China appears to be expanding its network of secret detention centers in Xinjiang, where predominantly Muslim minorities are targeted in a forced assimilation campaign, and more of the facilities resemble prisons, an Australian think tank has found. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute used satellite images and official construction tender documents to map more than 380 suspected detention facilities in the far northwestern region, highlighting internment camps, detention centers and prisons that have been newly built or expanded since 2017.
The report builds on evidence that China has made a policy shift from detaining Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities in makeshift public buildings to constructing permanent mass detention facilities.
This is despite Chinese state news agency Xinhua reporting late last year that "trainees" attending "vocational education and training centers" meant to deradicalize them had "all graduated."
Regional government chairman Shohrat Zakir was quoted as saying that foreign media reports of 1 million or 2 million people attending these centers were fabricated, though he would not provide any figures.
Once upon a time we labelled this nonsense 'corporate fascism'. Though when Neo-Marxist populists in Latin America and Africa do similar, what do we call it?
Very sad really. It is an official signal that Americans can no longer compete. In addition to the usual racist, tribal nonsense that should ideally continue to recede in the 21st century, not grow.
also wtf? where are all the world leaders and human rights organizations?
Have you checked Epstein's island? Or Guantánamo?
no, but what a mess (epstein debacle)
back to china/ccp
one of the issues/features that authoritarian governments have is once installed it's practically impossible to uninstall
it is politics or a political system as a fundamental religion (or belief system)
unquestionable faith is forcefully indoctrinated from birth, party worship if you will
i'm not totally surprised that they're running a horrific re-education prison camp program, that part is pretty predictable (because history)
it's hard for me to think of or point out any human rights violation that rivals this scale happening today
i am blown away that world leaders, intellectuals, journalists, news services, etc. aren't plastering this as a headline everyday
and another scary observation is that we have people ( who have been converted/indoctrinated) to think that this is the path other countries should take politically
even when we have overwhelming historical evidence and people who have fled this evil tell first hand accounts, the belief in this insanity is literally unshakable
we should be open to rational dialog and establishing some sort of framework to promote human flourishing minus the crusade
A sign of hope for accountability emerged this month after two Myanmar soldiers finally admitted their crimes.
Sept. 17, 2020, 3:34 PM EDT
By Rayhan Asat, president of the American Turkic Lawyers Association
Over the past several years, the Chinese government has locked up more than a million Uighurs, including model citizens like my 34-year-old brother Ekpar Asat. A philanthropist and founder of a social media platform catering to the Uighur community known as Bagdax, he came to the United States in 2016 to participate in an exchange program sponsored by the State Department, one from which many world leaders and Chinese citizens of the majority Han ethnicity have benefited for decades. Within weeks of returning from the United States to Xinjiang in western China, he disappeared into the shadows of the internment camps.
After years of this unconscionable treatment, a sign of hope for accountability emerged this month, somewhat ironically in the form of revelations of atrocities committed against another ethnic Muslim minority in Asia, the Rohingya of Myanmar.
Authoritarian governments often emulate one another; one can find many similar practices between Myanmar and China. Both governments target and persecute ethnic minorities that do not conform to their artificial ideals. Both vehemently denythe allegations while deploying similar strategies and forms of punishment. Both authorities label their genocidal campaigns internal security matters and reject public criticism from democratic countries. Both governments have justified their actions by claiming that the ethnic minorities are extremists, legitimizing ruthless human rights violations under the guise of counterterrorism.
Chairman Mao is the gold standard for mass murder to be sure, to be fair he had more to work with than Stalin. Stalin tried very hard though to keep up.
Not so much Mao as the Gang of Four. But that's what happens when you have an aging leader who can be manipulated.
BBC journalist Andrew Marr confronted the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, during a television interview Sunday over viral drone footage that appears to show the Communist government detaining hundreds of blindfolded and shaven prisoners kneeling in front of a train station in Xinjiang, China. The footage, originally released late last year, has circulated widely online in light of increased information about Chinaâs treatment of the Uyghur minority population, over a million of whom have reportedly been subjected to forced âre-educationâ or detention camps, and in some instances forced sterilization, according to The Associated Press.
The Chinese ambassador, once again, deflects â this time, by bashing western intelligence and claiming they have lobbied false accusations against China.
Counting party members as well as their families, the ban could technically bar travel to the United States for as many as 270 million people, according to one internal administration estimate.
âThe overwhelming majority of C.C.P. members have no involvement or input into Beijingâs policymaking, so going after the entire party membership is like China sanctioning all Republicans because of frustrations with Trump,â said Jude Blanchette, a China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. âSuch a move would inflame public opinion in China, as this would target nearly 10 percent of the entire Chinese population and would do so based on blanket assertions of guilt.â
Today, there is a lot of talk about a âNew Cold Warâ between China and the United States: a Cold War between authoritarianism and liberal democracy. But we all know that China did not become authoritarian just two years ago. The whole establishment of the United States has been very happy about Chinese authoritarianism for a long time.
Just two weeks after the June 4, 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, on June 20, President George H. W. Bush wrote a secret letter to Deng Xiaoping. The letter said that the United States was not so mad about the Communist Party sending the army to shoot its people. Bush told Deng that the United States was only a two-hundred-years-young country, and China was a five-thousand-years-old country with great contributions to world civilization, so the Chinese leaders were wise and knew what was best for the Chinese people. Bush assured Deng that Tiananmen was not going to stand in the way of the great commercial relationship between the United States and China. If there were an ideology-based Cold War between the United States and China, it should have started thirty years ago. (...)
