China has created a 'dystopian hellscape' in Xinjiang, Amnesty report says
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
President Xi Jinping, the party chief, laid the groundwork for the crackdown in a series of speeches delivered in private to officials during and after a visit to Xinjiang in April 2014, just weeks after Uighur militants stabbed more than 150 people at a train station, killing 31. Mr. Xi called for an all-out “struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism” using the “organs of dictatorship,” and showing “absolutely no mercy.” ...
... The internment camps in Xinjiang expanded rapidly after the appointment in August 2016 of Chen Quanguo, a zealous new party boss for the region. He distributed Mr. Xi’s speeches to justify the campaign and exhorted officials to “round up everyone who should be rounded up.”
The crackdown encountered doubts and resistance from local officials who feared it would exacerbate ethnic tensions and stifle economic growth. Mr. Chen responded by purging officials suspected of standing in his way, including one county leader who was jailed after quietly releasing thousands of inmates from the camps.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/ch...
The most striking sentence in the NYT report is this one, describing the alleged motivations for the leak:
Though it is unclear how the documents were gathered and selected, the leak suggests greater discontent inside the party apparatus over the crackdown than previously known. The papers were brought to light by a member of the Chinese political establishment who requested anonymity and expressed hope that their disclosure would prevent party leaders, including Mr. Xi, from escaping culpability for the mass detentions.
Where in the document did Xi direct the Chinese State against Uighurs? Full paragraph quotes, please.
“organs of dictatorship,” has a meaning dating back to at least 60's China. But I can't work out what this English translation of their saying means. https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1968/PR...
Perhaps NYTimes is writing at a political scholar of China audience, rather than the average person?
> The "tiger chair" - the existence of which has been reported elsewhere - is said to be a steel chair with leg irons and handcuffs designed to shackle the body in place. Several former detainees told Amnesty they were forced to watch others locked immobile in the tiger chair for hours or even days at a time.
I hadn't heard of what a "tiger chair" was, and found a picture at the Daily Mail. It's apparently just a metal chair, but staying immobilized on it for days can be torturous and causes swelling or bleeding on the legs and buttocks: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3421938/China-claim...
Next, bricks are placed underneath the calves elevating the legs. Not only are the bricks uncomfortable, but also the knees start to stress from hypertension--unnatural backward bending of the knee. At the same time, the tension in the rope increases as the bricks are added digging into the victim's skin and muscle tissue.
The more the victim resists, the greater the chance for bricks to be added, increasing the legs elevation and tension in the ropes. The torture progresses until the ropes break. It has been documented; prisoners have gone to a literal breaking point with bone fractures.
Additionally, metal poles or wooden rods with weights on the end will be placed over the victim's legs increasing the severity in pain.
Finally, as the victim is tied, he or she is unable to defend against punches, kicks, electrical prods, and so on. One detainee said, "I sat until my buttocks bled."
The victim can be left in the same position for hours, even days in discomfort."
The story is definitely in the US’ favor geopolitically, though. Look up which countries have condemned China for human rights abuses in Xinjiang at the UN. I don’t think there are any Muslim-majority countries on that list. Compare it to the list of UN countries which have condemned the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
People that know the pattern can see the bullshit coming from a mile away.
Why the US all of a sudden loves the Uyghur terrorists that it was bombing with impunity not too long ago...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-targets-chinese-uighu...
They were considered terrorists, then at some point during the Syrian regime change project, imported Uyghur fighters became useful allies to the US along with Al Nusra, Al Qaeda and ISIS.
US is also currently rehabilitating an Al Qaeda militant's image to make him the 'Juan Guaido' of Syria...
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/abu-mohammad-al-j...
I think this is the relevant phrase, no?
Certainly, the US didn't bomb them for their ethnicity. That doesn't make the statement factually incorrect, the flip-flopping there smells like bullshit and that's what GP was alluding to if we are reading the comment in good faith.
I.e. this is a false equivalence with what China is accused of.
What does it have to do with what is happening in Xinjiang?
The argument is that the US changing its mind on terrorists just because they are Uyghurs after bombing them shows that there is foul play involved and that the US government does not act in good faith on the matter, but instead is weaponizing the Xinjiang issue for geopolitical gain and distorting the truth to do so.
So is the deciding factor really reliance, or is it rather US-alignment?
Besides, there is quite a bit to gain by criticizing enemies of the US and excusing crimes from allies of the US, see for example Muslim countries recognizing Israel at the behest of the US state department, so why is it not the case here also?
And the US too is a very powerful nation, even more powerful, yet many Muslim countries critiqued it.
I think the truth here is a lot more complex. The contrast between the reporting by western and non-western sources here as well as the factual inaccuracies in reporting and willingness to exaggerate lead me to conclude that while not offending China is a big thing, another is that western reporting is likely exaggerated as happened before when geopolitics made it convenient.
Why? If anything it seems likely that most negative reporting on China has been downplayed for years and is now only catching up now that Western governments are less interested in appeasement.
There are many countries were atrocities of similar scale are happening right now and that don't have much influence. That's the metric for a neutral amount of reporting, and China was over that since the 60s.