Biden team faced "tirade" at meeting with Chinese over America's poor human rights record in "Diplomatic humiliation"

[Silvanus]

The official party line from leaked documents..? Your idea is that the party's presumably secret instructions to its agents in Xinjiang are also propaganda meant for wide consumption? I'm pretty sure I'm doing the opposite of what you're alleging: I'm taking New York Times anti-Chinese propaganda at face value. What they're describing is a lot of things, but it is not genocide.

The idea that what's outlined in those documents merely constitutes "deradicalisation" is the party line. A good chunk of that document is specifically about how to sell the camps to people asking questions, like the victims' children, and includes guidelines for how to blackmail the kids into good behaviour by hanging their parents' fates over their heads. So yes, it uses the proscribed language.

Testimony that says what, exactly? How does this testimony contradict?

There's the forced sterilisation which has already been mentioned. There's the system of systematic rape used as punishment. There's the extensive physical torture, including use of electric sticks to beat peoples' genitals.

I'd invite you to compare the numbers of the Uygur population with the numbers of incarcerated. You may find that while both are large numbers, they are not the same. Indeed, the NYT article outlines the leaked documents' instructions on answering various questions from Uygur people about the status of their family members rather than arresting them.

"They haven't interned literally everybody so it's not ethnic cleansing".

From what I've gathered, fitting IUDs is also what China does to Han women that have exceeded its two or one child policy. Is China genociding Han Chinese as well? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that form is not the same thing as essence.

Yeah, because that's the same thing as targeting sterilisation (as well as forced abortions) on an ethnic minority group on a mass-scale, as attested by numerous survivors and a former camp instructor.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The idea that what's outlined in those documents merely constitutes "deradicalisation" is the party line. A good chunk of that document is specifically about how to sell the camps to people asking questions, like the victims' children, and includes guidelines for how to blackmail the kids into good behaviour by hanging their parents' fates over their heads. So yes, it uses the proscribed language.

This is what the Times had to say about the context:

The ideas driving the mass detentions can be traced back to Xi Jinping’s first and only visit to Xinjiang as China’s leader, a tour shadowed by violence.

In 2014, little more than a year after becoming president, he spent four days in the region, and on the last day of the trip, two Uighur militants staged a suicide bombing outside a train station in Urumqi that injured nearly 80 people, one fatally.

Weeks earlier, militants with knives had gone on a rampage at another railway station, in southwest China, killing 31 people and injuring more than 140. And less than a month after Mr. Xi’s visit, assailants tossed explosives into a vegetable market in Urumqi, wounding 94 people and killing at least 39.

Against this backdrop of bloodshed, Mr. Xi delivered a series of secret speeches setting the hard-line course that culminated in the security offensive now underway in Xinjiang. While state media have alluded to these speeches, none were made public.

So the measures taken in Xinjiang are literally a(n over)reaction to terrorism precipitated by the United States destabilizing the Middle East.

And then there are Xi's internal party instructions, which say astonishingly little about Uyghur culture and a lot about religious extremism.

Mr. Xi displayed a fixation with the issue that seemed to go well beyond his public remarks on the subject. He likened Islamic extremism alternately to a virus-like contagion and a dangerously addictive drug, and declared that addressing it would require “a period of painful, interventionary treatment.”


“The psychological impact of extremist religious thought on people must never be underestimated,” Mr. Xi told officials in Urumqi on April 30, 2014, the final day of his trip to Xinjiang. “People who are captured by religious extremism — male or female, old or young — have their consciences destroyed, lose their humanity and murder without blinking an eye.”

In another speech, at the leadership conclave in Beijing a month later, he warned of “the toxicity of religious extremism.”

“As soon as you believe in it,” he said, “it’s like taking a drug, and you lose your sense, go crazy and will do anything.”

In several surprising passages, given the crackdown that followed, Mr. Xi also told officials to not discriminate against Uighurs and to respect their right to worship. He warned against overreacting to natural friction between Uighurs and Han Chinese, the nation’s dominant ethnic group, and rejected proposals to try to eliminate Islam entirely in China.

This doesn't sound like an attempt to eliminate Uyghur culture. And keep in mind that the question I was asked was literally whether the words of the Chinese government were good enough to convince me that there is an attempt to destroy Uyghur culture. The words of the government absolutely are not, and it's utterly weird that anyone would expect them to be.

"They haven't interned literally everybody so it's not ethnic cleansing".

This is goal post moving. You said every member. It's not every member. It's not most. It's not even most in China or in Xinjiang. The fact that you feel the need to exaggerate what China is doing in order to make your point suggests that your point isn't very good.

Yeah, because that's the same thing as targeting sterilisation (as well as forced abortions) on an ethnic minority group on a mass-scale, as attested by numerous survivors and a former camp instructor.

The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, the AP found, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.

Sounds like a gruesome way to do population control and, assuming they don't treat Han violators in the same way, it is also an instance of medical racism and other assorted crimes. But it falls short of an attempt to wipe out a culture.

Even so, Mr. Xi warned that the violence was spilling from Xinjiang into other parts of China and could taint the party’s image of strength. Unless the threat was extinguished, Mr. Xi told the leadership conference, “social stability will suffer shocks, the general unity of people of every ethnicity will be damaged, and the broad outlook for reform, development and stability will be affected.”

Setting aside diplomatic niceties, he traced the origins of Islamic extremism in Xinjiang to the Middle East, and warned that turmoil in Syria and Afghanistan would magnify the risks for China. Uighurs had traveled to both countries, he said, and could return to China as seasoned fighters seeking an independent homeland, which they called East Turkestan.

“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,” Mr. Xi said. “East Turkestan’s terrorists who have received real-war training in Syria and Afghanistan could at any time launch terrorist attacks in Xinjiang.”

This is why I compare it to Japanese internment rather than native reeducation: it appears to be motivated by genuine alarm over an actual security threat, and while threats of Japanese American espionage were unfounded and racist, they were at least notionally based on a security concern quite unlike native reeducation. Japanese internment was an awful overreaction to the vague notion of potential espionage, and the measures taken in Xinjiang appear to be an awful overreaction to actual terrorist attacks. Maybe the "War on Terror" as a whole makes the best comparison, then. As I noted before, the United States reaction to radical Islamic terrorism is random murder by drone bombing. And invading countries, toppling their governments, and occupying them beyond the wishes of the resulting governments that the United States set up. And torturing people in prison. And incarcerating whistleblowers. This is the appropriate comparison, as it is the United States response to what is the same apparent problem. And it looks like the United States does less forced labor and more murder. So should you really be telling me that China is morally worse? Seems a stretch.

 

[Silvanus]

This is what the Times had to say about the context

So the measures taken in Xinjiang are literally a(n over)reaction to terrorism precipitated by the United States destabilizing the Middle East.

And then there are Xi's internal party instructions, which say astonishingly little about Uyghur culture and a lot about religious extremism.

Yes, euphemisms and stand-in phrases tend to be used for measures of this extreme nature. You can tell it's window-dressing by the fact that the measures don't just apply to people guilty of offences.

This is goal post moving. You said every member. It's not every member. It's not most. It's not even most in China or in Xinjiang. The fact that you feel the need to exaggerate what China is doing in order to make your point suggests that your point isn't very good.

I did not mean that every member is interned, as I kind of thought that would be self-evident. I said it's targeting the entirety of the group.

Which it is. One does not need to be charged with anything to be interned; one's ethnicity or religion gets someone interned. What is that, exactly, except targeting the group as a whole?

Sounds like a gruesome way to do population control and, assuming they don't treat Han violators in the same way, it is also an instance of medical racism and other assorted crimes. But it falls short of an attempt to wipe out a culture.

The rest of the article makes very clear that the practice isn't limited to people violating the two-child policy.

The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang.

[...]

Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone — compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show.

This is obviously not explained by merely enforcing the two-child policy. Bringing about a massive drop in the birthrate, specifically and solely for a single ethnic group, is clearly targeted.

So should you really be telling me that China is morally worse? Seems a stretch.

I've made clear twice now that I don't give a toss about who wins and loses in some scoreboard. It's not a race. All I'm after is an end to the downplaying and dismissing of the severity of what's happening.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

The woman you're referring to was referred to the doctor with heavy menstrual cramps. He suggested surgery right away, and repeatedly to her, but attempted to treat it with a lesser procedure that she had already experienced prior in her life. She continued to see him, as she was still having issues, and they scheduled the surgery. She signed a consent form that she says she wasn't allowed to read. The procedure didn't happen that day due to covid results, but it also didn't happen any day after that. She was encouraged to have the procedure by multiple people, including the doctor. Before being deported, she was taken aside, and told she should have the procedure before being sent out of the country, and she declined.

To me, all of that sounds like the doctor was trying to treat her ailments. Hysterectomies aren't that extreme, something like 1/3rd of all women in the US have one during their life. It's a very common procedure for people with exactly the symptoms she expressed. She had a month of consistent pain and bleeding that she blames on malpractice, but it also could have been worsening symptoms that justified surgery. She was encouraged to have the procedure by ICE and medical professionals, and was clearly allowed to say no. She felt she wasn't allowed to read the consent form she signed, and perhaps they didn't give her full opportunity for proper consent, but there's nothing showing that the doctor knew she wasn't consenting seeing as she signed the form, and after that incident she told them she didn't want that and they never rescheduled the procedure. She feels she was deported for talking to someone about the pressure to have a hysterectomy, but she was in ICE custody, she was going to be deported regardless. And in that context, someone telling her to have the procedure done before deportation sounds a lot more like they were advocating for her, trying to hold off deportation long enough to get a necessary procedure done while they could still provide it for her, rather than toss a sick woman over the border and wash their hands of it.

If this was the least evidence of forced hysterectomies, if she was among many women who had hysterectomies against their will, I would not offer so generous an interpretation, and believe she was being mistreated. But that's the most evidence of it happening. A woman who was repeatedly encouraged to have a procedure that is a common treatment for symptoms she genuinely had, and who was repeatedly allowed to decline, is the strongest evidence available that anyone was forced to have a hysterectomy. There is no evidence in that filing of a single person being forced to have a hysterectomy, and the closest it gets is a woman who probably should have had a hysterectomy and didn't.

I read it plenty. It's not a clear list of evidence of forced hysterectomies. It doesn't even claim to be that. Why are you sticking to the click-bait headline version of events when the truth, presented by victims legal advocates, is place in your hands?

Because the evidence of truth in my hands is she didn't know she was having one until she was in the operating room, and forced sterilization is literally the definition of genocide.

In a country with a century long history of forcibly sterilizing brown people. There's nothing special about China.

 

[Revnak]

Because the evidence of truth in my hands is she didn't know she was having one until she was in the operating room, and forced sterilization is literally the definition of genocide.

In a country with a century long history of forcibly sterilizing brown people. There's nothing special about China.

We can’t condemn an action until enough time has passed that it’s not worth caring about.

 

[Revnak]

Screw it, let’s game this out. Assume US and Chinese relations sour. Let’s assume the US wins this great struggle too, somehow, and without a nuclear exchange. So the CCP falls apart and is replaced with several more US friendly puppets. Looking at the history of post-Soviet Central Asia, what do you think is gonna happen to Xianjiang? We’ll setup a vaguely Islamist government of East Turkestan dedicated to resource extraction and compliance. Why do I say this? Well, why the fuck’s it called East Turkestan? What the fuck do you think happened to the other Turkestan?

 

[tstorm823]

Because the evidence of truth in my hands is she didn't know she was having one until she was in the operating room, and forced sterilization is literally the definition of genocide.

She wasn't in the operating room. It never says she was in the operating room. You think a hospital in 2020 tested someone for covid, then took them into the operating room to wait for the results? Does that actually make sense to you?

 

[crimson5pheonix]

She wasn't in the operating room. It never says she was in the operating room. You think a hospital in 2020 tested someone for covid, then took them into the operating room to wait for the results? Does that actually make sense to you?

After Ms. Floriano Navarro was fully prepared for surgery, Ms. Vaughn came in the room and told her that Respondent Amin was actually going to perform a hysterectomy, which would remove her womb. This was the first time any person had mentioned a hysterectomy to Ms. Floriano Navarro

 

[tstorm823]

At the hospital, a nurse prepped Ms. Floriano Navarro for the surgery, conducted a COVID-19 test, and made her sign a consent form without letting her read it. After Ms. Floriano Navarro was fully prepared for surgery, Ms. Vaughn came in the room and told her that Respondent Amin was actually going to perform a hysterectomy, which would remove her womb. This was the first time any person had mentioned a hysterectomy to Ms. Floriano Navarro.

The nurse was preparing her for surgery, not in the operating room. You're suggesting they took her to the operating room, where a nurse prepped her in place, had her sign a consent form in the operating room, after which ICE personnel came into her operating room to explain what the procedure was. I guess you're interpreting "fully prepared for surgery" as literally lying on the table, but if you actually consider the context, they were clearly in a private room, and "fully prepared" means "ready to be taken to the operating room".

Instead of fantasizing about how gruesome and abusive it could be given the terms used to describe it, why don't you relate the details to your own experiences with doctors or hospitals, and then I'm confident you can formulate a very reasonable picture here.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

"fully prepared" means "ready to be taken to the operating room".

I like that you have to make this assumption, that you don't even know to be true and doesn't follow what "prepped for surgery" means, to split a hair about whether or not they were about to sterilize her forcibly.

You're wrong, get over it. Like it's not hard, you can just be wrong and move on with it, preferably with an apology. You can just admit to me and everyone else that you didn't read your own source and that you don't even have the faintest clue what you're talking about.

 

[tstorm823]

I like that you have to make this assumption, that you don't even know to be true and doesn't follow what "prepped for surgery" means, to split a hair about whether or not they were about to sterilize her forcibly.

You're wrong, get over it. Like it's not hard, you can just be wrong and move on with it, preferably with an apology. You can just admit to me and everyone else that you didn't read your own source and that you don't even have the faintest clue what you're talking about.

You're backed into a corner and demanding an apology? Bold move.

You want to not split any hairs? She wasn't forcibly sterilized, you have no evidence of anyone being forcibly sterilized in ICE custody. Not a single person. We went down this one person's situation because you are desperately clinging to the last tiny suggestion that anything resembling forced sterilization ever happened, and the one anecdote that you're holding onto to support your claim, you can't even read properly. You invented the idea that they were in an operating room yourself. The document did not tell you that was where they were. It doesn't make any sense in context that they'd be in an operating room. You just failed reading comprehension. And now you have nothing.

I do not desire nor expect any apologies from you. I only hope you do a little better arguing next time. This was one of the weakest defenses I've ever seen.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

You're backed into a corner and demanding an apology? Bold move.

I'm not the one looking through a litigation of forced hysterectomies to find out how it's not what it says it is. I'm not the one reading sentences that literally say they were forcing a hysterectomy on a person and coming away with "there's no evidence of forced hysterectomies". I'm not the one who's drinking Fox news koolaid.

You are, however, the one who looks at western imperialism and says "nah bro, you seen China?" right at the face of someone who's been a victim of western imperialism.

So no, rather than looking at this as mudslinging, I'm going to say this is going to look from the outside pretty fucking awful for you, because you're going to come away looking like you support genocide, I'll happily take the position opposite that. I will proudly say that doctor was attempting genocide and needs to be punished for it.

 

[tstorm823]

I'm going to say this is going to look from the outside pretty fucking awful for you, because you're going to come away looking like you support genocide, I'll happily take the position opposite that. I will proudly say that doctor was attempting genocide and needs to be punished for it.

Accusing me of drinking the koolaid because I read a direct source instead of the news spin is silly, but the quoted section is even more shocking. You're taking a position based on what you think it looks like to others? That's it? Your motivation is just to look good? Are you afraid that people will think you support genocide? Have you considered stating things because you believe them, not based on what you imagine has better optics? I'm not afraid of people thinking I support genocide because I said there's no evidence of it when there's no evidence of it. I don't support genocide. That doesn't change what is the truth.

It's genuinely shocking that you would call for someone you've never met to be punished for crimes you can't provide evidence for because you think it makes you look better than me. Shocking, and sad.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Accusing me of drinking the koolaid because I read a direct source instead of the news spin is silly, but the quoted section is even more shocking. You're taking a position based on what you think it looks like to others? That's it? Your motivation is just to look good? Are you afraid that people will think you support genocide? Have you considered stating things because you believe them, not based on what you imagine has better optics? I'm not afraid of people thinking I support genocide because I said there's no evidence of it when there's no evidence of it. I don't support genocide. That doesn't change what is the truth.

It's genuinely shocking that you would call for someone you've never met to be punished for crimes you can't provide evidence for because you think it makes you look better than me. Shocking, and sad.

Now that is definitely you saying you've run out. No, you silly person, I've taken the position that genocide is bad and you're taking the position of "well ackshually", and if you're proud of that position, more power to you. I'm also just saying you're going to be pretty alone in defending forced sterilizations when the primary source you quoted is a lawsuit alleging (pretty well) forced sterilizations. I've definitely said stuff that's made me no friends before, but also I don't takes stands like "doctors who force sterilizations are good, actually", and I'm just wondering how proud you are of that position.

 

[tstorm823]

Now that is definitely you saying you've run out. No, you silly person, I've taken the position that genocide is bad and you're taking the position of "well ackshually", and if you're proud of that position, more power to you. I'm also just saying you're going to be pretty alone in defending forced sterilizations when the primary source you quoted is a lawsuit alleging (pretty well) forced sterilizations. I've definitely said stuff that's made me no friends before, but also I don't takes stands like "doctors who force sterilizations are good, actually", and I'm just wondering how proud you are of that position.

Genocide is bad. I haven't defended forced sterilizations. There is no moral goodness in taking a stance based on falsehoods. If the genocides you oppose don't actually exist, you're not opposing genocide. Doctors who force sterilizations are bad actually, but you still have no good reason to believe that happened in this case. So you're not opposing genocide. You're play-acting opposing genocide. I don't know if it even counts as taking a position when you immediately make a mockery of it.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Genocide is bad. I haven't defended forced sterilizations. There is no moral goodness in taking a stance based on falsehoods. If the genocides you oppose don't actually exist, you're not opposing genocide. Doctors who force sterilizations are bad actually, but you still have no good reason to believe that happened in this case. So you're not opposing genocide. You're play-acting opposing genocide. I don't know if it even counts as taking a position when you immediately make a mockery of it.

Literally already been quoted at you that the doctor was doing so, so you're big on contradicting yourself.

 

[tstorm823]

Literally already been quoted at you that the doctor was doing so, so you're big on contradicting yourself.

Name one person he forcibly sterilized.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Name one person he forcibly sterilized.

You have a list, along with a lot of generic "and in similar situations". In a literal concentration camp. Literally on US soil.

 

[Seanchaidh]

This is obviously not explained by merely enforcing the two-child policy. Bringing about a massive drop in the birthrate, specifically and solely for a single ethnic group, is clearly targeted.

What makes it obvious? The Uyghurs were exempt from the policy and now aren't. What are the base rates?

I did not mean that every member is interned, as I kind of thought that would be self-evident. I said it's targeting the entirety of the group.

Which it is. One does not need to be charged with anything to be interned; one's ethnicity or religion gets someone interned.

Does it actually, by itself? What if China's notorious censorship and control over the internet is related in the straightforward way that they repeatedly say it is in private, and it does actually matter whether individuals have watched an ISIS video or ETIM propaganda or whatever? Does that not seem plausible?

Notably, by the standard you're operating from here, the United States is genociding its black population. One does not need to be charged with anything to be killed; one's skin color gets someone killed.

I've made clear twice now that I don't give a toss about who wins and loses in some scoreboard. It's not a race. All I'm after is an end to the downplaying and dismissing of the severity of what's happening.

To what end, even assuming you're correct?

 

[tstorm823]

You have a list, along with a lot of generic "and in similar situations". In a literal concentration camp. Literally on US soil.

I have a list of women who weren't forcibly sterilized, none of them got hysterectomies at all. Some of them had a breakdown in communication with the doctor that might be suspicious if anyone had received an unnecessary hysterectomy, and some have seemingly legitimate grievances about the care they received. That doctor did not sterilize anyone on the list of people filing against him. You're just wrong.