China shuts down Uyghur detention camps - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15194467
wat0n wrote:So in this scenario there would be no Chinese response it because, in your view, it couldn't, not because it wouldn't.


You're treading very close to "they attacked us because they hate our freedoms".

The main point here is that there would be no Chinese response because China doesn't and wouldn't engage in an immoral and imperialist foreign policy that would trigger a 9/11 style attack in Beijing in the first place. The Saudi hijackers behind 9/11 were using it as a response to American-style hegemony (interference in the internal affairs of other states and uncritical support for Israel), a hegemonic model that China wholeheartedly rejects.

wat0n wrote:The funny thing is that China at some point did conquer the Xinjiang region (the 18th century, I think)


Yes, in 200 BCE. :roll:

wat0n wrote:so most of the things you accuse the US of were already done when China became the PRC - several centuries ago.


When we critique the US for its treatment of Native Americans, we are told "it's all in the past while China's crimes are contemporary". Now that it's convenient, we'll go ahead and complain about the Han Dynasty's conquest of Xinjiang, an act that's contemporary with the Roman invasion of Ancient Macedon.

Around the time of the Mongols, the region became part of a series of central Asian khanates, but still was related to the khanate in China itself, and had plenty of interactions with the Ming. The Chinese presence and influence in Xinjiang, at any rate, far predates the arrival of the Uyghurs in the 16th century. The Qing did enter the region in force again in the 18th century (before the United States was even a country), at the request of the Uyghur princes mind you, to get rid of the Dzungarians.

wat0n wrote:I don't see why couldn't China be attacked by islamists in the future


Sure. Also an asteroid might fall in Xi'an, aliens might land in Chengdu, a nuclear war could erupt over Taiwan, and other situations removed from reality.

The facts are, based on the organizations that exist today, and based on Chinese foreign policy as it exists today, that any extant multinational terrorist organization (outside of ETIM) has any interest in, or capacity to, perpetrate these attacks of mass terror in Bejing or any other significant Chinese city.

Unthinking Majority wrote:Prison camps designed to commit genocide against innocent people within a hated ethnic minority by a totalitarian dictatorship doesn't sound like fascism at all.


1) China's policy is against Islamism, not the Uyghurs. The Uyghurs are not a "hated minority" in China, by any stretch of the imagination - Uyghur artists are widely popular and celebrated, as is Uyghur food and culture. There are four Uyghur restaurants on my street alone.

2) If we're going to talk about the injustice of the mass imprisonment of a hated ethnic minority, Americans would do a lot more good looking inward at opportunities for reform than trying to manufacture consent for a new cold war. :roll:

Unthinking Majority wrote:flying war planes through their airspace


Not a single Chinese plane has violated Taiwanese airspace. The last violation of Taiwanese airspace or territorial waters was a single cruise missile during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996, which landed 1nm within the territorial waters of Taiwan. Why make shit up?
#15194470
Fasces wrote:Yes, in 200 BCE. :roll:


Fasces wrote:When we critique the US for its treatment of Native Americans, we are told "it's all in the past while China's crimes are contemporary". Now that it's convenient, we'll go ahead and complain about the Han Dynasty's conquest of Xinjiang, an act that's contemporary with the Roman invasion of Ancient Macedon.

Around the time of the Mongols, the region became part of a series of central Asian khanates, but still was related to the khanate in China itself, and had plenty of interactions with the Ming. The Chinese presence and influence in Xinjiang, at any rate, far predates the arrival of the Uyghurs in the 16th century. The Qing did enter the region in force again in the 18th century (before the United States was even a country), at the request of the Uyghur princes mind you, to get rid of the Dzungarians.


Thanks for the correction, and I'm not criticizing the PRC for stuff that happened before its founding. What I'm saying, though, is that it's clearly not the same to deal with a troublesome population of a territory you already control than to deal with it when you don't control their territory. It's why the correct comparison is between American Muslims and Chinese Muslims, not between Chinese Muslims and Iraqi Muslims under American occupation.

Fasces wrote:You're treading very close to "they attacked us because they hate our freedoms".

The main point here is that there would be no Chinese response because China doesn't and wouldn't engage in an immoral and imperialist foreign policy that would trigger a 9/11 style attack in Beijing in the first place. The Saudi hijackers behind 9/11 were using it as a response to American-style hegemony (interference in the internal affairs of other states and uncritical support for Israel), a hegemonic model that China wholeheartedly rejects.


Fasces wrote:Sure. Also an asteroid might fall in Xi'an, aliens might land in Chengdu, a nuclear war could erupt over Taiwan, and other situations removed from reality.

The facts are, based on the organizations that exist today, and based on Chinese foreign policy as it exists today, that any extant multinational terrorist organization (outside of ETIM) has any interest in, or capacity to, perpetrate these attacks of mass terror in Bejing or any other significant Chinese city.


But as China becomes a superpower, that will most definitely change. For instance, how do you think China will react if other governments begin to confiscate Chinese owned investments, including those owned by the Chinese government itself, in their territory (i.e. expropriate without compensation)? Or how will China react when some of its borrowers decide to default on their debts? I doubt the Chinese, including the Chinese taxpayer, will look on this behavior kindly at all. The US had to deal with that kind of stuff, and it proved quite troublesome for the USG. Note that this arguably falls into the category of "interference in the internal affairs of another country", although these are affairs that directly affect the Chinese government.

You may say "well, it hasn't happened" but it will happen sooner or later since China has a policy of actively directly investing in other countries, and the incentive for the local elites is to take advantage of it sooner or later. Confiscation of physical capital and defaulting on debts are two of the ways they do that. When that kind of thing happens, we'll see if the Chinese are truly serious about not interfering in the affairs of other countries.

And actually, I do recall hearing some complaints from Bolivians about Chinese influence in the country a few years ago, and how politicians there were suddenly letting Chinese businesses mine their minerals without open biddings because of bribing by the Chinese. Of course plenty of countries are corrupt enough that if the Chinese want to invest there, they need to bribe officials. Does that count as interference in their internal affairs? Because it sounds an awful lot like the US doing the same during the Cold War to do the same or to have these countries aligned with the broader American foreign policy.

And this is in the realm of economic relations. When getting into territorial or security issues, things become more volatile as I'm sure you know. Indeed, I'd be surprised if China was as isolationist as you claim it to be and didn't interfere in the internal affairs of places like Mongolia (e.g. by funding pro-Chinese politicians), to at least ensure it remains neutral as the buffer state it is.
#15194476
Fasces wrote:1) China's policy is against Islamism, not the Uyghurs.


The CCP policy is against Muslims. The Uyghurs are Muslim. Reeducation centers, forced sterilizations = genocide.

What one country does or doesn't do (USA) is not a defense against these policies, it doesn't make it ok.

Not a single Chinese plane has violated Taiwanese airspace. The last violation of Taiwanese airspace or territorial waters was a single cruise missile during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996, which landed 1nm within the territorial waters of Taiwan. Why make shit up?


More CCP lies. Why would anyone believe the CCP over Taiwan?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiw ... SKBN2BI24D
#15194478
Unthinking Majority wrote:The CCP policy is against Muslims. The Uyghurs are Muslim. Reeducation centers, forced sterilizations = genocide.

What one country does or doesn't do (USA) is not a defense against these policies, it doesn't make it ok.

More CCP lies. Why would anyone believe the CCP over Taiwan?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiw ... SKBN2BI24D


This is simply false. The Hui have no such issues with the government. There are more mosques in China than in the US and Europe. China's policy is against militant religious extremism, not muslims. In fact China has one of the most cozy pro-islam histories with many influential chinese especially in the martial class being muslims. Islam has been in China for centuries and has always been on the side of the central government. This never changed.
#15194480
Unthinking Majority wrote:
More CCP lies. Why would anyone believe the CCP over Taiwan?


My god, the poor lad doesn't know the difference between an ADIZ and airspace. :eh:

wat0n wrote:But as China becomes a superpower, that will most definitely change. For instance, how do you think China will react if other governments begin to confiscate Chinese owned investments, including those owned by the Chinese government itself, in their territory (i.e. expropriate without compensation)? Or how will China react when some of its borrowers decide to default on their debts? I doubt the Chinese, including the Chinese taxpayer, will look on this behavior kindly at all. The US had to deal with that kind of stuff, and it proved quite troublesome for the USG. Note that this arguably falls into the category of "interference in the internal affairs of another country", although these are affairs that directly affect the Chinese government.


There's a long line of conduct between "do nothing" and "invade + regime change".

I expect China will likely react as it always has - through sanctions, refusing future economic cooperation projects, and through exercising on the terms of its deal.

The idea that China would engage in anything more is unfalsifiable conjecture.

wat0n wrote:And actually, I do recall hearing some complaints from Bolivians about Chinese influence in the country a few years ago, and how politicians there were suddenly letting Chinese businesses mine their minerals without open biddings because of bribing by the Chinese. Of course plenty of countries are corrupt enough that if the Chinese want to invest there, they need to bribe officials. Does that count as interference in their internal affairs? Because it sounds an awful lot like the US doing the same during the Cold War to do the same or to have these countries aligned with the broader American foreign policy.


I am not claiming China to be a perfect paragon of virtue, but again, there is a world of difference between bribing some politicians or influencing an election campaign and state-sponsored coups, assassinations, or invasions.
#15194485
Fasces wrote:There's a long line of conduct between "do nothing" and "invade + regime change".

I expect China will likely react as it always has - through sanctions, refusing future economic cooperation projects, and through exercising on the terms of its deal.

The idea that China would engage in anything more is unfalsifiable conjecture.


Well, we have not yet seen what would China do since nothing of the sort has happened thus far. But as it becomes a superpower it will face pushback, even more so if it replaces the US as the alpha male of the hood. And as the Chinese public realizes China's superpower status, the demands for a harsher reaction against an act of war against their country will also grow harder to contain, which is honestly perfectly normal.

Fasces wrote:I am not claiming China to be a perfect paragon of virtue, but again, there is a world of difference between bribing some politicians or influencing an election campaign and state-sponsored coups, assassinations, or invasions.


And no one expects China to be a paragon of virtue but as it grows that sort of behavior will inevitably become more frequent in its dealings with other countries - not so much because of China (pretty sure they, like the US, would prefer to be able to do these things without spending money on bribes), but because of the state of the receiving countries' societies. And when those things happen, China will be seen as partaking in that sort of corruption and thus find pushback.

And we're not even getting to what happens when other countries frontally oppose Chinese interests, for whatever reason. You know, Thucydides' trap and all.
#15194488
wat0n wrote:Well, we have not yet seen what would China do since nothing of the sort has happened thus far. But as it becomes a superpower it will face pushback, even more so if it replaces the US as the alpha male of the hood. And as the Chinese public realizes China's superpower status, the demands for a harsher reaction against an act of war against their country will also grow harder to contain, which is honestly perfectly normal.


Only insofar as the Chinese public is made aware of these "acts of war against their country". ;)

The CCP has already been a voice of restraint, in any case. If you ask the Chinese public, most wanted the PLA in Hong Kong in 2019/2020, and most want a military invasion of Taiwan. It appears that the CCP has experience in controlling and shaping public opinion away from violent excess. There's no reason, based on these past experiences, to suggest they would be unable to do so in the future. China, culturally, has no problem with the notion of "leave government policy to the government".

wat0n wrote:And no one expects China to be a paragon of virtue but as it grows that sort of behavior will inevitably become more frequent in its dealings with other countries - not so much because of China (pretty sure they, like the US, would prefer to be able to do these things without spending money on bribes), but because of the state of the receiving countries' societies. And when those things happen, China will be seen as partaking in that sort of corruption and thus find pushback.


And? You believe that the Chinese response will necessarily be to escalate into regime change and coups? On what grounds? In situations where countries default on Chinese debt, they've renegotiated the terms or forgave the debt. When confronted with issues such as border disputes, they've chosen to deescalate where possible and focus on bilateral relations. When it comes to the problem of radical Islamism, their response was to confront the roots of the issue - poverty - not wage war.

It is pure unfalsifiable conjecture. There is nothing I can say that will prove China won't do these things. But they haven't in the past and they aren't doing it now.

On the other hand, there is proof that the Western hegemonic order has done and is doing these things. Ultimately you are arguing that we should defend the current world order that is behaving badly because an alternate future world order might someday behave badly.

I just don't find it a convincing argument.
#15194489
Fasces wrote:I am saying that if some Saudi terrorists kill 3,000 in Beijing, Beijing won't be able to invade and destabilize two sovereign nations

Iraq was no a sovereign nation. This was a pathetic leftie fantasy. Even amongst the Sunni Arabs, the movement to restore Baath Party rule quickly petered out. The biggest organised Iraqi opposition to Saddam were SCIRI and DAWA, the idea that these forces were some of CIA / Mossad proxies was another pathetic western leftie fantasy. As the Americans entered Baghdad in 2003, in the slums of Saddam city, the crowds shouted "death to the dictator". They were referring to Saddam not Bush. The 2003 invasion was no suppression of a nation like the Chinese Communist invasion of Tibet., it was more akin to a mid wife aiding the birth of a nation.

Ho Chi Minh was a European Cultural Imperialist, who sought to overthrow and annihilate, South East Asian Buddhist culture and replace it with the European Marxist ideology. He even spent time in Thailand building the Communist terrorist movement there. But even Ho Chi Minh in the late forties conspired with the French to massacre the non communist Vietnamese nationalists. His justification was that they were allied with Chinese nationalists and that the French would leave, but if the Chinese got a foothold they would be there for. It was the same fear of China that encouraged the Vietnamese Communists to throw the ethnic Chinese into the sea after their victory over the South.

The first key comparison is not how the Chinese Communist Party and America and treats its Muslims, any rational person has sympathy with any country trying to deal with its Muslim problem, but how the Chinese regime and America treat their Buddhists. The second key comparison is between how Putin treats Russia's Buddhists and how Saudi Arabia treats Buddhists.
#15194495
Fasces wrote:Wtf was your point then?

All I said was that China's approach to repressing Uyghur's in the name of counter-terrorism and combatting reactionary Islamism was repressive, but preferable to the American approach of bombing them, their families, their jobs, and their nations.


My point was that the two cases are so different that there's hardly a point in comparing them beyond whataboutism. We would have to ask: How would the US deal with a large domestic Muslim population that has a history of being repressed? How would China deal with foreign terrorist attacks caused by its foreign policy as well as its superpower status?

Fasces wrote:I'm sure a better approach exists, but the Western narrative is not only poorly constructed and exaggerated (and is now falling apart entirely) but was constructed entirely to serve a nefarious purpose - 1) justifying the actions that led to more than a million dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, at the hands of US forces and their proxies (and millions more displaced, not to mention the ripple effects of having an entire generation victim to foreign invasion and conflict) while 2) manufacturing consent for the next wave of imperialist atrocity by Western capital.


We don't know what would have happened without US interventions. There might still have been a civil war in all of those places. The Shia majority in Iraq asserting itself was arguably just a matter of time. People are quick to blame whatever happens on this planet on the US, because it is almost always involved in one way or another. And no, I'm not justifying anything. I'm simply saying that this kind of talk is lazy.

Rich wrote:Ho Chi Minh was a European Cultural Imperialist, who sought to overthrow and annihilate, South East Asian Buddhist culture and replace it with the European Marxist ideology.


Indeed, Marxists are the biggest Western cultural imperialists.
#15194530
Fasces wrote:Only insofar as the Chinese public is made aware of these "acts of war against their country". ;)

The CCP has already been a voice of restraint, in any case. If you ask the Chinese public, most wanted the PLA in Hong Kong in 2019/2020, and most want a military invasion of Taiwan. It appears that the CCP has experience in controlling and shaping public opinion away from violent excess. There's no reason, based on these past experiences, to suggest they would be unable to do so in the future. China, culturally, has no problem with the notion of "leave government policy to the government".


How could the public not learn of an attack that kills 3000+ in downtown Beijing or Shanghai?

Fasces wrote:And? You believe that the Chinese response will necessarily be to escalate into regime change and coups? On what grounds? In situations where countries default on Chinese debt, they've renegotiated the terms or forgave the debt. When confronted with issues such as border disputes, they've chosen to deescalate where possible and focus on bilateral relations. When it comes to the problem of radical Islamism, their response was to confront the roots of the issue - poverty - not wage war.

It is pure unfalsifiable conjecture. There is nothing I can say that will prove China won't do these things. But they haven't in the past and they aren't doing it now.

On the other hand, there is proof that the Western hegemonic order has done and is doing these things. Ultimately you are arguing that we should defend the current world order that is behaving badly because an alternate future world order might someday behave badly.

I just don't find it a convincing argument.


The US did not escalate the response to a repudiation of bilateral loans all the way to regime change either, it would just halt bilateral aid (i.e. not grant new loan requests). And local politicians would then say it's part of an American conspiracy to topple the government.

Also, if the indebted country just needed to renegotiate terms then such request would often be granted and even more so if relations were good. My scenario is different, my scenario is what if the borrowing government simply refuses to pay, period. Sri Lanka does not fall into that category, and I agree those claims China just wants to enslave countries in debt traps are silly - governments are not households that can easily be trapped into something like that, and even more so when they can always punish China by going pro-American.
#15194557
wat0n wrote:How could the public not learn of an attack that kills 3000+ in downtown Beijing or Shanghai?


:eh: mate, stop jumping from topic to topic. We were talking about Chinese investments abroad being nationalized.

Again, I don't think China's foreign policy, even as a superpower, will inspire terror attacks against their nation because they do not have a moralistic or Ideological foreign policy that pushes their views or government on other states.

wat0n wrote: The US did not escalate the response to a repudiation of bilateral loans all the way to regime change either,


Tell that to Castro.
#15194562
Fasces wrote::eh: mate, stop jumping from topic to topic. We were talking about Chinese investments abroad being nationalized.

Again, I don't think China's foreign policy, even as a superpower, will inspire terror attacks against their nation because they do not have a moralistic or Ideological foreign policy that pushes their views or government on other states.


Economic tensions can lead to the sort of ideological tensions that lead to war, even if by themselves they are most certainly not a reason for one. IIRC nationalism, which sometimes surfaces over economic tensions, is on the rise in China and as you said the public did want a tougher response on HK so we can safely assume a terror attack on Chinese soil would lead to demands of using force that would be basically impossible to resist for the government. And that's not a China thing, that sort of reaction would honestly be fairly normal in any functioning state.

Fasces wrote:Tell that to Castro.


Tell that to Carlos Andrés Pérez. By the way, the response to Cuban confiscations was the embargo, and it could have just ended there hadn't tensions escalated to other realms beyond just economic ones... Which is why the example of Carlos Andrés Pérez is relevant here.
#15194564
wat0n wrote: Economic tensions can lead to the sort of ideological tensions that lead to war, even if by themselves they are most certainly not a reason for one.


Again, it's unfalsifiable conjecture. I can't prove what China will do in the future, only speak to what they're doing now.

wat0n wrote: Tell that to Carlos Andrés Pérez.


There's dozens of other examples across the Middle East and Latin America if you don't like Cuba. :roll:
#15194576
Fasces wrote:Again, it's unfalsifiable conjecture. I can't prove what China will do in the future, only speak to what they're doing now.


Indeed, but since China is not really a superpower, we can't say it's in a position comparable to that of the US. We'll have to wait and see if it ever reaches the point where it will be drawn into conflict.

Fasces wrote:There's dozens of other examples across the Middle East and Latin America if you don't like Cuba. :roll:


And in those examples economic tensions were always a secondary issue for the US. Normally the top issue that tips the balance as far as the Americans are concerned would be related to geopolitics or international security. I'd be surprised if it was any different for China since, honestly, war is far from a cheap option and since the inability to meet economic obligations stopped being regarded as a valid reason to go to war around a century ago. It also doesn't make too much sense to bomb a country to force it to pay its debts or give confiscated property back when the very military action will mechanically make it harder or even impossible for the affected government to meet its debts payments and the military action may as well destroy the property to be recovered.

In China's case, I'd expect war to be the result of foreign aggression or some territorial conflict, not unpaid debts or nationalization of property - even though these two acts could be taken as antecedents of the tensions between China and whoever it ends up fighting against. Far less likely, I can imagine China starting some sort of military action if it feels pressed to do so by encirclement by hostile states like Russia feels with NATO in Europe but this would probably require China to be in far worse terms with Russia itself but I just don't see China having a "1969 moment" of sorts in the immediate future.

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