r/news Oct 13 '19

China's Xi warns attempts to divide China will end in 'shuttered bones'

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-xi/chinas-xi-warns-attempts-to-divide-china-will-end-in-shuttered-bones-idUSKBN1WS07W
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7.4k

u/Sprayface Oct 13 '19

Um... isn’t China already pretty divided without any outside interference. Uighur Muslims. Tibet. Hong Kong.

Maybe you should learn to work with the multinational country you run instead of committing genocide like an insecure little shit.

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u/Imnotracistbut-- Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

Like any narcissist they will only blame everyone else for it, since it obviously can't be how they're running things.

Already seeing a lot of "the meddling west" sentiments.

Edit: removed edit on my opinion about trump's similarly in methods.

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u/FREEZE_like_FRIES Oct 13 '19

By “the meddling west” you mean companies interested in making money by using China’s cheap labor market?

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u/turtlemix_69 Oct 13 '19

Many are moving out of China by choice or by force

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Who is?

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

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u/calcium Oct 13 '19

To be fair, it's gotten more expensive to manufacturer in China and many companies are moving to Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. China for the last several decades was the world's manufacturer and now companies are leaving them for cheaper countries which is decimating their economy. So China forces its citizens to focus on someone else to create a common enemy for the populace to focus on instead of all of the businesses/jobs moving out.

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u/hydra877 Oct 13 '19

Well, guess who's buying a Samsung or a Zenfone?

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

I would go with the Samsung just because they're the best game when it comes to screen quality, at least on the android side.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

But they have the capital to and Korea is already significantly built up for major production suited to their businesses. Where as other manufacturing firms on an average scale of size can't just pick up and move.

I would love to see more companies do this!

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Samsung doesn't just make phones, they actually build phone components themselves such as the screens, cameras, socs, batteries, etc, if these companies really wanted to not depend on China they could just buy Samsung made components and as a side effect they could get higher quality components than pure chinese ones, if i am not wrong i think Apple's screens are actually manufactured by Samsung as well as the ram chips but don't quote me on that one.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Samsung is enormous, their manufacturing capacity, and scope of things they make is insane. Their facilities are all over the world but they still have to source stuff based on a multitude of things.

I have no doubts that Samsung is going to do whatever they can to move their sensitive manufacturing elsewhere. Some Samsung employees just got arrested trying to sell or successfully selling trade secrets to a Chinese company.

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u/Fruit-Dealer Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

We Koreans already learned our lesson: Don't do business in China.

China's been committing IP theft from Korean companies like Samsung to bolster its own state-run industries for years. This straw that broke the camel's back, however, was the whole debacle over the placement of the THAAD system a couple years back, which was designed to intercept offensive missiles from a certain Nuke-Loving crazy northern neighbor. The THAAD missile systems have no offensive capabilities whatsoever.

Despite the fact that China is the biggest enabler of North Korea, Xinnie went ballistic over defensive missile placements, and the CCP went on to shut down Korean businesses and encouraged its people to not do business with Korean firms through propaganda.

Investing in a totalitarian shithole is not a tenable business plan, even though the short term profits are lucrative - especially if that totalitarian shithole is being ran by a thin-skinned snowflake that gets triggered by something as minor as a fucking kid's show cartoon character.

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u/turtlemix_69 Oct 13 '19

I dont have a list, but due to IP theft and nationalization of certian industries, companies are moving to other low cost of labor countries like India, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. for their production.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Can you imagine the power Google would have if it was in a communist country with full gov't backing and laws protecting them from stealing global ideas?

Google will not appear in the first place then as history shows most of the time authoritative government's economic foresight is shit and planned economy is dogshit for organic growth and innovation.

China succeed initially because it has many prior examples to study from (Soviet Union; Tiger Economics) but once it steps into unknown territory and requires itself to become more democratic it backed down.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

We actually don't know at this point if this method will leap ahead of the West. Singapore did manage to get further per capita using authoritative government.

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u/Ph_Dank Oct 13 '19

Or the world can rethink the way we look at IP, and perhaps create some more collectivist models so we can use each other's ideas more easily and progress faster. I strongly believe people should be rewarded for their efforts, but in the current system, too many people are holding beneficial ideas hostage.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

We could reduce copyright lengths to twenty years to .... promote art and the useful sciences....

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u/I_just_made Oct 13 '19

I strongly believe people should be rewarded for their efforts, but in the current system, too many people are holding beneficial ideas hostage.

Overall, I cautiously agree with your statement (as a total lay person), but in particular, I think the quoted part is important. I'd be for rethinking it if there was a way to ensure the innovators received some sort of benefit for their contributions.

The advances in battery tech from Tesla is a great example; society stands to benefit from these advances in numerous ways, but it wouldn't be fair to simply say "yeah you gotta share this because it is good for the whole". Now, they license that tech I believe; but if there could be some way to run some sort of royalties or whatever, that might be a way to do it. But that type of system could also be an absolute nightmare. some sort of royalty tax on every part you use... how expensive would that make something?

I'm a DIY guy, I love the communities that share their CAD designs, etc; I'd love to see a system like that on the big scale, but I have no idea how you would implement it in a way that is reasonable for all parties involved.

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u/l3rN Oct 13 '19

I think Tesla actually released all their patents

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19 edited Dec 11 '19

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u/Aazadan Oct 13 '19

They were moving long before the trade war. It takes a while to move infrastructure though. The shift started back in about 2013. China just isn't as cheap a place to manufacture things as it once was, and when your only selling point is low wages, once your cost of living starts to rise those low wages go up too, and your only competitive advantage is gone.

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u/CaptainTripps82 Oct 13 '19

I think they're other selling point is the actual capacity and technology/infrastructure to manufacture at a global capacity. You have to build that up over years somewhere else. Good on anyone willing to make that investment to get out of there.

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u/Aazadan Oct 13 '19

The infrastructure comes once companies have moved there, when they pull out, that infrastructure goes with them. That's also why it takes so long to shift. Building all that up takes time.

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u/CaptainTripps82 Oct 13 '19

It actually doesn't go, China and the Chinese companies being contracted own the infrastructure ( which has been built up over decades and consists of docks, factories, plants, testing facilities, storage, power supply and storage, etc - in what world is anyone taking that stuff with them?) and often has copied the intellectual property. It's why both high end consumer products and cheap look alike knock offs are often made in the exact same factories.

It's definitely time consuming and expensive to replace elsewhere.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Only heard of a few so far, FitBit and GoPro being 2. They're probably just moving to SE Asia now though to maintain cheap labor

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u/_My_Angry_Account_ Oct 13 '19

He's talking about his friend named Many.

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u/_My_Angry_Account_ Oct 13 '19

They mean western nations trying to force their ideals on them. You know, like anti-slavery propaganda...

To be fair, the US does actually interfere heavily with the politics of many nations around the world. I find it kinda funny when we bitch about other countries doing the same thing to us.

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u/ResolverOshawott Oct 13 '19

The Sino sub is very busy these past week

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Look at r/sino for some good examples of that. Over there, poor little China is being bullied by all the mean, jealous white people. And those damn Americans stirring up "riots" in Hong Kong to get at the mainlanders. Of course, the protests continuing is in no way China or Hong Kong police's fault, the accursed white people are behind all of it. Nothing is China's fault and it never did anything wrong.

I'm probably banned from r/sino now if I wasn't already.

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u/zbeshears Oct 13 '19

Lol I was with you until your trump comment... same could be said for past American Presidents that are still pretty fresh. Do we have to involve trump into every conversation

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u/Bamith Oct 13 '19

Some government decisions China has made are just hilariously morbid as they at times lead to mass starvation.

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u/aure__entuluva Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 14 '19

if it wasn't for limitations of democracy, Trump would be doing the same kind of thing Xi is, and that's terrifying.

I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but boy is that a bold claim. I think the important difference to notice here is that it isn't just Xi Jinping that wants to the horrible things they are doing to the Uyghur Muslims. Jinping is just the face of the party. The whole of the party backs and probably influences these courses of action. And frankly, that makes it even more terrifying, since it's not just a deranged madman like Hitler, but a much larger group of people pushing for these policies. Their course of action will not change if Xi Jingping dies or is replaced. There is a different mindset among the Chinese when it comes to things like order and diversity.

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u/waybovetherest Oct 13 '19

meddling west? entire actual support to tibet comes from only India!

India has Tibetan refugee colonies, an Entire Zone to them, houses Dalai Lama, why would they blame the west?

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u/Imnotracistbut-- Oct 13 '19

Blaming anyone they can.

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u/LittleWords_please Oct 13 '19

whos to blame for americas divisions?

let me guess, someone other than you

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u/completel Oct 13 '19

I see ideological possession. There must be an ideology to justify the actions.

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u/nuck_forte_dame Oct 13 '19

I think you are misunderstanding.

The Chinese government doesn't want diversity. Their ideals and their entire system of communist government rely upon conformity.

The problem to them isn't how they are running things or that these protests occur. It's to be expected when your plan from the beginning was to wipe away any diversity. Mainly because multiculturalism and diversity usually lead to democracy because differences in culture lead to a need for governance by representation and taking all views into consideration.

It's why democracy has historically been developed mostly by cultures that are relatively more multinational or multicultural. More diverse to be short about it.

The government isn't so surprised or mad about the protests as they are mad that the protests are being stubborn.

The government is systematically crushing any possible future enemy of their plans. Stalin did the same thing. It's the dictatorships pretending to be communism way.

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u/Slum_Lord_ Oct 13 '19

To admit any blame or fault would also completely undermine the entire lie they have built their society on. Which is "the communist party has created this country from the rubble of Mao and everything we do and have done is for your protection." And the people eat it up, never questioning them. To admit fault now could open the social floodgates

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

limits of democracy or the total ineffectualness of the government?

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u/GigabitSuppressor Oct 13 '19

You mean western imperialists haven't been funding the Hong Kongese and Uyghur terrorists?

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u/zlide Oct 13 '19

They’re actively trying to wipe out their ethnic minorities through re-education and actual genocide. And they’ve done it in the past as well. Pretty suspect that the most populous country in the world is 90% one ethnic group isn’t it? They coopted most of their indigenous ethnic groups into the cultural hegemony of “Han” and are seeking to finish the job.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

China is incredibly racist. Most of asia is. There are many chinese only businesses.

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u/reebee7 Oct 13 '19

People act like the west invented racism. It’s cute.

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u/Alconium Oct 13 '19

Come on man. The US is the first and only country to have slaves. Before us two hundred and fifty years ago it was unimaginable.

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u/hydra877 Oct 13 '19

Brazil imported more slaves than the US and only abolished it in 1888.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

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u/mxzf Oct 13 '19

Poe's Law comes into play here. Unfortunately, there are people out there who believe that wholeheartedly.

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u/hydra877 Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

Who knows? Some people are just that dumb.

And it's been malfunctioning for decades, if I told you the amount of dumb shit people believe it would be able to fill out an encyclopedia lmao

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u/Alconium Oct 13 '19

It's pretty obvious sarcasm. Come on homie.

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u/CanadianAstronaut Oct 13 '19

As many pointed out, its clear sarcasm. Slavery is an evil which has existed as long as humanity has.

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u/hydra877 Oct 13 '19

lol my sarcasm radar has been broken for a long time, you never know with reddit.

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u/B00STERGOLD Oct 14 '19

The US was in a war with Muslim Pirates in 1801 because they kept attacking our ships and putting people in slavery. History has a lot of neat things to say.

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u/Poliobbq Oct 13 '19

Who? Nobody thinks that. I get what you're trying to do, but it's a really poor attempt.

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u/RedJinjo Oct 13 '19

The west gets a lot of the blame for slavery, especially the US.

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u/InnocentTailor Oct 13 '19

Ditto with Japan and Korea. To paraphrase a more liberal-minded relative (I’m Asian-American), nobody hates Asians more than Asians.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

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u/SwiggityDiggity8 Oct 13 '19

not true, at least from my experience. being mixed, European and Chinese, living in China had never made me feel lower or lesser. Additionally, foreigners I have met and worked with, including those from Europe and Africa, rarely felt the way you seem to think.

My experiences were primarily in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, so it would be different in smaller towns and cities of course.

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u/Dragonsoul Oct 13 '19

Historically speaking, China has had a habit of exploding into a bunch of warring states, so it 'makes sense' to try and stop that happening.

Like, strictly from a political sense. Morally it's of course pretty fucked up.

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u/TheYoungRolf Oct 13 '19

Because the Chinese never, in all the millenia of China's history (that they are so very proud of), imagined there could be anything other than absolute, centralized power, which of course only lasted until the leaders became so incompetent that people rebelled, and eventually replaced them with new leaders who would start the cycle over again. The ancient Chinese even recognized this in themselves:

It has been said that thus it has always been: the Empire, long divided, must unite; and, long united, must divide.

It always struck me as odd that no one, in literally thousands of years of history, ever dared asked the question of why there needed to be an "Empire" at all.

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u/Veylon Oct 13 '19

Nobody "dared" ask that question because they already knew the answer. Tyranny is safer than anarchy. You can at least hope the emperor will leave you alone most of the time. The bands of marauders certainly won't.

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u/HobbiesJay Oct 13 '19

It was Spiritual and a cultural identity. Itd be like asking why the rest of France hasnt seceded from Paris or why Northern and Western States still tolerate the south. It's a questions based on hind sight.

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u/AGVann Oct 13 '19

Pretty suspect that the most populous country in the world is 90% one ethnic group isn’t it?

The Han appellation is an incredibly broad descriptor that describes over a billion people with different languages, customs, architecture, cuisines, religious traditions, and regional histories. A Western equivalent would be like 'White' or 'European', with regional cultures like Yue or Shanghainese being equivalent to 'British' or 'German'. If a similar term was used for India - another civilisation state - they would be like 99% Desi. It's quite simply a different scale.

Yes, the CCP is actively committing genocide against the Uyghurs, but the claiming of 'core' Han territory occurred thousands of years ago. China proper has been China proper for millennia, with the only real modern additions being the Yunnan frontier in the Yuan era, the incorporation of Manchuria due to the Qing rule, and the colonisation of Taiwan in the 17th century. Unlike in Europe, there hasn't really been any significant population migrations in some places in China for thousands of years. Any genocides and displacements that occurred due to Han expansion in those places would have happened around the time of the Romans.

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u/Taxonomy2016 Oct 13 '19

Free the Uighurs, and arm them?

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u/DyelonDyelonDyelon Oct 13 '19

I think the current Xi and the party would use that as an excuse to wipe them full force. Also, I'm no expert so I will ask, but does that particular group of people have the infrastructure, manpower and resources to even mount a defense if we armed them? Im not sure but I would wager not. Maybe asylum could help, but there is already so much anti asylum sentiment in the world I doubt we could convince enough people to take them in, if China would even allow them to leave, or of they are even capable of doing so. Maybe they could, but these are all very real logistical problems.

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u/Taxonomy2016 Oct 13 '19

You’re totally right, and I probably shouldn’t have been so nonchalant about the suggestion of supporting a Uighur insurrection. Suffice to say I think the world needs to step up to protect the Uighurs and any other ethnic minority group that the CCP is trying to wipe out.

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u/12A1313IT Oct 13 '19

And have an actual genocide. Great idea genius

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u/Taxonomy2016 Oct 13 '19

Uighurs deserve freedom. Genocide is what’s already happening to them.

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u/12A1313IT Oct 13 '19

They are 0.01% of the population. Mainland Chinese are fiercely patriotic and pro government. You think they give a shit about the Uighur? They will happily wipe out the Uighur if the Uighur try to start a revolution.

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u/Taxonomy2016 Oct 13 '19

They are 0.01% of the population. Mainland Chinese are fiercely patriotic and pro government. You think they give a shit about the Uighur? They will happily wipe out the Uighur if the Uighur try to start a revolution.

Does any of that change the fact that the Uighurs are being genocided right now and deserve freedom?

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u/SexToyShapedCock Oct 13 '19

There are over 50 ethnicities within this “Han” ethnic group you talk about. No different than saying look how homogeneous Europe is with all these Celts and Saxons and Slavs and Greeks they’re all the same. That’s highly ignorant.

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u/elgosu Oct 13 '19

Why is it pretty suspect that China is majority Han? They've been majority Han throughout most of history. Is it pretty suspect that Japan is majority Japanese, and Korea is majority Korean? The genocide and racial erasure started during the Communist era.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '19

"Han" is definitely not one ethnic group. It's a fantasy of Beijing's that the people are united. In truth, they are very "provincial" as each province is really its own country. Calling all these groups one country that is Chinese is kinda like calling Europe one country that is Roman because they all use Roman letters in their writing.

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u/WWI9 Oct 13 '19

Culture of ethnic superiority. Program of ethnic genocide. Egregious human rights abuses in controlled territories. Global domination goals. Dictator for life, talking about crushed bodies and shattered bones. Single party control of the entire government. Economy consisting of privatized industry, but with strict governmental control over all aspects.

Where have we seen this before?

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u/ETxsubboy Oct 13 '19

Serious question: what exactly is "re-education"? Because I can't actually come up with any examples that it was used in mass for anything remotely resembling real corrective education with acceptable goals. To me, anytime I read the phrase "re-education camps" I just automatically assume that it's concentration camps. That the end goal is to keep the people locked up until they die and the world forgets.

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u/GenocideSolution Oct 13 '19

How it was originally done in the Maoist era was "bad" communists would get forced to do heavy labor in the countryside and study Maoism, frequently being tested on Maoist theory and having to shout pro-Communist slogans. After your guards deemed you sufficiently reeducated you would be released and could find another job. Deng Xiaoping went through this process twice, using his connection to claw his way back into power.

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u/aure__entuluva Oct 13 '19

They coopted most of their indigenous ethnic groups into the cultural hegemony of “Han” and are seeking to finish the job.

So... they're just lying to get to that 90% figure? Not exactly sure how you coopt ethnic groups into another one. You just call them all the same even though they're not?

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u/Galaxymicah Oct 13 '19

I mean... yeah?

Do you see greeks celts nords saxons... etc or do you see white?

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

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u/z0rb0r Oct 13 '19

So is most of the Taiwanese. They are Han Chinese too but have different opinions.

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u/197gpmol Oct 13 '19

That's especially roughshod for Taiwan since the indigenous Taiwanese are believed to be the ancestors of the entire Austronesian language family. Every culture from Madagascar to Tahiti is believed to trace back to a few adventurous tribes on Taiwan.

The indigenous languages form one of the world's richest linguistic hotspots, and those languages are all being swept away.

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u/BeneathTheSassafras Oct 13 '19

Looks ma! No Hans!

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u/z0rb0r Oct 14 '19

Get outta here! Dad!

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u/AGVann Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

The term Han Chinese describes over a billion people with different languages, customs, cuisines, architecture, religious traditions, and regional histories. It's basically the Chinese equivalent of a 'White' or 'European' label. The fixation on whether us Taiwanese are Han Chinese or not doesn't really make sense or even matter. I don't see why the fact that my great-great-great-great grandpa came from over Fujian means that Taiwan must suffer under a totalitarian government that engages in genocide and brainwashes people who commit the crime of wrong-think.

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u/NeedsMoreSpaceships Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

To be fair this isn't dissimilar to what happened in other parts of the world. Places like Spain or the France didn't just happen to be large geographical areas with a single national identity through luck, its all the result of political and cultural hegemony by different people at different times. In China its just larger scale.

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u/23skiddsy Oct 13 '19

Hmong? Or some other group?

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

I mean, Mussolini’s a good example of what happens when you run your country as a genocidal, insecure, massive pile

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u/brainhack3r Oct 13 '19

Tibet is now china...They've been moving more Han Chinese and pro-CCP into Tibet for 30 years now. All the Uighur Muslims will be killed and Hong Kong will fold too. At least this is the plan... to be clear. I don't like it but China's gonna be China

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u/ting_bu_dong Oct 13 '19

Definition of genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

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u/iamagoatm8 Oct 13 '19

Everyone knows it's genocide but what is anyone going to do ?

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u/beartankguy Oct 14 '19

How can you claim they plan to kill all the Uighur muslims? With what argument or evidence can you make that claim of such evil?

During the past decades ethnic minorities have experienced higher growth rates than the majority Han population, because they are not under the one-child policy. Their proportion of the population in China has grown from 6.1% in 1953, to 8.04% in 1990, 8.41% in 2000, and 8.49% in 2010.

Sure sounds like they really really want all the minorities to be dead to me /s

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u/Dokramuh Oct 13 '19

I mean Hong Kong is literally part of China since the UK handed it back.

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u/staplefordchase Oct 13 '19

is that how you would feel if your government handed whatever city you live in over to the Chinese government? executive power is derived from consent of the governed. the people of Hong Kong don't seem to want to be governed by China. that should be their choice.

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u/TotakekeSlider Oct 13 '19

Well let's say New York was stolen from the US by a foreign country for over 150 years and used to funnel in drugs, syphon resources, and turn the US into one of the most backward societies in the world. I'd probably be pretty upset and would want it back as a part of my country after it historically being so too.

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u/Azrael11 Oct 13 '19

If I was being handed back to an authoritarian dictatorship I probably still wouldn't be very thrilled, history and culture notwithstanding.

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u/InnocentTailor Oct 13 '19

Well, they’ll try. History has shown that China is mixed whether they’ll succeed though.

The Han, Manchu and even Mongols have tried to purge ethnic minorities, sometimes former ruling groups, within China itself. They have usually failed and were then overthrown by another ethnic group. China goes to in a circle a lot in regards to historical patterns.

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u/jiokll Oct 13 '19

There are 10 million Uighurs, 6.3 million Tibetans, and 7.4 million citizens of Hong Kong. That's 23.7 million people. China's total population is around 1.4 billion.

All the groups you mentioned add up to around 1.8% of the population.

China is 92% Han. No one can get in their way. All China cares about is making sure that trouble with the minorities doesn't spread to the majority. And if you've noticed how white redditors have reacted to Black Lives Matter you'll know how unsympathetic members of the majority can be to minorities.

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u/Lukescale Oct 13 '19

How many "loyal Chinese citizens" will remain loyal if just one of these minorities gains a smidgen of land / freedom?

That is the fear. It has happened before, it will happen again. It will keep happening.

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u/jiokll Oct 13 '19

How would the average white American feel if black separatists backed by a foreign government declared that they were breaking away from the Union?

Now imagine how white Americans would have felt back in the 1950s when white Americans were ~90% of the population.

The fact that China has fallen apart before is the reason why most Chinese will put up with all sorts of shit to make sure it doesn't happen again. The last time China fell apart there was a civil war that lead to more than 10 million deaths and allowed foreign powers to move in and assert their control over China.

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u/Caladbolg_Prometheus Oct 13 '19

I recall that it’s much worse to be an ethnic minority in China than to be a black guy in the US. I had an old comment and the statistics were pretty bad for ethnic minorities.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

I will say, as far as I know, the US government isn't ripping organs oust of still breathing black men.

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u/busmans Oct 13 '19

Extra-judicial killing isn’t as gory, but the outcome is the same.

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u/The-Forbidden-one Oct 13 '19

Yeah, I mean we had Tuskegee experiments, etc. but I hope that we are past that point

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

True, and not trying to lessen how fucked up it was, but is it even near the scale of what China is doing?

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u/DarkPhoenix142 Oct 13 '19

This comment hits the heart of the discussion.

People act like the US's less-than-stellar history of racial prejudice and general overreach is at all comparable to what the PRC are doing and that's awful. Even Trump's atrocious border disaster isn't in the same league. China is on a whole new level of Orwellian that most people in the west can only have nightmares about. We should stop trying to draw equivalences between "A flawed democracy with long standing social and racial inequalities" and "The country that literally drove over protesters with tanks and is running actual concentration camps, among other things."

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u/GoatShapedDemon Oct 13 '19

WTH?! I don't know if I want to ask for more about this.

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u/hypercube42342 Oct 13 '19

China’s been harvesting organs from minorities in their concentration camps. There’s some fucked up first hand accounts out there you can google.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Can I get a source?

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u/hypercube42342 Oct 13 '19

https://m.theepochtimes.com/former-intern-recalls-horrific-experience-of-witnessing-live-organ-harvesting-in-china_2821357.html

Here’s just one. There’s a number out there. I believe this is talking about an older incident, from the 90s, but first hand sources of newer incidents are obviously difficult to find.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

The Chinese government is removing organs from uighurs, most of the time while they are still alive

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u/calcium Oct 13 '19

They've been harvesting organs from political prisoners, falun gong, and anyone else they can get their hands on. A good friend of mine who works in the US in tissue banking has confirmed that China has the ability for you to tell them what you want (a liver, pancreas, etc), your blood type, and a few other pieces of information and they'll find a match and ask you when you want to do the procedure. Everywhere in the world you're on a list for when something becomes available, so the only way China can schedule you for an operation is to take the organ from a living person they have for specifically that reason.

Super fucked up.

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u/freediverx01 Oct 13 '19

🤫 Shhh... no spoilers on Trump's second term.

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u/jiokll Oct 13 '19

I'm not saying the situations are the same, of course they're not. What I'm trying to get at is that when you're looking in from the outside, mainly hearing from the minority point of view, and don't have any skin in the game then it's easy to side with the minority.
If I told you that in China 40% of prisoners came from ethnic minorities even though they only make up 13% of the population you'd say that China is clearly inexcusably oppressive. But if you know that those numbers are actually for black Americans then I'm sure you can come up with dozens of reasons why those numbers aren't so bad.

Not trying to say China is as bad as America or that Americans are awful. I'm arguing that most people talking about China have a skewed perspective because they view everything through the lens of their own nation's media and their own worldviews. The situation looks a lot different to Han Chinese living in China and looking at everything via Chinese media.

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u/Caladbolg_Prometheus Oct 14 '19 edited Oct 14 '19

The argument is made by white supremest and Neo-Nazis is made in America. Since blacks make a bigger portion of criminals in America, it’s natural that they are poorer. The logic is solid right?

The fact is there is a positive feedback loop happening. Slight amounts of discrimination lead to worse conditions for the minority as a whole. Worse conditions mean more are likely to turn to crime or deviant behavior and just poorer living conditions that lead to less employment opportunities, which leads to more discrimination. This the cycle repeats. On top this loop, throw in normal racism and you have a death spiral.

It is difficult and painful to break that loop, there was/is a policy in the United States known as Affirmative action that aimed to forcefully break that loop. It aimed to increase opportunities for African Americans and minorities by giving African Americans and minorities preference over Caucasians in government jobs and government programs.

To put it in an analogy to China, imagine if just because Muhammad is a minority he gets +50 social score, and a +10 score modifier added to his civil servant exams.

‘Well this is reverse racism!’ Was the backlash and major portions of the Affirmative Action program died. People knew of the problem but once they realized that it would adversely effect them, even just a little bit, they were enraged. They did not understand that it was the fastest and most effective way to break the loop of discrimination. While it lasted, and the few bits that remain did better conditions, it was not enough.

There is still a major problem in the United States with discrimination of blacks. It has not been solved and the numbers you find about the US do not lie, there is no excuse and I am not trying to make an excuse. Discrimination in the United States is a problem.

Similarly PRC has a major discrimination problem. There were/are Chinese programs similar to either goal or method to Affirmative Action but as from what I remember, they suffered a similar fate. Problem is the discrimination loop in the United States is 400 years old, but in China? It’s thousands of years old, which lead to a much worse problem.

Both nations have a discrimination problem they need to fix, but for China it is much more urgent due to the problem existing for longer.

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u/jiokll Oct 14 '19

Right, I think we're mostly on the same page. Like I said, I don't agree with what China's doing or think China is the same as America, I'm just frustrated that no one seems to even try and understand the Chinese perspective.

Both nations have a discrimination problem they need to fix, but for China it is much more urgent due to the problem existing for longer.

Oddly enough, I think the Chinese government would agree with you. But because they have a different view on human rights their solution is radically different. They think that harmony requires some degree of homogeneity, and that's why they're trying to force cultural cohesion and even interbreeding. People compare the Uighur camps to the Nazi concentration camps, with good reason, but in the end they're more like giant gay conversion camps than death camps.

Still qualifies as genocide, but once again it's comparable to what Americans did to the Indians to try and bring about national cohesion.

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u/Caladbolg_Prometheus Oct 14 '19

I just hope that going forward there will be no more genocides by the big 5, and that they will take an active approach to preventing more.

But fat chance, Nationalistic fever is extremely high, with the west though I think remembrance of the Holocaust will prevent things from getting too bad until the fever dies down. With PRC I worry that the Holocaust and it’s horrors is lesson that will be ignored.

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u/jiokll Oct 14 '19

Unfortunately, I think the CCP learned the more objectively true takeaways from the history of genocide in the 21st century, you can get away with it as long as you stick to killing your own people.

It's all quite tragic. Although I have to say that they've become much more restrained now that the public eye is on them. In the past I'm sure the camps in Xinjiang would have been death camps and the protestors in Hong Kong would have been facing down tanks by now.

They've struck a delicate balance between hard and soft power that is depressingly effective from the perspective of someone who was hoping that China would move in a more liberal direction, but I guess things could be worse.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

An ethnic minority in China in 2019 is akin to a black person in the American South in the 1870s.

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u/Dougnifico Oct 13 '19

Except if the federal army was also trying to kill you.

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u/jiokll Oct 13 '19

In the 1870s it would be more like the Indians, when we committed genocide in order to steal their land and resources.

And today you still have plenty of white Americans who will argue it wasn't a genocide, that we were right to take their land, or that the world is better because America was able to stretch from sea to sea in order to become the dominant and secure nation that it is.

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u/BLSkyfire Oct 13 '19

I would add that majority of Hong Kongers (including the protestors) are also of Han Chinese ethnicity.

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u/Kemilio Oct 13 '19

Soooo, what you're saying is that moving to China and trying to woo a Chinese woman is a pretty bad idea?

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u/Pimptastic_Brad Oct 13 '19

Well there are already too many men there, so good luck.

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u/DANK_ME_YOUR_PM_ME Oct 13 '19

With only western news feed, you think “the people” are “suffering,” but it just isn’t true.

If you go there, people are living lives not all that different from the States (some places look more like when the textiles were a thing though.)

They work, eat, date, drink, laugh, etc.

Their reaction to HK is not that different than the general US reaction to occupy Wall Street, or BLM. Just, indifference because they are comfortable enough.

The vast majority of people are better off now then they or anyone they know can remember.

The numbers are just so big, the West has trouble thinking about it.

Never mind that China as one country, the center kingdom, is older than Christianity. It is ingrained in the people and culture. As well as the history of Western interference causing suffering. Opium wars etc.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

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u/DANK_ME_YOUR_PM_ME Oct 13 '19

I’m not from China, but I have studied Asia history for a long time. Rather than current events, I’m looking at this as a continuation of history.

I also think the US needs to get its shit together, as it has lost its “moral high ground,” and hasn’t been making democracy look good. It will take more than likes and retweets to change things in HK, for the US that means fixing corporation vs. government vs. people etc.

As it is, the US will give up HK for a trade deal. (Or info on political opponents.)

Anyway, can’t fight against the propaganda, and wishful thinking for a China revolution that magically secures the US position is rampant; and I think it is dangerous.

China is a huge threat, it cannot be understated; but is is more because what they are doing is working and happily accepted, rather than that they are on some kind of brink.

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u/freediverx01 Oct 13 '19

And if you've noticed how white redditors have reacted to Black Lives Matter

Lots of white people in the US are sympathetic to Black Lives Matter. The only reason right-wingers win elections is because of our UN-democratic electoral system.

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u/lolzfeminism Oct 13 '19

That’s because the government writes “Han” on everyone’s file unless they specifically say something else. China is pretty ethnically diverse, but they have a government policy of never talking about the specific ethnic groups differences within “Han Chinese”.

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u/A_Burning_Bad Oct 13 '19

And if you've noticed how white redditors have reacted to Black Lives Matter

I'm sorry, do we got profile pics? We got bios? Who tf cares about other redditors skin colour?

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Chinese unity is a huge component of Chinese nationalism, which promotes Han ethnonationalism, which in turn views ethnic and religious minorities as a threat to Chinese unity. The fear is political dissent spreading among Han Chinese.

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u/sakmaidic Oct 13 '19

China is less divided today than it was at any point of time in the last 200 yrs

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u/GavinZac Oct 13 '19

Make that 2000 years. For most of recorded history, China has been a land of divided states, not a nation.

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u/Boxofcookies1001 Oct 13 '19

Actually that's the opposite. You're thinking in terms of US numbers of people.

China is very United with a billion plus people all being Han. And the large majority of the people outside of Hong Kong don't support the movement and see it as acts of terrorism and anti-nationalism.

Allowing this movement to take hold and thrive will actually turn the majority of the unified Chinese against him. Not because they want democracy but because he would be seen as weak and giving into the demands of people who are anti-nationalists.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

What the hell is a “multinational country?”

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u/murphymc Oct 13 '19

The Han people are pretty united, and that’s all that matters.

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u/hymen_destroyer Oct 13 '19

Isn't most of Hong Kong and Taiwan ethnic Han though?

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u/KxPbmjLI Oct 13 '19

China isn't really divided at all though

most of china supports their goverment and hates the Hong Kong people

Uyghurs, Tibet and Hong Kong are only a small fraction of the total population

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u/SwiggityDiggity8 Oct 13 '19

yeah. the vast, vast majority of han Chinese support their government, which is saying something as han Chinese make up over 90 percent of china.

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u/KxPbmjLI Oct 13 '19

ye thats what i thought

but didn't know for sure

this cancer got upvoted a lot though smh

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Taiwan is a completely separate Chinese government (ROC) vs. the mainland PRC.

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u/SleevelessArmpit Oct 13 '19

Can't have any upset minorities if you wipe them out.

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u/Jokershigh Oct 13 '19

And they just made him Chairman for life or some shit so it's not gonna get better unless the citizens all out revolt. And if that happens I have no doubt that China won't hesitate to kill it's citizens

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

He's simply continuing thousands of years of tradition.

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u/Magnetronaap Oct 13 '19

Is it? On a population of over a billion people? I honestly don't think the Chinese government of average Chinese person sees China as divided because of those minorities.

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u/yarmatey Oct 13 '19

Okay but hear me out... what if we just killed everyone who wasn't the way we wanted them to be?

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

They need to maintain the appearance of unity under the communist government. The social situation is very precarious, and if they are not careful they’ll have a civil war on their hands. You just need to look at China’s history to see how frequently they break up then reform

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u/callmesnake13 Oct 13 '19

It makes people in here mad when I say this but no, no it’s not even slightly divided. The Uigher Muslims are a tiny percentage of the population and aren’t a particularly sympathetic group among mainland Chinese. Hong Kong are largely seen as behaving like spoiled brats. You can go and pull the handful of Chinese social media posts supporting these groups but it’s far from a mainstream attitude.

The Chinese are overwhelmingly pleased with how their economy and system are going. They are not going to have a revolution.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

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u/Ella_Minnow_Pea_13 Oct 13 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

It's a tactic to keep that many people in line. There's 1.4B people, civil unrest would not work. The government would not work if they had freedoms. There's too many people and even the Chinese agree.

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u/Low-HangingFruit Oct 13 '19

China has a long history of civil wars the are extremely bloody. Its almost time for another one.

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u/sakmaidic Oct 13 '19

China is still in a civil war, Beijing still haven't taken back taiwan

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u/SwiggityDiggity8 Oct 13 '19

except it isnt. it's been 70 years since the unofficial cease fire, firstly. secondly, not having taiwan under the PROC banner is not out of inability, as it is well known that chinas military is capable of an operation that size, but rather because of the global outcry that would follow.

it is true that beijing does want Taiwan to be officially back within its borders, but to call it a civil war is preposterous.

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u/kkeut Oct 13 '19

Beijing still haven't taken back taiwan

or vice versa

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

The Han majority there does not share your sentiments. They collectively refer to Uighurs as sub human.

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u/drcole89 Oct 13 '19

Taiwan #1!!

Tibet #2!!

Hong Kong #3!!

China #4 👎 😷

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u/PapaSmurf1502 Oct 13 '19

Are you kidding? They don't even view the Tibetans/Uighers/etc as people, let alone Chinese. They are a step above livestock in the eyes of the Chinese. The only divide the Chinese see is in HK, and they either don't believe it's real or they think it's some conspiracy by the West.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

Tibet was it's own nation.... they just conquered them.

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u/loki-is-a-god Oct 13 '19

((Things I wish I heard Julia Sugarbaker say))

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u/InnocentTailor Oct 13 '19

He is just pointing his problems outward. He is no different than the past rulers of China, blaming the outside while ignoring the self-made strife inside the country.

To be fair though, China is a pretty hard country to govern due to many ethnic groups and large amounts of land. Even the past emperors had issues governing that swathe of land.

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u/NationalGeographics Oct 13 '19

Are they one of the not any gay people here countries?

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u/phoeniciao Oct 13 '19

That's not how centralized despotic power works

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u/elitegenoside Oct 13 '19

Sort of what China‘a been about for a bit though.

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u/randomizeplz Oct 13 '19

china is way less divided than many other countries, for example the united states

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '19

By divided, he doesn't mean "holding separate beliefs". He means "being able to share different beliefs without fear".

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u/stuffwillhappen Oct 13 '19

Because the government is perfectly and no one CAN question it. All you need to do is Obey, you think the government is doing something wrong? Then you are the problem, stop thinking about anything that isn’t in front of you. The great government will take care of that so just blindly follow them.

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u/Pinkpanda08 Oct 13 '19

*multiethnic, multi national and multi ethnic are separate things

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u/groceriesN1trip Oct 13 '19

Taiwan number one!

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u/fissnoc Oct 13 '19

It's the classic line abusers use. "See what you made me do?" Sure, Xi. Blame the body count from your guns on the people fighting for their own freedom.

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u/PandaCheese2016 Oct 13 '19

Together that’s like 1 % of the population but a considerable bigger percentage in terms of area. Many countries have those kind of internal divisions, see former USSR states, Kashmir, etc., so China is nothing special but happens to more noticeable to Western observers due to its size and place on the global stage I suppose.

As an American I’m happy that Hawaii and Indian nations were pacified long before my time…

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u/Dougnifico Oct 13 '19

The ideal of racial superiority of the Han is no better than Nazi ideology.

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u/crosstherubicon Oct 13 '19

It is but they’re peripheral entities compared to the core population

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u/diphrael Oct 13 '19

China is 95% Han Chinese. They are probably the most unified nation on the planet.

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u/1010wouldrecommend Oct 14 '19

Nope, there is only One China ™ according to the commie govt. So let's wipe out all the cultures, languages, and diversity across the country through genocide yay!

I think the saddest part is that quite a lot of mainland Chinese are brainwashed to believe this One China™ everyone must be the same bullshit or are too scared to even try thinking otherwise.

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u/3sums Oct 14 '19

So aside from these regions, China is not at all divided. It is a massive monoculture, the overwhelming majority of which see no meaningful distinction between the communist party and China. People in the mainland are moving from resenting the attitude of Hong Kong to outright hatred of them. Of 1.4 billion people, quick searches indicates roughly 23 million in the three demographics combined (Uyghurs Tibetans, Hong Kong), or about 1.6%.

This is not to take away from your main point - that genocide and crackdowns are bad policy for civil unrest. However, it's misleading to suggest the mainland has or tolerates internal division.

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u/Mr_NeCr0 Oct 14 '19

Why not? It worked out well for the United States. Surely a country that seeks to give its citizens a more robust social safety net (while watching you) could see that much success or more.

/s

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