[skinster]

Admin Edit: Twitter feed removed

Apparently I'm not allowed to post Twitter posts anymore, I guess the rules changed lately, I didn't know. The articles can be posted otherwise though:

The State Department’s top lawyers found “insufficient evidence” for genocide.

The single source of the Uyghur genocide is a deeply dubious figure named Adrian Zenz.

Here is a video of a Uighur woman calling out the imperialist attacks on her country.

And by the way, @Rancid, if you actually want to make any substantive arguments, rather than childish sniping from the sidelines, I'm all ears.

I see Rancid is still Rancid.

No radical Islamists are in a completely different evil camp to the imperialist, racist, genocidal, expansionist aggressor Han national Socialists.

I see Rich hasn't changed either. Cool.

The Falun Gong have fled China too.

You can read more about them in this article.

Look, honestly, there is clearly a case for genocide here.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'm pretty sure you didn't try to debate my love currently awaiting me somewhere in the universe, Carl Sagan. I know you didn't just try to debate him!

And here it is, bleeding heart western liberals and neocons alike screaming mercy for Islamic extremism in China while they target and kill these groups on a global scale. SO TIRESOME

Tiresome is right.

A lot of people don't know that there has been much political violence in the province the Uighurs live in predominantly, bombing attacks, stabbings and such. Many Uighurs went to Syria to fight religious war against the Syrian Arab Army too and were placed in camps upon their return to China. These have been re-education camps, the Chinese government has admitted to this. It has since closed them down. But, those camps were what it says on the tin, they were about education. The Chinese government was propagandizing those within the camps to de-radicalize. To give up extremist beliefs. This wasn't Guantanamo though, where people are still tortured and continue to suffer indefinitely without charge. But we don't talk about Guantanamo anymore because it's not in the news. Still, there was no torture in the camps. They were about educating people away from their ideas, stuff like killing in the name of religion.

Those crying for the Uighurs in this thread act as though there is no context behind the camps, as if they are innocent victims that China hates simply for being Muslim. Apparently China hates Muslims in East Asia but is all about defending them in West Asia. Similar to how like the Americans are bombing and literally genociding Muslims today in various countries but also they care about Muslims being persecuted in China based on lies told by psychotic cultists like Andrew Zenz who believe in Armageddon and who cares about Muslims as much as he cares about Jews.

The US has the world's largest prison population in the world, at 2.3 million.

This is not going to be talked about because this story isn't on repeat in the mainstream corporate media. But it is true. It's also true the vast majority are in for non-violent crimes. And some sentences are ridiculous as a punishment on refusing a plea deal, for asking for the accusations to be taken to trial. There is also slave labour, prisoners paid about 24 cents per hour working for massive corporations like Nike and such. And those same prisoners being charged exorbitantly in the prisons for stuff like making calls to anyone, charged at rates the rest of the population in America don't suffer. The U.S. is currently holding onto the largest gulag to date, with over 2 million prisoners, but those crying about prison camps don't talk about it because it's not in the mainstream corporate media every day like the Uighur story is.

Ah yes, a pro life "think tank" that thinks Covid-19 was a hoax perpetrated by China to suppress the Trump vote in the 2020 election. Truly excellent source work once again @noemon. It perfectly complements the AP "investigation", which is yet more parroting of Adrian Zenz's "research".

[Igor Antunov]

I'm glad somebody actually went to the trouble of covering most of the lies, if not all of them.

Some anti-China forces in the West, including the United States, have concocted and disseminated plenty of false information about China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion at all, but about combating violent terrorism and separatism. The Chinese government has launched anti-terrorism and deradicalization efforts in Xinjiang in accordance with the law to protect people's lives, which has garnered ardent support of people from all ethnic groups.

People in the region continue to embrace peace and prosperity and Xinjiang society continues to develop steadily. These facts are the most powerful tool to debunk lies on Xinjiang.

Facts and truthfulness will eventually bust all lies. Please see the attachment for the full text.

Fact Check: Lies on Xinjiang-related Issues Versus the Truth

Preface

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is a land of beauty, diversity and unity. Fifty-six ethnic groups are closely united as family members, just like pomegranate seeds that stick together, to build a beautiful homeland, maintain social stability, and realize economic development and prosperity, flourishing cultural heritage preservation, ethnic unity and harmony, and freedom of religious belief, with people of different ethnic groups living and working in peace and contentment.

However, some anti-China forces in the West, including the United States, have concocted and disseminated plenty of false information about Xinjiang. They have smeared China's image, slandered its policies on Xinjiang, interfered in China's internal affairs, and attempted to deceive the international community and disrupt the stability and development of Xinjiang.

Lies may mislead people for a while, but cannot win the trust of the world. Facts and truthfulness will eventually bust all lies.

Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion at all, but about combating violent terrorism and separatism. The Chinese government has launched anti-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang in accordance with the law to protect people's lives, which has garnered ardent support of people from all ethnic groups. People in the region continue to embrace peace and prosperity and Xinjiang society continues to develop steadily. These facts are the most powerful tool to debunk lies surrounding Xinjiang.

We have chosen some typical Xinjiang-related rumors and lies fabricated by anti-China forces, and debunked them with facts to set the record straight.

Lie No. 1: Mike Pompeo claimed that the Chinese government had committed "genocide" against the Uygurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

Facts: In recent years, the Uygur population in Xinjiang has been growing steadily. From 2010 to 2018, the Uygur population in Xinjiang rose from 10.17 million to 12.72 million, an increase of 2.55 million or 25.04 percent. The growth rate of the Uygur population is not only higher than that of Xinjiang's total population, which is 13.99 percent, but also higher than that of all ethnic minority groups, which is 22.14 percent, let alone the Han population's two percent.

– Xinjiang enjoys social stability, with the people living and working in peace and contentment. The region has made unprecedented achievements in economic and social development and improvement of people's livelihood. From 2014 to 2019, the GDP of Xinjiang increased from 919.59 billion yuan to 1.36 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 7.2 percent. The per capita disposable income in Xinjiang increased by an average annual rate of 9.1 percent. Remarkable achievements have been made in poverty alleviation. All 3.09 million impoverished people in Xinjiang have been lifted out of poverty. The absolute poverty problem in Xinjiang has been resolved historically.

– The legitimate rights and interests of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang have been protected. All ethnic groups, regardless of their population, have the same legal status and enjoy various rights in accordance with the law, including participation in the management of state affairs, freedom of religious belief, receiving education, using their own languages, and preserving their traditional culture.

Lie No. 2: Adrian Zenz released reports claiming Xinjiang has carried out "forced sterilization" on the Uygur women, resulting in a sharp decline in the Uygur population.

Facts: Adrian Zenz is not a so-called "expert on China studies," but a member of the far-right group "Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation" sponsored by the U.S. government. He is also a key figure in an anti-China organization set up by U.S. intelligence agencies and a notorious racist.

– Adrian Zenz's "reports" are full of fabrications and data manipulation. The so-called evidence of "forced sterilization" in the "reports" claims that 80 percent of the new intrauterine device (IUD) insertion procedures in China for 2018 were performed in Xinjiang and that the natural population growth rate in Hotan and Kashgar of Xinjiang in 2018 was only 2.58 per 1,000 people. The "evidence" is extremely inconsistent with the facts.

– According to data from the China Health Statistics Yearbook 2019, published by the National Health Commission, the number of new IUD insertion procedures in Xinjiang in 2018 came in at 328,475, accounting for only 8.7 percent of China's total, which was 3,774,318.

– According to the 2019 Xinjiang statistical yearbook released by the statistics bureau of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the natural population growth rates in Kashgar and Hotan were 6.93 per 1,000 people and 2.96 per 1,000 people, respectively, in 2018.

Lie No. 3: BBC Newsnight once reported that Zumrat Dawut (Zamira Dawut) was "forced to go through sterilization" in a vocational education and training center.

Facts: Zamira Dawut has never studied in any vocational education and training center. Her elder brother Abduhelil Dawut has previously clarified that.

– She claimed that after "her release" from a center, she was forced to be sterilized and her uterus was removed because she has already had three children. In fact, in March 2013, when Zamira Dawut gave birth to her third child in Urumqi Maternal and Child Care Service Center, she signed a childbirth consent form voluntarily to have a cesarean section and tubal ligation, and then the center conducted the operation. She was never sterilized, not to mention uterus removal.

– She claimed that her aging father was repeatedly detained and investigated by Xinjiang authorities, and died not long ago from an unknown cause. In fact, her father had been living with his children until he died from heart disease on October 12, 2019. He had never been investigated or placed in detention. Her brothers Abduhelil Dawut and Elkin Dawut have both substantiated the facts.

– She claimed that she was served with pork in a relative's home. In fact, the relative she referred to is her elder brother Abduhelil Dawut's pairing relative Zhao Qilin. In October 2017, Abduhelil was paired up with Zhao as "relatives," as part of an ethnic unity program. In January 2018, Abduhelil was invited to Zhao's home as a guest, in company with his younger sister Zamira Dawut. The meal was prepared by Zhao's mother, who herself is an ethnic Hui and a Muslim, and only eats halal food. It was impossible for her to provide a "pork meal."

Lie No. 4: In interviews with foreign media, Mihrigul Tursun said that she was forced to take unknown medications in a vocational education and training center and was diagnosed as infertile by American doctors.

Facts: On April 21, 2017, Mihrigul Tursun was taken into custody by the public security bureau of Qiemo County on suspicion of inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination. During this period, she was found to have infectious diseases such as syphilis. Out of humanitarian consideration, the county public security bureau terminated the measures against her on May 10, 2017. Except for the 20 days of criminal detention, Mihrigul was totally free while in China. She was never sentenced, nor did she study in any vocational education and training center, let alone being forced to take medications. There are no records of her undergoing a sterilization procedure in China.

Lie No. 5: Xinjiang sets up "re-education camps" to detain millions of Uygur Muslims.

Facts: Xinjiang has never had any so-called "re-education camps."

– The vocational education and training centers established in Xinjiang in accordance with the law were education and training institutions in nature and were preventive counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures taken by Xinjiang. The aim was to eradicate the breeding ground for terrorism and extremism from the source.

The relevant measures drew on the international community's experience in combating terrorism and deradicalization and implemented the idea of using development, education, and other resources to curb extremist ideologies, as advocated in the UN Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism. It fully complied with the principles and spirit of a series of international counter-terrorism resolutions, including the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

Xinjiang's counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures have achieved positive results. There have been no violent terrorist cases for over four consecutive years in the region.

– The vocational education and training centers offered a curriculum that included standard spoken and written Chinese, understanding of the law and training in vocational skills to achieve the goal of deradicalization. By October 2019, all the trainees at such centers had completed their studies and graduated, and most of them have found stable jobs and lived a peaceful life.

Lie No. 6: Xinjiang vocational education and training centers exercised "religious control," political indoctrination, intimidation and torture over the trainees.

Facts: The vocational education and training centers fully respected and protected trainees' freedom of religious belief, ethnic customs and habits, and the right to use their own ethnic spoken and written languages. The trainees could decide on their own whether to take part in legal religious activities when they got home; a variety of nutritious Muslim food were provided free of charge; and the regulations, curriculum, and menus at the centers all used local ethnic languages as well as standard Chinese.

– The vocational education and training centers fully guaranteed the trainees' personal freedom and dignity. They employed a residential education model that allowed trainees to go back home on a regular basis, ask for leave to attend to personal affairs, and enjoy the freedom of correspondence. The centers strictly prohibited any form of humiliation or mistreatment. There were no such things as "suppressing ethnic minorities" or "persecuting Muslims."

– The centers had well-equipped facilities. The dormitories were equipped with radio, TV sets, air-conditioners or electric fans. Medical facilities, legal-counseling and mental-counseling rooms provided relevant services free of charge. The centers had sports venues for basketball, volleyball and table tennis, facilities for cultural activities, such as reading rooms, computer rooms and movie-screening rooms, as well as cultural and art performance venues, such as small auditoriums and open-air stages.

Extracurricular activities, such as folk songs and dances, sports competitions, etc., were held regularly to meet the various needs of trainees in study, life and entertainment to the maximum extent. All the trainees were covered in the public pension and medical insurance schemes, and were entitled to free health examinations.

Lie No. 7: Some overseas Uygur people have been claiming "their relatives or friends in Xinjiang cannot be contacted and have gone missing" on overseas media and social media platforms.

Facts: Xinjiang protects the freedom of travel of people of all ethnic groups, including the Uygurs, and their communication with overseas relatives according to the law.

– Verification with relevant departments shows that some allegedly "missing" people, mentioned by the "East Turkistan" separatists overseas, are living a normal life, while other "missing" incident reports are pure fabrications.

– The Australian Broadcasting Corporation once reported that Azmat Omar, a Chinese citizen living in Australia, claimed that he had lost contact with his family in Xinjiang, including his father, stepmother, three brothers, two sisters and over 20 other relatives. However, the fact is that all his relatives in China are living a normal life.

– During a UN Human Rights Council session in February 2020, the "World Uygur Congress" organized an activity outside the Palace of Nations in Geneva. They posted pictures of so-called "Uygurs persecuted by the Chinese government." These pictures were later discredited as disinformation. Those in the pictures are living normal lives. Separatist groups stole their photos and personal information.

Lie No. 8: Xinjiang uses the coronavirus to wipe out Uygurs, with many tragic deaths after infection.

Facts: Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Xinjiang has resolutely fought against the virus and effectively contained the epidemic within a short period. Thanks to the support of the expert team from the State Council's joint prevention and control mechanism, the local government made all-out efforts to treat patients.

The regional government adopted a targeted prevention and control approach with differentiated, scientific measures. It also strengthened epidemic prevention and control in places such as crowded and key venues to minimize the risk of virus spread. The local government has also made every effort to ensure the production and supply of food and other daily necessities while maintaining their sufficiency, quality and stable prices.

These measures were widely supported by people of different ethnic groups in Xinjiang. Thanks to the concerted efforts, all 826 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Xinjiang have been discharged from hospital after treatment, without even a single death.

Lie No. 9: China systematically transferred 80,000 Uygurs out of Xinjiang and assigned them as "forced labor" to factories in other provinces.

Facts: The government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region works with a strong sense of responsibility to promote employment.

Southern Xinjiang was an underdeveloped area with a low degree of industrialization and urbanization, where many people suffered from poverty due to lack of job opportunities. Based on the realities, local governments at all levels have taken active measures to help those in need of secure employment. These measures included creating job opportunities nearby, facilitating work in other areas in Xinjiang, or transferring workforces to other provinces and cities paired up to assist Xinjiang.

Such measures have helped residents shake off poverty through employment and lead fulfilling lives, while guaranteeing various ethnic groups' right to labor and employment.

– Since 2018, 151,000 people in poverty-stricken families in southern Xinjiang have secured jobs away from their homes. Most of them worked in other parts of Xinjiang, while about 14,700 worked outside the region with the help of fellow villagers and relatives, or through human resources agencies. Those who work outside Xinjiang have their rights to customs, language and culture, and religious beliefs fully guaranteed. Many earn an annual income of 45,000 yuan, several times higher than the income from farming or working in their hometowns.

Lie No. 10: Xinjiang forced a large number of the Uygurs to pick cotton, contaminating the global supply chain.

Facts: A few years ago, when cotton matured in autumn, many migrant workers from Henan, Sichuan and other places would take trains to Xinjiang to pick cotton. They were called "the cotton-picking forces." Migrant workers of various ethnic groups in Xinjiang would also go to pick cotton. They worked together, cared for each other and forged a deep friendship. These cotton pickers in and out of Xinjiang were all voluntary, and their incomes could reach over 10,000 yuan in just a month.

– In recent years, with the development of science and technology, cotton production has been highly mechanized in Xinjiang. Even in the busy cotton harvesting season, there is no need for a large number of cotton pickers. For example, since 2015, most of the cotton in the Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture of Bayingolin in Xinjiang has been harvested by machines.

Lie No. 11: Xinjiang adopts an assimilation policy towards ethnic minorities in an attempt to systematically eliminate the Uygur culture.

Facts: All ethnic groups in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region enjoy full freedom to preserve or reform their own customs and habits. The local government strictly abides by the Constitution and laws and attaches great importance to the protection and development of the excellent traditional culture of all ethnic groups.

– The cultural heritage of all ethnic groups has been protected in Xinjiang. A batch of renowned architectural sites representing the preeminent historical and cultural heritage of the Uygurs, the Mongolians, the Huis, the Xibes and other ethnic groups have been properly renovated and preserved, including the Tomb of Afak Hoja in Kashgar, the Tomb of Tughluk Tumur in Huocheng, Zhaosu Lamasery, the Former Residence of a Mongolian Prince in Hejing, and Chimtoghrak Manor.

– The excellent traditional culture of the ethnic groups has been passed on. Traditional cultural events, such as the Uygur's "Meshrep," the Kazak's "Aytes," the Kirgiz's "Kobuz Ballad Singing Fair," the Mongolian "Nadam Fair," the Xibe's "West Moving Festival" and the Han's "Lantern Festival," have been widely carried out. A number of impressive dramas with rich ethnic and regional characteristics have been staged, such as the Uygur play "Gherip and Senem," the Kazak "Aytes," and the Kirgiz "Manaschi" ballad drama "Manas."

– The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has fully protected the customs and habits of all ethnic groups in the diets, festivals, weddings and funerals. Large and medium-sized cities and small towns with Muslim people in Xinjiang maintain a certain number of halal restaurants; "halal canteens" or "halal kitchen facilities" are set up in major traffic arteries and institutions with ethnic minority employees; beef and mutton supplied to Muslim people are slaughtered, processed, stored, transported and sold according to their customs. All ethnic groups enjoy statutory holidays during their traditional festivals, such as Corban Festival and Eid al-Fitr.

– Currently, people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang mainly use 10 spoken and written languages. Ethnic minority languages are widely applied in various sectors, including the judiciary, administration, education, press and publishing, radio and television, and the internet. Xinjiang People's Broadcasting Station offers 12 radio channels in five languages: Mandarin, Uygur, Kazak, Mongolian and Kirgiz. Primary and secondary schools in Xinjiang offer courses in ethnic minority languages, such as Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz, Mongolian and Xibe. Chinese RMB banknotes have five languages on them: Chinese, Tibetan, Uygur, Mongolian and Zhuang.

Lie No. 12: Some places in Xinjiang destroyed graveyards of ethnic minority groups.

Facts: Xinjiang has always respected the funeral and burial customs of ethnic minorities and formulated a series of regulations and policies to protect their basic funeral and burial rights. Measures, including allocating designated land and establishing special public cemeteries, are taken for some minority groups who traditionally bury their deceased in the ground. Their traditional practices such as funeral pray, burial and holding Nazer (memorial activities), are preserved.

– With the economic and social development and the improvement of people's living standards in Xinjiang, governments at all levels have stepped up the planning and construction of public welfare cemeteries. Cemetery facilities and their environment are continuously improving. People of different ethnic groups in some places have relocated graveyards on their own free will.

Lie No. 13: The Chinese government sends children of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang to boarding schools and "forces" them to be separated from their parents.

Facts: The Compulsory Education Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates: "Where necessary, the people's government at the county level may set up boarding schools to ensure that school-age children and adolescents who are dwelling in scattered areas receive compulsory education."

Xinjiang is a vast region with long distances between villages and towns, and it is not convenient for some students to go to school, making it hard to ensure their study quality. Parents have a heavy burden to transport their children to and from schools. To solve this problem, Xinjiang built 400 primary and secondary boarding schools in the 1980s.

In recent years, Xinjiang, like the rest of the country, made scientific plans and reasonable arrangements for boarding school construction. They comply with relevant construction standards of the state and the autonomous region to ensure sufficient learning and living facilities. Time has proved that boarding education has become an effective measure to accelerate education modernization and aid targeted poverty alleviation in Xinjiang. Parents of students of all ethnic groups support the boarding school model.

– The construction of boarding schools is an arrangement made by Xinjiang in light of the actual conditions of the autonomous region to alleviate poverty through education and improve the quality of compulsory education. It helps improve education modernization at primary and secondary schools of ethnic minorities and promote exchanges among different ethnic groups in Xinjiang. The practice here is not fundamentally different from that of other parts of China or the rest of the world.

Lie No. 14: Schools in Xinjiang replace ethnic languages with Chinese to "brainwash" the students. Xinjiang has banned ethnic minority students from using their own languages and closed schools of the Uygur language.

Fact check: The Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language stipulate that citizens have the right to learn and use the standard Chinese spoken and written language. The state provides them with related conditions. While promoting education in the Chinese language, Xinjiang also offers courses in the spoken and written languages of ethnic minority groups in accordance with the national curriculum plan for primary and secondary schools. This safeguards the right of students from the minority groups to learn their own spoken and written languages. It also effectively promotes the inheritance and development of the minority languages and cultures.

– Primary and secondary education in Xinjiang is conducted in seven languages. At present, preschools and primary and secondary schools across Xinjiang provide bilingual education in the national-standard spoken and written language, as well as one ethnic language. Learning to use the national-standard language can help people better integrate and adapt to modern society. It brings more convenience in studies, job hunting, communication, business, and work.

Lie No. 15: Xinjiang suppresses ethnic minorities under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Facts: Incomplete statistics show that from 1990 to 2016, ethnic separatists, religious extremists, and violent terrorists plotted and conducted several thousand violent terrorist acts. They killed many innocent civilians and several hundred police officers and caused immeasurable property losses. These terrorist activities inflicted untold suffering on the people of various ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

– In the face of a complicated counter-terrorism situation and the demands from people of all ethnic groups to stop terrorism, Xinjiang has taken a series of active measures.

Responding to the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and other counter-terrorism resolutions, Xinjiang has upheld the principle of not linking terrorism with any particular region, ethnic group, or religion. It acted within the law to crack down on violence and terrorist activities that violate human rights, endanger public security, undermine ethnic unity, and aim at separating the country.

Since 2014, a total of 1,588 violent and terrorist groups have been taken out, 12,995 violent terrorists arrested, and 2,052 explosive devices seized. Such operations have effectively curbed the infiltration of extremism, significantly improved public security, and protected the right to life, right to health, right to development, and other basic rights of people of all ethnic groups. Xinjiang has reported no violent terrorist cases for more than four consecutive years.

Lie No. 16: The "fanghuiju" campaign, in which civil servants are dispatched to grass-roots communities to offer help to people of various ethnic groups, as well as the "ethnic unity campaign" and solidarity activities among cadres and people of different ethnic groups, are all adopted by Xinjiang with the aim of intervening in and monitoring Uygur families.

Facts: Xinjiang has been carrying out the "ethnic unity campaign" and solidarity activities among cadres and people of different ethnic groups since 2016. More than 1.1 million cadres and workers of different ethnic groups have paired up with 1.6 million people of different ethnic groups as "relatives" and made friends with each other. Among them, Han cadres have paired up with ethnic groups, including the Uygur. Cadres of ethnic minority groups, including the Uygur, have also paired up with Han people.

– Based on mutual exchange, communication, integration, respect and help, cadres and workers of different ethnic groups have given full play to their own advantages, guiding the grassroots residents to expand their approaches to prosperity, and helping them solve problems in healthcare, employment and education, and doing many good deeds that have won public support.

According to the statistics, the cadres and workers participating in the "ethnic unity campaign" and solidarity activities among cadres and people of different ethnic groups have donated 940 million yuan and more than 49 million material items to the grassroots people, accomplishing some 18 million deeds that benefit locals.

Lie No. 17: Xinjiang monitors Uygur Muslims through ubiquitous cameras, mobile phone apps, the internet and other high-tech means.

Facts: In accordance with the law, Xinjiang has installed cameras in urban and rural public areas, major roads, transportation hubs and other public places in order to improve social governance and effectively prevent and crack down on crime. These measures have enhanced social security and won widespread support from people of all ethnic groups. The measures do not target any particular ethnic group.

– The use of modern scientific and technological products and big data to improve social governance is a common practice in the international community. According to the South China Morning Post, a new study found that Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands are among the top 10 countries in the number of surveillance cameras in the world.

Lie No. 18: Chinese embassies and consulates have refused to renew the passports of overseas Uygur people, forcing them to return home to face extrajudicial detention or imprisonment.

Facts: Chinese citizens' personal freedom and rights of exit and entry are protected by law. As long as they are Chinese nationals and admit themselves that they are Chinese citizens, and do not violate Chinese laws and regulations, they can apply to the Chinese embassy or consulate where they live for the renewal or replacement of passports.

– Chinese embassies and consulates conduct their services in accordance with the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, the Passport Law of the People's Republic of China and other laws and regulations to protect the legitimate rights and interests of overseas Chinese of different ethnic groups. Chinese citizens from Xinjiang who apply for the renewal or replacement of passports at Chinese embassies and consulates have been accepted and approved after being examined to comply with relevant laws.

Lie No. 19: The Chinese government bans foreign journalists from going to Xinjiang for reporting.

Facts: Xinjiang is an open place. Foreign journalists are allowed to report in Xinjiang on condition that they abide by Chinese laws and go through relevant procedures, according to the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on News Coverage by Permanent Offices of Foreign Media Organizations and Foreign Journalists. There are no circumstances in which the Chinese government forbids foreign journalists to report in Xinjiang.

– Since the end of 2018, more than 1,200 people from over 100 countries and regions, including officials from international organizations, diplomats, journalists and religious leaders, have visited Xinjiang.

– From September 3 to 7, 2019, NBC reporters went to Xinjiang for reporting.

– In December 2020, BBC reporters went to Kuqa County and other places in Xinjiang for reporting.

Lie No. 20: The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights will be restricted from visiting Xinjiang.

Facts: China welcomes the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to visit China and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and has always maintained close communication with the UN.

Lie No. 21: Xinjiang suppresses Islam and freedom of religious belief.

Facts: Respecting and protecting the freedom of religious belief is a basic long-term policy of the Chinese government. Article 36 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates that Chinese citizens have freedom of religious belief. The principle of religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution has been fully implemented in Xinjiang. Xinjiang citizens' right to freedom of religious belief has been fully guaranteed. The religious feelings, belief-based needs and customs of religious believers have been fully respected, legal religious activities guaranteed by law, and religious and cultural heritage protected.

– Xinjiang has translated and published religious classics and books, such as the Koran and Selections from Al-Sahih Muhammad Ibn-Ismail al-Bukhari, in Mandarin Chinese, the Uygur, Kazak and Kirgiz languages, providing convenience for religious believers of all ethnic groups to acquire religious knowledge.

– Since 1996, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government has organized local Muslims to take charter flights for a pilgrimage every year, except for the cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and has provided high-quality services in entry and exit, medical care, catering, etc., so as to ensure the safe and orderly pilgrimage activities and ensure that local Muslims of all ethnic groups successfully complete their pilgrimage.

Lie No. 22: Xinjiang demolishes many mosques.

Facts: Mosques in Xinjiang meet the regular religious demands of followers in terms of quantity. Governments at various levels in Xinjiang have consistently improved the public services of mosques.

The government has funded the introduction into mosques of running water, electricity, natural gas, roads, communication, radio and television, and libraries. Ablution facilities and flushing toilets have been installed. Mosques have also been equipped with medical services and electronic displays.

They also have computers, electric fans or air conditioners, firefighting equipment, drinking water dispensers, shoe coverings or machines for shoe coverings, and lockers. These measures have been welcomed by religious personnel and believers.

Lie No. 23: Xinjiang "persecutes" religious personnel.

Facts: The cultivation and training of clerical personnel have been strengthened in Xinjiang. The region has 10 religious colleges and schools, including Xinjiang Islamic Institute, its eight branches in places like Kashgar, Hotan and Ili, and Xinjiang Islamic School. These colleges recruit a certain number of undergraduate, junior, and technical secondary school students every year, with student numbers exceeding 3,000.

Lie No. 24: Xinjiang bans fasting of Muslims.

Facts: Muslims of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, in accordance with their teachings, canons, and traditional customs, practice regular religious activities such as fasting and Islamic festivals in mosques and their own homes. Such activities are totally of their own free will, without any interference or restriction.

– During Ramadan every year, it is an entirely personal choice for Muslims to fast or not fast. Governments at all levels in Xinjiang make every effort to ensure the market supply and security of religious activities of Eid al-Fitr and other festivals.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-06/F ... index.html

With the UN high commissioner being denied entry fake news recently, I'd also mention China's invitation to the EU to send representatives to explore the region-an offer which EU flatly refused...for obvious reasons. They can't risk validating all of the above. The western propaganda and brainwashing must flow.

[noemon]

In case you have not noticed Igor, the Chinese apologies you have quoted confirm the reports against China.

If you do have IUD in your womb, every quarter the government will inform you…you have to go to the office of inspection. If you do not appear, you pay the fine, 50 yuans, every day. If over 1 month, the fine is 2,000 yuans. If 6 months passes, there has been no IUD inspection; then sterilization is required.

China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization
June 29, 2020

Alif Baqytali plays on a tricycle at his home in Shonzhy, Kazakhstan on Saturday, June 13, 2020. Baqytali's mother, Gulnar Omirzakh, a Chinese-born ethnic Kazakh, says she was forced to get an intrauterine contraceptive device, and that authorities threatened to detain her if she didn't pay a large fine for giving birth to Alif, her third child. (AP Photo/Mukhit Toktassyn)
The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children.

While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of “demographic genocide.”

The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang.

The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, the AP found, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.

After Gulnar Omirzakh, a Chinese-born Kazakh, had her third child, the government ordered her to get an IUD inserted. Two years later, in January 2018, four officials in military camouflage came knocking at her door anyway. They gave Omirzakh, the penniless wife of a detained vegetable trader, three days to pay a $2,685 fine for having more than two children.

If she didn’t, they warned, she would join her husband and a million other ethnic minorities locked up in internment camps ¬— often for having too many children.

“God bequeaths children on you. To prevent people from having children is wrong,” said Omirzakh, who tears up even now thinking back to that day. “They want to destroy us as a people.”

The result of the birth control campaign is a climate of terror around having children, as seen in interview after interview. 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.

The hundreds of millions of dollars the government pours into birth control has transformed Xinjiang from one of China’s fastest-growing regions to among its slowest in just a few years, according to new research obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication by China scholar Adrian Zenz.

“This kind of drop is unprecedented....there’s a ruthlessness to it,” said Zenz, a leading expert in the policing of China’s minority regions. “This is part of a wider control campaign to subjugate the Uighurs.”

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo denounced the policies in a statement Monday.

China’s foreign minister derided the story as “fabricated” and “fake news,” saying the government treats all ethnicities equally and protects the legal rights of minorities.

“Everyone, regardless of whether they’re an ethnic minority or Han Chinese, must follow and act in accordance with the law,” ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Monday when asked about the AP story.

Chinese officials have said in the past that the new measures are merely meant to be fair, allowing both Han Chinese and ethnic minorities the same number of children.

For decades, China had one of the most extensive systems of minority entitlements in the world, with Uighurs and others getting more points on college entrance exams, hiring quotas for government posts and laxer birth control restrictions. Under China’s now-abandoned ‘one child’ policy, the authorities had long encouraged, often forced, contraceptives, sterilization and abortion on Han Chinese. But minorities were allowed two children — three if they came from the countryside.

Under President Xi Jinping, China’s most authoritarian leader in decades, those benefits are now being rolled back. In 2014, soon after Xi visited Xinjiang, the region’s top official said it was time to implement “equal family planning policies” for all ethnicities and “reduce and stabilize birth rates.” In the following years, the government declared that instead of just one child, Han Chinese could now have two, and three in Xinjiang’s rural areas, just like minorities.

But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show. Some rural Muslims, like Omirzakh, are punished even for having the three children allowed by the law.

State-backed scholars have warned for years that large rural religious families were at the root of bombings, knifings and other attacks the Xinjiang government blamed on Islamic terrorists. The growing Muslim population was a breeding ground for poverty and extremism which could “heighten political risk,” according to a 2017 paper by the head of the Institute of Sociology at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences. Another cited as a key obstacle the religious belief that “the fetus is a gift from God.”

Outside experts say the birth control campaign is part of a state-orchestrated assault on the Uighurs to purge them of their faith and identity and forcibly assimilate them. They’re subjected to political and religious re-education in camps and forced labor in factories, while their children are indoctrinated in orphanages. Uighurs, who are often but not always Muslim, are also tracked by a vast digital surveillance apparatus.

“The intention may not be to fully eliminate the Uighur population, but it will sharply diminish their vitality,” said Darren Byler, an expert on Uighurs at the University of Colorado. “It will make them easier to assimilate into the mainstream Chinese population.”

Some go a step further.

“It’s genocide, full stop. It’s not immediate, shocking, mass-killing on the spot type genocide, but it’s slow, painful, creeping genocide,” said Joanne Smith Finley, who works at Newcastle University in the U.K. “These are direct means of genetically reducing the Uighur population.”


A Uighur child in a courtyard home in Hotan.
___

For centuries, the majority was Muslim in the arid, landlocked region China now calls “Xinjiang” — meaning “New Frontier” in Mandarin.

After the People’s Liberation Army swept through in 1949, China’s new Communist rulers ordered thousands of soldiers to settle in Xinjiang, pushing the Han population from 6.7% that year to more than 40% by 1980. The move sowed anxiety about Chinese migration that persists to this day. Drastic efforts to restrict birth rates in the 1990s were relaxed after major pushback, with many parents paying bribes or registering children as the offspring of friends or other family members.

That all changed with an unprecedented crackdown starting in 2017, throwing hundreds of thousands of people into prisons and camps for alleged “signs of religious extremism” such as traveling abroad, praying or using foreign social media. Authorities launched what several notices called “dragnet-style” investigations to root out parents with too many children, even those who gave birth decades ago.

“Leave no blind spots,” said two county and township directives in 2018 and 2019 uncovered by Zenz, who is also an independent contractor with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a bipartisan nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. “Contain illegal births and lower fertility levels,” said a third.

Officials and armed police began pounding on doors, looking for kids and pregnant women. Minority residents were ordered to attend weekly flag-raising ceremonies, where officials threatened detention if they didn’t register all their children, according to interviews backed by attendance slips and booklets. Notices found by the AP show that local governments set up or expanded systems to reward those who report illegal births.

In some areas, women were ordered to take gynecology exams after the ceremonies, they said. In others, officials outfitted special rooms with ultrasound scanners for pregnancy tests.

“Test all who need to be tested,” ordered a township directive from 2018. “Detect and deal with those who violate policies early.”

Abdushukur Umar was among the first to fall victim to the crackdown on children. A jovial Uighur tractor driver-turned-fruit merchant, the proud father considered his seven children a blessing from God.

But authorities began pursuing him in 2016. The following year, he was thrown into a camp and later sentenced to seven years in prison — one for each child, authorities told relatives.

“My cousin spent all his time taking care of his family, he never took part in any political movements,” Zuhra Sultan, Umar’s cousin, said from exile in Turkey. “How can you get seven years in prison for having too many children? We’re living in the 21st century — this is unimaginable.”

Sixteen Uighurs and Kazakhs told the AP they knew people interned or jailed for having too many children. Many received years, even decades in prison.

Leaked data obtained and corroborated by the AP showed that of 484 camp detainees listed in Karakax county in Xinjiang, 149 were there for having too many children - the most common reason for holding them. Time in a camp — what the government calls “education and training” — for parents with too many children is written policy in at least three counties, notices found by Zenz confirmed.

In 2017, the Xinjiang government also tripled the already hefty fines for violating family planning laws for even the poorest residents — to at least three times the annual disposable income of the county. While fines also apply to Han Chinese, only minorities are sent to the detention camps if they cannot pay, according to interviews and data. Government reports show the counties collect millions of dollars from the fines each year.

Gulnar Omirzakh's fine for 17,405 RMB, or $2865, for having a third child.
In other efforts to change the population balance of Xinjiang, China is dangling land, jobs and economic subsidies to lure Han migrants there. It is also aggressively promoting intermarriage between Han Chinese and Uighurs, with one couple telling the AP they were given money for housing and amenities like a washing machine, refrigerator and TV.

“It links back to China’s long history of dabbling in eugenics….you don’t want people who are poorly educated, marginal minorities breeding quickly,” said James Leibold, a specialist in Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe in Melbourne. “What you want is your educated Han to increase their birth rate.”

Sultan describes how the policy looks to Uighurs like her: “The Chinese government wants to control the Uighur population and make us fewer and fewer, until we disappear.”

___

Once in the detention camps, women are subjected to forced IUDs and what appear to be pregnancy prevention shots, according to former detainees. They are also made to attend lectures on how many children they should have.

Seven former detainees told the AP that they were force-fed birth control pills or injected with fluids, often with no explanation. Many felt dizzy, tired or ill, and women stopped getting their periods. After being released and leaving China, some went to get medical check-ups and found they were sterile.

It’s unclear what former detainees were injected with, but Xinjiang hospital slides obtained by the AP show that pregnancy prevention injections, sometimes with the hormonal medication Depo-Provera, are a common family planning measure. Side effects can include headaches and dizziness.

Dina Nurdybay, a Kazakh woman, was detained in a camp which separated married and unmarried women. The married women were given pregnancy tests, Nurdybay recalled, and forced to have IUDs installed if they had children. She was spared because she was unmarried and childless.

One day in February 2018, one of her cellmates, a Uighur woman, had to give a speech confessing what guards called her “crimes.” When a visiting official peered through the iron bars of their cell, she recited her lines in halting Mandarin.

“I gave birth to too many children,” she said. “It shows I’m uneducated and know little about the law.”

“Do you think it’s fair that Han people are only allowed to have one child?” the official asked, according to Nurdybay. “You ethnic minorities are shameless, wild and uncivilized.”

Nurdybay met at least two others in the camps whom she learned were locked up for having too many children. Later, she was transferred to another facility with an orphanage that housed hundreds of children, including those with parents detained for giving birth too many times. The children counted the days until they could see their parents on rare visits.

“They told me they wanted to hug their parents, but they were not allowed,” she said. “They always looked very sad.”

Another former detainee, Tursunay Ziyawudun, said she was injected until she stopped having her period, and kicked repeatedly in the lower stomach during interrogations. She now can’t have children and often doubles over in pain, bleeding from her womb, she said.

Ziyawudun and the 40 other women in her “class” were forced to attend family planning lectures most Wednesdays, where films were screened about impoverished women struggling to feed many children. Married women were rewarded for good behavior with conjugal visits from their husbands, along with showers, towels, and two hours in a bedroom. But there was a catch – they had to take birth control pills beforehand.

Some women have even reported forced abortions. Ziyawudun said a “teacher” at her camp told women they would face abortions if found pregnant during gynecology exams.

A woman in another class turned out to be pregnant and disappeared from the camp, she said. She added that two of her cousins who were pregnant got rid of their children on their own because they were so afraid.

Another woman, Gulbahar Jelilova, confirmed that detainees in her camp were forced to abort their children. She also saw a new mother, still leaking breast milk, who did not know what had happened to her infant. And she met doctors and medical students who were detained for helping Uighurs dodge the system and give birth at home.

In December 2017, on a visit from Kazakhstan back to China, Gulzia Mogdin was taken to a hospital after police found WhatsApp on her phone. A urine sample revealed she was two months pregnant with her third child. Officials told Mogdin she needed to get an abortion and threatened to detain her brother if she didn’t.

During the procedure, medics inserted an electric vacuum into her womb and sucked her fetus out of her body. She was taken home and told to rest, as they planned to take her to a camp.

Months later, Mogdin made it back to Kazakhstan, where her husband lives.

“That baby was going to be the only baby we had together,” said Mogdin, who had recently remarried. “I cannot sleep. It’s terribly unfair.”

___


The success of China’s push to control births among Muslim minorities shows up in the numbers for IUDs and sterilization.

In 2014, just over 200,000 IUDs were inserted in Xinjiang. By 2018, that jumped more than 60 percent to nearly 330,000 IUDs. At the same time, IUD use tumbled elsewhere in China, as many women began getting the devices removed.

A former teacher drafted to work as an instructor at a detention camp described her experience with IUDs to the AP.

She said it started with flag-raising assemblies at her compound in the beginning of 2017, where officials made Uighur residents recite “anti-terror” lessons. They chanted, “If we have too many children, we’re religious extremists....That means we have to go to the training centers.”

Police rounded up over 180 parents with too many children until “not a single one was left,” she said. At night, she said, she lay in bed, stiff with terror, as officers with guns and tasers hauled her neighbors away. From time to time police pounded on her door and searched her apartment for Qurans, knives, prayer mats and of course children, she said.

“Your heart would leap out of your chest,” she said.

Then, that August, officials in the teacher’s compound were told to install IUDs on all women of childbearing age. She protested, saying she was nearly 50 with just one child and no plans to have more. Officials threatened to drag her to a police station and strap her to an iron chair for interrogation.

She was forced into a bus with four armed officers and taken to a hospital where hundreds of Uighur women lined up in silence, waiting for IUDs to be inserted. Some wept quietly, but nobody dared say a word because of the surveillance cameras hanging overhead.

Her IUD was designed to be irremovable without special instruments. The first 15 days, she got headaches and nonstop menstrual bleeding.

“I couldn’t eat properly, I couldn’t sleep properly. It gave me huge psychological pressure,” she said. “Only Uighurs had to wear it.”

Chinese health statistics also show a sterilization boom in Xinjiang.

Budget documents obtained by Zenz show that starting in 2016, the Xinjiang government began pumping tens of millions of dollars into a birth control surgery program and cash incentives for women to get sterilized. While sterilization rates plunged in the rest of the country, they surged seven-fold in Xinjiang from 2016 to 2018, to more than 60,000 procedures. The Uighur-majority city of Hotan budgeted for 14,872 sterilizations in 2019 — over 34% of all married women of childbearing age, Zenz found.

Even within Xinjiang, policies vary widely, being harsher in the heavily Uighur south than the Han-majority north. In Shihezi, a Han-dominated city where Uighurs make up less than 2% of the population, the government subsidizes baby formula and hospital birth services to encourage more children, state media reported.

Zumret Dawut got no such benefits. In 2018, the mother of three was locked in a camp for two months for having an American visa.

When she returned home under house arrest, officials forced her to get gynecology exams every month, along with all other Uighur women in her compound. Han women were exempted. They warned that if she didn’t take what they called “free examinations”, she could end up back in the camp.

One day, they turned up with a list of at least 200 Uighur women in her compound with more than two children who had to get sterilized, Dawut recalled.

“My Han Chinese neighbors, they sympathized with us Uighurs,” Dawut said. “They told me, ‘oh, you’re suffering terribly, the government is going way too far!’”

Dawut protested, but police again threatened to send her back to the camp. During the sterilization procedure, Han Chinese doctors injected her with anesthesia and tied her fallopian tubes — a permanent operation. When Dawut came to, she felt her womb ache.

“I was so angry,” she said. “I wanted another son.”

___

Looking back, Omirzakh considers herself lucky.

After that frigid day when officials threatened to lock her up, Omirzakh called relatives around the clock. Hours before the deadline, she scraped together enough money to pay the fine from the sale of her sister’s cow and high-interest loans, leaving her deep in debt.

For the next year, Omirzakh attended classes with the wives of others detained for having too many children. She and her children lived with two local party officials sent specially to spy on them. When her husband was finally released, they fled for Kazakhstan with just a few bundles of blankets and clothes.

The IUD still in Omirzakh’s womb has now sunk into her flesh, causing inflammation and piercing back pain, “like being stabbed with a knife.” For Omirzakh, it’s a bitter reminder of everything she’s lost — and the plight of those she left behind.

“People there are now terrified of giving birth,” she said. “When I think of the word ‘Xinjiang,’ I can still feel that fear.

Around 400k sterilisations(330k+60k) took place in Xinjiang in a single year, Uyghur women of breeding age are no more than 3-4 million.
At the same time the same population is subjected to forced interment camps while their religion is unauthorised and unrecognised.
The writing is on the wall for the Uyghurs.

[Potemkin]

I cannot think of any method which is effective (sanctions are certainly not)
but without undesirable adverse effect (war would mean a win for countries like Russia and India, which IMHO are not too much better)

To put things into perspective, even if China is a free country this will exist in some form.
The Israelites' treatment on the Palestinians is the best example.
Also, just see how Aung San Suu Ki remains popular in Myanmar despite her administration's persecution against the Rohingyas.

The Chinese are only to be despised because they are equally cruel to whoever against them regardless of race.
Both Taiwan and Hong Kong are ethnically identical to the majority of China,
but the Xi Jinping administration is probably eager to annihilate us if the situation calls for it.
After all, the total population of Hong Kong + Taiwan is only about one third of the Communist Party,
which means they do not even have to move other people to fill the gap (as happened plentily throughout the history of China)

Since when in history has the Chinese government not behaved in this way towards its own people? It all began with the First Emperor....



^ This is the man who enslaved you, @Patrickov, more than two thousand years ago.

[MadMonk]

Ok, so the premise is that the Chinese government, that allies and enemies agree is a Communist One-party state, is committing cultural genocide by interments and sterilizations against a specific ethnic group on a mass-scale?

It is not unheard of in history but with the circumstances being what they are, no one is going to move an inch before there is a deluge of evidence, presented in reputable sources, that can not be denied.

[noemon]

There is a deluge of evidence for the sterilisations undertaken -400k sterilisations(330k+60k) took place in Xinjiang in a single year- and sweeped under the rug by China as "levelling up the Uyghurs with the rest of the Han".

There is also a deluge of evidence about the internment camps which Chinese officials admit that they are: "Reeducation camps for adult Uyghurs created to remove their religious extremism", they also admit that the inmates have not committed any crimes but China has the right to detain them without trial indefinitely on "pre-crimes". Pre-crimes!!

[Rancid]

I'm sure the mouth breathing CCP apologists and dick suckers will just brush all of this off again.

CCP = biggest evil of the 21st century, easily.

[Heisenberg]

CCP = biggest evil of the 21st century, easily.

At least 37 million people have been displaced by America's "war on terror" since 2001. That's nearly three times the entire global Uyghur population.

[noemon]

At least 37 million people have been displaced by America's "war on terror" since 2001. That's nearly three times the entire global Uyghur population.

The problem you have is that Rancid does not apologise for the US, nor do I or others, the same can not be said for you and China, mate.

We have at various times condemned US imperialism, when will you condemn the Chinese policies against the Uyghurs?

You seriously trying to apologise for a regime that openly talks of 'pre-crimes'?

[Heisenberg]

The problem you have is that Rancid does not apologise for the US, nor do I or others

The saddest thing is I think you actually believe this.

Anyway, the point was that Rancid claimed China as the "biggest evil of the 21st century, easily". I was simply suggesting that maybe he should look a little closer to home.

And given your lachrymose faux-concern for the Uighurs in this thread, there's something not quite convincing about "condemning US imperialism" in the abstract.

You seriously trying to apologise for a regime that openly talks of 'pre-crimes'?

Is this another example of you putting a term from your imagination into quotation marks?

[noemon]

The saddest thing is I think you actually believe this. Is this another example of you putting a term from your imagination into quotation marks?

Both of these facts are true. If you are going to waste time responding at least make the effort to make an argument instead of going: "no it didn't".

Anyway, the point was that Rancid claimed China as the "biggest evil of the 21st century, easily". I was simply suggesting that maybe he should look a little closer to home.

Rancid does look close to his home, he is not taking US apologetics in new levels of absurdity with whataboutism.

Pre-crime re-education camps for people aged 18 and above, soon in your neighbourhood.

[Rancid]

I think it's pretty clear the CCP is not good for freedom across the globe. If they are willing to do this to their own people, imagine what they would be willing to do to people outside of their nation.

CCP = gutter government. Yes, they are fucking evil. Yes, there are degrees of evil. CCP is right at the top. Not hard to understand.

The fact that I can protest the evils of the US (which I do) and not fear retaliation, is evidence enough that the CCP is far worse. Protesting is banned in Hong Kong for fucks sake. What is Heisenberg smoking? I want some.

[Heisenberg]

Rancid does look close to his home, he is not taking US apologetics in new levels of absurdity with whataboutism.

I've always thought "whataboutism" was a pretty silly term, to be honest. But if you want to defend the claim that the CCP is the "biggest evil of the 21st century, easily" and then dismiss an obvious counterpoint as "whataboutism", then it truly is meaningless.

Pre-crime re-education camps for people aged 18 and above, soon in your neighbourhood.

Wow, that sounds really scary! I hope our brave troops can defend us from the Yellow Peril!

[Rancid]

[JohnRawls]

@Heisenberg

It is hard to take people defending China seriously when they are blaming US for lesser violations. You can't selectively care about human rights without an explanation. Say what you want about the US but they are not jailing people for speaking out in mass nor they are herding them in to camps for re-education or sterilization. This is not a question of "saving" anybody from the yellow peril but of accountability and to at least China not expanding this behaviour.

@noemon is correct in pointing out the "whataboutism" logic. If US does shit it doesn't excuse China doing same or worse shit. That is not an argument. US and "The West" in general has its faults and you can always find a "What about this misdoing" argument here. Heck most of them I can name on top of my head and is extensively covered by our own media. This is not the case in China itself about its own behaviour.

[noemon]

Wow, that sounds really scary! I hope our brave troops can defend us from the Yellow Peril!

The largest country in the world openly talking about forcefully detaining and re-educating ethnic-minorities for pre-crimes is indeed the scariest thing that has come out in ages.

[Heisenberg]

It is hard to take people defending China seriously when they are blaming US for lesser violations.

I guess we just have very different definitions of what constitutes a "lesser violation". For me, the past 20 years of invasions, bombings and sanctions against Muslim-majority countries by the US far exceed anything China is alleged to have done to Muslims. And, not to sound like a broken record, but I think it's pretty telling that the Muslim world has sided with China on Xinjiang.

For what it's worth, @JohnRawls, I can respect the fact that you're pretty open about being a neoliberal interventionist on Team NATO. I disagree with you vehemently, and I know we've had our slagging matches, but it is what it is.

It's the tear-soaked, flavour-of-the-month outrage from others in the thread that grates on me. I don't recall a similar moral crusade from these users about the far more clear-cut ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma - but then, perhaps that's because Burma isn't a rising superpower that poses a real challenge to US hegemony.

[noemon]

There is nothing more grating than your apologies defending the largest country in the world openly talking about forcefully detaining and re-educating ethnic-minorities for pre-crimes.

I see instead of actually talking about anything on topic, your argument now is a combo of US whataboutism with an untrue insult against JownRawls and a blanket ad-hom against all those that have proven your apologetics wrong.

If you're looking for hypocrisy instead of attacking those that have actually condemned US actions during its "end-of-history" phase, try condemning those that are silent on China, yourself first & foremost.

This is a warning: off-topic conversation from here on, including John's possible reply to your ridiculous ad-homs against him will be removed.

For PoFo demographics, there is Gorkiy and for the US there is already the vast majority of the threads.

[JohnRawls]

I guess we just have very different definitions of what constitutes a "lesser violation". For me, the past 20 years of invasions, bombings and sanctions against Muslim-majority countries by the US far exceed anything China is alleged to have done to Muslims. And, not to sound like a broken record, but I think it's pretty telling that the Muslim world has sided with China on Xinjiang.

For what it's worth, @JohnRawls, I can respect the fact that you're pretty open about being a neoliberal interventionist on Team NATO. I disagree with you vehemently, and I know we've had our slagging matches, but it is what it is.

It's the tear-soaked, flavour-of-the-month outrage from others in the thread that grates on me. I don't recall a similar moral crusade from these users about the far more clear-cut ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma - but then, perhaps that's because Burma isn't a rising superpower that poses a real challenge to US hegemony.

You don't remember them because they were not related to US or EU or The West. The fact that I started a topic about it if i remember correctly where Qatz started trolling me while skinster didn't even show up should speak volumes about the situation. You on the other hand seems to interpret my stances on Venezuela, Bolivia, Belarus as some kind of interventionism but you don't even notice that I support politicians local to those countries. Politicians who are usually prosecuted, jailed, expelled or even tortured in some cases. This is me defending human rights and decency although you might not agree with it.

As for China, I just don't see how anyone literally can defend it. The only way you can defend it is by saying that it is not happening but it is happening. The evidence and witnesses are overwhelming by now. May be couple of years ago it wasn't that clear but now it is just a non-argument that China is not doing it or those camps are something else. There are videos, pictures, people reports, chinese documents and even people who sat in those camps. We treated Guantanamo or CIA jails as monstrosities so why the hell we won't treat Chinese camps any different from that is a mystery to me not even considering that CIA jails and Guantanamo had far less people sitting in them by hundred folds.

[Rugoz]

And, not to sound like a broken record, but I think it's pretty telling that the Muslim world has sided with China on Xinjiang.

Yes, the so-called "Muslim world" prefers to be outraged about Danish cartoons and other trivia. That should tell you something about the priorities of the "Muslim world" or rather the regimes that control most of it.