To make the irony index on this crisis rise even higher, PressTV reports that Iran has expressed “concern” over China’s handling of the violence in Xinjiang. As we all know, human rights are major issue for the mullahs.
And, needless to say, the OIC has also expressed “deep concern”.
The latest news, according to CBC:
China Orders Mosques Closed Amid Ethnic Unrest- - - - - - - - -
Mosques in the riot-hit capital of China’s northwestern Xinjiang province have been ordered to stay closed for Friday prayers in the wake of recent ethnic violence, media reports quoted Chinese officials as saying.
An official who identified herself as a government worker but refused to give her name was quoted as saying public safety prompted the decision to close mosques in Urumqi. The officials said, “People should stay at home today and pray.”
At least 156 people have died in Xinjiang since Sunday in ethnic violence between the Uighurs — an ethnically Turkic, predominantly Muslim group who make up the majority in the northwestern province — and the Han Chinese ethnic group who dominate in the country as a whole.
Separately, officials in the province’s southwestern city of Kashgar have told visiting journalists that they and other foreigners had to leave the city.
The city’s foreign affairs office said that although the city has had no unrest, the decision was made to ensure the safety of the visitors.
The protests started in Urumqi when demonstrators gathered to demand justice for two Uighurs killed in June during a fight with their Han co-workers at a factory in southern China.
The demonstration turned into a riot, as armed Uighur mobs clashed with police and passersby, as well as setting ablaze or otherwise damaging hundreds of vehicles, stores and street vendor stalls.
In response to the riot, hundreds of Han Chinese rampaged through the city Tuesday with sticks and meat cleavers, looking for Uighurs and revenge.
Meanwhile, the unrest spread to other cities in the region.
Officials have said that more than 1,000 have been injured and about 1,400 have been detained in the unrest.
Relations between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese have often been tense. Many Uighurs feel they’re discriminated against by the government in Beijing and a Uighur separatist movement has existed for decades.
Hat tip: Vlad Tepes.
45 comments:
Good for China. Finally that government is doing something sensible. More power to them.
At least 156 people have died in Xinjiang since Sunday in ethnic violence between the Uighurs — an ethnically Turkic, predominantly Muslim group who make up the majority in the northwestern province
I believe the Han are now the majority in Xinjiang. Most of those killed are also Han Chinese. As usual with Muslims will go on a a killing spree, and even before the spree is over, they will immediately go into denial, followed quickly by claiming to be the real victims.
The officials said, “People should stay at home today and pray.”
I think that is a very good idea - the communists are unlikely to show mercy. It is for this reason why all the Muslim countries are keeping quiet. Th
and about time too. Especially in the south-western regions of China, Islamisation has taken place over the last decennial. Most traditional Buddhist or Confucian temples carry the sign of allah on the front porch. In the west we tend/want to think all problems in China are related to human-rights, but not so. According to many, were last years problems in Tibet also an expression of 'Islamophobia' or 'Islamic repression' as they perceive it. Muslims abuse human-rights to suppress the freedom of expression by others.
Of course there is violence in China especially if it is about muslim issues. To quote Zenster: Islam won't have it any other way.
Iran has expressed “concern” over China’s handling of the violence in Xinjiang. As we all know, human rights are major issue for the mullahs.
And, needless to say, the OIC has also expressed “deep concern”.
While not wishing to approve of China in any matter, the disapproval of these two sanctimoniousness shills certainly speaks volumes.
The problem here is that China is not fighting jihad. Beijing's Mandarins are merely quashing any perveived threat to their power. Uighurs or Tiananmen students, it matters not. Outside of China, Beijing continues to encourage and promote jihad with massive shipments of Chinese arms to terrorist players plus covert support for rogue nations like North Korea and its proliferation of WMD technology.
China will do anything to triangulate against the West. Once those three-cornered birds come home to roost in their own back yard, then it's a turkey shoot and nothing else. The current action in Urumqi would be happening even if it was a bunch of pacifistic deaf-mutes that were spoiling Bejing's noontime yum cha.
Read Wretchard's Three Conjectures:
Even if the President decided to let all Americans die to expiate their historical guilt, why would Islamic terrorists stop after that? They would move on to Europe and Asia until finally China, Russia, Japan, India or Israel, none of them squeamish, wrote -1 x 10^9 in the final right hand column. [emphasis added]
If China decides to glass and Windex™ the entire MME (Muslim Middle East), it will not be for reasons of global security. It will be for Chinese reasons and not any others.
China is a dishonest player who is perfectly content to sit back and trickle gasoline onto the MME conflagration while snuffing the few domestic brush fires that spring up from floating cinders of the blaze they continue to stoke abroad. China loves nothing more than watching the USA bleed itself white leading the global fight against the Islamic terrorism that they support covertly.
DO NOT fool yourselves.
There is no such thing as "yellow guilt" despite all kinds of historic sins on China's, Japan's, Vietnam's and other actors' part in the far east.
They do whatever they deem in their own best interests, always have, always will.
It is only whites who have unjustifiably been yoked with eternal guilt by the hypocritical non-white world whose sins are no less and who have contributed nothing positive to others' well being unlike whites.
No culture or race other than whites has self-hating liberals in its midst who don the guilt yoke gladly and drag the rest of us down with their self abasement.
Where are the black, yellow or red liberals who moan about their own historic sins and insist of paying for them forever?
They don't exist. Only whites are chump enough to accept being made the world's scapegoat.
It's time to say with steely firmness: "But enough about me, what about YOU?"
Zenster wrote: China loves nothing more than watching the USA bleed itself white leading the global fight against the Islamic terrorism that they support covertly.
The reason we can be bled white is that we insist in fighting a PC war. There has never been a PC war. War is bloody, and must be so, if we want to win. It must also be sufficiently ruthless to make one side give up. A PC war OTH continues to bleed both protagonists endlessly.
In addition, we just do not wage war and leave it at that. We have to be bloody goodygoodies, and build our enemy a nation as well, while fighting them. Amazing.
I agree with Zenster,China is not necessarily the West's ally against the jihad,more likely the Middle Kingdom government is suppressing an ethnic minority that just happens to be Islamic. I wonder whether Han racism might have played a role in starting this violence. Even the so- called "Han" are divided linguistically and culturally.China has distintegrated in the past and I'll bet the government fears chaos much more than a threat from Islam.After all, the regime in Beijing is as much an enemy of democracy as Iran's mad mullahs, my enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend.
A nice intellectual challenge:
The Chinese communists are like Kosovo/Albania Albanians, or muslims flooding the West, while the local
population is like Serbs, but already 100% sick-islamic.
I like Zenster - he seems not to have succombed to any sort of illusions about China.
But note also the parallel in Chechnya: Ex-communist Putin allowed the sharia to rule there supreme. Putinism in Chechnya fully joined sharia and can claim along with islamo sharia to be the sole two winners. Two totalitarian teenagers working together?
Anybody here to see the irony?
"China is a dishonest player.."
No, China first and foremost looks after her own interests and that is only natural, or it used to be in the West, before PC demanded that we apologise for anything that has been done or has not been done to anyone by us or our forefathers during the past 2000 years. I could not imagine to say this a few years ago, but I am 100 percent with the Chinese Government on the Uighur issue.
DP111: The reason we can be bled white is that we insist in fighting a PC war. There has never been a PC war. War is bloody, and must be so, if we want to win. It must also be sufficiently ruthless to make one side give up.
I agree. It's why they call it "war" and not "fisticuffs". If you want to see what happens in a PC "war", watch that interminable farce known as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
u.l.: No, China first and foremost looks after her own interests and that is only natural, or it used to be in the West, before PC demanded that we apologise for anything that has been done or has not been done to anyone by us or our forefathers during the past 2000 years. I could not imagine to say this a few years ago, but I am 100 percent with the Chinese Government on the Uighur issue.
China―in a manner nearly identical to Russia―does not look "after her own interests". The Mandarins in Beijing look after their own and nobody else's. There is a huge difference and people at this site continue to conflate the retention of power by a controlling oligarchy with the legitimate maintenance of a nation's healthy self-interests.
Should you desire an example: China depends entirely upon its ability to sell its worthless knocked off and pirated crap here in America.
In China's obsessive quest to destroy America's well-deserved global hegemony they continue to roil any possibility of peace in the MME (Muslim Middle East).
In doing so they―as is usual with socialists and the Law of Unintended Consequences―inadvertently contribute to instability and gradual escalation of oil prices coming from that same MME.
If those oil prices―as in bunker oil, the stuff container transport ships run on―increase sufficiently, the cost of long haul trans-Pacific shipping runs to America will erode all profitability for the Chinese.
That is but one example of how the duplicity of Beijing's Mandarins do not serve the actual and honorable interests of the Chinese people.
This is the proper end result for unfair players who pretend to participate honestly in the legitimate world economy whilst pursuing sub rosa agendas that are detrimental to global security. See: Having Cake and Eating it Too.
For all of its hamfisted efforts, at least America's fight against Islamic terrorism is a legitimate attempt to stabilize the MME, if that is even possible. China's efforts with respect to jihad are entirely hypocritical and nothing more than window dressing compared to their overall human rights record.
Zenster, it is true that staying in power is a major objective of those in power in Peking but they cannot do so today completely against the interests of their people (like during the 'Great Leap Forward' or the 'Cultural Revolution' when the country was plunged into chaos). And while there are still a lot of very poor areas in China, life has improved tremendously for many in the past 30 years. Forget about Socialism, it is 'getting rich is glorious' in China now.
As for selling worthless knocked off and pirated crap, apparently western retailers and consumers don't mind buying it.
And please don't mention hypocricy in respect to jihad as a specifically Chinese problem. While American and other Western soldiers fight islamic terrorists, and many have sadly died doing so, their governments have allowed islamic regimes to be set up in both Iraq and Afghanistan. As if islamic terrorism would not directly spring from islamic ideology, masquerading as the RoP. Even worse, while we fight terrorists in foreign lands, our governments allow or even actively support the spread of the terrorist's ideology at home.
Ignore Zenster,
He has proven on previous message boards to be manifestly ignorant about China and the Chinese people.
The facts are most Chinese people or all nationalities are genuinely patriotic and support the current government.
As far as minority policy goes, China has always taken a kid gloves approach, with massive spending, affirmative action, together with public funding of TV stations, radio stations, and print media for most minority groups.
If China was so ruthless, so genocidal in intent, she could have very easily rid herself of a handful of Tibetans and Uighurs during the 60 years of communist rule, certainly during the first half of this period when she was more or less cut off from the outside world.
That there are more Uighurs, more Tibetans, now than there were in 1949, that their life expectancies have more or less doubled, that they still carry on with their folkways, religion, and most importantly still speak their own language, is compelling evidence that minority groups fare well under socialist China - far better than indigenous groups in America and Australia. In fact the living conditions of Uighurs, their cultural spirit, an social conditions are far better than that of Native Americans today or Australian Aborigines.
In fact the Chinese government has bent over backwards to please Uighurs - allowing them to carry around huge knives in public (Han Chinese of course would be slung in prison for carrying offensive weapons in public). It is these very knives with which Han Chinese were butchered and beheaded with the other day.
http://tinyurl.com/l6g2xk
Just yeasterday there was a discussion
on Deutschlandfunk about China. A sinoligist said that they have so many layers of censorships plus self-censorship that it is impossible to look through. But as a whole they call it in Chinese "harmony".
Our PC is a dwarf in comparison. Imagine PC elevated to some "celestial status" as is "harmony" in Chinese tradition.
Imagine also that various Chinese dialects are more distant from each other than most European languages are. One might find many more "minoriries" in China applying our standards apart from obviously non-Chinese elements (many!). But even the main stream Chinese has in fact no voice.
He is "subdued, subjugated and duely humiliated"...sort of islam?
But feel free to feel proud of it as Chinese - of the "power" - just like in islam.
There are countless demonstrations and uprisings in China - rarely reported in the West. The state often confiscates private property etc. The success of few cities is balanced by abject impoverishment in the countryside and a concept of slavery.
Just like Turkey the Chinese state controls also their expats abroad.
Some unusually unbiased reporting (relatiely) on atrocities committed against Han, in the Western media:
http://tinyurl.com/l6g2xk
http://tinyurl.com/n6skw4
Note however, how they refer to Han Chinese as 'migrants.'
Han Chinese have as much right to be in Xinjiang, as Uighurs have to be in Guangdong, Beijing, and Shanghai - they are all Chinese.
You don't hear of white Australians who move to Darwin, or the Northern Territories as 'migrants', nor are white Americans who move to California or Texas.
This term 'migrants' used in the Western media to describe ordinary poor Han Chinese who move to Tibet or Xinjiang is racist and bespeaks the Western desire of again splitting and dividing China, the desire to re-enslave the Chinese people, of all nationalities.
Imagine if all the Chinese media ever talked about was splitting Texas and California from the US, and entertained and feted advocates of US dismemberment, or repeatedly demanded that all white Australians cease living in the Northern Territories for fear of further diluting the Aboriginal culture, or that non-Maori New Zealanders should reserve 1/4 of New Zealand to the Maori people.
Imagine the outrage of Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders respectively.
Yet this is exactly what the West want from China - to implement a racially based policy of internal migration control and ethnic cleansing.
u.l.: ... it is true that staying in power is a major objective of those in power in Peking but they cannot do so today completely against the interests of their people (like during the 'Great Leap Forward' or the 'Cultural Revolution' when the country was plunged into chaos).
Nowhere did I say "completely against the interests". The Politburo relaxes its iron grip on the reins of power only when not doing so would result in them acutally losing power. There is nothing beneficent about their rule of China. It is elitist and essentially a kleptocracy.
And while there are still a lot of very poor areas in China, life has improved tremendously for many in the past 30 years. Forget about Socialism, it is 'getting rich is glorious' in China now.
Could it possibly have anything to do with the introduction of that disgusting "C" word, Capitalism?
As for selling worthless knocked off and pirated crap, apparently western retailers and consumers don't mind buying it.
Of far more importance is how that collection of street corner whores who parade as America's government don't mind the patently illegal nature of China's mercantile operations and their impact upon our national economy.
And please don't mention hypocricy in respect to jihad as a specifically Chinese problem. While American and other Western soldiers fight islamic terrorists, and many have sadly died doing so, their governments have allowed islamic regimes to be set up in both Iraq and Afghanistan. As if islamic terrorism would not directly spring from islamic ideology, masquerading as the RoP. Even worse, while we fight terrorists in foreign lands, our governments allow or even actively support the spread of the terrorist's ideology at home.
Evidently you are new around here. One of my principal oppositions against our current model of fighting global terrorism is how newly liberated Muslim countries have been allowed to re-adopt that toilet-clogging mass called shari'a law.
In doing so, the West has essentiially abetted a crime against humanity.
Wayne: Ignore Zenster ...
Hey! Great legitimate forensic method there to enourage open and honest debate. Remind me never to use it.
The facts are most Chinese people or all nationalities are genuinely patriotic and support the current government.
And so are a huge majority of Muslims despite dreadful abuse of domestic human rights by their respective governments. So, your point is?
If China was so ruthless, so genocidal in intent, she could have very easily rid herself of a handful of Tibetans and Uighurs during the 60 years of communist rule, certainly during the first half of this period when she was more or less cut off from the outside world.
Nice straw man argument there, Wayne. Only you have characterized the Chinese government as "genocidal". I have done no such thing. When addressing my positions, please refrain from injecting your own hyperbole into them so that you can gloriously disprove it. It renders any of your legitimate input as suspect.
In fact the Chinese government has bent over backwards to please Uighurs ...
Until they find it expedient to kill them instead.
Wayne: This term 'migrants' used in the Western media to describe ordinary poor Han Chinese who move to Tibet or Xinjiang is racist and bespeaks the Western desire of again splitting and dividing China, the desire to re-enslave the Chinese people, of all nationalities. [emphasis added]
Whoa Nellie! There's a whopper. Somehow the West desires to "re-enslave the Chinese people, of all nationalities"? Johnson, stop the presses!
I think we have uncovered a possible source of bias in a certain commenter who shall remain unnamed.
As to those "ordinary poor Han Chinese who move to Tibet or Xinjiang", some seem to think that this is an intentional move by Chin'a government in order to displace or demographically depose the indigenous peoples of those regions.
Some excerpts from the link:
Population transfer in Tibet also amounts to a war crime. The violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention is regarded as a "grave breach" of the Convention or its Protocol.(69) Article 85 paragraph 5 of Protocol 1 specifies that "grave breaches of these instruments shall be regarded as war crimes." The PRC accepted and agreed to be bound by Protocol 1 on September 14, 1983. Article 22 of the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind(70) similarly categorises the establishment of settlers in an occupied territory and changing the demographic composition of an occupied territory as "an exceptionally serious war crime".
"TAR" officials claim there are just 70,000 to 80,000 Chinese working in Tibet and that in the whole period from the 1950s to 1997 only 110,000 to 120,000 people have gone to Tibet to work(72) but these figures are ridiculously short of the reports from independent organisations, tourists and Tibetan refugees. Chinese military personnel are also prominent residents of Tibet; on September 8, 1997, a senior government official in Tibet declared that PLA troops in Tibet numbered less than 200,000, although other estimates place the figure at 300,000.
The Three Gorges Project represents the latest and largest threat to date to the Tibetan population. In 1992 China approved plans to dam the Yangtze River and create the world's biggest hydro-electric power project. According to Mr Qi Lin, head of the resettlement for the project, in an announcement on March 5, 1997, the project will require the displacement of approximately 1.2 million people to make way for the reservoir, of which some 60,000 have already been moved. Mr Lin added that authorities in the two provinces affected - Sichuan and Hubei - were encouraging people to move to under-populated regions, which are generally impoverished areas such as Xinjiang, Tibet and Gansu. [emphasis added]
Since mid-1994, it is estimated that more than 500,000 new Chinese immigrants have been moved into Tibet to work on the 62 new industrial development projects initiated by Beijing. The population transfer that accompanies such project results in further marginalisation of the six million Tibetans who are now outnumbered by 7.5 million Chinese settlers.
These settlers receive preferential treatment in housing, employment, education and social services. One Tibetan refugee who arrived in India in May 1997 said that even in Tibet's remote western areas Chinese now come to trade for hides, an occupation traditionally carried out by Tibetans. Chinese have also started to pick herbal plants, also traditional Tibetan employment.
So much for the noble efforts of Beijing to avoid "re-enslavement" of the Chinese people.
So, Zenster, the government encouraging people to move to a relatively unpopulated part of their own country is somehow a crime?
What do you want Zenster - for China to introduce a race-based internal passport system along the lines of the old USSR, or a passbook system like Apartheid South Africa?
Given that Tibet, and Xinjiang, are legitimate part of China, and are recognized to be so by every single nation in the entire world including all Western ones, then surely all Chinese have a right to any part of their country.
Please tell me where in the world, would the government reserve almost 40 % of their entire land area for less than 1 % of their population, in order to preserve their indigenous cultures?
Does America do this? Does Canada? Does Australia? Does New Zealand?
The answer of course is no.
But obviously, in the minds of people like Zenster, it is OK for whites to colonize patently non-white lands - but not for non-whites to even hold on to what is legitimately theirs.
By the way - if the Taiwanese government (Republic of China) had its way, not only would Tibet and Xinjiang be part of China - but so would all of Mongolia.
I actually prefer the Taiwanese position in respect of Mongolia, over the status-quo.
But the Communist government has let things be - they in fact are less irredentist than their Taiwan counterparts.
Wayne: So, Zenster, the government encouraging people to move to a relatively unpopulated part of their own country is somehow a crime?.
Into their own country? No it is not a crime, per se. When it is done with the express intention of diluting a native culture's demographics such actions can take on less than admirable qualities.
Tibet is another matter entirely and China's actions there are reprehensible in the extreme.
What do you want Zenster - for China to introduce a race-based internal passport system along the lines of the old USSR, or a passbook system like Apartheid South Africa?.
Have I suggested any such thing? This is yet more rubbish of your own confabulation.
But obviously, in the minds of people like Zenster, it is OK for whites to colonize patently non-white lands - but not for non-whites to even hold on to what is legitimately theirs.
I will invite you to refrain from
mind-reading, as it constitutes a direct breach of the rules here at Gates of Vienna.
You also continue to use straw man or straw man-like arguments which delegitimizes your own position and makes it rather tedious to interact with you in any constructive manner.
But the Communist government has let things be - they in fact are less irredentist than their Taiwan counterparts.
Unless you happen to ask the Taiwanese about their opinions regarding China's incessant threats. But who's bothering to do that?
Finally, positing such balderdash as, "the Western desire of again splitting and dividing China, the desire to re-enslave the Chinese people, of all nationalities", simple defies all polite rejoinder and reveals what appears to be a potentially disingenuous basis for your participation at this site.
Wayne,
"What is legitimately theirs". Didn't the Han Chinese colonise what is now NW China and Tibet? Even archeological research in NW China is subject to political interference. The reason is that this research indicates that non Chinese(even Caucasians) lived in the region long before the Chinese arrived. Westerners aren't the only colonisers.
Mace:
Using your logic, whites should all go back to Europe, the Russians should give up the Russian Far East, Yakutia, and Siberia, and non-indigenous Australians and New Zealand should all go back to Europe.
Western Europe is already the most densely populated continent.
Adding several hundred more returned diaspora whites won't help the situation there much.
So how about it Mace? All whites return to Europe, and then the Chinese just might, just might consider making Xinjiang independent.
Whites control most of the world's landmass. China has an area the size of Texas, which is actually hers anyway - she ruled there during the Tang dynasty, the Uighurs are actually interlopers of only a few centuries ago - in fact the Turkic peoples have Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrzygstan, Tajikistan, huge areas (Kazakstan the size of Western Europe).
All border regions have minority groups which straddle the border - sometimes we just have to accept multi-ethnic nations, and sometimes it may just be your own ethicicity is not the majority.
I am Cantonese, all Cantonese people in China have to learn Mandarin-all business is done in Mandarin. But thats just tough. Life is not always fair. But that is better than rending the country apart along the lines of Yugoslavia.
Mace probably thinks Hitler was right to take the Sudetenland, and invade Poland over Danzig.
Mace and Zensters ideas of ethnic autonomy would condemn most parts of the world to never-ending strife and mayhem and suffering.
Engage your brain before fingers, Mace.
Zenster: 'Evidently you are new around here.'
Impressions can be deceptive, I just very rarely comment and don't keep track of the opinions of individual commenters. And now I find myself defending the Chinese Government almost against my will. Still I maintain, the Chinese Government is at the most fundamental level acting in the best interest of China and her people. Let me put it this way, in 20 or 30 years China will still be China, populated by basically the same mix of ethnic groups as now and the welfare of the population will have improved (barring unexpected events of course).
How about the West? When will France become a moslem majority nation? In Britain sharia courts are operating even now. Former green party German foreign minister Fischer said something like 'Germany needs to be diluted from the inside', a project well advanced by now. And what do you think will be left of America when Obama is done with your nation? Is there actually any Western Government today acting in the best interest of the indigenous population? How did this almost universal treason come about and can continue?
Wayne,
"Using your logic,whites should all go back to Europe",no that's using YOUR logic,where did I say that everyone should return to their ancestral homes? You haven't addressed the legitimacy of Chinese claims in Tibet and NW China. That's your first straw man argument. Where did I recommend ethnic bantustans, that's your second straw man argument.
"Mace probably thinks Hitler was right",another straw man argument with elements of an ad hominem attack. "Whites control most of the world's landmass","Whites"?that is a racist comment you should withdraw it. Stop throwing stones, you live in a very fragile glass house. It is you who as well as engaging your brain,should keep your racist prejudices to yourself.
You haven't addressed the legitimacy of Chinese claims in Tibet and NW China.
That I will not do on principle. Are Americans continually screamed at - telling them that they have to justify holding California, Texas, and New Mexico?
Does the Western media continuously put Australian and New Zealand whites in the position where they have to defend the legitimacy of their presence in those two areas?
Some things are just off limits for debate - these are things that impact on the very survival of one's nation.
Anything could be debated - we could debate your right to live perhaps - for everything someone can always come up with some form of rationalization. Would you be willing to say OK, lets put everything on the table, and if I lose the debate (which perhaps 50-50) I will go kill myself?
Of course not. That would be ridiculous.
Likewise China will not and need not defend her legitimate rule in Xinjiang and Tibet. That question is simply not open for debate. Sorry.
Wayne,
Actually, Western nations are often criticised within, by their citizens, and by foreigners, in regard to their treatment of minorities or foreign policies. There are indigenous people in both America and Australia who criticise the majority western society,however they are not punished for their opinions by imprisonment or death.No subject is off limits to debate by Westerners,it's called 'free speech' There are national debates and some debates are confined to minorities, and of no interest to the public,however I doubt if there are any real absolutes. If you are genuinely ignorant of the nature of liberal democracy I suggest you read about the subject.If you are simply still infected with the Middle Kingdom's ignorant sense of superiority over the foreign barbarians you're probably impervious to reason.
Our civilisation's capacity for self-examination and self- criticism is the reason for the West's technical superiority for the past 500 years,however it is also a potential weakness as many people who post on this site indicate. Since I live in a democracy I'll continue to voice my opinions.
Mace:
Yes, its all very safe to extoll the fact that indigenous peoples may have the right to free speech or whatever - when they are completely in the minority, have lost all their lands, and have been forced into a state of alcoholic stupor.
There are no parts of the US where the indigenous people have the numbers or the clout to be any real threat to the white majority. Even more so for Australia.
So allowing them their free speech and their vote means really naught - the indigenous have been slaughtered off and are no threat anyway - but throwing them a few crumbs makes whites feel good about themselves.
This is unlike the case for China. The Chinese indigenous groups are more or less intact, are thriving, speak their own languages, and more importantly are concentrated in their original areas. And because of foreign instigators, a minority of troublemakers have the potential to bring instability to the Chinese state. That is why they have to be cracked down on.
The West is no different. During period of war, there is censorship, Habeas Corpus is suspended, and dissenters are jailed, spies and those who even sympathize with the enemy publicly are hanged.
The West in recent history implemented even more draconian measures against colonial insurgency. The French in Algeria, the English in Kenya, and the Portuguese in Angola were far more brutal than China in Xinjiang.
Was it not Abraham Lincoln who said 'necessity knows no law?'
China's current actions are completely justified - in fact most of the victims of the rioting have been Han Chinese, not Uighurs.
Imagine a situation like the former Yugoslavia developing in China..the implications are so horrific, the potential suffering and dislocation to peoples lives so horrendous, that it is the duty of the Chinese government to do everything they can to avoid this scenario playing out.
Mace:
Please consider this:
If China stirred up the Australian Aborigines to agitate for the independence of the Northern Territories, aided and abetted and feted Aboriginal independence leaders, demanded that white Australians not be allowed to 'migrate' into the New Territores, what do you think the reaction of the average white Australian would be?
If China openly sided with Mexicans and supported the reconquiesta, and openly sympathized with a minority of Hispanics that Texas and California should secede from the US and join Mexico, made the leaders of such a movement into celebrities and demanded that all whites leave California (I know many have anyway!), and Texas etc, how do you think the average American would react?
--------------------
Westerners like yourself demand that China consider ceding over 40% of her current territory to less than 1% of her population.
And you expect the Chinese to simply say - "ok lets consider this"
You are simply being absurd.
Please, engage brain before finger tips.
If you are simply still infected with the Middle Kingdom's ignorant sense of superiority over the foreign barbarians you're probably impervious to reason.
Many Chinese, including myself, will freely admit that we are well behind the West, scientifically, technologically, economically - and even in the level of civilization of the ordinary people. We realize and admit that the West have created successful and desirable societies, that we had no part in the enlightenment, in the modern scientific revolution.
Chinese were long ago disabused of any notion of so-called celestial superiority- you would probably have to go back to mid-19th century to find any Chinese with such views.
But now we want what people in the West take for granted. And China is just about on the right track to achieve this.
But if we go the way of the former Yugoslavia, and let a minority of ethnic separatists have their way, we would not be looking at future decades of rising living standards, only what happened in the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda, played out on a much grander scale.
u.l.: Still I maintain, the Chinese Government is at the most fundamental level acting in the best interest of China and her people.
Then please try and explain the innumerable coal mining fatalities, constant poisonings of the public by foods laden with toxic dyes or the selling of infant formulas which are so nutrient-free that they amount to a tincture of chalk dust and water.
I full well realize what you seek to posit with respect to China maintaining her "ethnic purity". However, that purity means little when it comes at the cost of a mountain of corpses.
If China's government was truly concerned for her people, Beijing's Mandarins would forsake their kleptomaniac behavior and divert away from their cronies a small fraction of the vast wealth being funneled away into the pockets of the PLA (People's Liberation Army) elite.
I realize that with BHO in office there is sorrowfully little difference between China and the USA but the historical track record of both countries is a study in contrasts.
Much as in how Russia continues to rape its people in the name of preserving power for its oligarchic elite, so does China do the same, albeit on a surprisingly lesser scale of late. None of that ameliorates the criminality of how Beijing's Mandarins pocket Chinese wealth in a way that may as well amount to drinking the blood of China's people.
mace, with that said, please allow me to congratulate you for identifying Wayne's persistent use of straw man arguments. His reliance upon such dishonest forensic techniques is dishonest in the extreme and sucks the life out of any productive exchange.
Wayne: Whites control most of the world's landmass.
Johnson, stop the presses, AGAIN!!!
Hoo boy, what a whopper. Let's have some cites and links for that little gem, Wayne (if you even have them). As you have already told everyone, "Ignore Zenster, He has proven on previous message boards to be manifestly ignorant about China and the Chinese people".
Hokay, so I'm the "ignorant" one. Now, go ahead and prove your preposterous assertions or admit to the ridiculous nature of what you have posted.
You come across as nothing more or less than an Arab Muslim who claims that Jews control the entire world economy in a vast conspiracy to suppress all Islam.
Methinks we have the Chinese equivalent of, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". No?
Go ahead, Wayne, please substantiate your claim that, "Whites control most of the world's landmass".
At the risk of sounding waycist, I'll venture that if whites did control most of the world's land mass, this entire planet would be experiencing far fewer wars and a greatly increased standard of living, even in China.
Zenster, I am well aware of the corruption, human rights abuses and dubious business practices in China. The frequent mining accidents and food scandals you mention are normally caused by unscrupulous enterpreneurs often in collusion with corrupt local officials. To me that just shows that Beijing does not control every aspect of life in the country.
After all, it is the most populous nation in the world, with many ethnic groups and different languages. I am not sure if it could even be kept together as a western style democracy. The alternative to what we have now may well be a giant Yugoslavia, exploding in ethnic violence - I don't think you find that a better idea.
u.l.: The frequent mining accidents and food scandals you mention are normally caused by unscrupulous enterpreneurs often in collusion with corrupt local officials. To me that just shows that Beijing does not control every aspect of life in the country.
Again, it still seems as though you are not at all familiar with my comments at Gates of Vienna.
Several times recently I have elaborated upon how a lot of China's dubious practices are driven by the capricious and arbitrary government fiats handed down from Beijing.
Even honest merchants are driven to extremes in the attempt to compete with other businesses that have bought special favors with their connections. Combine this with the sense of urgency people must feel when the Politburo's regulations can change on a whim and the pressure to make the most immediate short-term profit must be tremendous.
In a control-based economy blame originates at the top. This is especially the case in a nation where theft of intellectual property, piracy of electronic data, product knock-offs and copyright violations are government approved institutions.
To address another of Wayne's curious statements:
Wayne: Please tell me where in the world, would the government reserve almost 40 % of their entire land area for less than 1 % of their population, in order to preserve their indigenous cultures?.
It would seem to me that with all the tremendous amount of elbow room there should be so much unsetteled land where it would not be necessary to thrust huge numbers of outsiders into already existing population centers.
Instead, it is the exact opposite that happens. Instead of opening up any number of unoccupied frontier locations, Beijing intentionally floods non-Han districts with "settlers" to purposefully dilute voting power and begin forceful assimilation into the Han genetic pool.
Zenster,
Thanks,if Wayne stops using those techniques we might have an interesting discussion.
Wayne,
Western people and governments would indeed react to foreign agents agitating within minorities, I agree with you on that point. However,I'd have to say I'm sceptical as to the veracity of the official description of the events in NW China, mainly because your country doesn't have a free media.
As to the Uighurs,I think Islamic societies are conservative and backward with very little potential for progress,unlike China which has enormous potential.That said, I don't concede that Moslems are necessarily always the villians in any political or social confrontation. The accusation that the violence is caused by foreign agents is the first resort of dictatorships,self criticism is never considered,publically.
I think that I understand Chinese fears for the integrity of China,the country has split in the past and suffered from rebellions and civil wars. What we're discussing here is the human cost of national cohesion.
As an Australian I have a stake in China's economic and political success, for purely material reasons. May the Middle Kingdom prosper forever,peacefully.
mace: ... if Wayne stops using those techniques we might have an interesting discussion.
I do not hold out much hope. Unfortunately, he seems to rely upon them.
May the Middle Kingdom prosper forever, peacefully.
There's that niggling little qualifier, "peacefully". Without a single significant military competitor on its borders―India doesn't count―China continues to increase its military capability.
Combine this with the fact that all through history there has been only one traditional way for a nation to rid itself of an large excess male population, namely war.
China is already waging economic war against the West and also is doing very little to help stabilize major trouble spots, be it North Korea or the MME (Muslim Middle East).
Consequently, your final qualifier of "peacefully" takes on a rather disproportionate significance.
Zenster: 'Again, it still seems as though you are not at all familiar with my comments at Gates of Vienna.'
You are right, I am not familiar with your comments since I don't normally follow long discussions here and don't post comments.
I should add something. Beijing is far away. Rules and regulations are one thing, how they are implemented or interpreted on a local level is quite a different story. The control of the central government is not as absolute as you probably think.
u.l.: Rules and regulations are one thing, how they are implemented or interpreted on a local level is quite a different story. The control of the central government is not as absolute as you probably think.
I have studied Asian culture all of my life and have traveled there twice. I harbor no illusions about Beijing's reach extending across some five different time zones (even if the Chinese only use one).
What does migrate rather well across such vast distances are ideology and methodology. This is demonstrated by the marked similarity in how these matters have been handled, be it in Urumqi or Tianenman Square.
Zenster, I have not studied Asian culture in a scholary sense, but I have lived in Asia for alsmost 14 years now - I am still learning...
u.l.: I have lived in Asia for alsmost 14 years now ...
May I please ask what area? No need to be precise.
Also, I could not agree with you more as to what a total disaster it has been for the multinational coalition to permit shari'a being reinstituted in Afghanistan and Iraq. Better that we had set up harsh Western military dictatorships than to have restarted these terrorist manufactories.
It is a place in China. I find that over time one tends to see things more from the local perspective. This is why I wrote that I found myself defending the Chinese government almost against my will. I can very well understand Wayne's line of argument. China is terribly afraid of separatism, it is simply something that is not negotiable.
Zenster,
you might be interested in this link-
http://newmatilda.com/2009/07/13/we-have-no race-problem-china
Mace:
Your link did not work. Try this 'tinified' one.
http://tinyurl.com/mwxbmq
I have also posted my two cents worth there - you may want to carry on the debate there.
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