> For a while in the late 20th century, it felt like these sorts of actions were beyond realpolitik and there would be true international condemnation and shame. I wish those days were still with us.

It's personally been very eye-opening for me over the past decade to see just how much the size of a country's economy can wielded as club to silence international opposition and how easily the international community goes along with it. I was always aware intellectually that the world revolves around economics/business/trade interests, but seeing so many otherwise liberal/progressive countries remain conspicuously silent in so many areas where retaliation from Beijing is virtually assured has really been both disappointing and sort of amazing to watch at the same time.

> It's personally been very eye-opening for me over the past decade to see just how much the size of a country's economy can wielded as club to silence international opposition and how easily the international community goes along with it

That's the big shift occurring since the end of WWII. Countries lost power and influence to businesses & companies, every decade it's been more and more visible until the situation of today.

But it's not Chinese companies that go around making these threats -- it's the Chinese government with their ability to control those companies or cut off access to them. Same old monopoly on violence that's doing this, just wielded against your trading partners rather than you directly.

> But it's not Chinese companies that go around making these threats -- it's the Chinese government with their ability to control those companies or cut off access to them

In China, there's not much difference between the big companies and the government anyway.

The point is that refusing to trade with someone because they said something you don't like is not a good way to make money, and as such, one way or another, companies wouldn't take such measures were it not for the government's influence, regardless of the precise means of operation of that influence. If it were like you say, we'd see the influence of the companies undoing such government policies so that they can be unrestricted in their trade and make more money. That's not what we see. (Or likely we see it in other areas, but it's clear which way the influence runs in this one.)

> It's personally been very eye-opening for me over the past decade to see just how much the size of a country's economy can wielded as club to silence international opposition and how easily the international community goes along with it.

Just the last decade? The United States has been doing this to other countries for the last century or more.

The British Empire did it for hunreds of years before that.

International politics has always been like this though, powerful countries get to do what they want. Maybe the main reason it's eye-opening for you is because now it's done by a government you do not approve of?

Just as with decisions in China, nothing is truly inevitable here either.

Try /r/LateStageCapitalism/

Just the last decade? Are you American?

It is right to reject that conclusion I drew. I struggled with that part (even whether I should call it "more likely" rather than "inevitable") when I wrote the piece. And after all, it is by rejecting the conclusion real progress can be made. I was just more pessimistic and thought that things were unfolding rather than being decided, perhaps.

I'm glad you liked the post.

I must say that I think you are correct in this being the "glide path", the most likely result of inaction. The moralistic idealist in me just refuses to believe we are trapped by destiny. By writing this article you have done something, and more than most, and I commend you for that. In fact, I think I'll be writing my representatives to ask them what they are doing to investigate the situation. It's a small thing, but at least it's something. Again, thank you.

I also really enjoyed your post. However, I'm completely uninformed about the mass internment of Uyghurs in China, and think that it would have been well-served by a link to some sort of summary of the issue.

If I am understanding your argument correctly, it is that the wave of highly publicized acts of terrorism in the early 2000s, combined with cultural isolation between Han Chinese and Uyghurs, led to the mass internment program?

A short article I read on the issue[0] quotes David Kaplan as saying, “The repression of the Turkic Uyghur Muslim community in western China…is a key part of Beijing’s new imperial policy,” and that the Belt and Road Initiative “requires the complete subjugation of the Uyghur population”. (Sadly, I don't know what the Belt and Road Initiative is, either.)

Is this also consistent with your views?

[0]: https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/?p=37293

The Belt and Road Initiative is a massive infrastructure project to expand trade routes. One of the planned routes stretches through Xinjiang all the way to Europe.

If you buy into the view that all Uyghurs are potential terrorists, then having an important trade route go directly through their territory would certainly make it into a juicy target for terrorist attacks. That said, even then there's no need to depopulate the entire province, which is almost as large as Alaska (though much of it is desert). Security corridors a few kilometers wide should be enough for even the most paranoid.

I don't think there's a fully rational explanation of the treatment that Uyghurs receive in terms of some kind of objective the Chinese government wants to achieve. My personal best guess is that someone high up in the hierarchy is on a power trip and the rest of the leadership doesn't care enough to stop them.

The purpose is making humans superflous, stripping them of all meaningful agency. Yes, it's not "rational" in that it requires active sickness on part of some, and at least lack of spine in others - it is at home in the realm of psychopathology and diseases rather than the realm of ideas or undertakings - but that doesn't mean it's all just random, either.

> While the separation of inmates into categories was merely a tactical-organisatory measure for the the purpose of administration of the camps, the arbitrariness of committal demonstrates the essential principle of the institution as such. The existance of a political opposition is just a pretext for the concentration camp system, and its purpose is not achieved when the population more or less voluntarily conforms as consequence of the most monstrous deterrence, that is, to give up its political rights. The arbitrariness has the purpose to deprive those under the totalitarian regime of all their rights as citizens, which finally become as outlawed [vogelfrei] in their own country as otherwise only the stateless and homeless. The deprivation of humans of their rights, the killing of the juridical person in them is just a precondition of their being totally controlled, for which even voluntary agreement is a hindrance [0]. And this is not just the case for special categories of criminals, political enemies, Jews, on which it was tested first, but for every citizen of a totalitarian country.

> [0] [Related to that is the fact that all propaganda and ["Weltanschauungslehre"] was expressly forbidden in the camps. (also see Himmler, "Wesen und Aufgabe der SS und der Polizei"). And together with this in turn it has to be considered that that teaching and propaganda was also not allowed for the guarding elite formations; their Weltanschauung was not to be "teached", but "exercized" (see Robert Ley)]

-- Hannah Arendt

And hey, everybody in a (totalitarian) hierarchy is on a power trip. Even shining boots at low ranks with no intent to rise is still more being part of that power trip than not. I think being powerful (in the alienated, destructive sense of the word) and "just following orders" (or "just doing business") are all great ways for people to avoid actually living and facing themselves, they're different sides of the same coin.

> people who should be able to say "we've seen this script before, and I don't like where it is going."

But that presupposes they have seen it before. Many things are censored in China. For example the 4th of June, 1989 is censored because that's when the Tiananmen Square protest and subsequent massacre occurred:

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-tiananmen-square-2014-...

You can't learn from history if you don't have the opportunity to learn the history in the first place.

Low expectations, soft bigotry. The elites who are calling these shots have every opportunity to educate themselves, even regarding 6/4, but certainly with regard to the rest of human history. Many studied in the West, where the awful lessons of Western history take a more central role in the conversation. No pass, no pardon, no excuse.

I have high expectations for China. China is failing to meet them. America doesn't meet other of my expectations.

Censorship is not an excuse for their behavior. It's a further criticism of the Chinese state. The suppression of ideas and history is something which makes outcomes like these more likely.

"I have high expectations for China."

Why? Besides Tiananmen, China has the same government and leadership culture that perpetrated the Cultural Revolution. Going back slightly further to the 1800s, the Taiping Rebellion killed 20-70 million people in China, humanity's bloodiest rebellion/Civil War. Chinese culture has a looooong history of violent repression of internal dissent IMO....

You seem to be misunderstanding the usage of the word "expectation" in this context. I want China to meet a higher standard of behavior. China is failing to meet that standard.

Sure, we all wish humanity would "do better".

But if your baseline expectations are low, you are rarely disappointed. For an organization or individual to have its expectations changed from "low" to "high", there should be some basis for such an upgrade, primarily actions taken by the organization that demonstrate higher performance (for whatever metric you are using to define "performance", in this case protection of human rights).

Does the Chinese Communist Party have a demonstrable history of embracing or advancing human rights? IMO, no. So they remain at the "low expectations" baseline.

I have high expectations for a child even if that child hasn't demonstrated better before. Again, you're simply misunderstanding the usage of the word "expectation". That I "expect" better from them means they need to do better, not that they will.

I'm Chinese-American, and literally every Chinese person (from China) I've talked to knows about June 4, 1989. (So much so that it's colloquially referred to as 六四 or "six four".)

It may take some introspection, but please don't spread things that may not be well-informed.

Your anecdote says nothing about what happens in the large. In any case, do you deny that the Tiananmen Square massacre is censored in China? Do you deny that many people don't know about it?

It may take some introspection, but please try to understand that your experience is not universal.

1. It depends on what you mean by censored. If by "censored" you mean a simple search, then yes, I agree. But as far as I can tell (and I'm fairly certain albeit with no way of verifying that I have better information about this than you do), VPNs are commonplace enough in China that this isn't a issue.

2. I don't have any numbers, and I doubt you do either.

In any case, your cute platitude of "you can't learn from history if you don't have the opportunity to learn the history in the first place" is incorrect in implying that Chinese people have no way to access this information and general in such a way that it suggests that you are indeed uninformed (or else you would never make such a sweeping statement). While my anecdote is indeed not representative of what happens at large, I believe strongly that I have better information about this than you do, and would bet everything I have that I've discussed this issue with more Chinese people affected by this than you have.

But I supposed this is a pointless argument (since you/I have no way of verifying any of this). I only ask that you think a little next time before irresponsibly spreading misinformation about a group of people that I suspect you've probably never meaningfully interacted with, as this particular post gives the impression that Chinese people are helpless enough in the face of censorship that they don't know their own history.

Again, my whole argument is predicated on the assumption that I have better information than you do based on my experiences, but if you have better information, please show me as I'm pretty curious about this myself.

> 1. It depends on what you mean by censored.

There is no "depends".

> 2. I don't have any numbers, and I doubt you do either.

https://newrepublic.com/article/117983/tiananmen-square-mass...

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/asia/china-tiananmen...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tiananmen-squa...

https://www.vox.com/2014/6/3/5775918/25-years-after-tiananme...

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/opinion/tiananmen-forgott...

> I suspect you've probably never meaningfully interacted with

Your suspicions are irrelevant.

Unless you think VPNs don't exist in China, then of course your use of the word "censored" needs to be qualified.

Did you read these links yourself? One of the your links only mentions that it's not taught in school, others are also based on anecdotal evidence (some of which express that it's sometimes taught in schools and that some people know but don't care). The one statistic that I found in your articles asked about the tank man and not the event itself, and even then their number was 15/100, which is low but not zero.

I don't disagree with what's expressed in these links. I disagree with your characterization of people in China having zero access to this information. If you find my opinions/suspicions/admonitions irrelevant, that's a personal issue. I'm good as long as it's been communicated to you (apparently it has).

> Unless you think VPNs don't exist in China

Your condescension is tedious in the extreme.

> Did you read these links yourself?

Did you? Read some more:

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/01/317397569/...

> If you find my opinions/suspicions/admonitions irrelevant

Show me some data to back your assertions. If you cannot then your opinions/suspicions/admonitions and anecdotes are irrelevant.

> I'm good as long as it's been communicated to you

Nothing has been communicated but your lazy outlook. I suspect you lack seriousness.

That NPR link doesn't contradict anything I said. Tedious sure, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't qualify the words you use. But good to know that you read what I wrote! How you choose to process it is up to you.

There's nothing to process. Show me data to back your claims. If you cannot then your claims are irrelevant.

Replying to the thing below: I claimed that your insinuation that no one in China knows about June 4 because of censorship is false. The small-sample survey cited by the Vox and NPR links that you sent support my claim.

> I claimed that your insinuation that no one in China knows about June 4

I insinuated no such thing. Re-read what I have written. Do it carefully this time.

As I suspected, you lack seriousness.

You should re-read what you've written. No qualifications for generalizing statements, so it sounds like you're insinuating what I'm saying you're insinuating.

Good grief this is pointless. Your claims are profoundly dishonest. Find some better honesty.

The decision-makers in this play are all Chinese communist party cadres, and were likely already heavily politically involved at the time of the Tienanmen uprising. Don't forget that many of the party leaders responsible for what's going on in Xinjiang were sent there as a "duty-posting" so they could then move on to higher-level positions back home on the east coast. That's where many of them would have been in 1989. While younger generation raised from 1989 onwards don't know about the events, their parents are certainly aware. Especially, as mentioned, if they were politically active at the time.

Another detail of note is that university students at that time were the country's elite. Which means a large share of them were children of party officials. So a whole lot of high-ranking members in the CCP had children, or friends who had children, who were injured or killed. And the culture of brainwashing, fear and intimidation was strong enough to keep them in line

Is Nazi Germany, the gold standard for bad ideas, censored? Anyone who's read "The rise and fall of the 3rd Reich" should see the danger signs.

I would imagine that Chinese students study Japanese imperialism a lot more than a far away war they didn't materially participate in. But I don't know for sure. In America we study both because the US was involved in both theaters.

Unfortunately the Imperial Japanese history has been heavily used as a propaganda instrument. Students don’t have much chance to learn the “real” history. What little taught also subjects to double standards, e.g. the Japanese were evil to propose the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, but China projecting power to the South Sea is totally fine and can never go wrong.

As a German, I was surprised to find out that my Chinese friends learned a lot of German history in school. Not just about the Third Reich, but also 19th-century historical figures like Marx (obviously due to his ideological importance) and Bismarck, the Weimar Republic and some things I don't recall right now.

It's certainly more than I was taught about China in turn. I don't think even the German colonial presence in Qingdao was ever mentioned.

Most people haven't taken the time to read that book. In East Asian nations the public perception of Nazi Germany isn't nearly as negative as it is in Europe and the Americas.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2016/12/29/why-as...

Make no mistake, Nazi is still being hated, it is just that people aren't that sensitive about its presence. The Nazi costume had appeared in various cosplay exhibitions in China before, and people who aren't aware of the context think it is just some good looking uniform.

Until the photos spreaded, controversy follows, then it gets banned.