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China using families as 'hostages' to quash dissent abroad
(www.bbc.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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What is with the China apologists in this thread? Wtf??
I found this to be a decent enough primer: https://medium.com/@bobbyarlan/a-case-study-in-racist-anti-chinese-sentiment-fuelled-by-american-bots-and-western-propaganda-f0a69978d568
A decent TLDR: The article argues that anti-Chinese propaganda spread by the U.S. and Western media is fueling racist sentiment. Claims of mass detention of Uyghurs are based on flawed studies and sources like Adrian Zenz, a far-right Christian fundamentalist. Atrocity propaganda is a common tactic used by the U.S. to justify wars. The U.S. is threatened by China's economic rise and technological progress, so it is trying to portray China negatively and prepare public opinion for a potential conflict. However, most of the world sees China positively and as an economic opportunity, making a new Cold War against China unlikely to succeed
In short, a lot of information about China that has come out of Western news media has been proven to be based on known biased sources, known anit-China rhetoric, and/or outright lies. It's difficult to prove/disprove of any information specifically, that takes time and reporting, but a lot of people see the anti-China pattern in BBC reporting, and tend to dismiss it because of known history.
I think this flies a bit too far in the other direction. China is totalitarian. It is not a democracy. It is also increasingly antagonizing nations abroad. I think it is valid to consider it a threat if you are any other nation, period.
Edit: Kinda like Russia
How many seats are in the highest legislative body?
What rights and responsibilities do autonomous regions within China have?
What is the most distributed government committee and what is their role in the government?
Or you know, you could just listen to someone who was in an internment camp:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/04/muslim-minority-teacher-50-tells-of-forced-sterilisation-in-xinjiang-china
(Also your summary sounds like ChatGPT)
Or the fact we literally have drone and camera footage of mass arrests. I'm not one to view Vice these days, but one of their reporters went there and saw some rather suggestive situations as well.
After Trump was so nice (dumb) enough to showcase just how clear US satellite photos are these days, one has to question why some here are so quick to cry in China's defense. Especially after the very public take over of Hong Kong, you think an ethnic cleanse is out of the question?
I'm sure some pro-Chinese twit will come rushing in with some whataboutism or a crack on US history, as if that excuses things.
Our you could just listen to someone from Kuwait who saw Iraqi invaders remove babies from incubators:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
Oh wait, they made that shit up as a pretext for furthering US foreign interests.
Nah they have a typo ("anit-China") in their summary I think they're fine.
It was a neutral way to summarize a long article.
This, my friend, is the absense of neocon/neolib censorship and propaganda that you were so used to on corporate social media.
Isn't it great?
Strange, I never had any trouble on Reddit talking about socialism.
As long as you don't question that the enemies of US imperialism deserve it you should be mostly fine. The big geopolitical topics are more sensitive.
I was permabanned from multiple subs for sharing this telegraph article for example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230701133656/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html
It differs from sub to sub but the bigger and more political the stronger the imperial narrative is enforced.
r/worldnews is one of the worst, and honestly suspect its astroturf and run by assets or a derivative of an imperial institution (council on foreign relation, think tanks, the likes)
I'd take the study a lot more seriously if the people financing it weren't literally tied to the US/UK governments...
What's with all the conspiracy nutcases here? The fucking Uighur genocide... smh, are the space lizards making China do this or is it Sasquatch man?
... is mostly sourced from a far right German nationalist who's been proven to mistranslate Chinese documents over and over again, and claims that God gave him a mission to destroy China.
... has been debunked by many Muslim countries visiting China to investigate
... is a media narrative connected to the US funding radical Islamic groups to destabilize east turkestan and failing miserably as the Chinese response was mostly improving economic conditions and funding uyghur cultural programs which actually is effective at deradicalization, which is what the US could have done in Iraq in Afghanistan if they were over there for altruistic or mutually beneficial reasons and not just to extract oil and opium while making some defense contractors very rich.
I'd appreciate sources on these points, please. I don't trust western media blindly, but I also recognize that China has its own propaganda machine (as does every state). I'd like to learn more, but would need links for topics about which I'm unfamiliar else I'll only be able to read the western media I mentioned above.
A well cited and factual pro-china article on Zenz that covers several mistranslations.http://english.scio.gov.cn/m/xinjiangfocus/2020-09/14/content_77200391.htm
You can look up a bunch of articles on uyghurs and follow the links for claims. They almost always at some point come back to "Zenz says" with a sprinkle of radio free asia, which is a front for the state department charitably, and a front for the CIA uncharitably. This tactic of circuitous citation was also used when the US wanted to make people believe that Iraq had WMDs.
Here is a right wing anti-china article that talks about 14 different Muslim countries investigating, claiming without any proof that it is all staged. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2023/01/20/2003792883
On poverty alleviation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-01858-w
I dont have a source on reducing poverty decreasing radicalization but Im guessing you'd agree people with a secure economic future are less likely to throw their lives away. If you disagree I can go find some sources.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it's clear that the methodology of his "research" doesn't pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
If you are left with any questions while looking at the other comments, I'm sure they'd be happy to explain but if they don't I also would be. I just don't want to fill your inbox with redundant information.
Lots of mainstream western racists are now here after reddit migration. It's a good reminder of just how deranged people who guzzle western propaganda all day are.
It seems to be a much greater conspiracy to claim that there is a genocide going on over a huge population concentrated in the region without producing a massive refugee crisis like we saw with other genocides (e.g. the Holocaust) and with a massive dearth of photo/video evidence despite most young people in China having a VPN on their phones.
Exactly, if we look at an actual genocidal situation then we have to look no further than Afghanistan where US has been massacring people for the past two decades and created 2.6 million refugees in the process https://www.unhcr.org/countries/afghanistan
If anything remotely like what the west claims was happening in Xinjiang then we'd see a huge flood of refugees in the neighbouring countries.
I see it all over Lemmy unfortunately. I think it is because Lemmy is still relatively fringe and it is where lots of pro communism communities emerged. Normally, I find it actually pretty refreshing to see more left wing stuff but the pro China (or at least the kneejerk reactions to anything anti China) to be exhausting.
To be fair, I used to see a lot of it on Reddit as well. I think they are just a bigger proportion percentage wise on Lemmy so you see much more of it.
It's a bit of a mixed bag. There are a lot of pro-China comments that are just... Well they either drank the kool-aid or are dishing it out. Especially when it comes to social policies.
On the other hand, China has been making significant technological accomplishments that you just don't hear about in Western media. They've made a lot of advancements in spaceflight and manufacturing processes that humanity as a whole could benefit from if we were more cooperative. And that's not even mentioning Nuclear Power.
China is WAY ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to new nuclear power. They're the only ones with Gen 4 reactors, the only ones working on Thorium reactors, and are on track to build over 100 new nuclear plants over the next few years. China is to nuclear power as the US is to weapons; sure other countries might be tinkering with some stuff, but there's really no comparison when they're doing more than the rest of the world combined.
I wish there were more unbiased sources. Unfortunately, there's usually only one of two sides. Either you get news from China which usually boils down to "We're amazing and nothing we do is ever bad or wrong. Anyone saying otherwise is just lying because they're jealous/afraid of our wild success!" Or you get news from the US/West that's basically "China is a totalitarian poo-country that's on the verge of collapse. They contribute nothing to global advancement and the only thing they're good for is making cheap, poor quality, crap."