November 17, 2019

"Your family member has been sent to study because they have come under a degree of harmful influence in religious extremism and violent terrorist thoughts. "

"If at some point the 'Three Forces' or people with ulterior motives incited or bewitched them, the consequences would be severe. If they came under the sway of extremist ideas and the 'Three Forces' and did something that they shouldn’t do, they would injure not just innocent members of society, but also themselves and other family members, relatives and friends, including you. I don’t think that’s something you would ever want to see happen. So for everyone’s security, for the happiness of your family, and so that you can focus on your studies, we had to send them to a school at the first opportunity to undergo concentrated education and study.... After you become infected by religious extremism and terrorist ideas, unless you quickly receive 'transformation through education,' it will be very difficult to ensure that there won’t be a recurring impact that leaves you open to being incited and bewitched. Your thoughts can be restored to health as quickly as possible only with systematic, enclosed 'inpatient treatment' in our schools that thoroughly eradicates religious extremism and terrorist ideas."

From "Document: What Chinese Officials Told Children Whose Families Were Put in Camps" (NYT).

(The “Three Forces” are terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism.)

69 comments:

Darleen said...

"How many fingers, Winston?"

David Duffy said...

Last time I looked into it, China now has the largest Christian population of any country, surpassing the U.S. As we decline into lifeless secularism there is hope for some force to continue on with civilization. The communist are dead, as well as secularism. Perhaps the Christians can create in China what they did in the West.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

to undergo concentrated education....

'concentrated education'-- like, in a camp ?

wildswan said...

Police Try To Storm Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Fire And Explosions On Campus = Headline Today. So China is going to try to suppress Hong Kong by force. And then send people to re-education camps. Our own left must be so envious - if only ...

Michael K said...

The Democrats, and probably a significant number of Republicans, are owned by the Chinese.

Mr. O. Possum said...

There are three million Uighurs, not one million Uighurs, in Communist China's 500 "slow-motion" death camps, according to the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement in this Yahoo news article.

It is "genocide by incarceration," says the movement's director of operations. "If they were to kill 10,000 people a day, the world might notice.

The global silence on this issue is deafening. The Chinese Communists studied the errors of Nazi Germany and are exterminating a cultural group--quietly and slowly, the same way it is has been quietly and slowly encroaching on its neighbors in the opposite of a blitzkrieg--a slow war.

Our government needs to start talking--loudly--about the unspeakable evils in Communist China, just as it spoke--and acted--loudly during the Cold War.

Anyone who thinks the Chinese have no territorial ambitions and no ambitions to slowly grind us under their iron heels is a fool. Where is today's Churchill to warn the free world about what China is doing? We have heard from Pompeo. Crickets from Trump.

jnseward said...

Fanatical Uighur Muslims in China have killed hundreds of people in terrorist bombing attacks. If that happened in the U.S., perpetrated by American Muslims, what kind of reaction would there be?

narciso said...

Were holding a big stick over them, with the sanctions.

narciso said...

Huawei provides security for chinas operations in sudan and uganda.

gspencer said...

Most Westerners are unaware of the viciousness/cruelty/dangers of Islam. As Sam Harris put, "Islam's the mother lode of bad ideas."

Mr. O. Possum said...

Commenter jnseward must be Chinese.

The Communists in China have put 3 million women men children and babies in death camps.

Kevin said...

First they came for the Muslims
And I did speak out. I said, “Muslims? Cool. F*** those guys.”
Then I remembered that
I should have said the same damn thing when Serbia did it
But I was stupid and naive then
And if there’s no one left to help me when they come for me
Then it’s ok because at least the Muslims went first

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

unfortunately for Christians and Falun Gong,

...China speaks to muslims in the only language they understand

Mr. O. Possum said...

Three million people live in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

Imagine sealing their borders, arresting everyone in those states, and putting them in death camps.

That’s what China is doing to its Jews, er, Uighurs.

Otto said...

Subtle christian bashing b y Ann

Sebastian said...

What say you, LeBron?

Ken B said...

These are the people the NBA bow down to.

Remember that the Chinese Communist government would send families a bill for the bullets used to execute their children, parents, brothers, sisters.

Ken B said...

I can hear the Althouse House Trumpkins already: “So Ken B, would you send troops to invade China?”

Mr. Majestyk said...

Imagine if fanatical Muslim terrorists killed hundreds in bombing attacks here? Uh, we don't have to imagine it. 9-11 ring a bell?

narciso said...

The nba built a training camp in urunqi thats like a hockey franchise in kolyma.

Mr. Majestyk said...

Except, of course, that they killed, not mere hundreds on 9-11, but thousands.

FullMoon said...

If it is in the NYT, it must be true.

What I do not understand, though, why does China feed, house and clothe them? Why not just kill them and be done with it?

Is China getting soft?

mccullough said...

Germans vs The Russians

jnseward said...

Mr. Majestyk, 9-11 was perpetrated by foreign Muslims, not American Muslims, and our response was to wage war on the Taliban and kill as many as possible, not put them in camps.

PuertoRicoSpaceport.com said...

Blogger FullMoon said...

What I do not understand, though, why does China feed, house and clothe them? Why not just kill them and be done with it?

Is China getting soft?


I doubt it. Perhaps what they are doing is step by step:

"Let's put them in camps and see if anyone makes a stink"

"OK, no stink. Let's kill 1% per week (1% of 3mm is 30,000) and see what happens. We can sell off the organs to help pay for the camps."

"OK, still no stink. Fire up the gas chambers and ovens. What the Hell, we're China. We have a 5,000 year history of barbaric cruelty. We can save money on gas chambers and just send them directly to the ovens. Nobody cares what we do."

Just that Trump fellow and he'll be gone in 5 years. Fuck him."

John Henry

John Henry

narciso said...

Maybe they remember the taiping rebellion of hongquing, that was probably their firsr civil war.

narciso said...

That rebellion was stamped but at a high cost which added to the opium wars really took them down a peg.

Bay Area Guy said...

Communists!

FullMoon said...

We can sell off the organs

Like Planned Parenthood.

Is there a sales tax on body parts?

FullMoon said...

Who buys Chinese organs? I keep reading about Chinese workers making twenty cents an hour.

Then I read about American sports and industries not wanting to upset the Chinese market.

Why does NBA care about China? Do Chinese actually have TV and cable in millions of homes, or is it a land of peasants and poverty.

Maybe both.

mandrewa said...

Narciso said, "Maybe they remember the taiping rebellion of hongquing, that was probably their firsr civil war."

It would be my guess that every single change of dynasty was marked by a civil war. And actually there were probably far more civil wars than just those that we call dynasty changes.

But that's the strange thing about Chinese history. Where is the history?

It's not so strange that we know very little about the many cultures that have had no writing, but China has had writing for at least the last 2,500 years. So again where is the history?

(Now I know very well if we look it up on Wikipedia the claim will be that China has had writing for much longer than that. But what I'm trying to guess at is the number of years where a significant percentage of the population could read. And significant here might mean 5%.)

Amadeus 48 said...

I'd say these comments are scattered.

narciso said...

Probably but i looked up the taiping rebellion, it was bloody in a scale we pro ably couldnt imagine then.

n.n said...

There is also the Tibetan genocide through subversive policies, not limited to immigration reform (i.e. demographic forcing).

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"Fanatical Uighur Muslims in China have killed hundreds of people in terrorist bombing attacks. If that happened in the U.S., perpetrated by American Muslims, what kind of reaction would there be?"

Muslims have killed thousands in the US, although they weren't necessarily all American Muslims, since 2001. What reaction was there? The Dems reaction seems to be to import as many ISIS terrorists and Somali butt pirates as possible, and give them voting rights. They'll do it, if they can take over the government more completely.

Anyway, as there is bad, worse, and worst, I'd far rather deal with Muslims than Chi-Coms. I'd rate Muslim terrorists as slightly worse than Dems, at least in the short term.

Mary Beth said...

That sounds exactly what they might say if they really did have a cult of potential terrorists that they wanted to reprogram rather than punish. It's not the conversation with the kids that's the problem, it's what comes after.

When people talk about things that give more and more control to the government, I tell them, this is what you are moving towards. They assure me it's not, but can't tell me why it will be different here.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"I should have said the same damn thing when Serbia did it"

Serbia did no such thing. Serbia fought in a war, the same as the Croats, Bosnians, and others did in the nineties, but they were vilified in the Western MSM, and by Hillary, Holbrooke, and their Deep State minions.

Yancey Ward said...

So, they sent them all to the US to go to college?

narciso said...

They were rough customers, but they fought among others al queda auxiliaries, scratch any low to mid level aq commander specially saudis and egyptians and they operated in the balkans zawahiris bros two of the san diego team of high jackers,

narciso said...

On the ground they worked with a bosnian special forces crni labudovi the black swans their counterpart was the mujahid battalion

buwaya said...

mandrewa,

China has libraries full of written history. The Chinese have been assiduous historians. Its all there to read, a great deal of it in handy English language glosses and summaries. That we don't read it is our fault, not theirs.

I forgot who it was, some Englishman, who said that India has no history, and China has too much of it.

And China has had a truly enormous number of civil wars, rebellions, insurgencies, and etc. Its been split, united, and split again, conquered by foreigners (at least thrice, all of it), risen, collapsed, risen again, oh well.

Ray - SoCal said...

The numbers in camps in China and North Korea are high.

The lack of comment by the Islamic world, leaders and population, continues to surprises me.

The US via VP Pence has said more, than the Islamic world.

And yet there are lots of protests against the US by Islamists.

The hypocrisy of the Arab world astounds me.

But, this has been an issue for years.

The Palestinians have been treated like dirt, or worse, in most Arab countries. And yet Israel that treats them better, is vilified.

Mark said...

The NYT had a story on the Honk Kong Supreme Court ruling that a ban on protesters wearing masks was unconsitutional under their current laws.

I posted that this was the point where the PRC would have to invade to restore order.

Not that the second had to do anything with the first, but the NYT story disappeared a few moments later.

Things are going to get messy. And the NY Times should grow a backbone.

whitney said...

Lots of cognitive dissonance. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys?

The Crack Emcee said...

Here, we just let you become a cult member. Almost treat it as entertainment, and let that destroy your family.

It's much more civilized.

The Crack Emcee said...

Here, we let cults openly lie to to the entire nation for centuries and then pat ourselves on the backs for our enlightenment and religious tolerance - knowing they're pedophiles, child molesters, polygamists, wife beaters, pimps, and more.

It's much more civilized.

Hagar said...

The post-communist revolution in China would have to start along the southeast coast and spread inwards into the hinterland with time. It could not be avoided that economic inequality between the provinces would result however uneasy the old communist establishment might feel about it.

The old empire consisted of China proper with a ring of vassal states around it protecting China from the outside world. The imperial government largely left the government of the vassal states to the locals as long as they behaved and sent an ambassador to Peking to do the kow-tow before the emperor once a year. Today, the Chinese government is trying to make all of China, including the former vassal states, one unit - like the U.S., with the golden arches of McDonald's the same from Shanghai to Lhasa to Kashgar and Aksu.

Hagar said...

Of course, rots of ruck with that!
It is a really big problem; the Turkic tribes of the Central Asian highlands are not any kind of Chinese and many may still exist on a level where they only recently have been told that this is wrong and they really are Chinese.

Nichevo said...

jnseward said...
Fanatical Uighur Muslims in China have killed hundreds of people in terrorist bombing attacks. If that happened in the U.S., perpetrated by American Muslims, what kind of reaction would there be?

11/17/19, 8:25 PM


As has been the case, we would frantically deny/excuse/justify it and blame others.

Nichevo said...


Ken B said...
I can hear the Althouse House Trumpkins already: “So Ken B, would you send troops to invade China?”

11/17/19, 8:55 PM


Would you? I mean Canada as IIRC you are Canadian. Would you even stop them from buying half Vancouver? Maybe give them a little trouble in trade and international relations? Quit selling them lobster? Do anything but continue to hassle us and lick their feet?

whitney said...

Responding to a previous commenter who posted a link to an article, similar to many, that used Mormon polygamy as a scapegoat to blame the people for their own murders in Mexico recently. Isn't it weird the media is so interested in that angle and they never ever talk about Muslim polygamy? That's weird huh?

Hagar said...

Fun fact: The world's oldest mosque is located in Guangzhou (Canton), China.

mandrewa said...

buwaya, I probably didn't search hard enough, but at one point I got curious about China's past and looked, or thought I looked, and came up with only vague generalities.

What I was expecting to find was the detailed and dense craziness that if you look at practically any time after the dark ages you can find for Europe (and then of course there's also Roman and Greek history). You probably know what I mean.

Now if you're talking about Chinese history after they encounter the West, well yes, it seems to me to be every bit as detailed and dense and crazy as European history, but I was looking for before Europeans were writing about it.

Now I know I'm greatly handicapped by not being able to read Chinese. But I assumed that if such a thing as you describe existed, and I don't doubt you, that some Western scholar would have got interested and translated at least some small piece of it.

It's not like I was looking for a big comprehensive Chinese history as I was just looking for any detailed fragment from any time in the past from before the European interaction.

Tina Trent said...

The Art of Interpreting Nonexistent Inscriptions Written in Invisible Ink on a Blank Page. Simon Leys. 1990.

The Chinese government has been murdering its people through re-education incarceration for half a century. Western journalists and academicians have been making excuses for them doing it for just as long. Now that it is happening to a Muslim population, they find themselves hoisted on a few ideological petards.

The protests in Hong Kong are causing similar consternation among western leftists. Worker's World is praising the Chinese put-down of capitalist reactionaries. Nation Magazine is maintaining studied non-deniability. The New York Times is mocking a less politically correct victim class in China: the Falum Gong, who are undoubtedly persecuted but unforgivably anti-communist and anti-leftist. Yesterday, in the NYT Magazine Kevin Roose jokingly advised how to block their content from the internet. Ironically, Facebook and Google already censor them, which is reprehensible. The invisible ink army marches on in Silicon Valley against the wrong types of jailed and persecuted people.

Some re-educated pigs are just more important than other re-educated pigs.

buwaya said...

mandrewa,

Here is what one must do -

Look up a particular subject re China - such as Ming period piracy - not a dynasty-toppling business -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiajing_wokou_raids

And then chase down the articles references - I count 17 in this case, all English works or translations from Chinese. And then after aquiring them, look in these for their sources, which are Chinese period secondary sources for the most part. And then you will have your detail.

Nichevo said...

. Now that it is happening to a Muslim population, they find themselves hoisted on a few ideological petards.


Iran-Iraq. Or, put another way, imagine that science and the media have discovered an endangered animal...that only eats endangered plants.

mandrewa said...

buwaya, if this is really something you're recommending, that is you've read it and you think it's interesting, then I'll read this.

But you do realize this is not what I was looking for. This is well after we have Westerners in China writing about China, and in fact the pirates in question actually include some Portuguese. So although I agree that early period when the West first starts interacting with China is quite interesting, still I kind of already know we know this.

In fact I would say that when Westerners talk about Chinese history it's almost always about the Ching dynasty, the Ming dynasty, or, here I'll show my ignorance, whatever it is we call that period of Mongol rule (the Khanate or something like that) that Marco Polo encountered.

But as you know there is that vast stretch of time before these three periods, which were surely very different from the Ming and Ching periods and should encompass a staggering number of events and probably actually very different cultures as China evolved. This is the period of time that I came up short on finding anything detailed about and more specifically translations of texts written by people from one of those earlier periods, which would incidently reveal a good deal about they thought about and cared about.

Nichevo said...

Jiajing_wokou_raids

Oh, what Clavell referred to as "wako" in Shogun.

Nichevo said...

Well, mandrewa, buwaya shows you the method, not the recipe. Do the same historiography with an older period or event. Look up the Warring States period and backtrace the source materials likewise.

buwaya said...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Four_Histories

Note that most of this enormous work, the compiled "official history" covering 3000 years, has not yet been translated into English.

And this is just the "official history" of approved chronicles that had been preserved until compiled in the 18th century. The "unofficial" stuff that we depend on for much of western history, such as Procopius "Secret History", is elsewhere.

A more comprehensive look at Chinese historical sources, including and beyond the "Twenty-Four"-
https://www.albany.edu/eas/205/chinese%20historical%20sources.pdf

The subject, the field of study, is enormous, and still only patchily accessible to non-specialists. What we non-specialists and non-Chinese language scholars can see is not even the tip of this iceberg.

mandrewa said...

So I'll do some searches myself.

First thing I find:

https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=273436&p=1825884

It gives links to a number of archives at different institutions that are allegedly texts ranging from the time period I'm talking about to the more recent. But they are all in Chinese, and actually most of them I would have to be an authorized researcher or student of the university to even get permission to see them! It's kind of amazing! Why the restriction?

Next there is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classics

That covers the thirteen classics, which everyone studies who has any intent to become a scholar of Chinese history.

In fact nine of these were part of the stuff one had to know well if one aspired to pass the test that allowed one to become a civil servant in the Chinese government in both the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Although I no doubt demonstrate my lack of worthiness by not having already read this stuff, these very ideological writings, which despite their age are part of what define the Ming and Qing dynasties aren't quite what I was looking for.

mandrewa said...

Thanks buwaya. Those links look great!

buwaya said...

European historiography was pretty patchy too, until the seventeenth century or so.
A lot of things we now consider standard have turned up remarkably late, in the European Verizon equivalent of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Procopius' "Secret History" didn't turn up until 1623.

mandrewa said...

So I look through the texts mentioned in what buwaya linked to and I saw

Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government

and I think that would be a good place to start. Here's one of the major standard histories of China written about a thousand years ago, and written apparently by three people, instead of the usual government committee, and, oh of course, someone has translated this into English. Right!?

And there's the problem. If basic texts like this haven't been translated, what are the odds the kind of stuff I was really looking for have been? That is assuming they exit.

mandrewa said...

Chancellor Li Si Said: "I, your servant, propose that all historians' records other than those of Qin's be burned. With the exception of the academics whose duty includes possessing books, if anyone under heaven has copies of the Shi Jing [Classic of Poetry], the Shujing [Classic of History], or the writings of the hundred schools of philosophy, they shall deliver them (the books) to the governor or the commandant for burning. Anyone who dares to discuss the Shi Jing or the Classic of History shall be publicly executed. Anyone who uses history to criticize the present shall have his family executed. Any official who sees the violations but fails to report them is equally guilty. Anyone who has failed to burn the books after thirty days of this announcement shall be subjected to tattooing and be sent to build the Great Wall. The books that have exemption are those on medicine, divination, agriculture, and forestry. Those who have interest in laws shall instead study from officials."[a]
— Shiji Chapter 6. "The Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin" thirty-fourth year (213 BC)

Gojuplyr831@gmail.com said...

Mandrewa,
Mongol empire is known as Yuan dynasty. They defeated the Southern Song dynasty.

First Chinese empire is generally considered the Qin dynasty.

Early Chinese leaders considered themselves the Central Kingdom. The center of the world around whom the rest of the world revolved. Every one else were considered barbarians of one sort or another. The early histories are highly chauvinistic.

buwaya said...

Thats the point mandrewa, most of this has not been translated and is effectively inaccessible to nearly all of us. And much of it is difficult to access in any case.
You would have to turn yourself into a true Chinese scholar, and enter that academic world.

As for the decree of Qin, much survived it. Else we would not have, for instance, the Confucian classics and the "Art of War".

mikee said...

Odd that the danger of the Communist Party to the subjects of the Communist Party is not recognized at all by the Communist Party, even after the Communist Party has killed tens of millions of its subjects. That biblical phrase about the beam in one's own eye comes to mind.

Roger Sweeny said...

mandrewa,

There is an immense literature on Chinese history. If you are serious about getting into it, you might check out Making Sense of Chinese History: A Reading List at The Scholar's Stage, a very interesting blog run by Tanner Greer. Greer is clear-eyed and knowledgeable about China, as well as a number of other things.