Gulags in China?

[Bluegazer]

You can tell by the interviews with the Chinese workers that it's a pretty miserable existence. They say; "we're tired, but we have no choice."

I think that synthesizes quite a lot what happens in China. If you ask me, that is nothing but slave mentality.
So after expelling the emperor, and the arrival of Mao, things have not changed. Only in appearance.

 

[Glenn]

I'm a little confused by the title of this thread,
All Hail the New Chinese Socialist Utopia

Who is hailing China as the new socialist utopia?

 

[Chad]

What about it did you find insightful? It seemed like a short vanilla history lesson without much meat or clear message. (Published by a paper with a history of self-censoring in support of the state.)

What mainstream news paper doesn't partake in some censorship? It was insight into how there does appear to be more depth to Chinese thinking than "Marxist/Leninist and atheist. (Materialism and anti-spirit "

I agree that anecdotal remarks are worth little in terms of producing a compelling forensic picture for others, but to me, having grown up surrounded by Chinese and having had many native Asian friends and connections, the "audience score" is worth more than the calming musings of the South China Morning Post, (from which you have twice quoted):

Rebuttals to some of your statements from multiple news outlets, particularly your opening post about "Reports of hundreds of Gulag-style camps in Northern China, imprisoning millions." were provided. You've yet to comment on whether you still believe the video you posted.

I notice as well that you did not comment on what I thought were the most significant and important points raised in my previous post: The pattern of willing self-delusion wrt gulag style operations in the past, fooling even FDR's visiting vice president with a contrived display, and the fact that China's government is openly Marxist and anti-spiritual. Have you read Solzhenitsyn and have you studied the history of socialism? There are certain trends which are undeniable, and which have been globally proven time and again.

I didn't comment on any "pattern of willing self-delusion " because i don't have much to say about it. Pretty much every country can be shown to have a dark, delusional past.

You suggested that I am indulging in black & white thinking, and this concerns me obviously; I don't want to fall prey to mental traps. You were not specific, leaving me to guess: Is it in this area where you feel I am offending? -By assuming caution wrt to communist states? I would remind you that this is a government with an established history of having killed tens, if not hundreds of millions in its Socialist pursuits, and which changed hands after Mao but didn't actually fall. If this is where you feel I am being black & white in my thinking, then some further discussion might be warranted.

Russia was communist, and yet it has managed to do an significant amount of good for the planet. As you know, the US is responsible for the deaths of millions and was not and is not communist.

One of the other main ideas I made an effort to raise in my post was that evil is not the sole province of any single national entity. There is plenty of nefarious bad acting to go around. Pointing out that other people also do terrible things is generally considered a poor argument when trying to justify the behavior observed in a given defendant.

Neither myself nor the others in the related threads debunking the "Reports of hundreds of Gulag-style camps in Northern China, imprisoning millions." are promoting China as a utopia, nor are we saying China is never evil. Nor am i saying China will never succumb to ponerization. In fact i think all of those sentiments are explicitly stated.

I just remembered there's actually another thread where a similar discussion has already occurred - 15 pages worth - starting in 2015 running into 2016, but i imagine it's still pretty on point; and I think it goes some way to explaining the situation, from a nuanced perspective on the matter, better than i could: Pro-China bias?

 

[Eulenspiegel]

One of the biggest ironies of the so-called "cultural" revolution is that the very people that were vilified, hunted down, and killed(the rich landowners) by the peasant masses are now the people aspire to be(landowners, Managers, CEOs). Nobody wants to be a peasant or worker. Almost everyone wants to be a CEO with multiple cars and plenty of land(apartments). The former elite have simply been replaced by CCP members and businessmen(corporations such as Tencent). During the cultural revolution, most of the intellectuals and religious elite were also killed off, and with them went most of the culture(lineages were broken, ask any Daoist priest about the problem of knowledge transmission. They have to reconstruct everything from books now, since ordination was banned by the government for half a century up until the end of the 90s). So any appeal to culture or "Confucian classics" is mere show and not based on a substantial connection to the past.

The concept of mianzi(face) is also crucial to understand dishonesty among Chinese. What you present to the public is usually the opposite of what you really think. Additional mechanisms(such as the new Social Credit System) ensure that you can't think critically or talk about it. This effectively undermines change and open networking.
What a previous poster mentioned about Chinese employment and insane working hours is part and parcel of East Asian corporate working culture(it's the same in Korea and Japan). It is an extension of what high school kids in China are already used to: You live for your studies/work, there is next to no free time, and god forbid if you have any other interests. The sarcastic "xuexi shi wo kuai le"(Study makes me happy), a meme shared among Chinese students since years, is emblematic of this problem. Once you graduate and find work, you'll find yourself stuck in a corporation which effectively reduces employees to cogs in a machine. The wages will not be enough to pay the insane rents and apartment prices in cities such as Shanghai or Beijing, and yet people slave away for 60-80h per week. Outside of work, you are expected to earn more certificates. For some, this leaves 3-5 hours of sleep. In addition to that, mental diseases are not really discussed and there is hardly any help for people in need. Add to that the demographic problem of ~30 million young Chinese men that will never find a girlfriend of wife(as a result of the one-child policy that was in effect up until recently) and you're looking at a ticking bomb.

 

[Beau]

I notice as well that you did not comment on what I thought were the most significant and important points raised in my previous post: The pattern of willing self-delusion wrt gulag style operations in the past, fooling even FDR's visiting vice president with a contrived display

First regarding the so-called Chinese gulags, all we have are Western-based news outlets reporting it, as far as I can tell. You dismiss SCMP as being Beijing propaganda basically, yet rely on what are essentially state-sponsored Western media outlets. Reuters comes to mind as the most recent, from a few months ago, who reported about Chinese prison camps. The video you linked in your first post shows that the claims come from the Uyghurs. They are hardly an objective source, as I pointed out in my previous post which you did not comment on. ETNAM is a Turkish/American Deep State creation, a movement that appears grassroots for a reason. Its tactics, like others used all across the globe, are to destabilize countries that the Empire has a difficult time controlling. We've been through this discussion before on the forum, on the pro-China bias thread.

I have to wonder, why it is you are so moved by these claims when they are so obviously Western propaganda? Are there some shady things going on in China by its government? I think that's highly likely, just like in every other major global country. But millions imprisoned in gulags? I do not find the evidence compelling, at all.

and the fact that China's government is openly Marxist and anti-spiritual. Have you read Solzhenitsyn and have you studied the history of socialism?

I don't think anyone here is arguing that China's political and social system is a "utopia", so I'm not sure why you feel the need to bring that up. Where has someone here promoted the current Chinese government as being the best form of ruling the people?

 

[Eulenspiegel]

SCMP is actually one of the better newspapers. One of my former professors(Chinese Political Science) regularly made use of it.
Although almost every newspaper in China is more or less directly controlled by the government(Nanfang Ribao being somewhat of an exception).
If you want to read a propaganda laden Chinese newspaper, the Renmin Ribao is your best bet.

 

[duyunne]

I wouldn't say our views in the west are entirely from propaganda but also from the testimonials of Chinese people who have fled their homeland seeking a better semblance of human decency. Living in Vancouver for over half my life exposed me to quite a few of these testimonials and the Chinese people are clearly not happy with how their government created a very clouded, self censoring culture of fear that just doesn't exist out here to the same extent where freedom of speech still gleans despite the present trends of outrage culture online, and more recently a Hockey commentator was fired for mentioning the lack of poppies on new residents (which was followed by Cenotaph vandalism "Ye Broke Faith.")

In recent months, I've notice a trend among Chinese in my region wearing Winnie the Pooh merchandise, which is symbolic among those in the know of being anti CCP. (The CCP banned Winnie the Pooh in China.)

That said, I'm not claiming these camps are real, but I haven't heard of westerners fleeing for a better life in China where they redpill the Chinese on how miserable life is out here.

 

[duyunne]

I'm a little confused by the title of this thread,
All Hail the New Chinese Socialist Utopia

Who is hailing China as the new socialist utopia?

LOL - clearly tongue in cheek cynicism my friend!

 

[Glenn]

Maybe I am wrong, but I feel the reason that this discussion is confusing, is because it seems to start from a strawman declaration or premise.

That is, 'New Chinese Socialist Utopia.'

There seems to be two sides going in different directions. Or talking about two different things. At least that is what I am seeing.

Just saw another reply, so this is just cynical, like a joke? Oh OK. Good to know.

 

[Woodsman]

What mainstream news paper doesn't partake in some censorship? It was insight into how there does appear to be more depth to Chinese thinking than "Marxist/Leninist and atheist. (Materialism and anti-spirit "

Rebuttals to some of your statements from multiple news outlets, particularly your opening post about "Reports of hundreds of Gulag-style camps in Northern China, imprisoning millions." were provided. You've yet to comment on whether you still believe the video you posted.

I didn't comment on any "pattern of willing self-delusion " because i don't have much to say about it. Pretty much every country can be shown to have a dark, delusional past.

Russia was communist, and yet it has managed to do an inordinate amount of good on the planet. As you know, the US is responsible for the deaths of millions and was not and is not communist.

Neither myself nor the others in the related threads debunking the "Reports of hundreds of Gulag-style camps in Northern China, imprisoning millions." are promoting China as a utopia, nor are we saying China is never evil. Nor am i saying China will never succumb to ponerization. In fact i think all of those sentiments are explicitly stated.

I just remembered there's actually another thread where a similar discussion has already occurred - 15 pages worth - starting in 2015 running into 2016, but i imagine it's still pretty on point; and I think it goes some way to explaining the situation, from a nuanced perspective on the matter, better than i could: Pro-China bias?

You're being somewhat evasive in your responses rather than asking yourself the questions I posted as they were intended to be considered. They weren't intended to be "Gotcha"s.

I'll rephrase things again: Bloody empires past, as part of their psychology, strive with great energy to hide atrocities, are able to do so successfully for long periods of time, and further, do so apparently with a degree of subconscious participation from those they are hiding their activities from.

You appear to be 1. avoiding consideration of the bloody track record of Marxist/socialist governments, and 2. I cannot tell from your responses if you have honestly assessed whether or not you are falling prey to a deception of the sort which has happened in the past and may be underway again today.

But you do raise a fair point re: commenting on whether or not I still believe the video I originally posed.

I did indeed post it without prior knowledge of the discussions here about propaganda and Western interference in China. Those are ideas I need to consider.

It looks as though the organization responsible for that press release documenting sites of prison camps has certain serious ear marks which have been common among disinformation schemes in the past, (leadership in absentia set up in Washington, student supporters, an odd relationship with a U.S. government terrorist watch group).

Whether there is enough debunking of high quality to set aside the charges is another thing, however. So far, the links provided and the fact that the CIA is agitating Islamic rebels and engages in disinformation does not, in my mind immediately obviate full dismissal of the charges. But I'll have to do more reading to come to a firmer conclusion. As it stands, the jury is out, but I am taking into account the fact that serious consideration has evidently been put into it by the minds here on this forum and that I appear to be going against the grain, (again). Sometimes I've been proven wrong and need to upgrade my knowledge. Sometimes it has worked in the other direction. I have high confidence that board members will be patient with me while I work through the process.

I'm going to read through the "Pro-China bias" thread to further acquaint myself with more information.

First regarding the so-called Chinese gulags, all we have are Western-based news outlets reporting it, as far as I can tell. You dismiss SCMP as being Beijing propaganda basically, yet rely on what are essentially state-sponsored Western media outlets. Reuters comes to mind as the most recent, from a few months ago, who reported about Chinese prison camps. The video you linked in your first post shows that the claims come from the Uyghurs. They are hardly an objective source, as I pointed out in my previous post which you did not comment on. ETNAM is a Turkish/American Deep State creation, a movement that appears grassroots for a reason. Its tactics, like others used all across the globe, are to destabilize countries that the Empire has a difficult time controlling. We've been through this discussion before on the forum, on the pro-China bias thread.

I have to wonder, why it is you are so moved by these claims when they are so obviously Western propaganda? Are there some shady things going on in China by its government? I think that's highly likely, just like in every other major global country. But millions imprisoned in gulags? I do not find the evidence compelling, at all.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that China's political and social system is a "utopia", so I'm not sure why you feel the need to bring that up. Where has someone here promoted the current Chinese government as being the best form of ruling the people?

Just to be clear: I'm not avoiding your posts, Beau; you raise some valid points. I'll address them more thoroughly when I've finished working through a response to itellsya and doing my additional research.

 

[Hindsight Man]

Well while here I figured I'd throw my two cents in.While I'm tempted to make a joke about organ harvesting being bad for current administration's feng shui,my personal dislike of china has more to do with how they conduct business. For example,in the book Poorly Made in China you'll find plenty of examples of Chinese business tactics that amount to little more than outright crime.You see,small to medium business owners will make much more money fleecing customers than doing honest business and should the customer leave they'll just fleece someone else.
They have a thing called ''Quality Fade".This concept translates to reducing the quality of your product to maximize profits. ''So what'' I hear you say, ''we have the same thing in the west".Well sorta but not really.One example I can give you is of a western company that sold lotion which was bottled in china.First shipment arrives and everything's fine.But by the second shipment you already have customers complaining about leaky bottles.What happened? Turns out that the bottle manufacturer decided to reduce the amount of plastic used on bottles to save money.This led to bottles being too thin to be used,but they shipped it anyway.Given that china has basically no laws regarding misrepresenting your product or outright lying in business transactions you have no way to appeal and lose money as your second shipment can't be sold.The same goes for other industries.You need steel of a certain grade for a construction project,you are not yet wise to Chinese business practices so you pay for your order and wait.By the time it arrives it is not the grade you ordered.In fact you now have 10 tons of borderline pig iron that can't be used for anything.You call the manufacturer and tell him this steel is not up to industry standard,in fact it doesn't meet any regulations.The manufacturer simply tells you it's exactly what you ordered and if it isn't then what are you gonna do?He knows that there's no appeal process.He made money,so screw off.
And this is their best foot forward.The Chinese consider the western world their ''primary'' market,at least for the time being,so the electronics and whatever else we get here are considered ''quality''.The real money lies in selling even more inferior products to south america and developing nations at triple the price.This isn't a new tactic either,westerners have been complaining about this exact type of practice for literal centuries.Back when tea was a booming business,the west decided to do trade with India instead of China,despite the fact that China had more tea readily available.This wasn't just for political reasons either.Chinese traders started bringing boxes of wet tea leaves to the market (water added weight,so you got more $ per crate) which meant that tea got moldy and was unusable.
Another detestable part of their culture and has been for a long time is the concept of face.It means that morality is not something to be cultivated internally but instead something you do to not get punished.If you can get away with something without repercussion then you retained ''face''.The stigma comes not from the sin itself and the guilt you feel but from the social shame that is cast upon you.Chinese as a people have a preference for superficiality and trickster cleverness.Not all of course but a majority.Combine that with extreme tribalism and racial superiority complex as well as their history of committing massacres on largely defenseless peasants and different ethnicities and you have a whole new America.

I would like to point out that these are simply my observations based on growing up around Chinese kids and knowing Chinese adult immigrants,alongside reading about china in general.China currently owns something like 1% of Aussie landmass.I wonder if being a Chinese vassal will be any different to being a yank one.At the moment it certainly doesn't look like it.

 

[Cosmos]

It's notable that countries in the West, who've proven themselves to be much more volatile and untrustworthy, are eagerly trialling out similar security state style schemes of their own:

China's 'Smart' surveillance tech arrives in Darwin, Australia
Big brother Britain: Facial recognition cameras deployed in London, man fined for covering his face

Notice also the difference in how it seems to be implemented in China compared to Australia and Britain for example. From what I've seen so far, in China the system is a rather open and public one in which everyone sort of knows what will give you a bad and good score and so on, where also citizens can score up each others votes. In Britain and other western countries the exact opposite seems to be the case; the mechanism and evaluation of what really represents a bad score are pretty much left in the dark and pretty murky. A pretty closed system with likely more potential for being used for bad stuff.

Having said that, I'm pretty certain that similar kinds of (yes I would call it) dystopian credit/evaluation systems based on automated AI systems are either already in place or are being worked on, pretty much in most countries on earth and especially western ones. The Smartphone is just one of the key components of this system I would strongly guess. Point being, that pointing with the finger toward China because they essentially do the same as others, while in stark contrast being rather open about it, is a somewhat misplaced judgement. Just think of all the NSA, CIA and other western scandals in which it was basically revealed that similar systems were already used for years in SECRET and for Nefarious purposes. Compare this with the Chinese out in the OPEN proclamation of that system before it really kicks off with everyone basically knowing what it is about and sort of understanding and accepting that what the system deems good or bad is broadly speaking (or objectively) really good or bad.

I'm not saying any of that is good or bad per se, just that a lot of it depends on the specific circumstance that determines what is good and what is bad. For example, in the Chinese credit system, some could argue that it might not be such a bad idea to value good behavior and dis-value bad behavior such as throwing garbage in to the streets. On the other hand, I think it is justified to question how the same system can also be used for quite bad stuff and nefarious stuff. In other words, how good or bad the credit system being created will be, depends a lot on the state of the society and political class in which it is implemented. If there is a more or less uncorrupted (in the sense of Ponerology) system in which it is implemented, it will likely do far less damage as in a totally corrupt and psychopathic system (as many western systems are by now). So in the end I find it rather humorous that everyone points the finger at china for creating such a system out in the open while similar and in most cases likely much worse systems already exists in western countries IN SECRET.

 

[hlat]

NY Times is propaganda trash. The interesting thing would be for Chinese readers to read and translate the leaked Chinese documents. Of course there's the question whether the Chinese documents are real or fake.

--

Leaked Chinese Government Documents Prove Muslims Are Being Detained In Massive Numbers
by Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/16/2019 - 16:00

ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

There's now substantial evidence - in the Chinese government's own words - that they are detaining Muslims in massive numbers.

403 pages of internal documents have been leaked to the New York Times that describe a clampdown in Xinjiang - a resource-rich territory located on the border of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia - where authorities have "corralled as many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years."

In Xinjiang, Muslim ethnic minority groups make up more than half the region's population of 25 million. The largest group is the Uighurs. Beijing has fought with the Uighurs for decades, who have offered resistance to Chinese rule.

The current crackdown began after a surge of antigovernment and anti-Chinese violence, including ethnic riots in 2009 in Urumqi, the regional capital, and a May 2014 attack on an outdoor market that killed 39 people just days before Mr. Xi convened a leadership conference in Beijing to set a new policy course for Xinjiang.

The Chinese government has called these camps "job training centers" to fight Islamic extremism, but the documents seem to confirm the coercive nature of the crackdown in the words of the Chinese government.

The campaign is being called "ruthless and extraordinary". Senior party leaders are recorded ordering "drastic and urgent" action, including mass detentions. The leaked papers show how the country carried out its "most far-reaching internment campaign since the Mao era."

President Xi Jinping laid the groundwork for the camps during speeches to officials in Xinjiang in April 2014, after Uighur militants stabbed more than 150 people at a train station, killing 31. In his speech, Xi called for "an all-out struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism using the organs of dictatorship and showing absolutely no mercy.”

Xi also said: “The methods that our comrades have at hand are too primitive. None of these weapons is any answer for their big machete blades, ax heads and cold steel weapons. We must be as harsh as them and show absolutely no mercy.”

Xi also urged his party to "emulate aspects of America’s war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks."

“We say that development is the top priority and the basis for achieving lasting security, and that’s right. But it would be wrong to believe that with development every problem solves itself,” Xi said in one speech.

In another speech, he said: “After the United States pulls troops out of Afghanistan, terrorist organizations positioned on the frontiers of Afghanistan and Pakistan may quickly infiltrate into Central Asia. East Turkestan’s terrorists who have received real-war training in Syria and Afghanistan could at any time launch terrorist attacks in Xinjiang.”

The camps expanded rapidly in 2016 when Chen Quanguo was appointed new party boss for the region. He handed out Xi's speeches to stay on message and implored his officials to “round up everyone who should be rounded up.” Any local leaders that stood in Chen's way were immediately purged, including one official who was jailed.

And the leak suggests that there could be discontent from within the party. The Chinese, who often undertake policymaking under the cloak of secrecy, are certainly not known for leaking internal government documents.

Since 2017, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang. One leaked document describes how to handle minority students returning home to Xinjiang in summer 2017 to find that their relatives have been detained. The document says that students should be informed that their relatives are receiving “treatment”.

One document ordered: "Keep up the detentions. Stick to rounding up everyone who should be rounded up. If they’re there, round them up.”

Officials in Eastern Xinjiang drafted the Q and A script and distributed the guide across the region, urging officials to use it as a model.

The document says: “Returning students from other parts of China have widespread social ties across the entire country. The moment they issue incorrect opinions on WeChat, Weibo and other social media platforms, the impact is widespread and difficult to eradicate.”

Authorities suspected that the answers wouldn't work well with students and also supplied answers to follow up questions like:

When will my relatives be released?
If this is for training, why can’t they come home?
Can they request a leave?
How will I afford school if my parents are studying and there is no one to work on the farm?

The guide recommends answers that get firmer in nature, eventually culminating telling students that their relatives have been "infected" by the "virus" of radical Islam and must be quarantined and cured. Even grandparents could not be spared, officials were told to say.

One answer says: “If they don’t undergo study and training, they’ll never thoroughly and fully understand the dangers of religious extremism. No matter what age, anyone who has been infected by religious extremism must undergo study.”

Another says: “Treasure this chance for free education that the party and government has provided to thoroughly eradicate erroneous thinking, and also learn Chinese and job skills. This offers a great foundation for a happy life for your family.”

The authorities are using a scoring system to see who can be released from camps. Students are told that the system takes into account their daily behavior, which has a direct effect on when their relatives may be released.

“There must be effective educational remolding and transformation of criminals. And even after these people are released, their education and transformation must continue,” President Xi said during one trip to Xinjiang.

You can read the New York Times' full longform piece, including all of the leaked documents, here.

 

[Joe]

But Communist China is still Communist China

China is about as far from Communist as France. In fact, France is probably closer.

 

[Palinurus]

NY Times is propaganda trash. The interesting thing would be for Chinese readers to read and translate the leaked Chinese documents. Of course there's the question whether the Chinese documents are real or fake.

I would go one step further and state: once the NYT is involved you can be pretty certain an orchestrated campaign is on the move.

As for the reality of the leaked documents, my eye caught the following disclaimer on two NYT webpages:

To omit identifying markings, these documents have been retyped to resemble the originals.

Similar, but not quite the same I wonder...