I get downvoted for posting undisputed facts that conflict with Western narratives. I would get downvoted even more for my actual analysis.
I do like how often people seem to think that the only reason someone might contradict Western narratives if they’re getting paid to do so. I’m just a white dude from Ohio who wants an end to endless war and imperialism.
If you're operating in good faith and genuinely want to persuade people, then your takeaway from this exchange is that how you're doing it isn't working and you should rethink your approach.
A more persuasive argument would be something like:
Concede the point that the CCP has motivation to perform these acts, has the capability to hide these acts, and a reason to attempt to deflect any investigation which might reveal the acts. Maybe the CCP has provided free and unguided access of independent western journalists to these supposed camps, where they discovered nothing more than a shoe factory. That’s didn’t happen.
Unfortunately, without the free press investigating, the CCP opens themselves up to criticisms, that, based upon their historical actions, is hard to defend.
How are independent western journalists going to ensure correct reporting? Independent western journalists lie and lie often, they're not much better than the rest of journalists.
So what happens if half of them find a shoe factory and half of them report something else as part of a governmental push for fabrication of ground for war and soft power?
We already see factually incorrect information in Western media, and Western journalists repeatedly lie in similar cases. So knowing that it only takes one story to set a narrative, how is your proposition any more conducive to finding the truth?
When war and empire are the driving concerns, truth is simply impossible. All you can do is reject unfounded information and be skeptical. Yes, that may mean that some atrocities will be successfully hidden. But more lies will not get through, and ultimately those lies can cause way more death.
How many deaths came from the gulf of Tonkin incident, and how many would have died if it is was real but not uncritically believed? How about the Nayiriah testimony?
Besides that, we live in 2021. It's really difficult to hide things. Proof of this was the unauthorized video evidence of a prisoner exchange in Xinjiang done with a drone. It could just as well have been a camp. But in the end it didn't show anything except that prisoner exchanges are done by train.
I’m not suggesting a pair of western reporters. I’m suggesting hundreds of western reporters, each with complete authorization to speak with anyone in private, to go anywhere and gain full access to any location of their choosing. If the NYTimes reports that they went to Camp XYZ and found a shoe factory, and the Washington Post went to Camp ABC and found something less pleasant, then the NYTimes would want to go visit that same camp, along with the other 98 reporters. This isn’t a sinking ship with no independent observers. These are millions of people, supposedly in camps… or shoe factories.
As for the gulf war justification, I have voted against every politician who ever authorized force based upon that deception. Unfortunately my fellow countrymen are willing to excuse it, and thus the lies will continue.
I don't see how two or a hundred reporters make any difference. It just takes one to find or fabricate a story and every outlet will run with it. That's just how the media works.
The only way is to require bulletproof evidence. But we both know that's not the standard that the media are working on.
I'm not saying that western media shouldn't be allowed there, by the way, I'm just saying that if they were or weren't there we would gain precisely zero information, because of a low standard of evidence, because of the certainty of deception, and because of the viral nature of reports.
It's pretty simple to set up such a situation. Instead of a fully accessible factory, you can make up a story of it happening in some sort of controlled, maybe military or otherwise secretive, area. Or you can just claim that they removed whatever you found there. It has been done and will be done again.
So if this openness were to be installed, I don't see how we could gain any information from it.
There is only one thing. Hard data and proof. Not testimonials or qualitative evidence, but hard data. All it takes is for someone to fly a drone in the right place or leak a video. And videos over controlled facilities in Xinjiang have been leaked, they just didn't show anything egregious. So I don't understand why it seems so hard to produce this kind of hard evidence.
Video or photo evidence. First person testimony is often contradictory and objectively very poor. In the case of this issue there were many contradictions.
You have to take a risk to obtain the evidence. I don't see any way for it to be facilitated, facilitated evidence is indistinguishable from fabricated evidence. You'd need to fly a drone or wear a bodycam. It would definitely come at a risk, unless you were doing it covertly with enough resources to minimize it.
Your “more persuasive argument” isn’t a restatement of xtian’s points at all, it is simply a statement of an opposing viewpoint.
It is somewhat ironic, given the context, that xtian’s dissent from the popular narrative is so vociferously countered, and without any recourse to facts.
I'm personally very sympathetic to China, and have a great deal of time for revisionism towards the world order, and like xtian, I take a pretty dim view on the way Xinjiang has been weaponized by western media in order to provide an ethical fig leaf for an essentially cynical western antagonism towards china.
However, at the same time, it could not be more blatant that the Ughyurs face persecution. However sympathetic one is towards China, nobody should forget that it is an authoritarian state, with few political or civil rights, and sometimes that can have serious consequences for groups targeted by the state.
China has historically had a great record in regards to minorities - far better than many countries in the west - but it's obvious that a combination of the war on terror and a rising form of Han nationalism has caused a drastic change in policy, first starting with fairly ordinary persecution (veil bans, etc) then escalating to acts that would be basically illegal in non-authoritarian states.
Denying this neither helps China nor anybody else. It is possible to find western behaviour cynical, and to have serious concerns about the path China is walking.
The weaker position concedes reality and let’s you build an argument on the nuances.
China does have a reason to want to detain and control the population. Even the US has detained 22 Uyghurs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_detainees_at_Guantana...
The Uyghurs have many individuals who have joined terrorist organizations. Maybe we are looking at China’s Guantanamo.
China has the ability to suppress knowledge of any abuse. The United States has Guantanamo, which was the site of many “enhanced interrogation” techniques. That torture took a long time to surface, with years of lawyers involved to get the details out.
China has an interest in covering up any abuses. Of course they would. The US wouldn’t want details about torture in Guantanamo to come out either. It’s a blight which will be used against the US for hundreds of years.
Now that a baseline is established, why would the “West” want to use this situation against China? Political points at home? Taiwanese separatists trying to make China look bad? Trade disputes.
Sure those are all possibilities. Unfortunately, those motivations can exist, and China could still be doing something other than making shoes in those camps. They weren’t making Nikes in Gitmo either.
But we aren’t talking about 22 people in a Chinese terrorist prison. The accusation is millions. And yes, maybe 22 are being tortured, and the other million are making shoes. Allow hundreds of reporters loose, and one of them is going to find the Chinese Guantanamo, and suggest that all million are subject to that level of detention.
But how else do you assure the west that China is just making shoes around a tiny Chinese version of Guantanamo.
That’s really the argument.
Denying that China has the motivation, the means, and the ability to cover it up - those are all weak arguments.
And I really am trying to help you with your arguments. If the end game is war, it’s my children who will be fighting. Your arguments need to be stronger.
You can't break HN's rules like this, regardless of how you feel about another account. This is a well-established principle that has been explained ad nauseum in the past. If you want to see those past explanations, many are at these links:
This notion that everyone skeptical of western defense contractor funded claims is paid by China is a sad evolution of the close minded rebuttals that existed during the Iraq WMD period.
There is no counter to this false claim online which is why it is unfortunately effective in shutting down discourse.
I guess we are stupid enough to walk into a potential war the same way we were scammed into one not too long ago. We already forgot the lessons as a population.
> This notion that everyone skeptical of western defense contractor funded claims is paid by China …
I don’t see anyone saying anything about skepticism or ‘everyone’. I see pasabagi criticizing xtian’s specific comments and approach.
> I guess we are stupid enough to walk into a potential war the same way we were scammed into one not too long ago. We already forgot the lessons as a population.
Yes, getting scammed into a war with China would be bad. Assuming any negative comment about China to be an attempt to scam us into a war also seems like a mistake.
>I see pasabagi criticizing xtian’s specific comments and approach.
I see him implying that the comments/observations are not in good faith and that he might be paid for taking the positions he takes. This seems completely unnecessary and quite rude.
>Assuming any negative comment about China to be an attempt to scam us into a war also seems like a mistake.
You may not recognize the increased sinophobia in the west but it is part of a well funded centralized effort to demonize and increase the potential for kinetic warfare between western countries and China. The fact that HN acts like an echo chamber for state approved anti-Chinese perspectives doesn't help matters.
A close reading of sino-western historic/economic relations results in a very different perspective than the one which is promoted in western MSM by corrupted organizations.
Since your account has been using HN primarily (exclusively?) for ideological battle, I've banned it. We ban such accounts because they destroy the curious, thoughtful conversation this site is supposed to exist for. Regardless of what you happen to be battling for or against, that's not allowed here. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
> You may not recognize the increased sinophobia in the west but it is part of a well funded centralized effort to demonize and increase the potential for kinetic warfare between western countries and China.
Is it? It’s clearly geopolitical, but the claim that it’s intended to lead to kinetic warfare seems like something you don’t have evidence for.
The fact that so much of it is funded by defence contractors isn't a clue? Google ["Xinjiang" "ASPI"] for examples.
Or maybe the massive buildup of missiles and warplanes around China could be a clues? We are now at a stage where geopolitical hostility with China has a good chance of turning kinetic if exacerbated, and there is funding from exactly the parties that would stand to benefit from that, so I don't see how this lacks evidence.
> Or maybe the massive buildup of missiles and warplanes around China could be a clues?
If there is such a buildup (evidence?), it seems like a natural response to check China’s increasing overtures towards Taiwan, a key strategic ally.
There is no evidence that anyone wants a kinetic war for its own sake or that any development in that direction is ‘just’ a product of the defense industry.
China is involved in geopolitics and just as much as the US.
What’s curious here is not the invocation of well known bad acts by the US.
It’s the presentation of China as a benign victim who has no geopolitical ambitions, oppressive behavior, or political repression.
>I personally think the GFW is a good thing, for now, that other developing countries may have an interest in copying. Free flowing mass communication in nations without fully developed public (security) services can be a disaster... the conflicts (and even genocides) that arose from poorer countries adopting FB come to mind.
>If given a choice, as a person that lives 99% of the time in the US, would you rather have a US device that is backdoored by the NSA/CIA or a Chinese device that is backdoored by the Chinese government? I personally think the latter is preferable. Not sure why anyone buys US made equipment post Snowden/Assange.
>Quite an analogy with an assumption that "speech" is the only thing Jack Ma could have done wrong....
>I do find it interesting that the idea of a foreign country dropping covid in China is not even considered.
>Students of history will find it much more believable that a western country infected the Chinese with covid-19.
>Does each US/EU/German/Japanese person have more right to pollute than a Chinese person? I think not.
>If Julian Assange leaked Chinese intelligence/war-crime-evidence he would be at home raising his kids right now.
>Also notice what's going on in Palestine isn't called genocide because its not convenient for these "civil nations", even though what Israel is doing is more genocidal and violent than anything that has happened in Western China to Uighurs.
>I've only seen unsubstantiated nonsense from MSM when it comes to this topic...wild extrapolations that ignore the real terrorism problem in western China.
>Reeks of double standards being set by western nations to suppress China's economy. At this point, any manufactured excuse will get adopted and mainstreamed.
>The difference is that the largest trading nation on the planet just created a system for 0 fee transactions that can expand to global usage quite easily (I believe wepay/alipay were mostly intended for domestic use).
>The average Chinese citizen is less free thanks to these covert/overt foreign interventions.
>Dictators aside, the Chinese are considered fairer trading partners than most (possibly all) western countries. ~1000 years of African history makes this point very clear.
>Both Churchill and Roosevelt had planned to continue supplying Japan so they could destroy China, the supplies were cutoff without their knowledge.
>One would expect the more assertive to openly/unapologetically defend their history and decisions of leaders like Mao. Thanks to tremendous western propaganda that's probably a red flag (no pun intended) for most immigration agents.
>I expect the fact that this virus emerged in Wuhan during the World Military Games makes the Chinese very cautious about allowing in 'investigators' from countries that potentially deployed this biological weapon.
>The West just literally got done murdering a few million innocent Muslim civilians in Yemen, Iraq, Syria,etc... and now thinks it has the authority to lecture China about "proper" deradicalization techniques, it's quite comical really...
>US/UK were bombing these Uighur extremists/separatists just a few years ago. Now they are seen as useful pawns in the trade/economic war with China, so the genocide narrative gets mainstreamed by the usual suspects (the same ones that tried to hide the fact that we (US/UK) were arming/training/funding ISIS and visiting Uighur/Turk terrorists in Syria).
>Taiwan's strength is being right next to one of the largest economies in human history. Put Taiwan in Northern Europe or for that matter anywhere else in the world and its future prospects would be reduced drastically.
>>As said, money inside China is not yours, ask a guy Ma. Now we may say, digital money of China is not yours as well, just the ccp.
>Are dollars really yours inside the sanction happy dollar system?
I genuinely don't necessarily think you or the other poster are "paid shills" or anything like that. (I didn't see pasabagi making such an accusation in their initial post, either, but I agree it was probably implied.)
I'd put a higher probability to you and they just being Chinese nationals or related to people who are, just as many American nationals may blindly defend the US government. Or if not, that you simply support them for other reasons.
The point isn't ostensible shilling or bad faith: it's that you're both extremely agenda-driven, biased, and suspect to motivated reasoning in almost every comment; and the vast majority of comments are about the Chinese government (plus Bitcoin, in your case); and you both have a lot of comments. I'd say the same if instead you were full-time apologists for the US government or any other government.
Also, I'd turn this question back on you:
>If given a choice, as a person that lives 99% of the time in the US, would you rather have a US device that is backdoored by the NSA/CIA or a Chinese device that is backdoored by the Chinese government? I personally think the latter is preferable.
If given a choice between being someone who lives 99% of the time in the US and has a US device backdoored by the NSA/CIA vs. someone who lives 99% of the time in China and has a Chinese device backdoored by the Chinese government, which would you choose?
You haven't represented that account's commenting history accurately, and the site guidelines ask you specifically not to post like this. It's nasty and extremely tedious.
I'm not worried about abuse and have no reason to believe any is occurring in this or the other poster's case, as I wrote. If I suspected actual attempted "influence" activity etc. I definitely would've reported it instead of posting about it. I also find it unfair and unsubstantiated that other posters are accusing either of them of being supposed "shills" or "agents".
I was just kind of taken aback by the nature of their comment history and reacted emotionally, in part because of the radical defense of what I see as the Chinese government's inhumane and genocidal policy towards Uighurs. And as I wrote, if it were extremely jingoistic support of the US government and intelligence community, or QAnon narratives or something, I think I would view it similarly; though I probably wouldn't have reacted as emotionally, since my impetus was the response to the treatment of that group.
I disagree that I haven't represented their commenting history accurately. The majority of their posts appear to be either of that nature or about Bitcoin, with the plurality being of that nature. I also included a link to their comments for anyone else to verify, and I quoted each of their posts in full to ensure no context was missing. (However, I should've qualified "almost every comment" as "almost every political comment".)
I understand it violates the rules and is nasty and tedious, though. I apologize and will refrain in the future.
I am a natural born US citizen of primarily German descent. I have zero connection to China, any Chinese institutions, or any Chinese nationals. I asked this extremely aggressive zepto person what proof they would accept of that, and I got downvoted with no response. Are we just making up stories about anyone who disagrees with us now? How do we know all of the anti-China people in this thread have no connection to the US state department or intelligence apparatus?
Your account has existed for 10 years so I'm not going to ban you outright just now, but the fact that you're using HN primarily (exclusively?) for nationalistic and ideological flamewar is a serious abuse of the site. We ban accounts that do this, regardless of what they're battling for or against. If you want to keep posting to HN, we need you to seriously recalibrate how you're doing it, and reorient to the intended use of the site, as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
The users foolishly accusing you of being a communist agent are also breaking the rules. That's not relevant to the fact that you're abusing HN.
Actually, I would have a lot more sympathy if you did have a personal connection to China. HN's Chinese users (and those with other connections, such as their family background or couple relationship or work history) are under extreme pressure in these threads, because the forum is majority Western, aligned with Western media and geopolitical views, and a subset of the majority users have the kind of adamancy (and even aggression) that can only come from ignorance. That's a serious problem—users of Chinese background have even been hounded off this site, just for sincerely trying to represent their own viewpoint. I've even been personally accused of being Chinese (as if that were somehow an insult) just for trying to bring more respect into these threads. If you or anyone is interested, you can see some of that moderation history at these links:
None of that applies to your case, though, if I'm reading your comments correctly, because you seem to be posting strictly out of ideological battle. That's, unfortunately, much cheaper and more destructive behavior. We don't allow it here, because the purpose of the site is curious conversation in which people relate to and learn from each other. Smiting enemies is precisely the opposite spirit of that.
I know what it feels like to hold a minority ideological viewpoint too (having been in that situation many times)—it comes with a feeling of righteousness and resentment that causes one to lash out and feel justified in treating others disrespectfully because, after all, one's cause is right and the truth is more important. Unfortunately this syndrome is poison to the sort of internet forum we're trying for here. Regardless of how right you are (or feel you are), or how important the truths you bring are (or you feel they are), we're going to ban you if you continue this way. We have no choice but to do that, in order to try to preserve HN for its intended purpose. Moreover, it makes little difference how right you are or what truths you're bringing, if this is the way you're going about it, because people don't listen when they're being blasted.
I think the response to your claims about who you are is likely to be because it’s neither verifiable, nor relevant to your arguments here. It’s what you are saying that people are responding to. Not your nationality.
> I asked this extremely aggressive zepto person
I’m curious if you can quote anything in support of your description of me as ‘aggressive’.
Also, you have made it clear that you are an activist who is against many US actions, but what makes you think anyone here is “anti-China?’”.
Most people in the thread seem to regard both the criticisms of the US and, the China’s oppression of the Uighurs as credible.
It’s seemed pretty relevant to a lot of people in this thread. Your general tone is aggressive. I’m curious if you can quote anywhere where I’ve made it clear I’m an activist. That’s not how I think of myself. I’m posting on a computer programmer forum.
The kinds of claims you consider normal about China are in fact anti-China to anyone who’s bothered to learn a little bit about their system and how people there feel about it.
I do like how often people seem to think that the only reason someone might contradict Western narratives if they’re getting paid to do so. I’m just a white dude from Ohio who wants an end to endless war and imperialism.