Look at Tiananmen Square to peek ahead at what’s about to happen to the good, democracy-loving people of Hong Kong, especially if no democracies help them right now.
Perhaps to look at what China is determined will happen to the rest of the world...
It is very uncomfortable to say it, because China’s PR machine is so effective, but this is the real China and they are determined to take what they see as their rightful place as the sole world superpower.
38
Thank you for reminding us that the Chinese communist government has sent a million human beings to re-education camps based on their Muslim religion and for giving us concrete steps that we can take to join the broad international community condemning these detention camps. We should stand against these actions because judging and imprisoning people based on religion, ethnicity, or race is wrong. My heart goes out to these families.
The Chinese camps remind me of how the United States sent Native Americans to assimilation schools where they were beaten if they spoke their languages or followed their tribal customs, causing great sorrow, that had a negative impact for generations.
43
Although complicated by the current tensions between Islam and the rest of the world, viewed as purely a matter between the Chinese government and one of its ethnic groups, what we see in Xinjiang province is an egregious example of an attempt at ethnic cleansing. I visited the area twice, in 2001 and 2003, and even in that short intervening span one could see vivid evidence of the national government's increasing measures to diminish if not eradicate Uighur language and culture. The attitude of Han police and officials is clearly that of colonizers with a mission to subdue an inferior ethnic group. There is perhaps justifiable fear on the part of Beijing that Xinjiang, more even than Tibet or any of China's other 55 ethnic minorities at the moment, is a candidate for an independence movement. As is often the case, the behavior and policies coming out of the capital, however, seem more designed to sharpen the desire for independence than to subdue it. While in Xinjiang, I was on more than one occasion beseeched by locals to promise that I would report what I could observe back home. I have tried to live up to that promise. Uighur culture is a world treasure, and it would be tragic to see its demise.
34
The Chinese government is digging its own hole as they impose information silence in Xinjiang. Without accurate and independent information, the vacuum is filled by enemies of the Mainland Chinese government who are willing to take every opportunity to excoriate their policies with outlandish, and often sino-phobic, claims. While re-education camps obviously exist in Xinjiang (BBC has actually gone inside some of these camps), there are thriving and growing Uighurs communities in Beijing and Shanghai as well as continuing stream of Uighur students coming to American university campuses. It's unfortunate that Donald Trump has reduced U.S.-China policies down to the transactional (trade and tariffs) and the personal ("Xi and I are good friends"), leaving no room for human rights. Moving forward, every country that's part of the World Trade Organization should be forced to open up its country to inspectors: WTO rules explicitly state that goods manufactured under conditions that violate human rights cannot be traded. By definition, media blackouts in significant sections of the country should trigger an investigation by the only authority that seems to matter to the Chinese government: the authority to shut off the flow of foreign trade.
9
I was in Urumqi several years ago and even then the old section of the city was being encroached upon for new building. Jobs were being given only to Mandarin speaking Han Chinese. Han Chinese were being moved to the area so that the Uighar majority population would diminish. I don't hear about any boycotts, sanctions or divestment marches criticizing China for its 'occupation'.
20
What can you do? Boycott anything made in Communist China. Force Amazon to reveal the country-of-origin in its online ads. Force strict country-of-origin labels (COOL) on all imported products. If it’s vague, don’t buy it. Lastly, stop transshipment violations which launder Chinese products through other countries like Thailand, Vietnam and Mexico, falsely representing where it came from. If we shun Chinese products, the CCP will be forced to reform or be replaced.
30
In China’s view, we need ‘re-education’ too.
I’d prefer we never let China have the power to decide what we think.
This is war. This is a war that China is waging against freedom that could one day directly effect us, that China is determined will directly effect us, whether any Americans know it now or not.
79
Is this some kind of a new domino theory?
2
Politics in the Uighur regions of Northwest China is being influenced by money and organizations from the fundamentalist Islamic Middle East. Specifically Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran. Americans are outraged that Russians might have tried to influence the 2016 election. Why would we be surprised that the Chinese are taking actions to fight foreign influence in their country. My enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend. Uighur rights groups are not necessarily more friendly to our values of democracy and toleration than the communists.
41
@Michael Green
But China IS the foreign influence in this case. China is taking oppressive actions against an indigenous group in a region China wants to control. This is a basic human rights question, and it concerns whether occupying governments should be able to detain people indefinitely and without trial in harsh conditions.
70
@Michael Green Your comment makes no sense to a degree that makes me think it is made in bad faith. This video is not about "Uighur rights groups", it is about a few of the one million people who have been imprisoned.
The Uighurs are indigenous to the area, not outsiders. Have you even watched the video? Have you followed the NYTimes coverage of this topic? a million people are in detention camps. A million people! Most of them are not activists or politicians in any way. They are ordinary people whose crime is to exist as members of a minority group. (Not that being an activist or a politician is wrong, though it is a crime in China, apparently.)
In this case, some of their adult children in America are trying to draw attention to this fact. The only reason that more people in this situation are not doing the same thing is a very justifiable fear that speaking up in America will lead to punishments for their parents back in China.
44
@Michael Green Uighurs have long lobbied for an independent East Turkestan, long before fundamentalist Islam became a political force.
The idea that Uighur rights groups are not inherently more interested in democracy and tolerance is pure hogwash. These are people fighting for their very existence, who lived very peaceful lives before the Chinese government, as they did in Tibet, decided that the population was not being servile enough to the Han majority. When one million people are being detained, in the largest confinement of a population in the world perhaps since the Holocaust, any protest is inherently more democratic and geared towards, as you put it, "toleration."
Many of those being targeted are the opposite of fundamentalists - university-trained intellectuals, professionals, and would-be leaders. I know because one of my colleagues. a PhD from a neighboring country to Chinawith an Uighur population, has not heard from their parents in Urumqi, for two years.
Taken in combination with China's military reaction, ongoing, to the protests in Hong Kong, and the true picture of Xi's China comes clearer: a dictatorship posing as something less than a democracy. Something our own President probably is taking close note of.
20
It is ironic that Trump administration speaks out against the Chinese policies against the Uighurs while Erdogan of Turkey is completely silent. Uighurs used to look at Turkey at least for moral support. Now a totally corrupt regime under Erdogan seems to tacitly if not actively support the atrocities of the Chinese against Turkic Uighurs of Xinjiang, as long as some Chinese funds flow into Turkey and Erdogan's pockets. As Trump would say, Sad! And disgustingly so.
4
Would any of the Western countries, and especially United States accept an influx of Uighurs who might want to leave China? Think about the possible answers for a moment and you will understand why Western governments have by and large paid lip service to this issue because they are all trying to address issues related their own Muslim population.
1
Before we jump on the bandwagon and unleash harsh criticisms on China, we probably should look inside the US, starting with "American Indian Nations" where the indigenous, true Americans have been suffering for hundreds of years. They are doing much worse than those Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang region. The latter will still get to go back to their homes and families after learning that slaughtering of innocent children and their parents with machetes, axes and steel rods on streets and in railroad stations just because they are Han Chinese is wrong. For most of those living in "American Indian Nations", they will never get that chance to go back to their ancestral homes. Similarly, the mobilities up the socioeconomic ladder from their destitute situations for most inner city Americans, most of them descendants of the slaves, have not gotten any better for eons. The racial and socioeconomic segregations have been here and are still here. Maybe we should spend more energy correcting the injustice here at home, and set better examples for the rest of the world?
4
only for tech people. the are 4 tech countries...don't live their if your not Asian and or in tech work. red means stop for tech. University is green school and health care and wellness, if you went to university and like the outdoors think Africa.
This case is clear evidence that Chinese authorities want to kill the minorities of the country.
4
This isn't like Russia worrying about Christians or Israel getting nervous about Muslims.
These Uigur people are only one person in 1300 or more compared to all of China.
The junta leader in Beijing, Xi (who would never even think of running in a fair election) wants to send a message to all of his inmate/prisoners that NO opposition will be accepted.
Like all gangsters and junta leaders, Xi is apparently afraid that if he goes along with what was promised for Hong Kong, the next-strongest militarist will have him disposed of before seizing power, and will go on TV to speak while all the wet red mess is cleaned up in the leader's office.
China is so shook up by Christians that it is exporting the youger ones who seem sincere about Jesus, even though their parents must remain.
3
This article could have just as easily been written about the camps at our southern border.
There has been much hand wringing about the children who have been detained (rightly so) but there are many more parents and adults being detained who own(ed) businesses, served in our military, are married to US citizens, and have paid taxes for decades.
11
@Donna Kraydo If those people are in the country illegally then they should be deported. They chose to come here, they can bear the consequences of their choice.
6
So why doesn’t the Squad speak out about this?
7
@Jackson And who says they haven't. Are you implying that they're somehow Chinese dupes?
2
@Jackson Here's what Ilhan Omar said:
"Over a million Uyghurs have been sent to "re-education camps" in China—where systemic beatings and deaths have been reported.
These are crimes against humanity and anyone responsible must be fully held to account. Words alone are not enough."
8
While this is terrible and cries for action, words do matter. Please do not call these concentration camps. That descriptor refers to mass murder/extinction as the goal, not re-education in any kind of euphemism. Sometimes the concentration camp involved forced labor but always the idea was ultimately death, not assimilation. Really, change that headline.
3
@BG
Categorically wrong - the goal of the CCP is to exterminate the Uyghur culture.
If you believe otherwise, you are unforgivably naive.
Ditto for Tibetans.
15
@BG There is also convincing evidence of forced organ harvesting. See WSJ:
"China stands accused of a gruesome trade in human organs. It’s difficult to prove, because the victims’ bodies are disposed of and the only witnesses are the doctors, police and prison guards involved. Even so, the evidence supports a damning verdict.
The charge is that many prisoners of conscience—Falun Gong members, Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and “underground” Christians—have been subjected to medical testing and had their organs forcibly removed. Those organs have fed an enormous trade in organ transplants.
Patients in China—including foreigners—are promised matching organs within days.
This sounds a lot like a "classic concentration camp," don't you think?
15
@David
That would conform to the definition if the accusation is true.
A threat of a trade embargo will force China to respect human rights including those of Uighur Muslins if the US and EU have the courage.
9
@A Van Dorbeck Yeah, that might of worked if the US didn't burn all of its leverage pursuing a pointless trade war.
Horrendous? Watch what they do to Hong Kong.
8
write your Congressman ... No free trade with China. Americans are willing to pay a tax to counter this regime which kills it own people.
11
What is going on in Xinjian is horrendous. This issue has not received the attention that the situation in Hong Kong has gotten. The reality is that China's Human Rights record is awful.
If China professes to truly want to be "an equal" with the US in all of the areas that matter, then freedom and liberty need to be restored throughout the Chinese Nation.
10
The Uighurs, Tibetans, and other religious groups in China territories are being systematically harassed, margined, and murdered by a totalitarian dictatorship that continues to get investments we, in the West, have made, At the same time China continues to steal our trade secrets. We standby and do nothing about while these violations of human rights and intellectual property rights continue.
Please contact your Senators, Representatives and UN ambassador. As well, the US needs to put more pressure on China during these so-called trade negotiations to democratize and ensure human rights.
13
@AG China is stealing trade secrets more like American companies are giving them their IP, so they can do business in China. So why do business there it's to make more money. China is authoritarian and I do not like communists, but please theft is not the same thing as someone sharing information freely. Much blame must go to our corporate overlords.
5
Techno-fascism with facial recognition, digital-only money, black box computer algorhythms for determining prison sentences and parole decisions, etc. etc. This end game, game over techno-fascism. China is doing it first, but it is the end-game of the network of global oligarchs and our US President and the Koch brothers and the Republican party. Remember everyone: No Cash No Democracy. Oh and by the way, those detention camps built in China? They were constructed by Eric Prince's company and he is the brother of our Secretary of Education Betsy Devos. See the connection between techno-fascism being actively implemented in China and our developing fascist government here is USA.
10
Publicizing the plight of the Uighurs is good.
I'm sure these three agreed to, and maybe even wanted to, tell the NYTimes about their stories and use their full names an places of origin and the NYTimes has all the permissions.
I cannot agree with the ethics of the NYTimes in doing this, knowing the way the Chinese government does things, the amount of surveillance they employ, and the way they punish relatives as leverage against those living abroad.
Just because you can print something doesn't mean you should.
8
China does not tolerate religion. Never has and never will.
8
One of the reasons we’ve been told we have a 22 trillion dollar debt is because we fight for the free world.
I want my money back!
2
so awful.
Tragic.
Inhuman
and Tibet remains under Chinese occupation since the invasion 60 years ago. So sad. Brutal
Meanwhile, AOC, Tlaib and Omar pick on human rights in Israel. It's so transparently intellectually dishonest to do it in the name of human rights given the massive issues elsewhere.
17
@Yes To Progress Human rights abuses are human rights abuses, period. Just because it happens in other places (like our southern border) doesn't get Israel off the hook.
15
Mr. Pulati, Yalqun and Yilihamu seem to have ignored out the terrorist attacks that led to the current crackdown in Xinjiang.
Feb, 2017: Eight killed in Xinjiang knife attack: police shoot three attackers Ten people were injured before police shot dead the three attackers
March 2014: Kunming railway station a group of Xinjiang separatist pulled out long-bladed knives and stabbed and slashed passengers; 31 civilians and four perpetrators dead, with more than 140 others injured.
April 2014: a knife attack and bombing in Ürümqi, left three people dead and seventy-nine others injured. The Turkestan Islamic Party claimed the responsibility of the attack.
July 2011: East Turkestan Islamic Movement Uyghur men hijacked a truck, killed its driver, and drove into a crowd of pedestrians, got out of the truck and stabbed six people to death and injured 27 others. Later a group of armed Uyghur men killed two people inside of the restaurant and four people outside, injuring 15 other people.
July 2011: In Hotan a group of 18 Uyghur men killed two security guards with knives and bombs and taking eight hostages (2 killed)
August 2010: Uyghur man detonated explosives in Aksu resulting in at least seven deaths and fourteen injuries.
China's media response has been restrained after each of these attacks, and their security actions have been understandable given the severity of the terrorist problem within Xinjiang.
8
Terrorism should not be considered acceptable in any kind of civilized society.
Nor should it be considered acceptable for a government to forcefully remove hundreds of thousands of children from their families to "re-educate" them out of their own religion and culture; cultural genocide is also its own form of violence.
28
@Westland Tiny incidents do not justify imprisoning millions of people. The Chinese Communist Party is a criminal regime. Why would you ever support ethnic cleansing? Where is your humanity?
13
@Westland
Since when do crimes perpetrated by individuals justify state sponsored genocide?
Westland - you're under arrest! Please go and torture yourself silly.
8
The US needs to be vary careful in getting involved in refugee causes. Very often there are hidden traps which make the situation worse than you thought
We have only to look at the situation in Italy over the Open Arms NGO boat filled with potential refugees. Basically no country wants these people and Italy wont let them disembark since the Dublin Rule states that whatever country the asylum seekers first set foot on, is responsible for them.
Eu countries pretend to offer safety for the refugees but they must first disembark on Italian shores. The Dublin rule is why the Italian won't let them disembark.
While we have no Dublin rule, yet when we get involved with refugee issues, we always end up owning the entire problem and the people associated with it.
This is the problem with refugees all over the world, The country which first gets involved ends up owning the whole thing including the people associated with it. Ending up with unwanted refugees often causes other problems in diplomacy.
This is the problem with refugees today - you help one group and then next thing you know you end up with all their distant relative plus a diplomatic misstep on our hands. The Balfour declaration is probably the biggest example of a refugee situation gone awry.
8
@Judith weller
Astute comment, and thanks for that. Moreover, like it or not, China is a sovereign nation. Difficult to see a positive endgame for attempts to intervene. On tangential note, it often appears that well-meaning NGOs make a habit of putting western democratic values and ethics before all else and acting without full understanding of unintended consequences.
8
@Judith weller Simply, basically false. First of all, no one has even mentioned refugees, although of course we should take in as many of those in China's concentration camps as we can. Second of all, look at literally every ethnic community that has come to America as refugees. They are absolutely 100% the strength of our nation. The more that come, the stronger we get, and the better off we all are.
12
After I read this article, and with some background knowledge I already had about this issue, I have realized that China really just wants to keep their country clear from anything that is imperfect to them, whether it is different people with different cultures, religions, or races that are living there. The fact that the Chinese government is placing the Uighur people in detention camps because they are Muslims and have different beliefs then the majority religions in China is very disturbing and a heartbreaking realization. When other groups are the target of these types of attacks or are victimized in such as way, the media publicizes it so much more. When it occurs to Muslim groups, people rarely even hear about it. People in those camps are being tortured and forced to give up their religious beliefs and very few people are helping to fight for their rights.
7
My grandparents also were sent to a "retraining camp" to learn new labor skills--in Germany in 1940. They were murdered in 1944.
24
Why haven’t Muslim-majority nations stepped up human rights campaigns in support of Uighers? It seems the US has no moral authority here, but I wish we did.
11
@Chicagogirrl13 We absolutely have moral authority and we are opposing the ethnic cleansing as we are able. Communist China is the guilty party and those nations that enable them are guilty as well. America, on the other hand, is standing up.
8
@Chicagogirrl13, agree!
so awful.
Tragic.
Inhuman
and Tibet remains under Chinese occupation since the invasion 60 years ago. So sad. Brutal
Meanwhile, AOC, Tlaib and Omar pick on human rights in Israel. It's so transparently intellectually dishonest to do it in the name of human rights given the massive issues elsewhere.
4
The best thing we can do for the entire world is to focus 150% on bringing America's present political nightmare to a certain, conclusive, definitive end.
Trump, his political henchmen, his misdirected, misinformed and self-harming acolytes are eager for more chaos in the world to deflect and distract an exhausted and exasperated American people from the existential urgency to root this madness from our midst.
Every Uigher, every protester in Hong Kong, every Pakistani under Modi's Kashmir occupation, all people endangered by repression, hate and tyranny, should be mobbing every US outpost near them -- consulate, embassy, corporate offices -- and demanding the ouster -- by impeachment or electorally -- of Trump and his agents of anomie.
With America's moral authority poisoned and our brightest ideals blinded, the vulnerable, voiceless, and violated are at the mercy of tyrants who know one of their own occupies the White House and gives license to their brutality wielded with impunity.
In 15 months the whole world will watch as their fate, their children, their future, will be decided by us. Without doubt the most important moment in all of history for humanity and, if not too late, for the planet and all its lifeforms.
To Akeda Pulati, Kamalturk Yalqun and Adili Yilihamu we say we care but first and foremost we need to keep our eyes on the prize.
10
@Yuri Asian And yet Trump is the one who is actually standing up to China, rather than just trying to play nice. You think Hillary would have done anything about this?
4
@KM
Bill and Hillary have been in Walmart’s pocket since they were in Arkansas. Walmart’s money mostly comes from importing Chinese products.
One of America's richest families, the Waltons of Walmart, are equal opportunity opportunists cultivating whoever is in the White House. They got filthy rich because ordinary Americans enthusiastically "vote" for them in the market-place with rampant consumption of their cheap Chinese-manufactured goods. Americans also have made Jeff Bezos the richest man ever by online purchases of Amazon's cornucopia of China-sourced goods.
Americans have voted overwhelmingly with their pocketbooks and wallets in support of China for decades now. There's literally nothing in your home by way of a consumer product that isn't sourced, manufactured or supply-chained through China.
China's very best American friends are Nixon, who got the ball rolling, Bush the Elder, Kissinger and now Trump.
The Clintons are minnows to the GOP sharks who can smell easy profits faster than blood in the ocean.
But Trump appreciates your support of his tried and true Bill and Hillary diversion.
It signals whose pocket you're in.
3
Shame on you New York Times for referring to the detention camps as Concentration Camps. As a second generation child of a Holocaust survivor who survived Auschwitz, it is absolutely imperative to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. Distorting the words concentration camps with detention camps, labor camps or the like defies that memory and knowledge. I feel for these young people who know not where and how their parents are doing. However, until we learn that their parents are being starved to death, utilized for slave labor and earmarked for death in crematoria, the utilization of the correct term is essential. Let's not minimize, like Ocasio-Cortez has, the memory of the Holocaust as it can otherwise happen again. And as Jews worldwide are running from their native countries which the NYT does not report, let's be sensitive to ALL people. I pray for these young people and hope they will be reunited with their families.
10
@Deborah
It has been reported (but not confirmed) that the organs of some of these prisoners are harvested for medical transplant uses. Would this make these camps quality as "Concentration Camps" in your view?
13
@Deborah These are concentration camps. Over one million of people are forcefully held, purely on the basis of their religion and ethnic identity. That's the definition of the term.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp
They aren't displaced. They aren't refugees. They aren't being temporarily detained or awaiting a trial. They're there to be permanently "reeducated." And that includes hundreds of thousands of children forcefully removed from their families. And it's more than merely not knowing how their parents are doing; the government is doing this to "reeducate" the Uighur culture from existence.
10
@Deborah Have you considered that a Holocaust could be equally attributed to the brutal death of human decency and ones own soul? In Germany, the Holocaust didn’t start at Auschwitz, it started in 1935 when German Jews lost citizenship and all the rights it protected. These Muslim Chinese are going through the first stages of that. If China was willing to send in and sacrifice many of the 200,000 Chinese troops to prop up the Kim version of a noble North Korea during the Korean War, what will stop them doing anything to a million Chinese Muslims?
The wording “concentration camp” is not only correct, it’s a bulls-eye!
9
I wish we could just educate our citizens. You know, basic stuff like reality based science. If you have to imprison people for re-education than you have already lost. How long will religious zealotry influence humanity, till the point of extinction? I’m not defending the totalitarian commies, but which group of people refuses vaccines, wears suicide belts, denies women equal rights etc etc.
3
@Harry B
You're surprised that an oppressed minority group doesn't trust the government with vaccines? The Tuskegee study happened right here, in the United States. Black sharecroppers trusted the federal government, and were left to die from a *treatable* disease.
And if you want to talk about women's rights, look into how enforced its China's one-child policy.
Why blame this on religious zealotry? Suicide belts are bad, but so is forcefully removing hundreds of thousands of children from their families.
1
If only the U.S stood for the human rights of people in China!
3
Communist China under several leaders, especially Xi, have declared war on religion. First it was the Falun Gong, a peaceful and non-violent practice of tai-chi like exercises and the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. It was like America’s hippie movement with yoga. It was so popular, the Communists feared its 100 million followers. They were a potential threat. It threw millions of Falun Gong in prison over a span of 20 years, where they were tortured, raped or killed and forced to renounce the faith. Intransigent followers had their organs forcibly removed to support the government’s international organ transplant business, which financed the crackdown. Next came the Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Uigher muslims, and how non-Tibetan Buddhists. Now the CCP turns its attention to Hong Kong. Who’s next?
Xi claimed that Chinese do not kill Chinese. That is another lie. So be clear on this - China is not the Chinese Communist Party. I love China and its people, but not the 6-7% in power. Just compile a list of bad actions yourself and judge it for yourself.
9
As a Jew, whose brethren were murdered in Nazi Germany, My heart goes out to the Ulghurs whose families are imprisoned,because of their faith.Man's inhumanity to man still goes on, & most of the world is silent.
18
As we approach the UN’s General Assembly September annual meeting, it’s a great opportunity to denounce China for its ethnic cleansing campaign of terror. Presumably, President Xi will be there
As for the US: How can the Administration demand China stop the Uighur persecution when it is persecuting Central American refugees by caging, separating and losing children from their parents in the southern border?
China for its part is using its go-to playbook in Xinjiang , the same one used in Tibet. In Tibet, many Tibetans were jailed or forced to “convert” to the main ideology. Next, it relocated large numbers of Hun ethnic Chinese to Tibet to dilute Tibetan power and culture.
5
@Ted
uhhh. The uighurs are chinese citizens and presumably have some rights.
The economic , line jumping invaders on the Southern border are not citizens and have no rights.
They are not refugees. There is no massive war in central america. they want to come here for economic reasons. We have plenty of US citizens who are entitled to assistance.
1
I read Tom Friedman all the time.
China's government is THE BOMB.
They're killing it, making us look like pikers.
If only we could be more like China, all the problems in America would go away...so says Mr. Friedman.
7
Sorry Uighars, but you are unlikely to find a sympathetic ear in the American halls of power. Democrats have advocated coddling Communist tyrants for decades, and now Trump has led the Republicans to abandon our values in foreign policy. This is no longer Ronald Reagan’s America.
3
Intimidation of minorities and their detention in camps is unacceptable oppression. Thank you for alerting us to this horrendous violation.
4
People who aren't Han Chinese are presumed not to be willing subjects. It's all too easy to turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2
Re-education camps are not concentration camps. Mis-using the term concentration camp is a good way to dilute its meaning and significance. Using it to make something look worse than it is, is dilution. Internment camps are bad enough, but the Chinese are not engaged in mass killings. I'm not saying it's right, but language must be used accurately.
9
If only it was that easy.
These are the people who deserve asylum in the US. Not the Central Americans with their bogus claims of gang violence and domestic violence who are just looking for a job.
6
@Doris Keyes
https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article148939604.html
Even John Kelly, Trump's former Chief of Staff who was a SOUTHCOM commander in that region for years has stated that narco-violence is a driving cause.
1
"China’s decades-long campaign against the Uighur minority???"
Decades long? The Urumqui riots in which nearly 200 Han Chinese were killed was ten years ago. That was the start of the separatist terrorism Uighur movement.
"China has justified its actions as a fight against religious extremism within the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority."
That is not true. The religious extremism that China is "fighting" is terrorism and a separatist movement by the Uighurs - having nothing to do with Islam.
4
@Mimi
Parroting party-line justification for cultural or ethnic genocide is not a convincing argument. The Party embarked on a campaign to eradicate cultural and religious groups on their borders by annexing Mongolia and Tibet at least 7 decades ago
1
@chris b
Don't accuse me of parroting anything.
Tibet asked for China's protection multiple times in centuries past when they were threatened by India.
Mongolia was part of China when the Mongols invaded China and established the Yuan dynasty in the 1200s.
There are five religions formally allowed in China under the CCP - including Islam. Twelve million Hui Muslims practice Islam and have done so since the 600s. Hui Muslims live all over China and have been government officials as well as Generals.
China wants to eradicate terrorism and threats to its economic security. Even during the Qing dynasty, Xinjiang was a territorial protectorate of China's.
You need to learn Chinese history. It might help if you could read Chinese instead of human rights or Christian propaganda.
3
China should realize that oppression never works.
1
"Never again" feels so hollow when we let this as well as what's happening to immigrants here. I use the word "let" loosely, so far we've been powerless to stop it.
2
The Chinese Communist government has no respect for human rights, freedom of speech, nor democracy is well-established. The situation in Xingjiang is more akin to what happened to Native Americans during "Manifest Destiny". Today, those Native Americans who survived government sanctioned genocide, internment in Reservations, government policies intended to destroy their culture, continue to suffer depravation. Just drive through those reservations with no casinos, no cigarette sales warehouses, and see a third-world country inside of the richest country in the world. We should spend as much energy fighting these wrongs, redressing these continuing legacies of injustice here at home.
6
The attitude shown by the Chinese government to the Uighurs shows that in reality, despite all its pretensions China is still in reality a police state, and not conforming to the State's notion of what is leads to repressive action on a large scale.
China is already economically advanced, all that is left is for is to advance in the field of Human Rights as well.
3
When I read this story, I wonder if it was such a good idea to become so economically entwined with China. They're still a police state at heart, with no tolerance for anything internally that deviates from their narrowly defined path. We should have waited for human rights reforms, even if it meant being at a disadvantage economically to those who chose to trade with them.
3
The children of these imprisoned Uighurs are in a very difficult situation but they are also incredibly brave. Their parents must have raised them well.
I will contact my senator and representatives.
19
I completely agree.
May I suggest that you and all of us make not just one contact with your legislators, but contact them every few weeks or months in order to keep the matter on their radar and let them know it's still on ours.
Never Again
6
The idea of the American melting pot remains one of the best. China unfortunately does not understand the concept but then communist nations never do.
31
@Once From Rome
I took a Chinese humanities course in 1979. Take home message, China always assimilates every body. Sort of Borg like. Thankful NYT is reporting on this. I agree, this situation is a lot like Canada and the U.S. policy towards indigenous peoples.
3
It's not about communism. Please do some homework and learn about Chinese history and, especially, about the role of Confucius' ideals of harmony and about Han dominance.
@Once From Rome We here in the US seem to be losing our understanding of the melting pot as well.
8
in a socialist regime, the government needs absolute power. Even in government controlled economies that aim to benefit the masses, not everyone will gain equally. Look at the billionaires in China and still a massive rural poor population.
And when that is the case, you can't have people protesting the government because they were left behind, they need to get silenced for the system to keep working.
23