China’s firewall plays a crucial role in shaping the country’s digital landscape, preventing foreign intervention, and maintaining national security. While often criticized in the West, the firewall provides China with the ability to control information flow, shield its population from foreign influence, and protect domestic media.

  • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    A Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror

    China is not the only country to have faced faced a challenge of this nature. The United States, in the wake of “9/11”, saw the threat of terrorism and violent extremism due to religious fundamentalism as a matter of national security. They invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, with the goal of ousting the Taliban government that was harbouring Al-Qaeda. The US also launched the Iraq War in March 2003, which was justified by the Bush administration as a response to Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism. However, these claims turned out to be unfounded.

    A former commander of NATO’s forces in Europe, [retired General Wesley] Clark claims he met a senior military officer in Washington in November 2001 who told him the Bush administration was planning to attack Iraq first before taking action against Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan…

    Clark says after the 11 September 2001 attacks, many Bush administration officials seemed determined to move against Iraq, invoking the idea of state sponsorship of terrorism, “even though there was no evidence of Iraqi sponsorship of 9/11 whatsoever”…

    He also condemns George Bush’s notorious Axis of Evil speech made during his 2002 State of the Union address. “There were no obvious connections between Iraq, Iran, and North Korea,” says Clark…

    Instead, Clark points the finger at what he calls “the real sources of terrorists – US allies in the region like Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia”.

    Clark blames Egypt’s “repressive policies”, Pakistan’s “corruption and poverty, as well as Saudi Arabia’s “radical ideology and direct funding” for creating a pool of angry young men who became “terrorists”.

    US ‘plans to attack seven Muslim states’ | Al Jazeera (2003)

    According to a report by Brown University’s Costs of War project, at least 897,000 people, including civilians, militants, and security forces, have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Other estimates place the total number of deaths at over one million. The report estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such as water loss and disease. The war has also resulted in the displacement of tens of millions of people, with estimates ranging from 37 million to over 59 million.

    The War on Terror also popularized such novel concepts as the “Military-Aged Male” which allowed the US military to exclude civilians killed by drone strikes from collateral damage statistics. (See: ‘Military Age Males’ in US Drone Strikes)

    In summary:

    • The U.S. responded by invading or bombing half a dozen countries regardless of their actual connection to the attackers, directly killing nearly a million and displacing tens of millions from their homes.
    • China responded with a program of deradicalization and vocational training.

    Which one of those responses sounds genocidal?

    Side note: It is practically impossible to actually charge the U.S. with war crimes, because of the Hague Invasion Act.

    #Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative?

    Let’s review some of the people and organizations involved in strongly promoting this narrative.

    One of the main proponents of these narratives is Adrian Zenz, a German far-right fundamentalist Christian and Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China has driven much of the narrative. His anti-Communist and anti-China stances influence his work and makes him selective in his use of data. He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence. He also ignores the broader historical and political context of the situation in Xinjiang, such as the history of separatist movements and terrorism in the region.

    The World Uyghur Congress, headquartered in Germany, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, using funding to support organizations that promote American interests rather than the interests of the local communities they claim to represent.

    Radio Free Asia (RFA) is part of a larger project of U.S. imperialism in Asia, one that seeks to control the flow of information, undermine independent media, and advance American geopolitical interests in the region. Rather than providing an objective and impartial news source, RFA is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, one that seeks to shape the narrative in Asia in ways that serve the interests of the U.S. government and its allies.

    The first country to call the treatment of Uyghurs a genocide was the United States of America. In 2021, the Secretary of State declared that China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang constitutes “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” Both the Trump and Biden administrations upheld this line.

    Why is this narrative being promoted?

    As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. In this case, there is a compelling material reason for the US the promote a narrative of a genocide occurring in Xinjiang.

    The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. The project has been described as a new Silk Road, connecting China with its neighboring countries and expanding trade and economic ties with the rest of the world.

    The BRI includes plans for major infrastructure projects in Xinjiang. These projects aim to improve connectivity and facilitate trade between China and countries in Central Asia and beyond. The Xinjiang region is critical part of the Belt.

    For the United States, the BRI is a threat to its economic and political dominance. For one, the BRI could undermine US efforts to promote “free trade” agreements, which have often been used to lock in economic reforms and policies that benefit American corporations. The BRI also threatens to undermine US influence in key regions of the world, particularly in Asia and Africa, by providing countries with an alternative source of financing and investment that is not tied to US-led institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

    Moreover, the BRI could help to shift the global balance of power away from the United States and towards China. By expanding its economic influence and deepening its ties with other countries, China could emerge as a more formidable competitor to the United States in the global arena.

    Promoting the Uyghur genocide narrative harms China and benefits the US in several ways. It portrays China as a human rights violator which could damage China’s reputation in the international community and which could lead to economic sanctions against China; this would harm China’s economy and give American an economic advantage in competing with China. It could also lead to more protests and violence in Xinjiang, which could further destabilize the region and threaten the longterm success of the BRI.

    Additional Resources

    Video Essays:

    Books, Articles, or Essays:

    Social Media Resources, Threads, and Masterposts:

      • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        You can’t be fucking serious.

        So not only doyou refuse to even engage with anything that doesn’t come from your pre approved list of sources when somebody takes rhe time to actually compile a bunch of sources and wrote up a summary for you that also isn’t acceptable.

        It’s almost like you are completely fucking brainwashed to immediatly reject literally any sort of information that doesn’t match up with your personal opinion which just so happens to exactly match the opinion of the state department.

        Americans truly are the most willfully ignorant propogandized people in the world.

      • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        Don’t read, don’t think, don’t learn, stay inside, stay inside, stay inside, it’s nice inside, it’s safe inside, you don’t have to think inside, you don’t have to read inside, just stay inside. Shhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhh. Its ok now, you’re inside now, you don’t need to fear the outside any more, little baby.

      • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        It might not require a lot of effort to paste it but it definitely took a lot of effort to assemble, clearly far more effort than you’ve put into thinking about it

      • Are_Euclidding_Me [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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        Is it low-effort? It sure looks high-effort to me. There are a ton of sources (some of them I hadn’t read before), it’s written really well, and organized quite nicely. Sure, it’s clearly copy-pasted, RedWizard didn’t write it fresh for this post, but like, so? If it’s good info written and sourced well, why not post it every time the question comes up? Someone new will see it every time, and they might dig into the sources and become more knowledgeable because of how well-organized and well-sourced this copy-pasted super informational post is.

        What would you have had RedWizard post instead? A less well-organized piece that he wrote specifically for this comment thread? Something off-the-cuff and not so informative? Or maybe you wanted him to just post nothing. Perhaps you just expected everyone here to simply agree with you about the situation in Xinjiang, without doing any research of our own. Is that it? You wanted to come in here and parrot something you’ve heard other people say, not expecting any pushback. But then you got presented with contradictory evidence, so you called it low-effort to allow yourself to ignore it?

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            2 days ago

            “Presenting a docket of evidence that I’m wrong is simply a dishonest trick to convince onlookers that I’m wrong”

            Yesterday i saw a guy in your exact position say “Fuck you, your evidence isn’t evidence of anything” and I think this is even funnier. The liberal epistemology, whose form is not a structure of analysis but a self-sealing fog of vague insinuation, is finally burning away in the face of The Definite.

          • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            It’s simply an astro-turfing tactic to make it appear that I’m the unreasonable one to outsiders viewing this.

            You literally refusing to even watch the video this post is about or read any of the info provided but still making dozens of comments insisting you’re right and we’re all propogandized is doing a way better job of that then any of us could hope to

              • Are_Euclidding_Me [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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                2 days ago

                Oh, not for me. I almost never actually watch videos that get posted, and I haven’t watched this one.

                I was simply pointing out that the lovely piece of writing RedWizard posted is worth reading, and that you calling it “low-effort copypasta” is ridiculous. I then, right at the end of my comment, speculated as to a specific reason why you might want to dismiss RedWizard’s piece as “low-effort copypasta”.

                  • Are_Euclidding_Me [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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                    2 days ago

                    Yup, you got dog-piled, which really doesn’t feel good.

                    From where I’m sitting though, you might be able to learn a little something from this situation. What I would take away from this experience, if I were you, is something like “I should try to avoid arguments on the internet about topics I don’t know much about”. It’s a tricky lesson to learn, and one I have to keep learning, but I think it’s valuable. If you don’t know much about a topic, sit back and listen and until you know more about it. Don’t come into a space guns blazing and then be forced to backtrack just about everything you’ve said due to it becoming obvious you have no idea what you’re talking about.

                    It’s hard, this world tries to convince us we have to have “a take” about everything. But we don’t. We can keep space in our minds to listen to people who know more than us, we can hold a claim “at arm’s length” until we have the time and knowledge to properly evaluate it.

                    Good luck, please do consider the things people have tried to tell you here today. Some great information has been shared for you to read and spend time digesting, and I for one hope you take the opportunity to do so.