I’m not very informed on modern China and there’s a ton of sources accusing China of killing and even harvesting organs from Uyghurs and Falun Gong believers.
Is there any truth to those claims or is it all 
?
I’m not very informed on modern China and there’s a ton of sources accusing China of killing and even harvesting organs from Uyghurs and Falun Gong believers.
Is there any truth to those claims or is it all ?
China does not harvest organs from Falun Gong weirdos. I have been counselling Chairman Xi to change his mind on this to no avail.
Read the UN report on Xinjiang. It’s the closest thing you’re ever going to get to an “unbaised” report. When Wahhabi paramilitaries began trying to expand in to Xinjiang and convert local Muslims to Wahhabi beliefs, with the violence and disruption Wahhabi beliefs entail, China responded with a bunch of different counter-terrorism programs. Some were overtly military, some were intelligence based, some were aimed at making Xinjiang more resilient in the face of subversion attempts. The programs that got spun in the west at genocide involved surveillance, some restrictions on movement, arbitrary arrest and detention of some Uighur Muslims for as much as 3-4 months, and related activities. These are certainly violations of human rights as conceived by the west, but are not genocide by any definition and frankly aren’t much different from the day to day behavior of western security forces. Interviews in the un report describe being held in prison facilities for several months while undergoing questioning, some cultural and religious education programs intended to instill Uighur cultural identity and Chinese national identity, while also showing how Wahhabism contradicts many islamic principles and brings violence and instability. Also apparently a lot of being forced to sing patriotic songs, which, really?
Was it nice? No, arbitrarily arresting people is not nice. However it needs to be positioned within the context of the global war on terror and the enormous amount of bloodshed the west and it’s allies unleashed “fighting terrorism”. At any rate, it seems to have worked - wahhabi violence in Xinjiang has dropped off and afaik the Chinese counter-terror program was wrapped up several years ago, and was already wrapping up when the UN investigation was being conducted.
Seriously, read the UN report. It’s very much critical of china and it’s critique of what china was really doing shows how absurd and bad faith the accusations of genocide were.
You’re missing one step in that: when those counter-terrorism programs were first rolled out the western media railed against them as being too soft compared to the preferred western strategy of random air strikes and entrapping alienated kids with fake terror plots. It was only years later, when the programs were being wound down as no longer necessary, that the western media started pushing the “genocide” conspiracy theory.
Reminds me of the critique of China’s COVID policy.
First it was the stupid lazy peasants and their wet markets, the incompetent bureaucrats who couldn’t enforce a quarantine, and the primitive medical technology of backwards China that caused a rapid spread of the disease.
Then, China got their epidemic under control while it ran rampant in the US. The media narrative shifted to claim that Chinese quarantine controls were outright fascist, that police were brutalizing people in the name of quarantine, and that actually this whole thing was a high tech invention of the evil geniuses at the Wuhan Lab who had engineered a virus specifically targeted to Western DNA.
Whatever China does is wrong. The policies don’t matter. The results don’t matter. The relative comparison to US policies don’t matter. It’s bad and it’s wrong and the Chinese government shouldn’t be allowed to continue existing for the sack of their own people.
Don’t forget the narrative that china was lying about their numbers the whole time because there’s no way a bunch of ASIANS could do better than WHITE AMERICANS.
I always like to ask people if Taiwan, which had similar measures and infection/fatality rates as mainland China, is also lying about their numbers.
What’s the Parenti like? Unfalsifiable orthodoxy or something?
This is the first time I’ve heard this angle of the issue. Where can I learn more?
I’m not familiar with it, but maybe start by looking up the Xinjiang knife and machete attacks from years and years back and see if you can follow the thread from there?
this is the report you’re talking about, right?
Death to America
Or just read Adrian Zenz’s original report making the accusation and look at his source when he cites one to see how it debunks his claim
Thanks for pointing me toward the UN report. It’s fairly long (as it should be), but they helpfully provide a summary of their findings:
The Summary
Serious human rights violations have been committed in XUAR in the context of the Government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism” strategies. The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights. These patterns of restrictions are characterized by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities.
These human rights violations, as documented in this assessment, flow from a domestic “anti-terrorism law system” that is deeply problematic from the perspective of international human rights norms and standards. It contains vague, broad and open-ended concepts that leave wide discretion to officials to interpret and apply broad investigative, preventive and coercive powers, in a context of limited safeguards and scant independent oversight. This framework, which is vulnerable to discriminatory application, has in practice led to the large-scale arbitrary deprivation of liberty of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities in XUAR in so-called VETC and other facilities, at least between 2017 and 2019. Even if the VETC system has since been reduced in scope or wound up, as the Government has claimed, the laws and policies that underpin it remain in place. There appears to be a parallel trend of an increased number and length of imprisonments occurring through criminal justice processes, suggesting that the focus of deprivation of liberty has shifted towards imprisonment, on purported grounds of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism”.
The treatment of persons held in the system of so-called VETC facilities is of equal concern. Allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence. While the available information at this stage does not allow OHCHR to draw firm conclusions regarding the exact extent of such abuses, it is clear that the highly securitised and discriminatory nature of the VETC facilities, coupled with limited access to effective remedies or oversight by the authorities, provide fertile ground for such violations to take place on a broad scale.
The systems of arbitrary detention and related patterns of abuse in VETC and other detention facilities come against the backdrop of broader discrimination against members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities based on perceived security threats emanating from individual members of these groups. This has included far-reaching, arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, in violation of international norms and standards. These have included undue restrictions on religious identity and expression, as well as the rights to privacy and movement. There are serious indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive and discriminatory enforcement of family planning and birth control policies. Similarly, there are indications that labour and employment schemes for purported purposes of poverty alleviation and prevention of “extremism”, including those linked to the VETC system, may involve elements of coercion and discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds.
The described policies and practices in XUAR have transcended borders, separating families and severing human contacts, while causing particular suffering to affected Uyghur, Kazakh and other predominantly Muslim minority families, exacerbated by patterns of intimidations and threats against members of the diaspora community speaking publicly about experiences in XUAR.
The information currently available to OHCHR on implementation of the Government’s stated drive against terrorism and “extremism” in XUAR in the period 2017- 2019 and potentially thereafter, also raises concerns from the perspective of international criminal law. The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.
The Government holds the primary duty to ensure that all laws and policies are brought into compliance with international human rights law and to promptly investigate any allegations of human rights violations, to ensure accountability for perpetrators and to provide redress to victims. Individuals who are arbitrarily deprived of their liberty should be immediately released. As the conditions remain in place for serious violations to continue and recur, these must also be addressed promptly and effectively. The human rights situation in XUAR also requires urgent attention by the Government, the United Nations intergovernmental bodies and human rights system, as well as the international community more broadly.
OHCHR is grateful to the Government and other institutions for sharing with it information about aspects of the situation in XUAR. This assessment was also facilitated by the vast amount of research that has been completed by non-governmental organizations, researchers, journalists and academics over the last years (and independently assessed by OHCHR). OHCHR is deeply grateful to the victims and witnesses who were willing to share their experiences with OHCHR, despite the potential risks to themselves and their loved ones.
It’s… not great! Taken at face value, it’s full of human rights violations! And also nothing resembling genocide.
I think that’s part of what makes it hard to talk about. There were human rights violations, including some very strange ones. So when you throw it at the average lib and say “This isn’t genocide!” they’ll often shift the goal posts to arbitrary arrest and detentions without disclosure of where the detained person is being held, never pausing to consider that while that’s bad, it’s not at all what they asserted initially.