Video: CNN Interviews Witness To China’s Abuse of Uyghurs And Other Detainees
While a US trade delegation is once again engaging in talks with China, more news of China’s Abuse of Uyghurs and other minorities and dissidents in camps breaks through into the news cycle.
Photo by tea rose, CC BY-SA 2.0
For nearly three years, CNN has been investigating allegations of gross human rights violations and a modern day system of internment camps in China’s Xinjiang region. China denies accusations from the US State Department that Beijing detained up to two million ethnic Uyghurs and members of other minorities in internment camps. For the first time, CNN has interviewed a former member of the Chinese security forces, who says he was ordered to routinely arrest and torture Uyghur detainees. A warning to viewers, Ivan Watson’s report contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual assault.
Video from CNN with Ivan Watson reporting:
Background from the BBC:
China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups in the north-western region of Xinjiang.
Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps”, and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms.
There is also evidence that Uyghurs are being used as forced labour and of women being forcibly sterilised. Some former camp detainees have also alleged they were tortured and sexually abused.
The US is among several countries to have accused China of committing genocide in Xinjiang. The leading human rights groups Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have published reports accusing China of crimes against humanity.
China denies all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, claiming its system of “re-education” camps are there to combat separatism and Islamist militancy in the region.
There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang, which is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations. They make up less than half of the Xinjiang population.
Recent decades have seen a mass migration of Han Chinese (China’s ethnic majority) into Xinjiang, allegedly orchestrated by the state to dilute the minority population there.
China has also been accused of targeting Muslim religious figures and banning religious practices in the region, as well as destroying mosques and tombs.
Uyghur activists say they fear that the group’s culture is under threat of erasure.
The partisan bickering between the Uighurs and the Chinese Communist Party is as tedious as it is predictable with extremists on both sides unwilling to compromise or see things from the others’ perspective.
At this Shenzen diner,, the feeling is that if perhaps the Uighurs hadn’t been so smug and insular the Communists wouldn’t enjoy the power they have.Report
True. The NYT always argues the communist / socialist / leftist side.Report
I always find news stories like this a bit amusing, especially after the post here about the UN. Nothing’s going to be done, bureaucrats MAY make some token effort (launch an investigation or such) but nothing will come of it. No one is going to take any real action and since China is part of the security council, they’ll veto anything of substance there.Report
I think stories like this are important. First of all, they’re true, and may reach people who don’t know about the story. Any increase in knowledge has to be considered a good thing. From the increased public awareness, we could see increasing support for countries, business, and NGO’s putting pressure on China.Report
China represents a new challenge for America, one that we aren’t really prepared for.
During the Cold War we had the ability to isolate and contain the Communist powers.
But every day, a massive river of American dollars flows towards China, supporting their international political power. Any effort to “do something” about the Uighur oppression comes up against this fact, that China has as much power over us as we do over them.
My comment above wasn’t just snark. The reason I say America is unprepared to confront China is that, among other things, our ability to share objective information is degraded.
Not just that we have a very large percentage of Americans who refuse to accept news sources like the NYT as “fake news” but that there is also a very large number of influential pundits who are now openly questioning whether liberal democracy is in fact a good thing.
What standing does Sorhab Amari or Adrian Vermuele have to criticize China, when they themselves are calling for an American version of Xi to rule us?
A Chinese defense of their Uighur oppression would sound eerily like much of American dialogue regarding our own minorities., and they would deploy their own versions of Andrew Sullivan and Claire Lehman to educate us on the inherent intellectual differences of Uighurs from normal humans.
The dalliance between the American right and authoritarianism has crippled our ability to confront the real thing when it stares us in the face and dares us to do something.Report
I’ve never heard of Sorhab Amari or Adrian Vermuele, so I’m guessing they don’t have much standing at all. The most vocal columnist in defense of Chinese type authoritarianism is Thomas Friedman of the NYT. This is where you can see your story is exactly backwards. A large percentage of Americans reject the NYT as fake news because of their support of totalitarians and reluctance to criticize China. If you were to compare the average rightie or leftie on China, or if you compare the current to last administration, you’d find your side has the weaker stand against China.Report
it strains belief (to put it gently) to think that it’s china coverage, as opposed to culture war side-picking reflexes, that generally drives a lack of trust in reporting from particular outlets.
that said, calling Sorab Ahmari (spelling fixed) part of “a very large number of influential pundits” (along with the other selections of pundits) is an illustration of the first point.
definitely, always, absolutely evaluate media coverage on its face, rather than its source, while not forgetting the source either. there are massive blindspots and pile-ons that are generally attributed to ideology (overt or covert) as opposed to blind follow the leader-ness. One great (and hopefully nonpartisan) example of this is the great vape panic of 2019, where black market weed vapes were sickening people with lipid pneumonia and the coverage everywhere focused on…Juul.
Which is why the media and big tobacco collaboration to annihilate the rest of the vape market they cannot control (with help from both trump and the current admin, good going guys) has been depressing but not surprising to watch. Coupled with the general PMC-ness of the media class (who don’t smoke or vape and look down on those who do, as it is a lower social/econ class activity) this has been a perfect storm of harm reduction annihilation. For the children.
Thank you for coming to my vanilla-custard tobacco flavored ted talk.Report
It ain’t a driver.
But it does nothing but provide post-hoc justification for previously hasty generalizations.Report
i think it’s extremely likely (and trending toward inarguable) that the people likely to complain about china coverage in the context of a loss of trust in that outlet (or the media in general) are extremely unlikely to be or have been NYT subscribers in the first place.
it strikes me as a weird thing to have to justify in terms of a loss of media trust as opposed to just going with “i don’t trust them!”. there’s plenty of media outlets i either don’t fully trust or evaluate more critically than others, if only on specific topics. sometimes it’s because i think their framing is incorrect, or as in the vape example above, genuinely harmful. sometimes it’s because i don’t care about what happens on broadway or in superhero movies or other stuff like that (aka stuff i don’t like).
actually, is there a media outlet anyone fully trusts? or is this an equating of “trustworthiness” with “agreement”?Report
There are a handful of excluded middles there but there are certain outlets that I trust on certain topics (and only in the “okay, something in the neighborhood of this probably happened” sense of “trust”).
But, for the most part, most of the outlets seem to be in the business of reprinting press releases and, when they’re not doing that, editorializing in some pretty weird ways.
They’re better at communicating “here’s how you should feel” than “here’s what happened”.
It’s wall to wall “CHECK YOUR CHILDREN’S CANDY BECAUSE IT MAY HAVE MARIJUANA EDIBLES AMONG THEM!” with pictures of edibles that look like candy (if you ignore the $20 price tag).Report
This might be generational, but a lot of us older people hated the mainstream media before we ever thought about conservatism. I learned about the NYT lying about Stalin around the time I learned about Stalin. Likewise, I was appalled by the liberal coverage of the abortion debate before the sort.Report
Despite the fact that you haven’t heard of him, Harvard University gave Vermuele a professorship.
Amari is the editor of the New York Post, where he decides what editorials it will or won’t publish.
Ultimately, it is true that there isn’t a partisan split on China because no one has yet to articulate what “it” is that we should be doing. China crushed Hong Kong and America did jack and squat.Report
“Crushed”? That’s pretty Sinophobic.
It merely incorporated it, the way the US fails to incorporate Puerto Rico.
“Oh no! China can do things that we can’t! BETTER BE RACIST!” is not a good look.Report
Exhibit A.Report
Speaking of embarrassing wingnuts Pinky has the good taste to say he never heard of, have you seen Rod Dreher’s latest? I don’t know how to link to it directly, but you can find it at the LGM blog under the title: “The Internet Was a Bad Idea.” “Primitive root wiener” indeed.”Report
(I’ve got a bunch of unrelated one-sentence replies. Sorry if this is clumsy.)
Does Amari have more readers than Friedman?
What’s the average balance of ideology among Harvard professors?
I think Trump was clear about pressure on China – in trade, militarily, and in the public debate. The left can’t make a moral argument against Chinese treatment of minorities because they refuse to acknowledge the great steps the US has made in treatment of minorities.
Hong Kong was turned over by the Brits.Report
I notice that when we point to the buffoons and malicious actors on the right you tend to dismiss them as nobodies.
Who do you consider to be the representative thought leaders of contemporary American conservatism?Report
I’ve cited Ben Shapiro a lot on this site, along with his whole Daily Wire crew. National Review is always worth checking out. Among politicians, Cruz and Abbott typically say the right things. Mitt, Rand, and Nikki have their issues and fans on the right. Heritage and Cato don’t necessarily agree with each other, but neither do conservatives in general. If Charles Murray or Thomas Sowell have something on their mind, it’s at least worth a listen. Victor Davis Hanson and Stephen Miller are two names I have to mention, but without a blanket recommendation. Of course, Tucker Carlson is a media force these days, but Gutfeld may be the biggest draw on FNC.Report
OK, so this is what I meant on the other thread about the debt limit.
Romney, Haley and to a much lesser extent Cruz have this reputation as reasonable Republicans, but all 50, 100%, every single one of the Republicans Senators including these folk have voted to let America default on its debts.
As for the others, Carlson is a straight up white supremacist and is perhaps the most influential voice on the right.
Charles Murray would measure Sowell’s skull with a pair of calipers if he had a chance and Ben Shapiro, God, I was sure you would hastily tell us he is a harmless kook to be ignored.Report
You say you were sure of my opinion, but it was different. Maybe that should be your take-away. You don’t understand the thinking of those whose thoughts you condemn. Clearly, you’re not even passingly familiar with Murray or Carlson. And if you think I’d write off Shapiro then you haven’t been reading my comments (which isn’t a big deal except it suggests you aren’t interested in increasing your understanding of the right).Report
I’ll let you off the hook (at least for a while) if you’d do me the favor of reading Sowell’s review of The Bell Curve.
https://medium.com/@hamilt0n/ethnicity-and-iq-4a2b1ea20178Report
I’ve read it. The only thing he gets right in his essay – which is not really a review per se – is that correlation isn’t causation and thus the authors are taking as related when they are not.
He also misses COMPLETELY the point that their shrill (and in his view not numerically valid) worry about IQ decline IS a major driver for those who critique the Bell Curve from the left. That sort of counterfactual assertion which flies in the face of their own research reflects bias, as does the focus on white Americans for 12 chapters of the book. White Americans IQs – and their socioeconomic status and outcomes – have not really been in question politically in our country, in as much as the system is built to support white people’s successes.
So, now that that is out of the way, what point were you trying to deflect from with that question?Report
I was talking to Chip.Report
So?Report
You’ve accused me of the same thing regularly.Report
I don’t know the polite way to put this, but I think Chip might be more open to listening.Report
I find it fascinating that you believe I’m not open to listening because I push back on your analyses and disagree with you positions. Frankly if you think that essay will garner a dissimilar response from Chip you haven’t been reading him very closely either.
I think the crux of the matter is you believe – as do a seemingly large number of conservatives – that the failures of the left to support conservative positions – or at least not oppose them – is due to a lack of intellectual grasping of those positions and the emotions and experiences that underlie them. Conservatives seem to believe that we lefties refuse to grant you validity in your positions because we won’t grant you validity in your experiences and your emotions. We don’t “Understand you.”
The problem is we can grant validity to your experiences. We can accept your emotions and even believe you have right to them. And STILL arrive at the conclusions that your policy and legal preferences are bad for the country and actively work from our side to thwart them. Greater “understanding” won’t change that dynamic.
Also – if what I have outlined above is not what you are getting at – choose a different word. As I constantly have to remind my kids and my wife – things have names and words have meaning. You won’t get what you want if you continue to conflate “Sock” with “tofu” – and you won’t get what it is you are really after if you keep insisting we “understand” you when that’s not actually the dynamic at play.Report
Don’t bet on it.
I mean seriously, your idea that “if only we understood” conservatives then , what, somehow I might find Carlson or Shapiro interesting or persuasive?
This is among the weakest of argumentative tactics, that instead of offering an affirmative support of Carlson’s xenophobia, you merely accuse everyone else of failing to understand some unidentified point that he is alleged to be making.Report
Is my memory faulty — at my age it often is — or didn’t you used to be a Reaganite? Did you not understand yourself then? (At some level, who among us does?)Report
It’s not an argumentation tactic. You have demonstrated that you don’t understand conservatives, repeatedly, when questioned. I’m not saying that to convince you; I’m just noting it. I remember a line from one of the Daily Wire guys that the proper response to “you’re a racist”, if you aren’t a racist, is “you’re an a——“. I don’t think that applies to you, although it may to others. I just think it’s really important to push back every now and then, particularly on a site like this where there’s such a limited range of views. If I didn’t point these things out from time to time, people might start to believe that I didn’t see a problem with the depiction.
I should note that I don’t have to defend anyone. You asked me for a list of people that a conservative might agree with and I gave you some names. I didn’t even say I agreed with Carlson, only that he was influential. I’m glad you were willing to ask, and I do hope you make the effort to understand conservatives better. (OK, that last sentence was just passive-aggressive humor on my part, but I do think it’d be better if you heard some of what conservatives say, rather than what liberals say conservatives say.)Report
Which people? Heaven forbid anyone is making judgments about me based on what I don’t respond to.
As far as I can tell, pretty much all the commenters here have been around a good long time — there should be no realistic expectation of changing anyone’s mind if it hasn’t already happened by now. I wouldn’t take declining to respond as anything other than bowing to reality.Report
This is a tough question, really. I’d bet we all ask ourselves “what good am I doing here?” from time to time. There aren’t a lot of mainstream conservatives who post on this site. (Jaybird and Marchmaine post the most comments here that I’d agree with, and they’re nobody’s idea of mainstream conservatives.) I like to think that I do some good by at least representing the huge chunk of the country that thinks along similar lines as me.
I’ve said before that all comments have three audiences: the person you’re talking to, the audience, and the person you’re talking to but 10 years later. We all have gradual shifts in our thinking. In my time here I’ve seen Jaybird go from whatever he was before to whatever he is now, which has certainly been worth the price of admission.
We also sometimes talk about things that are only tangentially related to our ideologies. Chip just asked for a list of mainstream conservative sources; I’ve done the mirror of that before. I recently commented that I had trouble making an argument against the possibility of secession – it’s not obvious that a response to that would come from any particular side.
Lastly, there’s the shadow of Haidt that hangs over so much of this site. A liberal and a liberal discussing how a conservative thinks are frequently wrong, moreso than a con and a con discussing a lib. That gives me a little more responsibility.Report
It’s a weak argumentative tactic, because how can it be falsified?
How would I demonstrate that I “understand” conservatives” without just saying, “wow ,man, you’re totally right”?
The idea that much of what passes for conservative thought is in fact motivated by ethnic and cultural resentment is pretty well documented.
What deep wisdom or insights does Carlson have that I’m not getting? Can you articulate them in your own words?
To an ordinary listener he just sounds like a guy who doesn’t like nonwhite people and is intent on whipping up racial panic.
If you can come up with a better explanation this would be a good place to do it. Because so far you yourself can’t put forward a clear description of what Carlson is doing.
Otherwise maybe we should just start in with the “B-but you don’t understand Communists! If you only understood Communists, you would totally see how there is nothing wrong with their treatment of Uighurs!”Report
There’s a principle of medieval philosophy that a disputation can’t begin until both sides can state the other’s position to the other’s satisfaction. You’ve never been able to articulate conservatism.Report
Can you?
Because all the usual platitudes about “limited gummint” and morality and strong defense are laughably falsified by events.Report
That’s a great line, but isn’t it you granting my point? It seems like you’ve thrown up your hands and said that nobody can understand conservatives.Report
American conservatism can be understood through three things:
Reagans 1984 Morning In America ad;
Pat Buchanan’s 1992 Kulturekampf speech;
Trumps 2017 American Carnage speech.Report
I grew up in a conservative area among conservative people. The conservative newspapers in my town fed us a steady diet of Buckley, Kilpatrick, Buchanan, Sowell, Rafferty, Chamberlain, and Novak, as well as others I have forgotten, who were no great loss. WFB’s Firing Line — exhibiting a dumb person’s idea of a smart person — was a TV staple. I’ve had reason to read Kirk, Meyer, Oakeshott, Friedman, and others who have been taken to be major conservative thinkers. Every so often I dip into the work of their successors, mainly to find out if their less-talented descendants have anything new or interesting to say. I am generally disappointed, but not surprised. Even the jokes are the same, though not as well carried off.
If you have a position to articulate, articulate it. If you have an argument to make, make it. Preferably in your own words. Name-dropping doesn’t impress anyone. Try to make us understand YOU, since you’re the one talking. Maybe if we’re not impressed, it’s not because we don’t “understand.”Report
Try to make us understand YOU, since you’re the one talking. Maybe if we’re not impressed, it’s not because we don’t “understand.”
This is an excellent point! I think it’s an excellent yardstick in general.
However, if your opponent cannot restate your position, I think that “s/he doesn’t understand it” remains a live option.
Now maybe the person stating it isn’t articulate! Maybe the person stating it is muddled! This is an option as well!
But if the original speaker isn’t muddled and the opponent cannot rehash the position? We could well be in “they don’t understand it” territory.Report
It is, of course, possible that the hearer, rather than the speaker, is at fault in any given interaction. Maybe both can be at fault. The speaker is muddled and the hearer wouldn’t understand even if the speaker weren’t muddled. But name-dropping Haidt doesn’t move the ball.Report
True.
But if there were, like, other points made in the comment, focusing like a laser on the mention of Haidt and saying “this doesn’t move the ball” seems to go out of the way to find stuff that doesn’t move the ball.Report
Well, next to none of it moves the ball, for reasons apparent to anyone who read what Pinky had to say. The Haidt thing, though, comes up a lot and, therefore, merited special mention.Report
You’ve described my political history precisely.Report
How would I demonstrate that I “understand” conservatives” without just saying, “wow ,man, you’re totally right”?
By being able to argue a conservative position in such a way that someone watching wouldn’t see it as a strawman. Like, they’d see the argument and say “Yes, I believe that someone who sincerely holds that viewpoint would say such a thing.”
Otherwise maybe we should just start in with the “B-but you don’t understand Communists! If you only understood Communists, you would totally see how there is nothing wrong with their treatment of Uighurs!”
That’s not really Communism. Marx never mentioned anything about genocide.Report
Social Security, the New Deal, and Medicare are all tried and true, time tested traditions which should be upheld and respected.
Social Security, the New Deal, and Medicare are examples of government intervening in the marketplace so as to engineer the social order it wants and therefore should be overturned.
I think it’s hilarious that anyone imagines I can’t make a conservative argument.
Conservatives could easily embrace either of the above arguments, according to their own dogma.
Show me your behavior, and I’ll tell you what you believe.Report
So you turned “restate your opponent’s position” into “I think it’s hilarious that anyone imagines I can’t make a conservative argument.”
I think that you haven’t successfully restated the challenge.Report
I’m the only one who has.Report
Well I’m certainly not trying to dissuade you from commenting — I’m always happy to read your contributions, and I appreciate your perspective. I just don’t think you should feel obligated. For myself, I’ve given up worrying about trying to convince anyone of anything they’re not already open to considering.Report
“(Jaybird and Marchmaine post the most comments here that I’d agree with, and they’re nobody’s idea of mainstream conservatives.)”
1. God bless you, sir.
2. We’re doomed.Report
Dude, do we agree on anything?
Syntax, probably. But Semantics?Report
When the revolution comes, we destined for the firing squads, but different firing squads.
The syntax is shared such that the semantic differences are known.Report
particularly on a site like this where there’s such a limited range of views
When the clock strikes 13, you not only know that it isn’t 13 o-clock now, you have good reason to doubt whether it was 12 o’clock an hour earlier.Report
Tell me you’ve never read 1984 without telling me you’ve never read 1984.Report
Why would I want to tell you whether I read 1984 unless it was germane to something under discussion? And what would be the point of trying to say it without saying it?Report
It’s cool.
I’ll let you go back to explaining what does and doesn’t impress you intellectually.Report
If you don’t want to make yourself understood, that’s cool.Report
Having seen Shapiro’s act on TV a few times, I can now point to him as an explanation of why, however implausible the premise of Doogie Howser, M.D. was, there will never be a show entitled Doogie Howser, J.D.Report
“A large percentage of Americans reject the NYT as fake news because of their support of totalitarians and reluctance to criticize China.”
I doubt you meant to do this, but this says out loud that “fakeness” is not predicated on “falseness” but “disagreeableness”. Supporting totalitarians or not criticizing China (if indeed that happens… I don’t read the Times) is not “fake” by any reasonable definition of that word.Report
Their bias leads to distortions in their journalism.Report
Is not criticizing China biased but criticizing China unbiased?Report
Funny, but it seems they criticize China regularly –
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/opinion/china-covid-who.html
as but one example
They also seem to publish a ton of stories reporting on Chinese human rights violations –
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/destination/freedom-and-human-rights-in-china
They just aren’t trumpian blowhards.Report
PS – The West didn’t *have* the ability to contain the communists, we *created* the ability to contain the communists.Report