the context of that tweet, what was referred to was:
1. Sending your military to foreign territory to kill the source of radicalization there.
2. The scale of the effort.
While there have definitely been fighting in Xinjiang, it cannot be compared to the likes of the War on Terror. The former's violance was at least constrained to people who shoot back, while the latter involved the killing pf many innocent people.
While you criticize the comparison with the US here, to completely take the US out of the picture in a description about Xinjiang would not be fair. For one, the US is a contributing factor in the creation of the terrorism problem in Xinjiang. Second, when one talks about counter-terrorism efforts, it only makes sense to compare the pros and cons of different approaches that have already tried. After all, it is a hard problem in which hard choices have to be made; nobody has succeeded in an approach which is completely free of violance or any kind of coercion.
I suppose you could also compare to France, but I don't think it would make sense to skip over the most high-profile example.
> So no, I'm not a CCP supporter. What I am, is being tired of all the anti-China propaganda that's on the one hand merely biased and prejudiced misrepresentations, and on the other hand a deliberate manufacturing of consent for war. I am tired of my home being constantly misrepresented and villified.
I mistakenly assumed that you would be against oversimplification.
Hey I did try to invite him to talk to me in private where I can explain a complex situation more thoroughly. But if one is only "kinda interested, but not very interested" and wants a quick summary in an HN post then one has to be contend with oversimplifications.
I understand why you criticize me, but rather than criticism I'd like to hear solutions. I had a conversation with my contact from Xinjiang yesterday (who regularly talks to westerners to explain the situation) and he told me how basically nobody in the west is interested in the complex truth; everybody wants simplifications. Which really limits the explanations he can give.
So, what is your solution? If you have a link to a better summary that you believe is
1. more accurate,
2. able to explain things from a westerner's perspective and able to provide the paradigm changes needed for proper understanding,
3. yet short enough to satisfy readers that are only casually interested,
then I'm all ears and I'll consider recommending your source next time.
