Brave New China

When will the world wake up to the future a growing China is preparing for everywhere they will hold power?

Where are the protests?

Where are the UN statements?

Where is … well … much of anything?

BZ to Reuters for putting this together – but for now it is the exception, not the rule.

Xinjiang is now one of the most heavily policed areas in the world, according to academics and human rights groups. This follows the launching of a “people’s war on terror” in 2014 after a series of violent attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of China that authorities blamed on religious extremists.

While China says the Uighur camps are vocational training centers, they are heavily guarded. Researchers have resorted to using satellite imagery to view and track the expansion of these facilities.

Reuters worked with Earthrise Media, a non-profit group that analyzes satellite imagery, to plot the construction and expansion of 39 of these camps, which were initially identified using publicly available documents such as construction tenders. The building-by-building review of these facilities revealed that the footprint of the built-up area almost tripled in size in the 17 months between April 2017 and August 2018. Collectively, the built-up parts in these 39 facilities now cover an area roughly the size of 140 soccer fields.
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Uighurs have bristled at what they say are harsh restrictions on their culture and religion. They have faced periodic crackdowns, which intensified after riots in the regional capital in Urumqi in 2009 killed nearly 200 people.

Bombings in Xinjiang and attacks allegedly carried out by Uighur separatists, including a mass stabbing in the city of Kunming in China’s southwest in 2014 that killed 31 people, led to further restrictions. In recent years, under Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party secretary in Xinjiang and a loyalist of President Xi Jinping, measures against Uighurs have included a ban on “abnormal” beards for men and restrictions on religious pilgrimages to Mecca.

Chen has also overseen the installation of a pervasive, technology-enhanced surveillance apparatus across Xinjiang. Tens of thousands of security personnel have been recruited to staff police stations and checkpoints. Security screening, including scanners equipped with facial recognition cameras, has been installed in public places such as mosques, hotels and transportation hubs.
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From early morning to night, the detainees said they were subjected to mind-numbing political indoctrination. This included reciting Chinese laws and Communist Party policies, as well as singing the national anthem and other traditional Red songs. Those who failed to correctly memorize the lines of Communist Party dictums were denied food, said one detainee. Detainees were forced to renounce their religion, engage in self-criticism sessions and report on fellow inmates, relatives and neighbors.

Of the eight former detainees interviewed by Reuters, four were Uighurs and four were ethnic Kazakhs. Some requested anonymity, in most cases because they said they feared repercussions for family members who remained in China.
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... China, which for months denied their existence, now calls them vocational training centers.

“Through vocational training, most trainees have been able to reflect on their mistakes and see clearly the essence and harm of terrorism and religious extremism,” Shohrat Zakir, the Xinjiang governor, said in remarks to the state-run Xinhua news agency in October. “They have also been able to better tell right from wrong and resist the infiltration of extremist thought.”

At this stage of the article it came to mind that everyone needs to re-read their Hopkirk - all of it - but start with Setting the East Ablaze. This conflict is centuries old.

n Kashgar, the ancient Silk Road oasis town in Xinjiang’s southern Uighur heartland, locals say they live in fear. As security forces have blanketed the region and high-tech surveillance has become pervasive, there have been waves of mass detentions of Muslims in places like Kashgar.

The arrests peaked last year as police convoys with sirens blaring took people away, their heads covered in black hoods. In Kashgar, the locals say that many of those detained have not yet returned. On the streets, there are few young men to be seen.

“You can go to a Uighur and slap him in the face and he won’t dare retaliate,” said one Han Chinese local, who grew up with Uighurs in Kashgar and saw many of his friends taken away. “It’s going to be quiet for another one or two years, but then what? The greater the pressure, the fiercer the backlash.”

Of course, we know why the “international left” is not in an uproar over this – China is not Western. They are not for "the people" they are for control of the people.

Though some of the legitimate liberal West are starting to rightfully call out Chinese abuses, so much of the international left they are in a popular front with is obsessed with one thing, tearing down the established Western culture and order. “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go!” is not just a goofy chant; it is what drives so much of the official outrage among the usual suspects.

-Who actually is the source of most of the plastic garbage choking our oceans? China.
-Who is actually the source of most of the pollution and carbon emissions on the globe? China.
-Who is actually a growing colonial power? China.
-Who is actually creating an Orwellian order in plain sight? China.
-Who is actively trying to destroy and convert a Muslim nation? China.

…and yet, who is the subject of protests from the usual suspects in the leftist community? 

I know the answer – and I’ve known it since my early 20s when I saw the same people excuse everything by the Soviet Union and their clients. I just wish the liberals who really care about individual rights and freedom would see that the left is not their friend, but hey - that's just me.