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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat lom's Avatar
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    The Atlantic on the Chinesiums treatment of its Uyghur population

    This is The Atlantic’s weekly email to subscribers, a close look at the issues our newsroom is watching. As always, you can talk with us by replying directly to this email.

    About 10 years ago, I traveled through parts of northwest China, including the Uyghur region of Xinjiang. The Chinese government had recently begun to crack down on ethnic minorities in the area, and I was the only non–Han Chinese or white passenger on our bus, so I expected some attention.
    Sure enough, as our bus entered Xinjiang, security officers stopped it and specifically asked for my passport or identity documents.

    My small indignity on the bus was the subtlest of foreshadowing for what was to come in Xinjiang. In the following years, the region would be turned into among the most oppressive surveillance states on Earth. Uyghurs are being taken away, in many instances without any pretense, and sent to concentration camps. The Chinese government insists that they are voluntarily submitting to reeducation, but a mounting pile of evidence makes clear that this is not the case.

    Perhaps no account of this repression is more eloquent, more humane, or more shocking than Tahir Hamut Izgil’s five-part series, “One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps.” Izgil, one of the world’s greatest Uyghur poets, cataloged his final months in Xinjiang in astonishing granularity, narrating with clarity and care the worsening situation for his people in their homeland.

    His chronicles, beautifully translated and introduced by the Princeton historian Joshua L. Freeman, illustrate the urgent humanitarian crisis in Xinjiang, but do so by telling particularly human stories. It is a searing tale, and one you will not easily forget. I certainly won’t.
    I was running for my life. Five or six armed Chinese police officers chased after me, barely a step behind. But this was the neighborhood where I was born, roads I knew like my five fingers. I rounded corners as lightly as a bird, leaped nimbly over the low mud walls between houses. But the cops were right on my heels. Just then, a siren sounded nearby. A police car careened toward me. My steps grew heavier. The officers caught up with me and pressed me to the ground. I struggled with everything in me. The police car’s siren wailed ceaselessly.
    I awoke with a start. My body was covered in sweat. I had been dreaming.

    An ambulance was passing by, its siren blaring, in front of our apartment complex in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. That was what I had just heard in my sleep.

    From the day I arrived in America, I have had numerous dreams like this, in slightly different forms. In one, for example, I would be at border control preparing to leave China. Police would arrest me and rip up my passport, and I would wake up howling.

    After I had begun to adjust to life in the United States, my dreams changed somewhat. I would be returning to Xinjiang, to the Uyghur homeland. With dear friends and family I would eat in familiar restaurants, stroll through beautiful orchards, gather in broad courtyards to sing and feast and talk. I would tell them about America. But at precisely these joyful moments, the police would arrive and confiscate my passport. I would be overcome with pain and regret. Now I can’t get back to the U.S., I’d lament. I would awaken, my heart aching.

    Every time I woke from one of these awful dreams, I would sigh with relief. “Thank God,” I would whisper.
    I wouldn’t speak of the dreams in front of my daughters; I told only my wife, Merhaba, who would tell me she had dreamed the same things. “Our bodies might be here,” she would say, “but our souls are still back home.”
    It has been four years since I arrived here in America, but I still often have these dreams. Perhaps I always will.
    Tahir Hamut Izgil

    Living through—and escaping—the Uyghur genocide

    The Atlantic on the Chinesiums-5c91b5b8a-png

    ‘I Never Thought China Could Ever Be This Dark,’ by Melissa Chan

    Leaving Xinjiang has not meant Uyghur women are free of Beijing’s grasp.

    The Atlantic on the Chinesiums-23c01af67-jpg


    Saving Uighur Culture From Genocide, by Yasmeen Serhan

    China’s repression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang has forced those in the diaspora to protect their identity from afar.

    The Atlantic on the Chinesiums-787b60d50-jpg


    The Panopticon Is Already Here, by Ross Andersen

    Xi Jinping is using artificial intelligence to enhance his government’s totalitarian control—and he’s exporting this technology to regimes around the globe.

    The Atlantic on the Chinesiums-30948c256-gif


    Last edited by lom; 18-07-2021 at 10:05 AM.

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    And ?

    China's biggest trade partner is the US of A. If China is so bad then why isn't the US literally forcing US corporations out of China ? It isn't. It's not even close. There is more trade with China than ever.

  3. #3
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Backspin View Post
    why isn't the US literally forcing US corporations out of China ?
    ask your friendly lobbyists

  4. #4
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    Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

    In an extract from his new book, Brian Merchant reveals how he gained access to Longhua, the vast complex where iPhones are made and where, in 2010, unhappy workers started killing themselves

    The Atlantic on the Chinesiums-apple-jpg


    Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city | Apple | The Guardian

  5. #5
    I'm in Jail

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    The bogeyman is now Chinese.

    Pity we don't follow them and open up re-education centres for asylum seekers/Refugees.

  6. #6
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post
    The bogeyman is now Chinese.

    Pity we don't follow them and open up re-education centres for asylum seekers/Refugees.
    Surely "holiday camps" filled with lightness and joy?

  7. #7
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    And people are still recommending that other people buy a Chinese phone or whatever.

    Somewhere down the line this is going to come to an ugly head .

    Sooner or later they will make a military play for Taiwan. How the world will react is anyones guess.

  8. #8
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    Jerry Grey, ex-London bobby-

    "I sincerely believe the entire China, Xinjiang, HK and Covid reporting all constitute another “WMD/Babies in incubators/Viagra to help mass rapes/theft of oil/Gulf of Tonkin” you name it, whatever the excuse for starting a war in the last 70 years. It’s always been something the USA have concocted and, so far, it’s been exposed as a lie on every occasion.

    This may seem like a conspiracy theory to you but is genuinely based on personal experiences on the ground. I’ve visited Xinjiang several times, not as a normal tourist, but as a long-distance cyclist and, in doing so, have cycled thousands of kilometres through the region (it’s not a province) I’ve met with an uncountable number of Uyghurs and established to my own satisfaction, that there is no oppression going on there. This is further evidenced by the hundreds of videos coming out of the region on Chinese social media and YouTube. Also, by the fact that more than 200 million tourists have visited the region in the last 3 years as well as over 100 diplomats, thousands of journalists and even Counter-terrorist chief of the UN (Vladimir Voronkov, if you wish to research this). And also from Better Cotton Industries who were misrepresented by the BBC as pulling out of Xinjiang due to “concerns” but who actually pulled out because they were threatened with sanctions if they didn’t, for the record in 8 years of visiting Xinjiang on behalf of their membership, not one case of labour abuse was ever reported by BCI and they still maintain their Shanghai offices, although, sadly this has caused them to need to let several staff members go."

    An open letter to Australia’s ABC | by Jerry Grey | Jun, 2021 | Medium

  9. #9
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    established to my own satisfaction, that there is no oppression going on there.
    Uighurs enjoy a fun-packed day out at one of Chinastan's "holiday camps".

    The Atlantic on the Chinesiums-untitled-jpg

  10. #10
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phoenix View Post
    Sooner or later they will make a military play for Taiwan. How the world will react is anyones guess.
    React ?

    How ?

    We can't

    Maybe Taiwan can

    The "West" won't go to war for Taiwan

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Also, by the fact that more than 200 million tourists have visited the region in the last 3 years as well as over 100 diplomats, thousands of journalists

    Well that's a load of bullshit right there.

  12. #12
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo View Post
    Well that's a load of bullshit right there.
    Well in fairness it is well known that they fhave often ferried closely escorted diplomats and journalists to observe staged displays of "lightness and joy".

    "Yes.I.am.very.grateful.to.the.CCP.for.being.so.wo nderful.to.me" etc.

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    And I've found another bug in this forum software.

  14. #14
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    As a matter of interest Cujo, are there any Uyghur or other 'stan ethnic communities around your neck of the woods? I believe the restaurant cuisine has gotten quite a following in China.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    As a matter of interest Cujo, are there any Uyghur or other 'stan ethnic communities around your neck of the woods? I believe the restaurant cuisine has gotten quite a following in China.
    Not around here, there are a few Xinjiang restaurants but they're spread out and there used to be a lot of good Xinjiang BBQ carts aound but not so much anymore. (they've pretty much got rid of street food around here unfortunately)
    There used to be a lot more but wherever they were, check your belongings. Thieving cunts they are.
    They used to sell animal parts from blankets spread out on the footpath. Pissed me off to see tigers paws.
    Now that you mention it, haven't seen them for a few years but in winter they used to turn up selling walnuts and sultanas from Tricycle beds.
    “If we stop testing right now we’d have very few cases, if any.” Donald J Trump.

  16. #16
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    The Liverpudlians of China.

  17. #17
    I'm in Jail

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    ^ coming from a Jock

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