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Thread: Riots in Xinjiang

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chloe View Post
    Thanks, I'm just frustrated at both parties. I came to America when I was 10 so I'm able to look at the bigger picture. I do think sometimes people assume that Uighur are violent and bad because they're notorious for their misdeeds, but that doesn't categorize everyone. I also think that the Chinese are misunderstood as well. Grrrr that's why I hate politics.

    That's true about the faking of ethnicity, it does happen quite a lot because my dad told me when he took his college entrance exam, Uighurs that score above 100 can go to college. That's nothing!!!! Out of like 7-8 subjects, a combined score of 100 is ridiculously easy. Also, Uighurs get extra vacation because of their Islamic holiday, I used to wish I was an Uighur (only when their vacation time came around though)

    I think because of these special treatments, the Uighur know that the Chinese Government can't do much about them because they're minorities with these protections. It's like what my friend does all the time. She's African American and whenever the teacher yells at her, she goes "it's because i'm black isn't it? you're so racist!"
    That is why I think both China and US should end all the special treatments and treat everyone the same. China should not let the Uighur get away with all the violent protests, let them learn the lesson the hard way.

  2. #22
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    These kinds of situation are real sticky. The only way out is to have well distributed economic prosperity. When people have their own jobs to lose, cars to get smashed and houses to be burnt, they tend not to want disturbances.

    In a way, I think the Central Govt. is trying to push it in that direction but of course it is tough as hell to do it for a region that size.

    As for independence. Thats a bigger can of crap. And the Western world shouldn't be opening their mouths until the Native Americans, the Aborigines and the Maoris' get all their ancestral lands back.
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    Quote Originally Posted by CC View Post
    These kinds of situation are real sticky. The only way out is to have well distributed economic prosperity. When people have their own jobs to lose, cars to get smashed and houses to be burnt, they tend not to want disturbances.

    In a way, I think the Central Govt. is trying to push it in that direction but of course it is tough as hell to do it for a region that size.
    How??
    You just cannot take the hard earned wealth from one group and give them to the others. That is robbing. They already get special treatments, which is unfair to the majority hans, so what else should they get? If they want to prosper then they better work hard and live responsibly like the han chinese. They can't just sit there and expect handout just because they are minority.

    As for independence. Thats a bigger can of crap. And the Western world shouldn't be opening their mouths until the Native Americans, the Aborigines and the Maoris' get all their ancestral lands back.
    Agree.

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    I wasn't particular surprised to hear about the "affirmative action" kind of practices for schools and employment but there seems to be some sort official policy on being more lenient on crimes committed by minorities all in the pursuit of harmony. It seems to me that if you allow one group to steal and kill with relative impunity, they will because they can, and others can't do a thing about it.

    Evidently it's loosely translated as "arrest less, execute less and let them go whenever possible" when dealing with minorities in China. If you look at wenxuecity or tianya there seems to be a lot of posts by Chinese speakers along with photos showing what has happened. The sentiment there seems to be that the Uighurs treat the Han as no better than animals since if they rob or kill one then the police can't really do much so they feel they're entitled to do it. Evidently it's a major crime for a Han to steal 500+ RMB but for Uighurs they need to steal tens of thousands of RMB to face the same kind of charges. Similarly killings by Uighurs are only considered severe crimes if the perpetrator kills several people. It's also evidently OK for Uighurs to shout at you and wave their knives at you in the marketplace because it's deemed as a acceptable sales tactic.

    When I asked the question if these are official policies (and presumably someone can dig up relevant documents) why doesn't anyone try to refute Western media... the response was that most "educated" Chinese (i.e. those that can go online and participate in these discussions) see the Western media as so lacking in credibility that it's irrelevant. There's also this growing sentiment that the West (including Japan) has had it in terms of economic prosperity, and that what they think is of little consequence to China.

    It's kind of sad how people are willing to go to great length on the net to find out who trampled a kitten to death but can't be motivated to set the record straight for the world at large.
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  5. #25
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    I heard about these riots on TV and was so sad.. It seems like history is repeating itself or something because this reminds me in some ways of the Tiananmen Square massacre that happened 20 years ago....When will all of this violence ever end??? *sigh*
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    It seems like most news reports on this now starts off by saying Han Chinese arming themselves and so on, while hardly mentioning what happened beforehand (Sunday). If they did mention, it's about the 200 Uighur women who protested rather peacefully.

    Anyone late to this event could have easily misunderstood the Han Chinese as the sole and only party at fault and that they are attacking the Uighurs for little reason.
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    Actually, I thought the news coverage, especially compared to the Tibet coverage, was unusually fair-minded, probably due to the high number of deaths caused by the riots, and the fact that Muslims don't have a cuddly Dalai Lama figure whom everyone likes.
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    Islam and Muslims are as much as a media victim as China is.
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    Maybe this is the result of the Central Government’s encouraging Han people to move into ethnic minority regions with the hope of ‘smothering the minority culture just as they’ve tried to do in Tibet

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by JamesG View Post
    Maybe this is the result of the Central Government’s encouraging Han people to move into ethnic minority regions with the hope of ‘smothering the minority culture just as they’ve tried to do in Tibet
    Hmm I'm not sure about the 'smothering minority culture' part, but conflicts are bound to happen when people with different culture are poured into a region that is culturally-different, not to mention that jobs will naturally become more scarce.
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  11. #31
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    Nice reads, esp the personal insight from Chloe.

    Give China a chance to make peace between the different ethic groups. Whenever it comes to these issues, Western society, led by its media automatically assume the fault is at the Chinese government. Considering how every country that used to be a Western colony has messed up big time with regards to its own indigenous race relations, it's hypocritical to start pointing fingers at a country with several times the population and 20+ different local minorities. By the sounds of the special rights of the Uighurs, at least China is going in the right direction. It took 200 years for the Australian government to start taking positive steps.
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    This discussion, so far, is sorely lacking in critical thinking. In order to do so, an intellectually honest observer is forced to ask two critical questions:

    1. Much has been sprouted by Chinese apologists about "special rights" that were given to the Uighurs minorities. Presumably as state policies in important areas such as education and the penal codes, there are official documents somewhere to support this claim. But as darkser has pointed out: "It's kind of sad how people are willing to go to great length on the net to find out who trampled a kitten to death but can't be motivated to set the record straight for the world at large." I tend to suspect that the lack of such documentations is most probably due to that not-too-wholesome smell of jingoist bs.

    2. Why did the Chinese government and the state-run media immediately put the spin on the riot and massacre as being orchestrated by the World Uighurs Congress and desperately try to link this organization with a Muslim terrorist group despite the most flimsy of "evidence" to the former charge, and absolutely no evidence at all to the latter?

    One thing for sure, internet searches are still being censored in China, and you won't see any op-ed piece in Xinhua raising these kinds of question.
    Last edited by levendis d'orange; 07-11-09 at 01:54 AM.
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  13. #33
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    As a quick response,

    1) Various special rights are applied to all of the minorities, not just the Uighur, with the most major of the rights being significant bonuses on the all-important gaokao as well as relaxed family planning policies. This isn't jingoist bs, it's common knowledge which is actually the source of a great deal of resentment which some Han people hold towards minorities, in the same way as how affirmative action pisses off a lot Caucasian/Asian Americans. Asking people to provide documentation to 'prove' it is the equivalent of someone asking an American to provide documentation 'proving' the existence of affirmative action. It really is that widely known (as well as widely debated). There actually are a number of gaokao test takers who are actually disqualified because it was discovered that they 'faked' being an ethnic minority in order to get bonus points.

    There are, of course, a number of Uighur specific policies such as them being allowed to carry big friggin' knives. This is in fact (as I stated earlier) one of the contributing factors for why some Han people have had particularly negative views of Uighurs. Again, this is very common knowledge in China, and often a subject of debate, with many people being unhappy about these policies.

    Not to say that there are many areas in which the Chinese government does not 'do right' by minorities and the Uighur/Tibetans in particular (I happen to think many policies towards these two ethnic groups in particular are downright stupid), but the above special rights are very, very well known and definitely not 'jingoist bs'.

    2) Who cares what the spin of CCTV and the Chinese government mouthpieces is, with regards to the start of the riots? Everyone knows it's full of propagandist sith. I'm not sure how this is a relevant question, much less a critical question. No one's 'asking' that question, because everyone's taking that for granted. I think everyone in here generally accepts the ethnic brawl in the Guangdong province as the primary cause of the riots in Urumqi, and, for that matter, even the Chinese government hasn't really been denying it; they're just trying to pin some blame elsewhere.

    3) What do you mean by 'Chinese apologists'? I don't think I've seen any of that on this thread, and for that matter, these riots in and of themselves were primarily Uighur on Han violence, although it got nastier later on with groups of Han seeking revenge. Foreign media which were in Urumqi have generally praised the performance of the Chinese security forces after the riots broke out as 'highly disciplined and professional', and have pretty much discounted the unsubstantiated accusations of 'hundreds of Uighur casualties' which the World Uighur Congress made. I'm not sure there's much to apologize for...
    Last edited by Ren Wo Xing; 07-11-09 at 02:30 AM.
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    Some counterpoints:

    1. Popular conceptions isn't always rooted in fact. In the US, the existence of affirmative action is not questioned because its legal basis came from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246 and Executive Order 11375. If there are Chinese equivalent, especially the highly questionable claim about different penal codes for Uighurs as compared to Hans, surely any well-read Chinese should be able to find their legal basis without too much effort. The categorization of jingoist bs are primarily directed at posts expounding on the special treatments of Uighurs while neglecting the adversities they and Tibetans have endured from Chinese government policies.

    2. The spin and censorship should be taken seriously because that's how information and thus narrative is controlled and manipulated. When narrative is controlled, perception of events and even reality itself became what the state wanted it to be. Iranians are rank amateurs compared to the sophistication that's employed by the Chinese government.

    3. As an example of apologist thinking, see how many logical fallacies have been committed in this post: http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showpost...7&postcount=18 As to foreign media access to the event, I can't help but notice the almost non-existent of testimonies from Uighurs, most of whom are rightfully fearful of retaliation for even being in the same vicinity of any foreign media present.
    Last edited by levendis d'orange; 07-11-09 at 03:16 AM.
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  15. #35
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    Turkey's Prime Minister has apparently spoken out about the riot. Is he stupid or what?

    Turkey's prime minister has described ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang region as "a kind of genocide".

    "There is no other way of commenting on this event," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

    "There are atrocities there, hundreds of people have been killed and 1,000 hurt. We have difficulty understanding how China's leadership can remain a spectator in the face of these events."

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8145451.stm
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  16. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by levendis d'orange View Post
    Some counterpoints:

    1. Popular conceptions isn't always rooted in fact. In the US, the existence of affirmative action is not questioned because its legal basis came from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246 and Executive Order 11375. If there are Chinese equivalent, especially the highly questionable claim about different penal codes for Uighurs as compared to Hans, surely any well-read Chinese should be able to find their legal basis without too much effort. The categorization of jingoist bs are primarily directed at posts expounding on the special treatments of Uighurs while neglecting the adversities they and Tibetans have endured from Chinese government policies.
    As a quick note, the Chinese legal system is not as formalized as that of the West by far; I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that the written version of the policies above aren't easily locatable. Just another flaw of the Chinese legal system; policy overrides written law (whole 'nother issue), and laws on the books often aren't enforced, depending on whether or not enforcement is perceived as beneficial to public stability/CCP's hold on power. Chinalawblog often discusses this, in fact. Regardless, the currently implemented policy is definitely as written above.

    This isn't really popular conception. It's universal common knowledge. Discussion and debate over these policies can be seen on CCTV and are even brought up in a few Xinhua news articles from time to time. I've even discussed in Western news articles once in a while, while always with a caveat (a la 'Chinese affirmative action may help Uighur get into colleges more easily, but doesn't help with workplace racism'). There's really no question with regards to the validity or existence of these perks. Whether or not they can be said to 'make up' for the (often wrongheaded) policies in general is a whole separate issue; all I can tell you is that the existence of these perks is universal common knowledge, and treated as accepted fact by both Chinese and Western media as well as the Chinese populace, nor have I ever read or heard of anyone, pro or anti-China, deny their existence.

    2. The spin and censorship should be taken seriously because that's how information and thus narrative is controlled and manipulated. When narrative is controlled, perception of events and even reality itself became what the state wanted it to be. Iranians are rank amateurs compared to the sophistication that's employed by the Chinese government.
    Lol, that's the first time I've heard the words 'sophistication' and 'Chinese' go together, with respect to their PR and propaganda. Maybe in comparison to the Iranians, but otherwise, no. Realistically speaking, every single organization (not just nation) spins facts to their advantage; the real question is the efficacy of their attempted spin. China's attempts at spin generally just makes them look like idiots, from their blaming Tibet on the Dalai Lama to Xinjiang on Rebiya. Frankly speaking, their PR does more harm than good. And the Chinese population has long since become distrustful of official Chinese news and propaganda. Honestly, I think you give them way too much credit.

    3. As an example of apologist thinking, see how many logical fallacies have been committed in this post: http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showpost...7&postcount=18 As to foreign media access to the event, I can't help but notice the almost non-existent of testimonies from Uighurs, most of whom are rightfully fearful of retaliation for even being in the same vicinity of any foreign media present.
    Eh? In almost every news article I've read, the writers have taken pains to split testimony 50/50; I definitely disagree with you here. For every Han they interview who was beaten by an Uighur, they also add in an Uighur who was beaten by a Han revenge mob (and rightly so). I thought the coverage has been quite balanced.
    Last edited by Ren Wo Xing; 07-11-09 at 05:16 AM.
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  17. #37
    Senior Member Ren Ying Ying's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JamesG View Post
    Maybe this is the result of the Central Government’s encouraging Han people to move into ethnic minority regions with the hope of ‘smothering the minority culture just as they’ve tried to do in Tibet
    and of course, "smothering minority culture" includes activities such as teaching kids of the region (Han included) the languages, dances, and culture of the Xinjiang region (refer Chloe's post).

    Of course, from the Uighurs' point of view, they wouldn't want people from "outside" comming into their terriroties, which is understandable. But also take into the account of how many "Xinjiang residents" migrate OUT of the Xinjiang region to traditionally Han cities. Are they trying to go out and smother Han culture?
    Last edited by Ren Ying Ying; 07-11-09 at 10:25 PM.

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