Serious post warning, sleep-deprived wall of text ahead.

Someone who I dare say I respect publicly discouraged joining or supporting Lemmy on the basis of being The Tankie Place, linking this raddle post, a collection of horrifyingly flimsy evidence that Dessalines (lemmy.ml admin, maintainer of the wonderful dessalines.github.io/essays/) is a freedom hating redfash tankie who likes it when the evil CCP genocides uyghurs and bans femboys.

Naturally it all sucks but now i’m investing too many brain cells into thinking: how do you even refute this garbage?

I’m not proud of it, but I was an “anti-authoritarian leftist” too. I unironically said “tankie” once. And if i were told there is no Uyghur genocide, i would react exactly as if they had told me there was no holocaust. To the westerner, China really is as bad as nazi germany and straightforwardly saying otherwise, in their mind, is no different than if you replace Uyghurs with jews and China with germany. When this narrative is so deeply ingrained, how do you fight it? How the hell did I get here?

i really have no idea how to address it when, to them as it once was to me, it is so obviously true that anyone suggesting otherwise is not even worth listening to. these are fundamental beliefs and challenging them is grounds for instant block and report. its not open for discussion. all i can do is hope they find the truth on their own.

i’ll stop rambling now and sleep instead. so i wont respond for a while. sorry if theres a better community to post this in i just needed to get this out before i spontaneously combust. good night comrades.

  • 133arc585
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    1 year ago

    and that US actions toward its minorities might be similar, does that make whatever China is actually doing worth defending though?

    From my point of view, what the USA is doing is not similar, because the USA focuses on punishment and, if that doesn’t work, destruction of the offending group. The Chinese approach was to expand (access to) education, provide vocational training, and ease other difficulties the group was experiencing that contributing to the root cause of the terrorism. If the Chinese approach had been similar to the USA’s approach, they wouldn’t have put money and time and effort in to rehabilitating. Rehabilitation is a much preferred solution than punishment and destruction.

    Also, the Chinese approach worked: treating people like humans and working to rehabilitate resolved the terrorism issue.

    The UN Human Rights Council in 2019 published a report praising China’s handling of the situation, noting how it was human-centered:

    We commend China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights by adhering to the people-centered development philosophy and protecting and promoting human rights through development. We also appreciate China’s contributions to the international human rights cause. We take note that terrorism, separatism and religious extremism has caused enormous damage to people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, which has seriously infringed upon human rights, including right to life, health and development. Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers. Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded. The past three consecutive years has seen not a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang and people there enjoy a stronger sense of happiness, fulfillment and security. We note with appreciation that human rights are respected and protected in China in the process of counter-terrorism and deradicalization.

    This is from UN Document “A/HRC/41/G/17”.

    • JapanStar49@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Speaking of UN documents, it doesn’t appear the conditions in such “training centers” (see p. 21, et seq.) are that good:

      https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf

      Please don’t take this to be argumentative, but I’m just trying to understand what is actually going on there. I’m aware of both UN letters (though I haven’t had the chance to read the other one attacking China).

      I saw a video describing reasoning as a social activity. Thank you in advance for helping me to dismantle the propaganda.

      • 133arc585
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        1 year ago

        I did read most of that, and it is interesting. First thing I want to address is this statement:

        In conclusion, descriptions of detentions in the VETCs in the period between 2017 and 2019 gathered by OHCHR were marked by patterns of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, other violations of the right of persons deprived of their liberty to be treated humanely and with dignity, as well as violations of the right to health.

        Yet the statement I linked to was made in 2019. So if they had been gathering data for 2 years, why would they have made the statement I linked? This confuses me. It’s not like they discovered the reality, or material conditions changed, since they made the statement; they had had years of data, supposedly. I’m going to set that aside for a moment and try to address the content of the document.

        Also, yes I agree entirely that the treatment described in that section is completely unnaceptable. It mentions literal torture methods, unnecessary physical punishment, violation of right to determine or deny medical treatment, etc. None of that is acceptable. That being said, I am curious as to how frequently this happens. Not that any amount is acceptable, but if the rate in this region of these acts is the same as elsewhere in the country, then the framing of the issue needs to change from “targeted genocide” to a critique of the system as a whole. I don’t have any data as to the occurrence rate of these acts in this region or outside of it.

        Much of the rest of the report leading up to the part you mentioned is really much less bothersome. It mentions use of the surveillance state to catch offending parties. You may think this is invasive or unacceptable but, again, this is not particular to this region and would be a critique of the whole system. There’s an attempt to criticize the use of imprisonment for punishment, which seems like a weird stance to take considering…the rest of the world.

        In all honesty, I think the more damning part of what you linked would be everything after the part you mention specifically. The remainder of the document portrays traditional “genocidal” actions. I don’t know what to do with the document since it does seem bad, but it’s such a wild about-face from the reports just a couple years earlier, by the same group no less. More from 2019:

        So unless the conditions were so perfectly hidden from many investigative groups until they suddenly weren’t, or unless the material conditions changed so much that none of the positive praise would apply anymore, I don’t know what to make of the report you’ve linked.

        • JapanStar49@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          In all honesty, I think the more damning part of what you linked would be everything after the part you mention specifically.

          I think so too. That’s what I was trying to draw attention to.

          I don’t know what to do with the document since it does seem bad

          I suspect it’s a complicated issue. Consider that there were at least two UN letters from 2019, one criticizing and one supporting. Note both of them (including yours above) were signed by members and not ratified by the entire UN or anything. Reference supporting existence

          In general, I think it’s likely that some of the critics are being disproportionately critical because it’s China, and some of the defenders are so quick to dismiss it for the same reason.

          While perhaps some of the louder US critics should think harder about mass incarceration in the US, I would suggest both countries work to treat their citizens better.

          • 133arc585
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            1 year ago

            I was interested in which countries signed which statements, so I made a list of:

            2019 States in Support
            • Algeria
            • Angola
            • Bahrain
            • Bangladesh
            • Belarus
            • the Plurinational State of Bolivia
            • Burkina Faso
            • Burundi
            • Cambodia
            • Cameroon
            • Comoros
            • the Congo
            • Cuba
            • the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
            • the Democratic Republic of the Congo
            • Djibouti
            • Egypt
            • Equatorial Guinea
            • Eritrea
            • Gabon
            • the Islamic Republic of Iran
            • Iraq
            • Kuwait
            • the Lao People’s Democratic Republic
            • Mozambique
            • Myanmar
            • Nepal
            • Nigeria
            • Oman
            • Pakistan
            • the Philippines
            • the Russian Federation
            • Saudi Arabia
            • Serbia
            • Somalia
            • South Sudan
            • Sri Lanka
            • the Sudan
            • the Syrian Arab Republic
            • Tajikistan
            • Togo
            • Turkmenistan
            • Uganda
            • the United Arab Emirates
            • Uzbekistan
            • the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
            • Yemen
            • Zambia
            • Zimbabwe
            • the State of Palestine
            2022 States in Condemnation
            • Albania
            • Australia
            • Austria
            • Belgium
            • Bosnia and Herzegovina
            • Bulgaria
            • Canada
            • Croatia
            • Denmark
            • Estonia
            • Finland
            • France
            • Germany
            • Haiti
            • Honduras
            • Iceland
            • Ireland
            • Italy
            • Japan
            • Latvia
            • Liechtenstein
            • Lithuania
            • Luxembourg
            • the Republic of the Marshall Islands
            • Monaco
            • Nauru
            • the Kingdom of the Netherlands
            • New Zealand
            • North Macedonia
            • Norway
            • Palau
            • Poland
            • Slovakia
            • Slovenia
            • Spain
            • Sweden
            • Switzerland
            • the United Kingdom
            • the United States

            This looks pretty divided along lines that we see on a lot of other ideological issues as well, but just out of curiousity I also compared this to:

            NATO Member States
            • Albania
            • Belgium
            • Bulgaria
            • Canada
            • Croatia
            • Czech Republic
            • Denmark
            • Estonia
            • France
            • Germany
            • Greece
            • Hungary
            • Iceland
            • Italy
            • Latvia
            • Lithuania
            • Luxembourg
            • Montenegro
            • Netherlands
            • North Macedonia
            • Norway
            • Poland
            • Portugal
            • Romania
            • Slovakia
            • Slovenia
            • Spain
            • Turkey
            • United Kingdom
            • United States

            It looks like not a single state switched from Praise to Condemnation, that is, there is no state on the 2022 condemnation that was also on the 2019 praise document. Moreover, not a single NATO member state was on the 2019 praise document, but several are on the 2022 condemnation.

            I think this helps reinforce your statement:

            In general, I think it’s likely that some of the critics are being disproportionately critical because it’s China, and some of the defenders are so quick to dismiss it for the same reason.

            So yeah, unfortunately I’m left to assume that both reports are probably rather partisan. That being said, the 2019 praising was backed by other, third-party investigative souces, such as the ones I linked previously.

            • JapanStar49@infosec.pub
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              1 year ago

              I wondered who was behind the report I linked. Apparently it was released by Michelle Bachelet on her final day as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Notably, the word “genocide” was not once used in the report.

              • 133arc585
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                1 year ago

                Yeah I’m not sure what to make of that. Here is her statement after she visited China, which doesn’t say much of anything. Her wikipedia page claims she didn’t even sign the report, but their linked citation doesn’t actually say that. It is interesting that Chile is not present on either the 2019 or the 2022 report, as I’d expect her opinion to be somewhat reflected/reflective there still.