We are pleased to publish below the text of a speech given by Eben Williams, Education Officer for the Young Communist League of Britain, at our September 28 conference celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The speech reflects on the strategy of the united front, and how the … Continue reading China’s socialist road: a people-centred development strategy
I still feel like best case there are Nazi-style Volkswagen/Autobahn lessons to be learned from a party actively eradicating the Uighurs. Genocide is a red line. Any diversion from class consciousness is an immediate checksum indicating corruption. But I will read it, maybe I’m wrong.
Edit: there’s also Cantonese erasure, afaik via my Cantonese non-HK bros, they’re just not a thing linguistically anymore and Xi is going for a post-Plantagenet France scheme of genocidal ethnostate construction
However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let’s just look at how much space would you actually need to intern one million people.
This is a photo of Rikers Island, New York City’s biggest prison. The actual size of a facility interning ten thousand people.
According to Wikipedia, “The average daily inmate population on the island is about 10,000, although it can hold a maximum of 15,000.” Let’s assume this is a Xinjiang detention camp, holding ten to fifteen thousand people. How many of these would it take to hold one million people?
Let’s do some math:
Rikers Size
Rikers Prisoners
One Million Uyghurs Size
413.2 acres (0.645 square miles)
10,000 to 15,000
43 to 64 square miles
In reality, one million people would probably take more space; all the supposed detention camps we see are much less dense than Rikers.
For comparison, San Francisco is 47 square miles. Amsterdam is 64 square miles. You’d literally need detention camps that total the size of San Francisco or Amsterdam to intern one million Uyghurs. It’d be like looking at a map of California. There’s Los Angeles. There’s San Diego. And look, there’s San Francisco Concentration City with its one million Uyghurs.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he’s the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I’m talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it’s clear that the methodology of his “research” doesn’t pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It’s also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here’s George Bush’s chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED also openly admitted to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here’s an excerpt:
It’s also worth noting that the accusations originate entirely from the west while Muslim majority countries support China, and their leaders have visited Xinjiang many times.
This seems oddly well produced for a rando on the internet to conjure up on a whim… and I don’t want to neolibilly accuse anyone but… do you have that sitting around or did you spend a lot of effort putting that together? I’m not being accusatory and I agree Rikers is a travesty and New York is MAAAYBE a Hong Kong-level pre-picked democracy via DNC monopoly rule, if not worse.
Honestly I am very impressed by the thoroughness of the post too.
Tbh, there are a few Western talking points used against China, USSR (still), etc., and while I think it rare, anyone on the left (socialist, communist, anti-imperialist for sure) who is dedicated to fighting these points (which yogthos clearly is) likely has a list of references squirreled away somewhere to use. Maybe a research paper, blog post, or video essay was published by yogthos, at which point they would definitely have these ready.
Back to the “genocide”, its also suspicious that the focus of state/corporate media in the west would be so focused on this “one” in particular, while ignoring all of the ongoing atrocities in and by western states. To me, it is far more likely that trying to pin a genocide on China (the empires new enemy I guess) is just a way to manufacture consent for tariffs, trade wars, real war. It is the American Way™ after all.
As a matter of fact, I do have this sitting around because it’s a trope that just won’t die and I got tired of having to look up these points every time somebody brings this up.
I still feel like best case there are Nazi-style Volkswagen/Autobahn lessons to be learned from a party actively eradicating the Uighurs. Genocide is a red line. Any diversion from class consciousness is an immediate checksum indicating corruption. But I will read it, maybe I’m wrong.
Edit: there’s also Cantonese erasure, afaik via my Cantonese non-HK bros, they’re just not a thing linguistically anymore and Xi is going for a post-Plantagenet France scheme of genocidal ethnostate construction
The fact that you continue to regurgitate the thoroughly debunked Uyghur genocide narrative shows that you’re a deeply unserious person.
Enlighten me in sub 1200 word format, please, I haven’t heard your narrative and am not going to on the spot read a book to hear it right now
The whole conspiracy theory started with a claim of millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”.
However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let’s just look at how much space would you actually need to intern one million people.
This is a photo of Rikers Island, New York City’s biggest prison. The actual size of a facility interning ten thousand people.
According to Wikipedia, “The average daily inmate population on the island is about 10,000, although it can hold a maximum of 15,000.” Let’s assume this is a Xinjiang detention camp, holding ten to fifteen thousand people. How many of these would it take to hold one million people?
Let’s do some math:
In reality, one million people would probably take more space; all the supposed detention camps we see are much less dense than Rikers.
For comparison, San Francisco is 47 square miles. Amsterdam is 64 square miles. You’d literally need detention camps that total the size of San Francisco or Amsterdam to intern one million Uyghurs. It’d be like looking at a map of California. There’s Los Angeles. There’s San Diego. And look, there’s San Francisco Concentration City with its one million Uyghurs.
Literally visible to the naked eye from space.
CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn’t even make sense from logistics perspective.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he’s the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I’m talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it’s clear that the methodology of his “research” doesn’t pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It’s also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here’s George Bush’s chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED also openly admitted to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here’s an excerpt:
US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they’ve been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west. In fact, US even classified Uyghur separatists as a terrorist group at one point https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-was-at-war-uyghur-terrorists-now-claims-etim-doesnt-exist/276916/
Here’s an interview with a son of imam killed in Xinjiang https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-19/Son-of-imam-assassinated-in-Kashgar-s-2014-mosque-attack-speaks-out-RqNiyrcRuo/index.html
Here’s an account from a Pakistani journalist who has been all over Xinjiang (which borders Pakistan) claims that western media reports on “atrocities” are lies. https://dailytimes.com.pk/723317/exposing-the-occidents-baseless-lies-about-xinjiang/
It’s also worth noting that the accusations originate entirely from the west while Muslim majority countries support China, and their leaders have visited Xinjiang many times.
Also notable that whenever western media actually deigns to visit Xinjiang, which is not often, they’re unable to produce support for any of their claims of mass imprisonment and oppression, so they opt for insinuations instead https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-china-health-travel-7a6967f335f97ca868cc618ea84b98b9
There’s a further list of debunking here if you’re interested https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
The whole thing is very clearly a propaganda blitz that US is cynically using to manipulate impressionable people in the west.
This seems oddly well produced for a rando on the internet to conjure up on a whim… and I don’t want to neolibilly accuse anyone but… do you have that sitting around or did you spend a lot of effort putting that together? I’m not being accusatory and I agree Rikers is a travesty and New York is MAAAYBE a Hong Kong-level pre-picked democracy via DNC monopoly rule, if not worse.
Honestly I am very impressed by the thoroughness of the post too.
Tbh, there are a few Western talking points used against China, USSR (still), etc., and while I think it rare, anyone on the left (socialist, communist, anti-imperialist for sure) who is dedicated to fighting these points (which yogthos clearly is) likely has a list of references squirreled away somewhere to use. Maybe a research paper, blog post, or video essay was published by yogthos, at which point they would definitely have these ready.
Back to the “genocide”, its also suspicious that the focus of state/corporate media in the west would be so focused on this “one” in particular, while ignoring all of the ongoing atrocities in and by western states. To me, it is far more likely that trying to pin a genocide on China (the empires new enemy I guess) is just a way to manufacture consent for tariffs, trade wars, real war. It is the American Way™ after all.
As a matter of fact, I do have this sitting around because it’s a trope that just won’t die and I got tired of having to look up these points every time somebody brings this up.