People do not assume that CCP is evil. If you have literal concentration camps ("re-education) then you are evil. Simple as that. I do not even understand how is this even a discussion, and how are people so blatantly willing to defend CCP.
But the thing is they don't have literal concentration camps. For one, 50+ muslim countries testified this in the UN. An UN counterterrorism expert visited Xinjiang and wrote a favorable report.
You explicitly went to bat for the CCP regarding their treatment of Taiwan some time ago. That you are pro-CCP is fine just be transparent about it.
And yes, there are camps and yes, those camps are hurting people psychologically / physically. We’ve had several interviews with refugees who have escaped to date, as well as photos and videos of the conditions.
I don't deny there are camps. I deny there are concentration camps with the intention to murder people. Big difference.
I don't say all camps are good. I don't say nobody is being ill-treated. I'm sure there are incidents. But I deny that it's a mass concentration camp with the intention of murdering 2 million people. Big difference.
All the interviews with people who say there are concentration camps, are with Uyghur separatists who have ties with extremist members. The very same people that just a few years ago the US would have labeled as terrorists. Don't you think their answers would be biased? Look at the track record of North Korean dissidents, it's been proven again and again that they have an incentive to lie and that not everything they say can be 100% trusted. What makes you think Uyghur dissidents are different?
Heck, for years I've heard stories about Falun Gong being painted as wholly-innocent people who are wrongly prosecuted by the CCP. But now, the New York Times exposed them as spreaders of pro-Trump misinformation. This is another example that shows that people who are in conflict with the CCP, are not automatically trustworthy or honest people. Yes maybe the CCP's treatment on them is wrong, but two things can be true at the same time: CCP could be wrong to treat them like that, AND they could be untrustworthy or have a evil agenda of their own.
Even this point is discussed extensively in the video.
If you're gonna argue whether China's anti-terrorism efforts use too broad sweeps and is heavy-handed, fine, I don't disagree with that. What I do disagree with, is that it's a genocide/enslavement of 2+ M people or whatever the made-up count is today.
You mentioned Taiwan. Whatever I spoke about here on HN about Taiwan is neither in support of the mainland position on Taiwan, nor against it. I was just providing perspective so that people gain a more accurate understanding of the issue. Perhaps you think CCP is "the enemy" and their perspective is automatically invalid. No I don't agree with that.
I don't consider myself pro-CCP. You're not gonna find me in agreement with the great firewall policy for example. But that doesn't mean I need to be necessarily against everything they say/do either.
No, people who don't oppose CCP at every turn, are not pro-CCP. As I said: I'm pushing back against people who are against China for the wrong reasons.
There is no need to be pedantic about technical or legal definitions. We all know that the word 'concentration camp' is used to conjure up images of Nazis killing jews en masse. But I'm arguing they're not killing/enslaving Uyghurs en masse. I base this on my own research and sources.
If you go by the more flexible definition of 'large number of people in a small room' regardless of what actually happens to them: I can't independently verify how large rooms are but I agree that people should be treated as humanely as possible.
But in all of this, you've completely neglected the fact that China has reeducation camps (real reeducation camps, not "reeducation camps" in quotes) is because of terrorism influences from Afghanistan. If you watch the video I provided, there's a testimony that says that the US were in Afghanistan in order to make use of Uyghur extremists to destabilize China. What is China supposed to do, do nothing and let people continue to walk around with bombs and machetes? China isn't doing all this just for fun, terrorism is a real problem that has no good solution without collateral damage.
> We all know that the word 'concentration camp' is used to conjure up images of Nazis killing jews en masse.
There's a really important point here about holocaust denial. We need to make sure that people understand some of the camps were extermination camps, and that some of the camps were work camps. This is because anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists will point to the work camps and say "See? No evidence of people being killed in this camp. That 6 million number doesn't make any sense."
Concentrations camps aren't just about mass murder. They're a human rights violation and we rightly draw attention to this by using the correct terms.
Some people go to prison for being extremists. Some people go to mandatory reeducation for being extremists. Some people are wrongly convicted, with the prosecutor not having done its job well, and that's wrong. But you can't compare mandatory forced reeducation (like a super-boarding school for adults), and instances of lazy prosecutors, to concentration camps; that's a totally different level of crime that's not even in the same ballpark.
You just conjured up the word "holocaust denial". Not sure whether you are implying I am like a holocaust denier. But don't you think that such a serious accusation, requires serious evidence? So far I haven't seen you addressing any of the actual content that my sources discuss.
Again, if you argue whether people should be treated as humanely as possible, then I agree. But you can't brush terrorism and the US involvement in Afghanistan, under a carpet and pretend like they're not relevant and like they're wholly-independent issues. Again: what else is China supposed to do? It's easy to say "choice x is bad" without considering whether there are better choices. Has anybody found a better solution to terrorism? Even France is now talking about things very similar to Chinese reeducation camps.
Do you also denounce the US war on terror as an equally, if not bigger human rights violation? Do you believe the US deserves the same treatment as the one you think China should receive? If you do then I'll believe you are arguing in good faith, because selectively enforcing human rights is how it is weaponized nowadays.
> You're wrong, there are, and this is well established.
You're wrong, you conveniently refuse to acknowledge the UN visit which said otherwise, and the muslim countries who testified otherwise. You conveniently ignore addressing the many other sources I cite that indicate otherwise. You are closing your eyes and supporting a false atrocity.
> Here's what China says is extremist:
I literally said that cases of wrong conviction exist and that I condemn wrong convictions. I literally said that I don't agree with their way of using too broad strokes. In your zeal to see nazis everywhere, you completely ignore everything I said that indicates otherwise.
While spending so much time accusing me, you still refuse to condemn the US war on terror and literal concentration camps at the US border. Now why's that?
You can claim that you are not pro-CCCP, but when you reject the clear evidence provided by numerous well respected an neutral news organizations that hundreds of thousands of Muslims are being locked up in camps without committing a crime and without a trial, simply because thegrayzone.com calls it U.S. "propaganda", you are being pro-CCCP in your actions, regardless of what you proclaim.
You need to understand,the people in German concentration camps were accused of betraying the German state, supporting terrorism, or hurting Germany and its people. The German government did not say "we are taking all the Jews and gassing them", they said they were taking criminals, traitors, and their sympathizers, and sending them to re-education camps where we will use labor to re-educate them.
> During 1933-34 some 100 concentration camps existed throughout Germany, and more than 100,000 detainees went through them. The purpose of the camps was correctional because detainees of "Aryan blood" were to be "re-educated" by means of violence and hard discipline, slave labor and propaganda in order to make them give up earlier ideas and beliefs and merge into the conformist “Volksgemeinschaft” or "people's community," which the Nazis proclaimed.
It was not until later that the extermination was really ramped up, and it was not until after the war that the full scope of the genocide was revealed. And as another commenter pointed out, there actually were multiple different types of camps, some which were labor camps (such as auschwitz), and some which were extermination camps (such as sobibor).
Now, you claim to be arguing that the re-education camps are not concentration camps, but the plain words of your argument make it clear that you agree that the re-education camps indeed fit the definition of a concentration camp. Instead, you seem to mainly be arguing that concentration camps are not necessarily so bad, since they don't involve literally mass murdering Muslims, and that they are actually necessary (??), so you prefer not to call them concentration camps since it has bad associations.
But understand that yes, it is entirely appropriate to compare the Chinese concentration camps to the Nazi ones, because just on the basis of the description you gave of the Chinese concentration camps, they match the description of the camps as understood by the German public at the time, and some prisoners actually were treated in that way.
> when you reject the clear evidence provided by numerous well respected an neutral news organizations that hundreds of thousands of Muslims are being locked up in camps without committing a crime and without a trial, simply because
"well-respected and neutral news organizations"? Adrien Zenz publically admitted that the BBC paid him to write a bad report about Uyghurs! Again, watch the video and see the evidence.
Why do you glance over the fact that the UN, another well-respected organization, visited and reported favorably?
I won't let you define who I am. I have a say in that. Seems to me more like you're so fanatically anti-China that you can't help but label everyone who's not as zealous, as "pro-CCP". This is a false dichotomy.
No, I don't support literal concentration camps. No I'm not arguing that actual concentration camps shouldn't be called as such because that sounds bad. I'm arguing that the standard for evidence should be very high because it's a very serious accusation, and that this standard hasn't been met! Until the evidence is clear, it's irresponsible to assume there are concentration camps.
You keep trying to link me back to nazis and keep painting me as a concentration camp supporter, but you keep avoiding 60% of the arguments I put forth (where I showed ahain and again how problematic your sources are), focussing instead on a few strawmans.
Do you think my concerns are like pro-Nazi Germans worried about their image? Don't you remember Iraq and the non-existant WMDs? The result of that is a literal genocide by the hands of the US and its allies! Weapons manufacturers are cooking up consent for a war with China. They've deceived us again and again; see earlier instances: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/06/lie-after-lie-what-colin... and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
How long will you let yourself and your zeal to see nazis everywhere, to be used to cause actual atrocities?
So I ask you again: do you denounce the US war on terror? Do you denounce the verifiable concentration camps at the US border? Are you really arguing in good faith?
No, words have meaning, you don't get to turn the meanings to suit whatever you wish it is just because you don't want to accept another reality.
Going with that sort of attitude I can accuse you of supporting literal genocide and concentration camps, because you refuse to denounce the war on terror and the camps at the border.
