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Thread of sources on Uyghur oppression
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this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2021
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Anarchism
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The discussion around China's treatment of Uygurs is always so unnuanced to me.
All of the arguments I see read like there are only two options:
I tend to believe all of the following can be true at the same time:
I think in large part it may because people don't consciously think about the difference between....
US government officials or other others deeply embedded in the US power structure criticizing China for its treatment of Uyghurs and the massive amount of propaganda and hypocrisy involved with that.
The average leftist saying "yah, it seems like from what I can tell China is not treating the Uyghurs humanely" while being under no delusions about both the propaganda and motives involved in most of the information they get and also about the general brutality of the US government.
Coming back at category 2 with "but whattabout the US?" doesn't add anything to the conversation, the vast majority of category 2 agrees with these criticisms of the US.
If you live in China, by all means, have a nuanced take.
If you live in the West, stop supporting US justifications for military and diplomatic action against less imperialist nations.
I literally just said that part of my nuanced take is: "I would fight against a US imperial attack (militarily, economically, or otherwise) on China." And "The US getting involved sure wouldn't help anything."
But OK.
Your post was talking about nuance with respect to China in the context of an active propaganda attack by the West against China based on unverified claims. This propaganda attack is clearly and obviously intended to curry favor with the Western population in order to escalate military, economic, and/or diplomatic action against China.
You shouldn't have a nuanced take with respect to unverified claims which are obviously and clearly intended to promote a narrative that will lead to military, economic, and diplomatic action. You should have an absolute take and categorically reject the unverified claims.
No one disputes that the vocational centers, and I sure am glad I don't have to figure out how to stop documented terrorists whose training was facilitated by the West in Afghanistan, but I can't in good conscience condemn vocational centers when there is no precedent for a more humane way of deradicalizing documented terrorists. There are lots of unverified claims around these vocational centers, and I will categorically dismiss them until there is verifiable evidence, because I oppose any and all military, economic, and diplomatic actions taken by the West.
The West has shown over and over again that its only goal is shoring up power for capitalists. China is obviously a threat to the West. Even in the imaginary world where "they're capitalist though!"
Also, replace all of these ideas with Russia or Iran and my points would be exactly the same. It doesn't even matter if China is socialist or not, they're clearly the lesser evil relative to the West, and Western hegemony is the #1 enemy.
I believe that nothing is beyond criticism, including (and especially) myself, just because there is a worse evil out there. If that's what you believe, then cool I guess. Just please be consistent and stop criticizing me (an anarchist who is post-civ and believes fighting the West is important) as I am a lesser evil relative to the West, and Western hegemony is the #1 enemy.
I'm not going to stop criticizing the spread of Western propaganda ever. Even before I understood economics well enough to be a leftist, I still criticized Western intervention and justifications for war always because it so obviously carried malicious intent. Whether you're an anarchist, a liberal, a conservative, or a communist, if you regurgitate unverified Western propaganda, you are doing the slave master's work for them.
The only things I said that could be in anyway considered critical of China are:
Trying to argue against either of those seems silly as utopias don't exist in the material world and there is documented video of some Uyghurs claiming they were oppressed by China. Arguing against that with some anarchist, who would take to the streets to stop US aggression against China, on the Internet does nothing to stop US imperialism. It's even more useless than writing your political leaders and begging them not to take action against China.
My entire point is that there is nothing wrong with the non-nuanced take from "tankies." We should categorically reject the Western claims. Sorry, but "documented video of some Uyghurs claiming they were oppressed by China" by themselves are insufficient evidence to verify the claims being made. Namely that the claimed oppression is systemic and structural. I can't possibly know whether these testimonies are bought and paid for by the West or if they are legitimate. There's also no evidence that these claims of oppression are systemic nor structural.
You're drawing a false equivalence between the two extremes. Plus you're straw-manning the "tankie" take by claiming we say "China has not and never will do anything wrong. Your criticisms are orchestrated by the CIA." All your criticisms, even if a little strawman-y there, too, of the anarchists who criticize China as a villain are pretty on point though.
The point is that actual anti-imperialists should categorically reject these unverified claims that the oppression is systemic and structural. Any failure to categorically reject the unverified claims is empowering imperialism in the West. This is a common problem for anarchists, as they tend to criticize all governments equally and as a result help to promote the power of the global hegemon.
If China takes over the global hegemony and implements the sort of obvious imperialism that the West perpetuates today, then I'll criticize them to the exclusion of the West.
I don't use the word "tankie" personally. I find it over simplifies the position of many communists. Yes I straw-manned a fake ML take just I staw-manned a fake anarchist take, because I was trying to say that's those staw-men are how people often argue about this. The whole concept of anarchists treating both the US and China equally in the matter is a straw-man. No anarchist that I know of is organizing efforts in Xinjiang to fight China. While pretty much every anarchist I know in the US spends hours every week organizing efforts to fight the US in one way or another.
You keep claiming I'm saying something I'm not which is what is annoying to me. My entire point is that you are creating better propaganda for the US imperialist machine than a take of "some Uyghurs claim oppression" ever could. You make any claim that the West is producing propaganda on the subject with goals of imperial aggression seem childish and not worth listening to. You berate people who ostensibly agree with you, but they just don't want to start flying the flag of China outside their house either.
See, I disagree with this. By regurgitating the unverified claims (which some anarchists do), those anarchists are organizing efforts against China. (Edit: Although not in Xinjiang, but that distinction is not important in my opinion.)
Awesome work for sure.
Tankies don't say the latter at all. We painstakingly and categorically debunk the unverified claims and point out that it's extremely dangerous to promote Western propaganda. That being said, we do not dance around with nuance in this respect, and we cite sources such as the nuanced anti-war takes which perpetuated criticisms against the imperialist's targets. Those nuanced takes completely failed to prevent the Gulf War, the war on terror efforts against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc. Public opinion matters. Spreading unverified claims feeds the public opinion machine.
My point is that it makes sense to deride the takes of anarchists who promote the unverified claims, but it does not make sense to deride the takes of tankies who fight against promotion of the unverified claims.
You keep implying that any "nuanced take" contains unverified claims, but you already said that my take (which I consider more nuanced than the straw-men takes I listed) doesn't. You just believe it doesn't warrant US aggression toward China. Hey, I agree. I have no delusions that my take is going to stop US aggression more than the fact that I ate toast this morning will. My nuanced takes didn't stop the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but neither did my organizing, marching, and shutting down the city I live in when the bombs fell. GWB literally just said "he didn't care about protests".
This thread is literally the most I've ever written or spoken about the Uyghurs, and probably the most I've criticized China this year. It was literally a response to someone posting a list of claims where I called for considering that a lot of it is filtered through the US propaganda machine.
I honestly have better things to do now. If you want to cancel me for saying China isn't perfect and some Uyghurs exist who are unhappy with China, then by all means do so I guess. I'm going to go and actually work on a project that helps change the material reality in the community I live in.