Apple takes down Quran app in China - "the app was removed for hosting illegal religious texts... both Apple and Google removed a tactical voting app devised by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Russian authorities had threatened to fine the two companies if they refused to drop the app, which told users who could unseat ruling party candidates... Apple chief executive Tim Cook has been accused of hypocrisy from politicians in the US for speaking out about American politics, but staying quiet about China. Mr Cook criticised Donald Trump's ban of seven Muslim-majority countries in 2017. However, he is also accused of complying with the Chinese government over censorship - and not publicly criticising it for its treatment of Muslim minorities... Another popular religious app, Olive Tree's Bible app, was also taken down this week in China. The company told the BBC they had removed the app themselves. "Olive Tree Bible Software was informed during the App Store review process that we are required to provide a permit demonstrating our authorization to distribute an app with book or magazine content in mainland China"... Audible, the Amazon owned audiobook and podcast service, removed its app from the Apple store in mainland China last month "due to permit requirements." On Thursday, Microsoft said it was shutting down its social network, LinkedIn, in China, saying having to comply with the Chinese state had become increasingly challenging. The decision was made after the career-networking site faced questions for blocking the profiles of some journalists."
Damn CIA!
China shills claim China only targets terrorists. So presumably China shills are now claiming that all Muslims are terrorists
Yahoo latest to leave China for good, blaming 'challenging' environment - "Its departure comes as Beijing has imposed fresh curbs on its internet companies on areas from content to customer privacy as well as new laws. On Monday, its new Personal Information Protection law designed to protect online user data privacy came into effect."
'Tang Little Kyoto' attraction in China shut after 2 weeks as Chinese netizens cry 'cultural invasion' - "Chinese netizens on social media site Weibo were initially furious with the Japanese-themed attraction, while some pointed out that it was "insensitive" to ignore the history of the Japanese occupation. umours about the management only allowing Japanese businesses to operate were also rife, until the management debunked the false accusations.. Chinese netizens blasted the developer in charge of the project and the local Dalian government for approving a Japanese-themed town in China, saying it is an action of "low EQ". Some Chinese netizens pointed to the history of Japanese occupation in Dalian. The Japanese occupied Dalian twice, where the first occupation in 1894 resulted in the Port Arthur massacre. Others called for a boycott of the attraction and investigations to be launched against the local officials."
Rupa Subramanya: Why did so many Chinese-Canadians turn against the Conservatives? - "the Conservatives’ strong rhetoric against the Communist regime in China very likely cost them votes among the Chinese-Canadian community, and may have helped the Liberals return to power. In contrast to the Tories, the Liberals and the NDP said very little about China in their campaign platforms or on the stump. And there was some polling suggesting that the strategy may have paid off for the two left-of-centre parties... There is certainly some evidence suggesting that, as my India example illustrates, diasporas continue to care about the countries they came from, and this could even apply to second- or third-generation immigrants who continue to have cultural, linguistic and familial ties to other countries. And, for more recent immigrants, there might be more pragmatic reasons to care about the country they came from, including business or other connections, which could be jeopardized if their new country’s government takes a hard line... the Conservatives have been careful to stress that criticism of the Chinese government is not intended as a criticism of Chinese-Canadians. Yet their poor electoral showing in this community during the recent election raises questions about how successful that strategy was."
Of course, it is still racist to suggest that a country having non-white citizens with loyalty to another country might be an issue if that other country is unfriendly
Chinese conservative group calls on O'Toole to resign over 'anti-China' platform | The Post Millennial - "The Chinese Canadian Conservative Association said the party needs a less aggressive stance towards Beijing. The call comes amid deteriorating relations with mainland China, following the release of Canadian diplomats Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. A Nanos poll found Canadians became over three times more likely to call relations between Canada and China unfriendly. Forty-three percent of respondents opted for unfriendly and 12 percent for friendly, while another 42 percent picked neutral... Association spokesman Joe Li said, "Canada started the war" after China detained the two Michaels, reported the National Post. He added Mainland China had a right to fly its planes into Taiwan's air-defence zone and that Canada should not publicly criticize Beijing's human-rights abuses."
Of course, it is "racist" to criticise a non-white country
China blog: Who is Xi Dada? - ""If my husband is like him, I will be happy," proclaims one girl. "His face is a bit cute," explains a young man. "Everybody looks at him and they just like him." It might appear as if they're talking about a teen pop star, but actually, they're praising Chinese President Xi Jinping. Even in a country that's experienced in producing feel-good propaganda, a video made by a major state newspaper reaches new highs of sickly sweetness... The video itself is a list of compliments from doe-eyed foreign students who appear to be studying in Beijing. President Xi is described by the students as "a wise and resolute president", "super charismatic" and "not only a businessman, but also a family man"."
Proof that there is no cult of personality
The Xi personality cult is a danger to China | Financial Times - "Chinese children as young as 10 will soon be required to take lessons in Xi Jinping thought. Before they reach their teenage years, pupils will be expected to learn stories about the Chinese leader’s life and to understand that “Grandpa Xi Jinping has always cared for us.” This should be an alarm bell for modern China. The state-led veneration of Xi has echoes of the personality cult around Mao Zedong — and with it, of the famines and terror unleashed by Mao during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. From Stalin’s Russia to Ceausescu’s Romania to Kim’s North Korea and Castro’s Cuba, the combination of a personality cult and Communist Party rule is usually a recipe for poverty and brutality... The China model of reform and opening, put in place by Deng Xiaoping, was based on a rejection of the cult of personality. Deng urged officials to “seek truth from facts”. Policy should be guided by a pragmatic observation of what works, rather than the grandiose statements of Chairman Mao... The real difficulty is that if things do go wrong, it will be very hard for anybody to say so openly. All personality cults are based on the idea that the great leader is wiser than everyone who surrounds him. He cannot be acknowledged to have made mistakes. Chinese critics of Xi’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic have been sent to prison. There will be no public inquiries or parliamentary hearings into the pandemic in Xi’s China. The Xi cult is also intrinsically humiliating for China’s educated middle-class and senior officials — who have to study Xi thought daily on a special app. They are expected to express reverence for the leader’s musings and to parrot his favourite phrases, such as “green mountains and clear water are equal to mountains of gold and silver”. Anybody who finds this ritual objectionable or laughable, would be wise to keep their thoughts to themselves. The Xi cult means that insincerity and fear are now baked into the Chinese system. Extending Xi’s leadership long into the future is also a recipe for a future succession crisis. The Chinese leader is 68 years old. At some point, he will no longer be fit to govern. But how will he be removed?"
Why Xi Jinping’s cult of personality is more dangerous than it looks - The Globe and Mail - "For a while on Monday, the letter N was banned on the internet in China. Authorities blocked this single Roman character from social media, informed observers reported, because so many people were sending one another equations, such as "n > 2," to complain about the proposal by the Communist Party's Central Committee to eliminate the two-term limit for presidents... Just look at some of the other suddenly-popular words and phrases currently reported blocked from China's social media: "long live the emperor," "personality cult" and "1984."... The Chinese media long ago dubbed Mr. Xi the "Chairman of Everything," for having subsumed so many formerly autonomous departments and bureaucracies. It appears Mr. Xi is ruling not on the basis of Karl Marx's ideas, but those of that other pioneering German social scientist, Max Weber. He saw effective legitimate government power as emerging from the "routinization of charismatic authority" – that is, from those moments when the individual leadership of a popular charismatic leader is turned into a set of routines and institutions that can continue beyond her moment in power. Mr. Xi is attempting the opposite – he's rupturing the routines and bureaucracy and replacing them with a new wave of charismatic authority, much as Mao did... Mr. Xi is relying on economic growth, a rising middle class and Chinese national pride, rather than institutions and laws, to maintain his legitimacy. If any of those things falter, it could be dangerous not just for the Chinese people but for the rest of the world. As foreign-policy scholars Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Erica Frantz and Joseph Wright found in a 2016 essay, a "robust body of political science research" has concluded that "personalist dictatorships [rather than bureaucratic dictatorships] tend to produce the worst outcomes of any type of political regime: they tend to produce the most risky and aggressive foreign policies; they are the most likely to invest in nuclear weapons; the most likely to fight wars against democracies; and the most likely to initiate interstate conflicts." They are also the least likely to become democratic. More than four in 10 of the world's authoritarian regimes are "personalist" today. If China adds itself to that list, it will be good for Xi Jinping, but bad for any prospect of a stable future."
How Xi Jinping’s growing personality cult differs from Kim family worship - "Xi’s stature depends on his country’s economic success, whereas Kim’s legitimacy is rooted in the narrative of his family’s resistance to colonialism."
Opinion: It's a bad sign when elites are adopting Chinese Communist Party rhetoric - The Hub - "University of British Columbia professor Paul Evans and Senator Yuen Pau Woo, who have adopted the Chinese Communist Party’s rhetoric wholesale... Just like the PRC’s own apologists, Evans and Woo claim that criticism of the domestic and international policies of the PRC regime in China is driving anti-Chinese racism in Canada. Yes, some researchers did find that discrimination against Chinese Canadians has been on the rise since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Evans and Woo are wrong to twist the story by using such findings to deflect criticism of Beijing. Evans and Woo suggest that raising concerns about the CCP’s foreign disinformation and propaganda wing, the United Front Work Department, is not only exaggerated but contributes to “racial profiling and stigmatization.” Yet they offer little detail on how this criticism, often from highly reputable sources like Western intelligence agencies and scholars and experts on national security, is exaggerated as opposed to being fair and well-reasoned... In this view, the “toxic atmosphere” is not caused by China’s sharp power tactics against Canada and the U.S., but by those who point them out. Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur and Hong Kong critics of the Chinese regime routinely face bullying and intimidation, including threats of death or sexual violence, right here in Canada. But this does not concern the authors of the Globe article. Rather, they argue that Canada needs to show greater tolerance for views that are indistinguishable from the propaganda of the regime; otherwise, they warn, Chinese Canadians will face discrimination. The authors ignore the fact that many of the regime’s most passionate critics are themselves of Chinese descent. They neglect to mention that the principal oppressor of the Chinese people is in fact the CCP itself. Calling this out is not racist; it is empowering to those who live in China and risk imprisonment for merely expressing opinions that the regime finds distasteful. Worse still, this article from Evans and Woo is hardly an isolated statement from the authors; it certainly is not out of character. Most recently, Woo doubled down on repeating the rhetoric used by the wolf warriors in China’s Embassy in Ottawa, arguing that Canada cannot be critical of China’s ongoing genocide in Xinjiang due to Canada’s own deeply problematic history with residential schools. This classic whataboutism is obviously not concerned about racial inequality or the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples, but again, defending the PRC regime against criticism for its abhorrent human rights abuses. The fact of Canada’s appalling history of gross mistreatment of indigenous peoples makes us Canadians even more sensitized to the evil of crimes against humanity being committed by autocratic racist regimes in China and elsewhere in the world. Woo has it exactly backwards. Let’s not be fooled by the Chinese regime’s propaganda: President Xi and his Communist Party cronies are not our friends, they have no intention of treating us as equals, and they will go to great lengths to achieve ends that are fundamentally opposed to our interests and values. Chinese people, and the Chinese diaspora in Canada and around the world, are the ones who will suffer most if we ignore these truths and choose instead the perverse path of appeasement."
Livio Di Matteo: China’s burial of the West is greatly exaggerated - The Hub - "China now again has a bigger GDP than the United States, but it has been there before. However, when it comes to per capita GDP, not that much has changed and there is a long way to go. China also may be about to run out of steam given that its large population slows its per capita output growth. It also has a rapidly aging population that potentially limits its future output growth though this is also a problem affecting much of the developed world. And like the developed world, China has also run up a rather large stockpile of debt. While China has developed greater capacity for research and innovation, it is telling that even during the pandemic, ultimately the most successful vaccines were all developed in IMF advanced economies. Moreover, China now faces pushback from other countries with respect to trade and investment given that it is being viewed as a non-reciprocal player when it comes to international trade. As well, its reticent behaviour early on in the COVID-19 pandemic in allowing the virus to spread around the world because of a reluctance to fully acknowledge the problem has not helped matters. Given the economic extremes generated by China’s rapid economic growth, navigating its domestic political and social tensions makes foreign adventurism and bravado an attractive option for an authoritarian leadership seeking to divert the masses."
Wait, who is the wolf again? Chinese embassy's Aesop fable analogy baffles Twitter - "A butchered Aesop’s fable from the Twitter account of China’s embassy in Ireland has drawn mirth from observers and highlighted the growing sensitivity of Chinese diplomats to international criticism... Riffing on the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb, a story of tyrannical injustice in which the lamb is falsely accused and killed, Thursday’s post queried: “Who is the wolf?” It continued: “Some people accused China for so-called ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’. In his well-known fable, Aesop described how the Wolf accused the Lamb of committing offences. The wolf is the wolf, not the lamb … BTW, China is not a lamb.” The confused analogy prompted attempts to unpack its meaning. “[H]e leaps in with the fable of the wolf and the lamb … but as he gets to the end, he realises he’s left himself open. China can’t be portrayed as a weak lamb that will be eaten up. China is strong, powerful! So he adds the ‘BTW’,” said Foreign Policy’s deputy editor, James Palmer, in a breakdown of the likely context behind the tweet. “I honestly don’t think the embassy staff meant to say that China is the wolf in this fable but I scratch my head about what they meant to say through this fable,” said Victor Shih, a University of California San Diego academic on China. “[If] it’s something like ‘China is innocent like the lamb in the fable except China is a wolf’ then don’t use the fable!”... Palmer said that as China’s autocratic system tightens, it is the people who are happy to toe any party line who get ahead, while those who have views “in opposition to the prevailing political mood – in this case Xi-ist xenophobia and ethnonationalism” are pushed to the margins. “I think it’s done wonders in alienating foreigners from China and helping probably doom [the comprehensive agreement on investment with the EU], but the people who realise how self-defeating the wolf-warrior stuff is are very much pushed to the margins of the system at the moment”... Recent news reports have described state media’s use of foreigners inside China to write or blog stories that counter western “smears”, and this week CGTN published one such account supposedly by a French journalist who had lived in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, for seven years. In the article, which remains online, Laurène Beaumond, described as a freelance journalist who had worked for several Paris titles, said: “I do not recognise Xinjiang which is described to me [by western media] in the one I know.” On Thursday the French publication Le Monde revealed that Beaumond did not exist. The outlet said there was no record of a journalist of that name having worked in France."
The CIA must have hacked Le Monde's records!
China power cuts: What is causing the country's blackouts? - "China is struggling with a severe shortage of electricity which has left millions of homes and businesses hit by power cuts. Blackouts are not that unusual in the country but this year a number of factors have contributed to a perfect storm for electricity suppliers. The problem is particularly serious in China's north eastern industrial hubs as winter approaches - and is something that could have implications for the rest of the world... As the world starts to reopen after the pandemic, demand for Chinese goods is surging and the factories making them need a lot more power. Rules imposed by Beijing as it attempts to make the country carbon neutral by 2060 have seen coal production slow, even as the country still relies on coal for more than half of its power. And as electricity demand has risen, the price of coal has been pushed up. But with the government strictly controlling electricity prices, coal-fired power plants are unwilling to operate at a loss, with many drastically reducing their output instead... The state-run Global Times newspaper said there had been outages in four provinces - Guangdong in the south and Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning in the north east. There are also reports of power cuts in other parts of the country... Goldman Sachs has estimated that as much as 44% of the country's industrial activity has been affected by power shortages. It now expects the world's second largest economy to expand by 7.8% this year, down from its previous prediction of 8.2%"
Damn CIA! Forcing China to block Australian coal imports in order to sabotage the Chinese economy is particularly brilliant of them
The future environmentalists will cause - power cuts
Chinese government threatens Canada, warning its own citizens to exercise caution when travelling to the country - The Globe and Mail - "The Chinese embassy in Ottawa also published a brief notice on its WeChat account warning travellers – who are largely barred from entering Canada at the moment – about the “frequent” occurrences of police violence and demonstrations. China’s Foreign Ministry occupies a comparatively low position in the country’s state hierarchy of power, and the threats and insults it has made in recent months have come with such frequency that it has grown increasingly difficult to discern which are genuine signals of the world’s second-largest economy preparing to take action. In the past week alone, China has used virtually identical language to threaten Britain with “further reactions,” called Indian politicians “irresponsible,” accused an Australian think tank of “maliciously smearing” China and dismissed Japan for an “anti-China ‘performance.’ ” Mr. Zhao has labelled the U.S. a “bully,” and called U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a “brazen liar” whose “lies and rumours demonstrate nothing but ignorance and prejudice.” (Mr. Zhao has reserved more flattering comments for Pakistan, Venezuela, Russia and Cuba.)... At the Foreign Ministry, Mr. Zhao, the spokesman, also waved away a question about the reasons for Beijing’s new anger with Ottawa. The Canadian government said it would treat Hong Kong no differently from mainland China in matters of military exports. Canada and China also do not have an extradition treaty. Why, then, would China be displeased with Canada for treating Hong Kong as part of China? “You are using lame arguments and perverted logic,” said Mr. Zhao, in response to a question from The Globe and Mail. “Don’t you know that [the Canadian response] is an act of interference with China’s internal affairs?”"
From 2020
China's 'sinicization' push leads to removal of mosque domes - "The Dongguan Mosque has adopted some very different looks in its nearly 700 years in China's northwestern city of Xining. Built in the style of a Chinese imperial palace, with tiled roofs and no domes, and adorned with Buddhist symbols, the mosque was nearly destroyed by neglect during political tumult in the early 20th century. In the 1990s, authorities replaced the original ceramic tiles on the roof and minarets with green domes. This year, provincial authorities lopped off those domes... China is removing the domes and minarets from thousands of mosques across the country. Authorities say the domes are evidence of foreign religious influence and are taking down overtly Islamic architecture as part of a push to sinicize historically Muslim ethnic groups — to make them more traditionally Chinese... After more than 1,300 years of living and intermarrying in China, Hui Muslims — who number about 10.5 million, less than 1% of China's population — have adjusted by becoming culturally and linguistically Chinese. They even made their version of Islam accessible to Confucians and Daoists — trying to show it as inherently Chinese and not a foreign influence — by adopting spiritual concepts and terms found in ancient Chinese philosophy to explain Islamic precepts. Various Hui sects have also incorporated Chinese religious practices into their worship, such as burning incense at religious ceremonies. Hui communities in central Henan province are even known for their female-only and female-led mosques, believed to be a uniquely long tradition in China. The problem from Chinese authorities' perspective, says Gladney, is that the Hui are not Chinese in the way sinicization proponents want: "When people make this one-way argument of sinicization, I think they're confusing that with Han-isization" — in other words, making Chinese Muslims more like China's Han ethnic majority. Beijing has a much narrower understanding of what being "Chinese" means – adhering to Communist Party values, speaking only Mandarin Chinese and rejecting all foreign influence, say scholars. "The Communists nowadays try to culturally rule China," says Ma Haiyun, an associate history professor at Frostburg University... Yusuf, the Muslim owner of a store near the Dongguan Mosque selling Muslim head coverings and halal beauty products, says the Hui must continue to adapt, as they have for centuries, to survive. He requested that NPR only use one name because residents may face state retribution for speaking about religious affairs with foreign journalists. "Everything changes from one era to another. During Chairman Mao's time, they tore down all our mosques. Then they built them up. Now they are tearing them down again! Just follow whatever political slogan the country is yelling at the time.""
Of course, we know this is just an anti-terrorist measure
So much for China shills claiming that the Hui are untouched because they're not terrorists
Singapore particularly vulnerable yet resilient to Chinese influence operations: French report - "A terrorist attack targeting the ethnic Chinese and triggering intercommunal unrest in Singapore, serving as a pretext for China's intervention. Beijing's use of Malaysian-based intermediaries to conduct disinformation operations against Singapore, to exploit the city-state's closeness with its neighbour. These are examples of how Singapore's structural vulnerabilities could be targeted and exploited by China, a French think-tank said in a report... The study by the Institute for Strategic Research at France's Military College, or Irsem, also observed that Singapore has been able to resist and defend against Chinese influence "skilfully", with the counter-narrative of a single national identity... The 646-page document, titled "Chinese influence operations: A Machiavellian moment", describes in French how China is ramping up attempts to infiltrate and coerce states around the world through a mix of overt and covert means. The Chinese embassy in France on Sept 22 responded by slamming the report as a "stigmatisation operation" against China. Authored by Chinese politics and foreign affairs experts Paul Charon and Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer, the Irsem report contains case studies on Taiwan, Sweden, Canada and Singapore. The chapter on Singapore noted that its primary vulnerability was the very nature of its multiethnic and intercommunal society - both an asset and a lever that could easily be used by an ill-intentioned third party. Irsem said the main narratives conveyed by Beijing's influence operations include how Singapore:
- Is a Chinese country that is part of and should be loyal to "Greater China"
- Is a small state that cannot afford to be arrogant and alienate the Chinese giant
- Lacks a strong leader since the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong underestimating the importance of ties with Beijing
- Is too close to the United States, which is the past while China is the future and it is in Singapore's interest to align with Beijing; and
- Should not get involved in the South China Sea debate.
The widespread use of English and Chinese here also makes Singapore all the more penetrable by external actors... "Its dependence on imports for all essential goods; its strained relationship with Malaysia - itself vulnerable to radical Islam and more or less aligned with Beijing - are other vulnerabilities likely to be exploited," added Irsem, citing known precedents of Malaysian Chinese groups producing disinformation content against Taiwan... It estimated at least 20,000 Chinese naturalised as citizens each year, excluding permanent residents, and described this flow as a way of maintaining a Chinese majority for a community with the lowest birth rate. "These Chinese newcomers, who maintain their networks in mainland China, are an additional vector of influence"... Irsem also said China could rely on influential "spokespersons" in Singapore. The report detailed three incidents: the 2016 impounding of the Singapore army's Terrex vehicles in Hong Kong while en route home from Taiwan; the 2017 expulsion of China-born academic Huang Jing for trying to influence Singaporean officials; and the detention of Singaporean Dickson Yeo in January for being a paid China spy. Irsem pointed out that the Terrex saga had led to online disinformation and influence campaigns pressuring Singaporeans and pushing the narrative that Singapore must "stay in its place". The think-tank also suggested that a 2018 hacking of Ministry of Health data was a response to the Huang case, with the aim of finding compromising information about PM Lee... It added that the subject of Chinese influence remains highly sensitive but is well-documented, and with accumulating cases and increasingly frequent and detailed analysis, has become easier to address... The Irsem publication is the latest of several reports highlighting Singapore as a natural target for Chinese influence. In June, experts told The Straits Times that such operations would have been amplified lately, including through propaganda campaigns against US-made Covid-19 vaccines and in favour of China's Sinovac. Last month, citing the threat posed to political sovereignty and national security, the Singapore Government proposed the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act or Fica. It did not explicitly name any state actors targeting Singapore."
Naturally, I saw a few Singaporeans claim the French were making it up
Xinjiang: What the media never reports - People's Daily Online - "They have long been portraying the vocational education and training centers of Xinjiang as so-called concentration camps. However, the media have failed to report that through vocational training, Xinjiang has built a large knowledge-based, skilled and innovative workforce that meets the requirements of the new era. Every year from 2014 to 2019, Xinjiang provided training sessions to an average of 1.29 million urban and rural workers"
This China shill got upset when I quoted a BBC article which said that China had claimed it had processed millions in the camps, and told me not to believe the BBC
I told him to let the People's Daily Online know that their website had been hacked by the CIA to frame China for terrorising the Uighurs
China Under Xi Is Tough Target for CIA Spies, Hurting Biden’s Beijing Policy - Bloomberg - "The current and former officials emphasize that America’s spy agencies have long struggled to provide the insights policy makers demand on China. The hurdles facing the U.S. intelligence community are both deep-seated — Beijing did significant damage to American spy networks in China prior to Xi’s presidency — and basic, including a continuing shortage of Mandarin speakers."
The CIA are really sneaky, telling the world that they have a shortage of Mandarin speakers when it's clear from how much nefarious work they've done that they must employ at least hundreds of native Mandarin speakers to be able to fabricate so much material to frame China
[Feature] Can Korea ditch Xinjiang polysilicon over forced labor? (The Korea Herald)
There're so many Western media outlets out there spreading lies about China and the Uyghurs
Uighur refugees deserve freedom (Bangkok Post)
What's going on in Xinjiang? | South China Morning Post - "Access to the region is restricted, which means it is difficult to verify claims. Other than state-organised visits – where diplomats and journalists are chaperoned by officials – outside organisations or media that have been able to enter Xinjiang reported being put under close surveillance and followed by security agents. Activists say they cannot get visas, travel freely or ensure people they talk to in Xinjiang are protected from retaliation."
Weird. China shills tell us anyone can visit Xinjiang
China’s Xinjiang policies ‘poorly explained and ruthlessly executed’ | South China Morning Post - "the academics acknowledged that Chinese leaders should also share blame for the increasingly raucous attacks and counter-attacks with the West over Xinjiang, and that policies to counter terrorism and religious extremism and maintain social stability had been poorly explained and ruthlessly implemented. Following the appointment of Chen Quanguo as party chief in 2016, the security apparatus in the region underwent a massive expansion, with the construction of a network of detention facilities, strict surveillance and an enhanced political indoctrination drive. “The execution of some of our policies at the local level has gone overboard, like the policing [by local cadres] which may have gone too far in ensuring social stability,” said Li Sheng, former director of the Research Centre for Chinese Borderland History and Geography at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a think tank in Beijing. “The [cadres’] original intention might have been good and [they] didn’t mean to mess up Xinjiang. However, the execution [of policies] was varied and not of a high standard”... According to the academics – some of whom have previously advised the Chinese leadership on Xinjiang – it was both imperative and legitimate for Beijing to crack down on terrorism after a series of violent and bloody attacks, and also to rethink the country’s ethnic minority policies... “The biggest problem was the lack of transparency, and simplicity and crudeness [in implementing the policies],” said Yin, who has been studying Xinjiang issues for nearly 20 years. While imposing a news blackout over the incidents and subsequent crackdown had made it easier for Beijing to project an image of stability and unity, experts said the high-handed control and secrecy also bred misunderstanding and gave room for malicious attacks – especially as independent researchers were denied opportunities to understand the real picture on the ground... In a 2019 speech, Xi said all ethnic groups in China should be treated equally, suggesting that the policy of giving minorities preferential treatment in certain areas would end. Yin said the shift had been a step in the right direction. “[The policy] needed adjustment. First of all, we are all citizens, independent of what ethnicity we belong to, so we should all have equal rights in terms of employment, education and joining the Communist Party. In other words, giving ethnic minority people special preferences is a form of discrimination so we should dilute the consciousness of ethnicity and stress equality more.” A social researcher, who requested anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity, said Beijing’s philosophy on Xinjiang had shifted to focus on “equal treatment and governance by law” instead of emphasising ethnic differences — a policy derived from the Soviets “After the founding of the People’s Republic, our ethnic minority policies were largely modelled on that of the [former] Soviet Union and mostly of Stalin’s. In retrospect, many of our policies [in Xinjiang] have gone overboard,” the researcher said. “Sometimes our policies were too generous, offering a lot of preferential treatment, but the effects were not good. But then sometimes we were too harsh in our crackdown. So we have not had a good grasp of the policies and the execution was poor.”"
Time to purge some counterrevolutionar... expel some CIA agents!
China shills will still keep claiming Uighurs get special privileges - even though China is moving away from that de jure policy
Facebook - "Follow the Silk Road: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe confirms the Intelligence Ombudsman’s report to Congress claiming China interfered in the 2020 election & his view that CIA management allowed political reasons to cloud their judgement."
Xi Jinping calls for more 'loveable' image for China in bid to make friends - "Analysts said Mr Xi's remarks marked a rare admission of Beijing's isolation."
