Gulags in China?

But why judge it good or bad?
I'm still at the point where what I see as injustice affects me. Whether it's about Nazi Germany, cancel culture in American universities and on social media, serial killers, the war on terror, racism, stolen elections, rape, pedophilia, Palestine, police planting evidence on innocent people, Bobby Sands' hunger strike, the decision to nuke Nagasaki and Hiroshima, etc., etc., etc. I feel the same way reading romance novels regarding characters and decisions I perceive as "bad". It provokes suffering. (Luckily they have happy endings! I don't expect them in real life.) Maybe one day I will be zen enough to not judge all these things as bad, but I'm not there yet. Not sure I want to be, but we'll see!
Are you in a position to do so? Have you tried governing China?
I'm just one guy on the internet with feelings and opinions. And no, the one time I tried governing a massive country I was terrible at it, so never again! J/k of course. Neither have I tried running a huge corporation, a prison system, a military division, intelligence agency, etc., but I don't think that disqualifies me or anyone from criticizing the people who do, or from feeling sorrow and sometimes outrage at the tragedy of the human condition that often results from people doing their best, with the best intentions.
Theoretically even, by reading about governance there? Did you know, for example, that it's a complete myth that the CCP in Beijing controls the country in the way non-Chinese believe it does, and that subsidiarity and provincial-level decision-making rule most policy/geographical areas of Chinese life?
Yep, I was aware of that. I happen to like it.
You're implying that there are other options, and that you know best. You're implying that, but for the fact that China, a country of 1.4 billion people, is 'ruled by the wrong people', the 'gulags' would not have appeared.

There are some mighty big 'what if' assumptions behind all that!
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Were there other options besides Hitler? Maybe not. I still think he was a bad man. I still think the "ordinary men" of German reserve police battalion 101 did terrible things. But I understand why they did them. I can picture myself doing many of the same things in their shoes.
 
I love China, the varied people and culture. I have read several books on China and its history. Today's China is just a repeat of past tyrannical overlords. What I see is a karmic wheel of predictor/prey. Lion eats impala and the impala becomes the lion and eats the lion that is now the impala.

In the past the Chinese eventually throw off their tyrannical overlords and correct the injustices. The benevolent society thrives for 2-3 generations until it becomes weak and bloated then falls back into tyranny. As history has shown the current tyranny will meet its demise in the coming generation.
 
I'm still at the point where what I see as injustice affects me. Whether it's about Nazi Germany, cancel culture in American universities and on social media, serial killers, the war on terror, racism, stolen elections, rape, pedophilia, Palestine, police planting evidence on innocent people, Bobby Sands' hunger strike, the decision to nuke Nagasaki and Hiroshima, etc., etc., etc. I feel the same way reading romance novels regarding characters and decisions I perceive as "bad". It provokes suffering. (Luckily they have happy endings! I don't expect them in real life.) Maybe one day I will be zen enough to not judge all these things as bad, but I'm not there yet. Not sure I want to be, but we'll see!
I'm not suggesting you shut out reality, but with so many horrors in the world, why seek out more 'possible' ones? You seem to want to it to be the case that there's one to uncover in western China, even when there may not be. Maybe your hunch is right; the CCP is covering up something genocidal and the CIA is just doing a poor job at exposing it. Put like that though, it's doubtful.

As you well know, peoples' 'care foundation' is regularly 'tugged' by appeals to 'right injustice' that end up worsening injustice. It's not about being zen, but that we need to watch we don't 'agitate on behalf of covert interests', and instead somewhat conserve that instinct to care for those whom we can really, properly, exercise our care foundation for: those closest to us or in direct contact with us. That's why conservatives generally don't end up at the State Department or in the media; they realize there's heathens a-plenty right here at home!
 
I'm not suggesting you shut out reality, but with so many horrors in the world, why seek out more 'possible' ones? You seem to want to it to be the case that there's one to uncover in western China, even when there may not be. Maybe your hunch is right; the CCP is covering up something genocidal and the CIA is just doing a poor job at exposing it. Put like that though, it's doubtful.
👍 I thought I'd made it clear that I do NOT think there is a genocide going on. But I do think it is clear that that CCP in Xinjiang is hyperpolicing, criminalizing what in my mind should not be criminal behavior, and utilizing an advanced surveillance state to keep the population in check and root out the smallest deviations, beyond what in my mind is reasonable. In the process, many innocent people get detained or arrested, sometimes for months or years. In my opinion, that much has already been uncovered, and that's what I base my thoughts on. It's not that the CIA is doing a poor job exposing it, they're just doing what they always do - whether or not there's anything to their accusations or not - which is creating the most headline-catching narrative that will suit their agenda, regardless of the facts.

Maybe we have a fundamental disagreement on the value of the evidence. I tend to believe the overall picture painted by people who have spent time in either re-education, or vocational training, and the pretty mundane documents that are available. The story is often the same, e.g., detained for some (in my eyes) minor religious activity, or for talking with someone previously detained, among many other possible things, then sent either for re-education and/or vocational training, more often than not with no fixed term. This report is pretty typical, for example, and as far as I can tell it matches the kind of stuff in police reports:


Not exactly blockbuster stuff that will grab readers and turn them into anti-China activists. But I do find it credible, and yeah, a bit heartbreaking - again, about as heartbreaking as a Nazi- or Soviet-era memoir or a romance novel laced with some personal tragedy.
As you well know, peoples' 'care foundation' is regularly 'tugged' by appeals to 'right injustice' that end up worsening injustice. It's not about being zen, but that we need to watch we don't 'agitate on behalf of covert interests', and instead somewhat conserve that instinct to care for those whom we can really, properly, exercise our care foundation for: those closest to us or in direct contact with us. That's why conservatives generally don't end up at the State Department or in the media; they realize there's heathens a-plenty right here at home!
I'm less interested in agitating for change than I am in just understanding - and I don't think I'd have any meaningful effect as an agitator anyway. My interest in China stems from its relationship with Russia and its place on the world stage as multipolar competitor with the unipolar hegemon. I entered into it with neutral and positive opinions. Over the years, I read and watched history and accounts from super gung-ho China supporters, people who could be considered on the fence, and mostly avoided stuff from anti-China hawks. I've biased my reading toward the positive. I just didn't find those accounts convincing. Or at least, even if convincing about certain things, leaving a whole lot out.

The more I read about Mao's history (I have yet to delve deeper into Deng) - trying my best to find either Chinese sources, or western sources based on Chinese archival documents - the lower my opinion got of the man, and the party - at least then, in the 50s and 60s. Based on my assessment of those times, the question for me isn't whether China has strayed into pathocracy, but whether it ever strayed out. I'm open to that being the case - and my interest there is largely academic - I want to understand how these things work. Again, I'm not going to go off and join a think tank or protest movement. But even if China is a dissimulative-stage pathocracy, like the Soviet Union was from the 50s to the 80s (but with money), I don't consider that a moral judgment, let alone a harsh one. In fact, I'd much rather live in a late-stage pathocracy like that than in the birth pangs of a new one. Pretty sure that's one reason Gurdjieff fled Russia with his peeps, and never went back. China DOES have a degree of stability, and I do think that's a positive (and not the only one).
Still, despite the stories that are coming out of China, I don't see them as the main problem, or as them being infested by psychopaths, or as the pathocracy in the world today.
I agree. I don't see them as the main problem - for me that honor goes to the U.S. deep state and WEF "Great Reset" crowd. I don't see them as "the" pathocracy either, just "a" pathocracy, in the relatively benign dissimulative phase. But again, I'm open to that not being the case. I just haven't been convinced yet. Maybe I will be once I read the massive (and apparently fair and even favorable) biography of Deng waiting on my shelf. I've only read articles, which don't give enough background or data.
 
It's easy to judge the overall morality of the governments involved, who started it, who's fighting for a 'just cause', but not so easy when you're on the ground.

That's pretty much the point being made to you and a few others.

At what point does a government's sovereign assessment go too far, to the point where it's worth taking a stand against it?

When the abuse becomes generally for its own sake rather than to further an understandable (from one perspective) goal, i.e. "my goal is to abuse people" is not "understandable".
 
I don't think China should get a pass on their 'reeducation' camps that imprison an entire population just because the US and Western forces see China as a threat to their hegemony. I think both China and the US deserve their fair share of criticism, and it is possible to do both at the same time. I think it's probably necessary too. The US obviously deserves great attention as its global organs steer much of the world's totalitarian trends, but I don't think China gets a pass here either. One of the interesting things is that China is basically a huge success when it comes to the stabilization of a pathological state, and specifically I mean in the social acceptance of full political control over its people and the integration of State ideology into life at the family level. We can see the movers and shakers working on implementing this model all over the world now in various forms.

But what if that view is colored by your own culture, and seeing freedom differently, if only a bit?

I've never lived in the US, but I did live in China. And I asked about a hundred of people what they thought of their government. Only ONCE did I notice one person being uncomfortable with the question, and he said "we can't say anything, it's bad". All the other times, the reply was along these lines: "China is a big country, and there are too many of us. The government keeps us together, there is unity in spite of the hundreds of ethnicities. No, it's not perfect, but I love China and feeling Chinese. We may not be able to criticize the government, but we can do whatever else we want". I wondered at times whether it was simply patriotism or part of the "brain-washing", but then I saw half of my students and friends planning on going abroad, or on forming their own companies, thinking for themselves. And people in rural areas seemed just as happy going about their lives. If the government was THAT tyrannical, it wouldn't allow that. It's not just that the Chinese workers are all "exploited working ants", or they would lack the creativity that we are witnessing in their economy. And the poor working conditions, when present, were imposed by private companies, not the government.

Maybe this is like discussing two types of narcissistic families, to put it simply:

US/West: the family without boundaries, with parents that create snowflakes, full of freedom. Common result: the kids live in the attic, and are not very responsible. Some have it better than others in terms of emotional support.
China: a family with 15 kids, where the parents are "cold" and "harsh". Common result: the kids are messed up too, but they learn responsibility and hold a job. Others lack self-confidence and don't do much with their lives.

In both cases, what the children grew up with is the "normal", and they don't consider it abuse, lack of freedom, etc. Some see, process, etc. Others don't. It ultimately depends on their "substratum", karma, what they decide to learn, etc.

If in that numerous family described above, one of the children were to start playing with a neighbor (US influences) that stirs up rebellion, the father would set some boundaries. Sure, it wouldn't be as extreme as a "reeducation camp", but there would still be measures taken. Ideal? No. But would you let the kid bully his mother and his siblings just to protect his "freedom", when you know he is being influenced and not thinking for himself? It's not so easy.

Maybe the analogy is oversimplistic. But I think that bringing this up just because some people are "pro-China" doesn't quite cut it. Those people seem to be few and far between in the West. Sure, maybe some are going overboard in thinking that China will "save the world", but they would cling to anything or anyone regardless, just because they need hope and a new authority figure.

Finally, I wonder if we're not giving too much credit to human beings here, in regards to their desire for agency. In one way or another, the big majority of people seem to want and need an authority of some sort. Ideally it would be a religion as taught by Paul, say, and a fair system. But it's not. And anarchy is not the solution. So, I think it's going a bit too far to expect "freedom" to work in idealistic ways.

And then, there is the problem of gigantism that Lobaczewski talked about. It's never easy in such a big country. Maybe there is true evil perpetrated towards some of the Uighur, but then you have to wonder, why them, and not the other 120 or so ethnic groups? Is it as simple as the Chinese government oppressing them for the fun of it? If so, then why is it that when you go to several other regions where nobody complains, everybody seems happy to write mandarin while keeping their culture and language too? Maybe XinJiang is where all the corrupt politicians are, but I doubt it's that simple.

And the lockdown argument doesn't really hold water either, I think. The WHO had something coming for a while, with its "possible scenarios reports" that read exactly like what is going on in the West right now. They didn't need the Chinese to set an example. BUT, at least the Chinese were direct: Obey, contain the virus, we're done. In the West, we keep getting orders that are like shifting sand. Maybe we'll have another lockdown next week, or maybe you'll have a curfew, or perhaps three masks. That is even more destabilizing, IMO. I'm not saying that lockdowns are good, of course. BUT, in the Chinese case it may have come as less of a shock, and it was short-lived and NOT done at a national level. They probably freaked out when they saw it had come from the US. And now, they aren't doing what the West is doing. Yes, it's a "one-world government" when it comes to vaccines, travel bans, etc. But in that sense it becomes useless to "blame" one side or the other.

And all this discussion would be irrelevant in a "multipolar world" anyway, because by the time that is even more set in place (say, if the US economy were really to collapse), Putin, Xi JinPing and their buddies would be gone, and who knows what changes that may bring? This is an STS world, after all, so it's unlikely that something better would exist.

Anyway, just some thoughts, FWIW.
 
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Maybe one day I will be zen enough to not judge all these things as bad, but I'm not there yet. Not sure I want to be, but we'll see!

I don't think anyone is doing or suggesting that. There is a difference between judging something as bad from your own personal perspective, which is a function of one's level of knowledge and being, and judging something as objectively bad which, while also a function of one's level of knowledge and being, tends to be infused with some self-referencing and personal identification (which is by definition a function of one's level of knowledge and being).

Those that judge something as objectively bad are also more likely to engage in a more emotionally-laden rejection of that thing, and probably engage in some kind of activism, although activism doesn't require doing anything publicly. It's kind of like where G's "abuse of sex" doesn't require any actual sex.

It's funny, in your comment above you passed your particular moral judgement on this topic, and in doing so made your particular stance a moral issue in itself, i.e. you're not "zen" about "global injustice" and, from your perspective, not being zen about such things is moral. It strays close, IMO, to the ideology of "social justice", where anything "I" don't like, is abhorrent, and considerations of context, nuance, philosophy and cosmology, be damned.
 
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Maybe one day I will be zen enough to not judge all these things as bad, but I'm not there yet. Not sure I want to be, but we'll see!

I wanted to add something else to this. Your comment above appears to say that you feel 'emotional' about these "abuses", but most of your comments here have been defined by a decidedly intellectual analysis of the situation ("dissimulative stage of pathocracy" etc.) So there's a bit of a disconnect there IMO.

I'd just reiterate that anyone's personal opinion of any situation (like this one) is NOT objective, i.e. it is not "the" truth about the situation, even after all of the objective facts about the situation have been collected (which no one here has done). It is subjective. It is a personal choice to label something as 'bad' or 'wrong' and that is a reflection of who YOU are, NOT how the world, or anyone else in it, is.

And I'd like to add a caveat to what I said earlier today in response to your question: "At what point does a government's sovereign assessment go too far, to the point where it's worth taking a stand against it?"

When the abuse becomes generally for its own sake rather than to further an understandable (from one perspective) goal, i.e. "my goal is to abuse people" is not "understandable".

The caveat being that taking a "stand against" this is only advised when it is necessary, and it is only necessary when a person is directly endangered. Otherwise, it's best to get out of the way. This world is not for "fixing".
 
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Not exactly blockbuster stuff that will grab readers and turn them into anti-China activists.
Oh but it is. And I think what you're doing does stray into activism.

In the last few years 'Commie China Evil' has been on the lips of many if not most Westerners. No jobs at home? China stole them. Companies no longer competitive? China stole their intellectual property. Cultural and sporting organizations going woke? China leaned on them to do so. Facebook and others censoring free speech and emulating a social credit system? Zuckerberg married a Chinese woman. Covid-19 started in China? China unleashed the plague. Lockdowns started in China? China tricked the West into lockdowns. The WHO praised China? China controls the WHO. Biden got into power? China put him there. Etcetera ad nauseum.

This is scapegoating of course, along the lines of blaming Russia for all evils. It's also very recent, and it's patently encouraged from the top in the West because China is upending 'their' world order. Observe some of the comments here or on Sott; many people today have a basic opinion of China as 'evil'. They hear your 'nuanced arguments' and datapoints and go 'yup, that's them commies for you'. They are not intellectually separating 'this specific (alleged) crime' from the overall context; they're reinforcing their subjective view of the world.

There are no 'gulags' in China. Some Muslims (vastly fewer than Adrian Senz and the CIA's NGO network claims) are incarcerated in Xinjiang Province because they are targeted for their involvement with terrorism and/or separatism. No doubt some of that smaller-than-claimed number should not be locked up, but there is no flawless system of law and order anywhere on Earth.

Given that this is the worst crime the Chinese government is accused of - 'wantonly abusing (a portion of) its own people' - and given that this accusation is false, China is thus not 'ruled by pathocracy' - incipient, advanced or late-stage.
 
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Whether it's about Nazi Germany, cancel culture in American universities and on social media, serial killers, the war on terror, racism, stolen elections, rape, pedophilia, Palestine, police planting evidence on innocent people, Bobby Sands' hunger strike, the decision to nuke Nagasaki and Hiroshima, etc., etc., etc.

What do any of the above have to do with what amounts to a bunch of radicalized Muslims (ala ISIS), with a history of killing innocent Chinese civilians, being taken to task by Chinese authorities?
 
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I thought I'd made it clear that I do NOT think there is a genocide going on. But I do think it is clear that that CCP in Xinjiang is hyperpolicing, criminalizing what in my mind should not be criminal behavior, and utilizing an advanced surveillance state to keep the population in check and root out the smallest deviations, beyond what in my mind is reasonable. In the process, many innocent people get detained or arrested, sometimes for months or years.

Just for the sake of perspective and a point of reference, Wikipedia has an entry: List of countries by incarceration rate

On top of the list we find the US with 639 incarcerated per 100,000 population.
China is placed as 129th country with the rate 121 per 100,000

There is a note toward the bottom re China:

According to the World Prison Brief, China had an incarceration rate of 121 per 100,000 as of 2018 (for 1,710,000 sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only). Based on an estimated national population of 1.415 billion at 2018 (from United Nations figures). The World Prison Brief states that in addition to the sentenced prisoners, there may be more than 650,000 held in detention centers. Of those, "The total number of pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners is probably in excess of 200,000." So with those numbers the World Prison Brief states: "A total prison population of 2,360,000 would raise the prison population rate to 167 per 100,000." [which moves China up the list to place it at the 91st position]

In May 2018, Randall Schriver of the United States Department of Defense claimed that "at least a million but likely closer to three million citizens" were imprisoned in detention centers in a strong condemnation of the "concentration camps". In August 2018, during a United Nations session to discuss the country reports on China by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a single panel member (United States representative Gay McDougall) claimed that there exist "numerous and credible reports" of and provided a personal estimate that "upwards of a million people were being held in so-called counter-extremism centres and another two million had been forced into so-called “re-education camps” for political and cultural indoctrination", but did not provide or refer to any specific evidence supporting her allegations.

[Even if we add another million and calculate the rate for 3,700,000 prisoners, we get about 240 per 100,000 and China lands on the 50th position.]
 
It's funny, in your comment above you're kind of made your particular moral judgement of this (or any similar) topic a moral issue itself.
Ok, I'm starting to see your perspective better. To use a different example, I support Russia/Syria/Iran's position in the Syrian war. It would be like if I got hung up on any civilian deaths caused by any of their airstrikes. Civilian deaths always happen in wars and are largely unavoidable (and largely inflated by those with an interest in inflating them). Tragic, but the wider context needs to be taken into account, like you guys are saying. And I can regret the horrors of war and yet see why it might be necessary at the same time. No need to be heartless, but no need to go full White Helmets either.

Same goes for Xinjiang. I might personally not like the methods and the fact that innocent people might be swept up, but even then, I can see the motivation. And in that account I shared, the fact that this man was released after 7 or 8 months - after they finally got around to interrogating him - does show that they recognized he likely wasn't involved in anything. Even if they might have picked him up on flimsy evidence, it's not like they manufactured evidence to actually charge him and keep him for years. That tells me that even though the system may not be very efficient (or ideal), there are standards.

I wanted to add something else to this. Your comment above appears to say that you feel 'emotional' about these "abuses", but most of your comments here have been defined by a decidedly intellectual analysis of the situation ("dissimulative stage of pathocracy" etc.) So there's a bit of a disconnect there IMO.
Emoting is for in person, pet luvvies, or occasional social media outbursts. Forums are usually strictly for rational analysis. Joking, kinda. I wrote that comment because I had emotionally interpreted Niall's question as basically: "you shouldn't feel bad about injustice." And my reaction was something like, "Say what? I have feelings about a lot of things! Everyone does!" I don't believe many accounts of 'abuse'. Others I do. (E.g., a rape accusation I don't find credible, vs. one that I do or has been proven.)
I'd just reiterate that anyone's personal opinion of any situation (like this one) is NOT objective, i.e. it is not "the" truth about the situation, even after all of the objective facts about the situation have been collected (which no one here has done). It is subjective. It is a personal choice to label something as 'bad' or 'wrong' and that is a reflection of who YOU are, NOT how the world of anyone else in it, is.
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And I'd like to add a caveat to what I said earlier today in response to your question: "At what point does a government's sovereign assessment go too far, to the point where it's worth taking a stand against it?"

The caveat being that taking a "stand against" this is only advised when it is necessary, and it is only necessary when a person is directly endangered. Otherwise, it's best to get out of the way. This world is not for "fixing".
That's a good perspective. Well put. I can get behind that. Years back I used to invest a lot more time, for example, into the whole Israel/Palestine issue. But not lately. I think I remember you saying something similar a couple years back, and that's why you didn't bring it up as often.

What do any of the above have to do with what amounts to a bunch of radicalized Muslims (ala ISIS) with a history of killing innocent Chinese civilians, being taken to task by Chinese authorities?
Nothing. I don't have a problem with jihadists being detained, or legit anti-terror operations. My only issue has been with innocent people getting caught up in them. I like how Niall put it:
No doubt some of that smaller-than-claimed number should not be locked up, but there is no flawless system of law and order anywhere on Earth.
Maybe that number is tiny, maybe larger. If tiny, great.
 
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In the last few years 'Commie China Evil' has been on the lips of many if not most Westerners. No jobs at home? China stole them. Companies no longer competitive? China stole their intellectual property. Cultural and sporting organizations going woke? China leaned on them to do so. Facebook and others censoring free speech and emulating a social credit system? Zuckerberg married a Chinese woman. Covid-19 started in China? China unleashed the plague. Lockdowns started in China? China tricked the West into lockdowns. The WHO priased China? China controls the WHO. Biden got into power? China put him there. Etcetera ad nauseum.
Yeah I roll my eyes at all that stuff. There's a lot of China hate in the West, even by people who normally think straight, and it's not something I get behind. The question of the treatment of Uighurs is just something that doesn't seem to have a good thread to pull on. It feels like you either have to trust the CCP's word, or you believe that they are doing evil deeds in Xinjiang. I don't subscribe to either thought. I'm just trying to see things objectively as best I can.
 
Have you spent much time looking at what Uyghurs separatists have been up to in "East Turkestan" over the past 10-15 years, their links to jihadists in Syria etc.?
Yes. Also in Syria. That, and more on the Caucasus Emirate for the Russian variety. I'm no fan of jihadists. But if you have something specific in mind, I'll check it out. (BTW, the bit you quoted was in reference to the number of false arrests, not the total number of arrests. If there are lots of jihadists, and the Chinese get them, that's great too.)
 
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