China’s Vanishing Muslims: Undercover In The Most Dystopian Place In The World

Coincidentally, I watched this vice news documentary earlier today that shows the current situation in China: [VIDEO] through undercover reporting.

Yes, totalitarian dictatorships are a literal alternative to Democracy, though I feel we're nitpicking on the semantics of my words here. When I say I don't see Totalitarian Dictatorships as an alternative, I don't mean in the literal sense, I mean in the viable sense. In the literal sense, yes, it's an alternative to Democracy. As is building a house on sand is a literal but not viable alternative to building a house on concrete. I don't think many would want to live under a Chinese authoritarian rule given the Democratic alternatives. Or perhaps they would until they're rounded up in Xinjiang camps, shot in the face with rubber bullets for wanting to protect their current way of life or ran over by Tanks by asking for change to better their way of life. But if we've seen what the conversations that are occurring in China about these violent acts taken by the CCP, it's clear the populace think it's in their best interests at this time. Though it's worth adding that the message we receive about the CCP's actions is very different to those living in China. I recommend anyone to watch the documentary created by Vice below about the atrocities that are occurring in Xinjiang and the first hand opinions of those that live there. I would guess the opinions of those being interviewed are honest with a side of oppression. [1] [VIDEO]

>(are the Uyghur Muslims treated worse than immigrants in many western places like US / EU / AUS?) This question would be simpler to answer if China allowed foreign reporters access to the camps, cities, and provinces where (millions of) Uyghur Muslims are held, such as Xinjiang. Could you imagine if Chinese reporters were denied to access to, for example, the state of Texas? What if plainclothes Texas Rangers stalked tourists visiting El Paso, and aggressively detained and deported anyone caught interviewing local Hispanics? That’s the type of media blackout which I understand is currently imposed on Xinjiang. VICE News on the ground: [VIDEO] Foreign Policy editor, “All of my Uyghur sources are gone”: [LINK]

Not OP; I've only come across this in a Vice documentary - [VIDEO] I don't think the surveillance has the explicit purpose of preventing cultural reproduction, but I can imagine it has a chilling effect.

I do not believe this story. We're talking about a country that puts children in concentration camps. I do not think you can trust anything in their press releases. [VIDEO]

What I find chilling is that Uigher children are being kidnapped from their families and sent to barbed wire enclosed camps as well[1]. There, they are subjected to CCP brainwashing[2]. [1] [VIDEO] [2] [VIDEO]

> Almost everything ughyur and xinjiang related has pretty much been shown to be propaganda and from highly questionable sources Do you have any evidence for that whatsoever? In contrast, here's a very thorough look from an established news source: [VIDEO]

If only we had some sort of system where we could easily search for such information (unless you live in China, where such results are hidden or monitored) [VIDEO] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] Not to mention the UN even acknowledges the existence of the camps and kidnappings.

How to compare that with this experience then? [VIDEO] Also, it's interesting that on Twitter of sharing related articles you'll have Asian people with accounts commenting with very short messages simply saying "you're stupid" or similar without explaining themselves nor actually engaging with the comments - their replies getting 4+ Likes from near bot-looking accounts. It seems the CCP is working hard to craft the narrative worldwide.

> Youtube videos from randos aren't very good sources Sure But a rado guy who have not even had the first-hand information, would be an even worse source. That's always been my #1 rule of assessing the reliability of any news reporting. My point still stands, the mainstream media's report on Xinjiang is lazy, they have no first-hand deep reporting. Note that the early reporting by Vice is the right approach [1]. But it still suffers from the same inconsideration to the different cultural and political aspects of Chinese society. For example, when reporters are followed by government employees, that's the usual lazy bureaucratic reactions to western media. Those are not evidences of "vanishing Uyghurs". Instead, if they just pretend to be normal travellers, and hop on trains, on bus, on the street, and gather the information through small talks and gossips with real locals, they'll have much more freedom to reach deeper. No, they dont think they should be restricted at all. They believe in free press; which was never been established in China since the unification in Qin dynasty. They believe that news reporting is so universally believed that, they would get whatever truth they seek just by showcasing their face. From a larger scope, government in US enjoys an legitimacy through voting democracy. So they usually do not care much about criticism about their performance from media. Individuals certainly are much more sensitive to such reporting, but that's same for Chinese beau

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: [VIDEO] That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random hotel/apartment you see on the street to try to book a room.. then you'll discover that 9/10 hotels/apartments won't allow foreigners to live there. I lived in China for more than a year before I realized this was the case, and I have on multiple occasions even been kicked out of friends/partners apartment because someone told the landlord there was a foreigner in the building (or maybe they saw through the surveillance camera).

Most people would be unequivocally against slave concentration camps. Do not confuse lack of action with lack of caring. Effective action may require collective action. But individually, most people care. Yet, collectively, they cannot seem to do anything meaningful. You are making a statement that is the definition of an ecological fallacy [0] The article you pointed out is hardly balanced. The access of journalists is heavily restricted. Naturally, any information that comes out from a standard news outlet with government sanctioned offices like Associated Press will sound like government propaganda. CCP will not let AP have access to any information that counters the narrative of the propaganda. For a different take on things, and an outlet that does journalism differently without official representation with CCP, have a look at this piece from VICE [1]. [0] [LINK] [1] [VIDEO]