Showing all posts tagged Uyghurs

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, December 20, 2021

Author SymphonyPosted on

The US is hitting China hard over treatment of Uyghurs. Nearly all imports from Xinjiang will be banned. At the same time, the US bolsters the call to bolster Taiwan’s military defense. However, Taiwan has the seeds of the same tyranny; it just doesn’t materialize into anything alarming because Taiwan remains small. The most obvious problem is that Taiwan refuses to allow Taiwan citizens to renounce citizenship, but demands Americans renounce their citizenship to become Taiwanese. Taiwanese can become dual-citizen Americans, but Americans can never become dual-citizen Taiwanese. That’s what some people call a “clue”.

Any double standard, no matter how small, will grow exponentially as a nation or organization grows. Taiwan’s double standard must be stopped before bolstering Taiwan’s military. Expunging double standards to escape fake democracy is the most effective way to help Taiwan right now.

China has been lecturing Taiwan about democracy. And, Taiwan has rightly and appropriately responded with harsh words. “It is ridiculous that China, which is not democratic at all, dares to tell Taiwan what democracy means,” said Spokesman Lo, from the Executive branch. That’s true. But, in terms of equal treatment to all people, Taiwan has its own deficiencies—which is fine because we all have deficiencies; but Taiwan’s deficiencies are being utterly ignored. We must ask why.

Is Washington so focused on China’s threat that leaders can’t foresee the next problem they will fear? Are lobbyists blind to the next problem, just as they were blind to the problem of making China so wealthy with exported American jobs over the last three decades? Is it greed? Is it a carefully crafted “next crisis”? Or, is it pure unawareness or apathy? We don’t know, but we need to be asking why America is running to help a country that treats Americans as “lessers”. Failure to do so actually makes China’s nonsense look less legitimate.

Don’t rush to automatically take sides in conflicts that have lasted centuries. The scariest part is that China’s government ignores the problem as much as the Taiwanese and American governments. That is what some call a “larger clue”.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 19, 2020

Author SymphonyPosted on

The new global trend is hit pieces against China; even a Taiwanese rapper is on the bandwagon. China’s solution to lack of technology is to take over countries that have enough freedom to create technology, then deprive those countries of their freedom in order to get their technology. It’s clear China thinks innovation is a commodity rather than an indication of an already liberated people.

Taiwan doesn’t need liberated by China; it already has been liberated from China. While the Chinese think that intimidation has driven the Taiwanese into fear, it hasn’t. As Taiwanese carry on with life as usual, the word on the street has nothing to do with fear of invasion; the Taiwanese are simply waiting for the Chinese to ask to get their ass handed to them.

The Philippine government wants to drill for oil in the South Sea. China was supposed to do that in cooperation, an old promise that still hasn’t materialized. From Xinjiang, we learn that children of detained Uyghurs are being orphaned, and China is now sending them to Confucian brainwashing school. Perhaps that was China’s goal in detaining their parents; it certainly worked out that way.

The US is pursuing charges against Chinese espionage in America. China threatens to detain Americans in retaliation. But, that misses the whole point. If China knows about American spies in China, then China should have already taken action anyway. It makes a country look weak to not stop crime except in retaliation. Does China want to send the message that American spies can spy unchecked in China as long as America’s government doesn’t prosecute Chinese spies caught in America? The world wonders what China wants. Maybe China wants the world.

But, the world doesn’t want China’s low-tech industry, repulsive actions, controlling conduct, retaliatory justice, Confucian indoctrination, nor forced language. Nations and peoples of the world will use their ability to invent to overcome China’s low-tech weapons and easily-offended, easily-intimidated culture. Of course, the Chinese don’t know when they are out-teched, out-matched, out-willed, undesired, and surrounded. They already are, but they don’t know. The only ones who know are everyone else.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, August 3, 2020

Author SymphonyPosted on

If ever there were a time when two nations didn’t want to get along, it is now. If ever there were a time when a growing group of nations decided that a single other nation never wanted to get along, it is now.

China’s security law affecting Hong Kong, defining what is a crime in every sovereign, non-China territory of the world—in a word “pretentious”. No nation’s government should ever allow a foreign government to define what is a crime within its own borders, especially a single government acting unilaterally and without counsel.

Human Rights involve laws that China directly agreed to in joining the United Nations. Human Rights sanctions over forced sterilization among Uighurs in Xinjiang in no way compare to Beijing dictating it is a crime for someone in New Zealand to voice support for free elections in Hong Kong. The Confucian-Communist Chinese don’t see the difference. They view sterilizing Uighurs as fair and international sanctions for doing so as unfair. It’s not a lie or polite statement—they really see things that way.

So, banning TikTok won’t give the Chinese any second thoughts about their aspirations and actions. Taiwan’s first democratically elected president passed away this week at 97 and the US lauded his achievement. China won’t see any need to change so as to cooperate with our democratic world today; they will only see it as an insult to China’s entitlement to greatness.

The Taiwanese chip maker TSMC provides 20% of the worlds microchips at quality of which China cannot produce any. If China invaded Taiwan and TSMC had to cease operations, China would suppose that the ability to make these chips would instantly transfer to China, where China could pick up the slack, so there would be no threat to the global tech industry.

Now, the US introduces a bill with bipartisan support for military action already approved for the US to defend Taiwan against China specifically. It’s not hard to know how China will respond. With every step, China has the same response: China’s right; the rest of the world is wrong. It’s not hard to know how the rest of the world interprets that kind of response.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 13, 2020

Author SymphonyPosted on

China and the US have shown their intentions to the world. The new “National Security Law”, passed and interpreted solely by the Chinese Communist Party, applies to the entire world. China made it illegal for Americans to support calls for change in Hong Kong. Germans wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh shirt could be guilty of a Chinese crime against China’s national security. This is no joke.

The US went hard line after China over Uyghurs in Xinjiang this week. 78 members of Congress petitioned President Trump from both parties to declare China’s work with the Uyghurs “genocide”. That is not merely rhetoric nor an attempt to insult, but a step to unlock later military permissions. The US is preparing for invasion, either to land US troops or to support some other military that does, such as India. This is no joke.

China clarified its understanding on two fronts.

Firstly, about Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China responded to America’s visa sanction and frozen asset action against Chinese officials with a tit-for-tat policy. By not responding with military preparation, or at least genocide declaration, China misinterpreted what the US is ultimately preparing.

Secondly, Chinese state media have commented how the new “National Security Law” for Hong Kong would apply if China could assert jurisdiction elsewhere. This means that, just as the US is laying in the groundwork for an invasion of China, China is laying in the groundwork for what would follow an invasion anywhere else. In all likelihood, the US’ response concerning Uyghurs in Xinjiang—paving a way for invasion—showed understanding of China’s plans for invasion, less likely not, but surely the sabers have been unsheathed and are no longer just rattling.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 20, 2020

Author SymphonyPosted on

Just when we thought China couldn’t make itself more unpopular, China made itself more unpopular. Perhaps it was charity. Perhaps it was delusion. We don’t like thinking bad things about others, especially if we sacrificed our jobs and economies to have our stuff made more cheaply by them. Saying bad things about China was as politically incorrect as blaming the Karan for militants wanting to kill their enemies. Thinking bad things about China made Americans feel almost as guilty as thinking that voting against Obama wasn’t racist. No one wanted to say that China might be up to no good.

Why governments and global economy jockeys supposedly didn’t see it coming remains unexplained. But, all of a sudden, China is global enemy number one. The Western press has been educating the world about Taiwan in almost every Taiwan news story for the past decade. Anybody who is anybody at least asks, “What’s the relationship between China and Taiwan?” To Western taxpayers and voters, no acceptable answer will be in China’s favor. These days, China is damned if it does and more damned if it isn’t.

Governments are paying factories to dump China’s manufacturing. But, that’s not the biggest problem for the Chinese.

No one gives as much money to the World Health Organization as the US, behind that is Bill Gates, then the UK. China is among the smallest donors. So, why is so much Western money being used along the propaganda points of such a puny donor as China? If so much money is being usurped, the US would be obligated to pull the plug. And, that’s what it looks like, especially with the WHO siding with China on the matter of Taiwan. While Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHO indicates bias, Western countries are concerned about the WHO helping cover up what happened in China.

With president Trump now calling for investigations in China about the pneumoniavirus, other problems could come up, such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. China won’t allow that, not even to regain control of all that US money in the WHO. The world won’t have it. Global hatred toward China is only beginning.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, December 2, 2019

Author SymphonyPosted on

Opinions on Asia aren’t just flying, but swarming the Pacific. Hong Kongers vote against China in an unmistakable slap to Beijing’s face, then Beijing blames the US—because Beijing still thinks that voters only vote how the government tells them to. And, everything is all America’s fault anyway, right?

It took a day of silence for Beijing’s media machine to figure out how to spin the election. Beijing accused Hong Kong’s dissent on violence. But, that doesn’t hold since last week’s election went uninterrupted. Yet, Beijing sticks to the same script.

A commentator predicts that Hong Kongers don’t want independence—even though they already declared independence on October 4. Perhaps Doris Lam’s article on Channel News Asia was an attempt to tell Hong Kongers what they should want. Or, it could have been an attempt to tell Beijing to think that Hong Kongers don’t want what they want. Either way, it is a delusional olive branch in the form of a typical long-worded think piece. There is a growing trend of commentators who make their articles longer when they know that few readers will accept their opinions.

After Trump signs two laws about Hong Kong—one to define an autonomous region as autonomous, the other to stop exporting police tools for riot-control—Beijing calls it “interference”. Then, Trump drops tariffs on China because good ole Benjamin is hard to argue with. Yet, Beijing wants more. Now, as in Chinese business negotiation, China wants to change the deal after everything has been agreed to. They want even lower tariffs in Phase One.

Great Britain wants UN access to Xinjiang.  China wants the world to believe Xinjiang is happy, an Islamic utopia; new documents prove otherwise. China also faces a food shortage, but a good marketing effort is underway for investment in Chinese farming. Stopping any possible abuse of Uyghurs in Xinjiang is interference in Beijing’s opinion, but accepting foreign money to build better farms isn’t. Perhaps Beijing will call it interference if the rest of the world does not invest in Chinese farms.

Taiwan’s election is fast approaching. Though Tsai Ing-Wen, the pro-democracy incumbent president, leads in the polls, many Taiwanese are scared that there are too many voters in the old, beaten-down generation for her to win a second time. Older Taiwanese, like many Chinese, have been so dominated by East Asia’s shame culture that they truly believe that “bigness” always wins and therefore they must vote for politicians who will surrender to China. Younger Taiwanese have seen this older generation get its way so many times, even polls can’t keep them from being scared. But, as John Maynard Keynes said, “Men will not always die quietly.” Few things drive voters to the polls like fear of dying at the hands of politicians who want to surrender. Tsai Ing-Wen is set to win by an even greater margin than she did in her first term—and everyone has something to say about it.

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