The China Thread

[Jacob]

Time for the UK to recognise Taiwan?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/07/truss-says-falklands-part-of-british-family-after-china-supports-argentinas-c

Your link isn't working and appears to be truncated.

[Sheilbh]

Very good special by the New Statesman on the Uyghurs - I think it is out of the paywall for a period too:
https://www.newstatesman.com/uyghur-special/2022/02/the-silencing-a-special-report-on-china-the-uyghurs-and-a-culture-under-attack

The Silencing: a special report on China, the Uyghurs and a culture under attack

From Xinjiang's network of detention centres to the suppression of tradition, writers report on China's relentless campaign against the Uyghurs – and what will be lost if it succeeds.
By Katie Stallard

It is no longer credible to say we don't know what is happening to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. You can say you don't care, as the billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya did in January when he said the plight of the Uyghurs was "below my line". But we can no longer pretend the atrocities aren't well documented.

The combined weight of satellite imagery, official documents and survivor testimony that has accumulated over the last five years sets out the Chinese government's actions in Xinjiang in devastating and undeniable detail. The UK parliament, although so far not Boris Johnson's government, has declared the situation genocide.

International attention on this issue tends to focus on the sprawling network of internment camps and prisons where between one and three million people have been confined. Rightly so. These mass detentions are shameful and those responsible must be held to account. Reports of forced sterilisation, systematic torture and rape must be urgently investigated. The severity of these alleged abuses cannot simply be shrugged off or deemed to be below some arbitrary line that might warrant concern.   

But the horrors of Xinjiang are not confined to the high concrete walls of the camps. The entire region has been transformed into what amounts to an open-air prison for the Uyghurs and people from other ethnic minorities. Checkpoints and surveillance cameras blanket the cities. Facial recognition technology and mandatory location-tracking apps on mobile phones allow constant, real-time monitoring of the cities' inhabitants. Party cadres from China's ethnic majority Han population are encouraged to stay overnight with Uyghur families, who are predominantly Muslim, and monitor them for signs of "extremism", which might include praying or declining to eat pork or drink alcohol.   

China's constitution guarantees its citizens "freedom of religious belief" but this right exists in name alone, something the country's Christians can also attest. In Xinjiang displaying any outward sign of religious faith now renders one subject to suspicion and an indeterminate period of detention. Under Xi Jinping, the president, only worship of the party and his leadership is allowed. Thousands of mosques and shrines dating back to the 10th century have been bulldozed, although officials deny they are destroying these sites, insisting they are merely working "to protect them".     

Beijing claims to be fighting a "war on terror" in Xinjiang, pointing to the region's borders with Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, and the number of Uyghurs who have joined groups such as Islamic State or carried out attacks in China. Yet the campaign the authorities have waged in the years since Xi came to power goes far beyond any plausible counterterrorism campaign. As well as the detentions and the relentless surveillance and harassment, the government has embarked on a programme of forced assimilation that seems intended to destroy the Uyghurs' identity.

Given the extent to which Xi has personalised power in China, it is inconceivable that he does not know what is happening in Xinjiang. He could halt these policies immediately if he wanted to. Instead, as detailed in leaked documents, he has urged officials to show "absolutely no mercy" in what he characterises as a "struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism".

This is not happening in isolation. Xi has presided over a broad crackdown on human rights and individual freedoms across China, as well as the destruction of civil society in Hong Kong. If the UK government resumes trade talks in pursuit of stronger economic ties with China despite all of this, as the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has urged, this will send the unfortunate message that post-Brexit Britain is more interested in attracting Chinese investment than it is in human rights. Sunak has insisted it is possible to do both, to speak up for human rights while increasing trade, but Beijing respects actions more than it does words.

The Uyghurs' story goes far beyond their present victimhood. The New Statesman's series of essays set out not just the Chinese authorities' relentless campaign against the Uyghurs, but what will be lost if they succeed: the unique history, culture and heritage that is at stake.

John Simpson goes behind Xi Jinping's Great Wall of Iron
How China's Uyghur population became the target of a merciless campaign of collective punishment.

Katie Stallard on the subjugation of Xinjiang
Xinjiang has long been treated with suspicion. At least one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been imprisoned in the Xinjiang region. The Chinese say they are combating separatism and religious extremism. Western governments call it genocide.

Rian Thum and Musapir on the suppression of Uyghur culture
Shaped over centuries by pilgrimage, trade, art and war, a unique culture has been suppressed and exploited by Beijing. Can Uyghur distinctiveness re-emerge?

Elif Shafak on why the greatest threat to the Uyghurs is Western apathy
We know that populist dictators are emboldened by each other's atrocities, so how many more disappearances will it take before China crosses the West's "red line"?

Anoosh Chakelian meets the exiled poet Fatimah Abdulghafur Seyyah
Sharing a series of specially commissioned poems, the Uyghur writer, who left China in 2010, discusses her family's devastating persecution.

[Jacob]

The CBC has an article on the topic also - from an American scholar who's been in Xinjang and witnessed the transformation into technology enabled totalitarianism:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/china-s-high-tech-repression-of-uyghurs-is-more-sinister-and-lucrative-than-it-seems-anthropologist-says-1.6352535

[Berkut]

The CBC has an article on the topic also - from an American scholar who's been in Xinjang and witnessed the transformation into technology enabled totalitarianism:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/china-s-high-tech-repression-of-uyghurs-is-more-sinister-and-lucrative-than-it-seems-anthropologist-says-1.6352535

This is why we need to be careful not to pretend like this (or Russia for that matter) is some kind of reversion back to some historical pre-pax Americana state. It is not.

It is not a return to Great Power regional geo politics. It is something different, and something new, and needs to be evaluated on its own merits and challenges.

[Jacob]

Another interesting (to me at least) article in the Texas National Security Review on China, the US (and the West), and Globalization: https://tnsr.org/2022/01/the-growing-rivalry-between-america-and-china-and-the-future-of-globalization/

It provides a brief overview of the history of globalization, and examines five possible future scenarios. Of the five, the one that it considers best of the most likely outcomes is what it calls Globalization 2.5 - an American led Western/ Free World trading system distinct from Chinese led trading system. The two are not exactly walled off from each other, but exchanges are done in a more controlled and fairly scrutinized manner.

[Syt]

https://twitter.com/MoNDefense/status/1496837845092548609?s=20&t=rJqRR3cyXkCDDe1CtiPj8w

國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C. 🇹🇼
@MoNDefense

9 PLA aircraft (Y-8 RECCE and J-16*8) entered #Taiwan's southwest ADIZ on February 24, 2022. Please check our official website for more information: https://bit.ly/353feQg

Hopefully just an ill timed coincidence. Possibly a message sent to Taiwan and Western countries.

[Josquius]

Isn't this a regular occurrence?

[Admiral Yi]

Very likely so.

Crop your quotes you lazy git.

[mongers]

Very likely so.

Crop your quotes you lazy git.

[crazy canuck]

Very likely so.

Crop your quotes you lazy git.

[Jacob]

Looks like China is beginning to block pro-Ukraine voices on social media.

Previously it'd been very much two sides in fierce debate, but it looks like a decision has been made by the government.

Not that it surprises anyone, I don't think.

[Josquius]

Looks like China is beginning to block pro-Ukraine voices on social media.

Previously it'd been very much two sides in fierce debat, but it looks like a decision has been made by the government.

Not that it surprises anyone, I don't think.

I wonder what the play is.
They know they don't have that good will to lose anyway so being slightly pro Russia helps with vasalising them over the years to come?

I do wonder whether all this has taken china's attention away from Taiwan a bit and towards the bigger resource gains (but much smaller prestige, national destiny, etc.. Gains) of increasing influence in the Russian far east.

[Sheilbh]

Looks like China is beginning to block pro-Ukraine voices on social media.

Previously it'd been very much two sides in fierce debat, but it looks like a decision has been made by the government.

Not that it surprises anyone, I don't think.

On the other hand the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which was seen as a potential Chinese version of the IMF/World Bank has all operations in Russia and Belarus on hold.

[HVC]

They don't want to be sanctioned/fined as collateral damage, but at the same time don't want to give people the idea that resistance against an evil occupying force is a good idea?

[Jacob]

I wonder what China is going to do at this point.

There was an interesting article in official Chinese media arguing that China should repudiate Russian aggression and engage more closely with the rules based Western order. It sounds nice, but I am sceptical that Xi's regime will go that way.

Then, of course, there's the converse action - going all in supporting Russia (probably in return for vassalizing Russia as much as possible), providing arms and financial assistance and so on. The bet, I guess, would be that the West wouldn't be up for the mutually assured economic destruction that a proper response would entail; and then the West would be shown to be weak and in decline just like Putin and Xi and their enablers have declared for so long. But I don't know if Xi is brave enough, nor desperate enough, to make that bet now.

Then I guess there are two neutralish scenarios. One where China genuinely stays mostly neutral, letting Russia flounder, helping only a little bit here and there where China can take significant advantage of Russian desperation; and another scenario where they claim to be doing that (staying neutral), while helping Russia as much as they can on the down-low, without being caught be Western sanctions.

Personally, I expect Xi to do something in the neutralish range of things, probably supporting Russia more than we'd like but not enough to really rock the boat.

Then of course there's Taiwan.

What do you reckon the Beijing regime will do? If any of you have good links with analysis of China's actions and options (and Western actions and options towards China), please share.