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China says internment camps are 'free vocational training'

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Well, you can't fault them, can you? One's religion is referred to as a "calling," so it's a vocation. And it's training, probably in the sense that you "train" a rosebush by making it impossible to go in any direction than what you want it to.

When the Roman and British Empires concentrated on trade, they boomed. As soon as they tried to mould people's minds, things started to go wrong.

I notice that the Roman Empire is no longer around and the world map isn't marked out in red as it used to be when I was a kid in England.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is shameful and racist action by communist Chinese against innocent Muslim citizens. Let them be, they have been living in the area for thousand years. Why not allow a true multiculture society? What has communist PRC got to fear? Japan and USA will rightly condemn such racism against Muslim minority in China.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Same old story, worldwide and since the stone-age.

The ruling class reserves the right to label the identity and status of the marginalized ... usually to further entitle the ruling class. Individual relationships, traditions, and communities are destroyed — atomized and alienated — and resurrected as institutionalized zombies serving the ruling class.

'Work skills', 'advancement', 'scientific literacy' ... mostly post-hoc rationalizations for 'might makes right'.

Other than from a few writers such as Howard Zinn, the 'story' of history.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Next they'll be telling is us it's just like Butlin's.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I don't remember ever hearing China brag about having great "diversity".

Since when has China tolerated anything they perceived as a threat to their control?

Muslims need to be in their own lands, where they can practice their religion without disturbance.

Expecting tolerance, is as futile as the Chinese expecting assimilation.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Meanwhile, not a hint of criticism from Al Qaeda, ISIS, or the muslim world.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Bit like the US calling waterboarding an "advanced interrogation technique."

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Makes Japan vocational training schemes for overseas interns look good!"

5 ( +6 / -1 )

We can never forget with whom we are dealing with in China.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

How do you control 1.2 billion people?

That Chinese authorities appear to contemplate this question seems to be the main problem. Is more regional autonomy not a better approach?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

smith, we can probably almost agree on this one.

I was actually referring only to Japan's criticism of China creating manmade islands in the South China Sea and now arming them.

The Japanese defence spending discussion has other baggage attached to it.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Genocide comes in myriad forms. "Free vocational training" is one. Does anyone not remember "Arbeit Macht Frei"?

15 ( +15 / -0 )

'free' only costs the subjects their freedom

15 ( +15 / -0 )

Step back a little. How do you control 1.2 billion people? China doesn’t have drive-by shootings, etc. nobody is perfect, I almost always burn my toast.

-18 ( +1 / -19 )

TigersTokyoDome: Agree that what China doing is insane, but to suggest that Japan is therefore justified in spending a huge sum of their finances on defense and not engaging in any of the same rhetoric and propaganda is to buy into what they are doing 100%. A lot of Japanese spending on defense is not because it is "necessary", but because it appeases Trump, for one thing, and guarantees lucrative contracts otherwise. And hey, the "trainee" program here in Japan has some similarities, it's just slavery instead of an internment camp.

-17 ( +2 / -19 )

For all the nice black suits, grammatical English, delicate hair, billions in the bank, preppy kids and Harvard graduates, not to mention fawning US academics, looking for sinecures, the Chinese government betrays its origins in the world's most murderous regime.

Much of what is going on in Xinjiang now is what went on in America during the 19th century: the destruction of the indigenous population.  The same thing is going on in equally large Tibet, to the south. The same thing went on in equally large Manchuria to the northeast, and Inner Mongolia to the north.

By the standards of the regime, the Manchus and Inner Mongolians have been turned into Han, ie. "Chinese".   The Uighurs and Tibetans are presently headed toward the same fate: to become a plastic version of some other ethnicity.

One should know a couple statistics. 

(1) China is already 93% Han. The regime seems set on 100%. 

(2) The lands of the Manchus, Inner Mongolians, Uighurs, and Tibetans are more than 50% of China.

13 ( +14 / -1 )

Vocational training not usually required at gun point

18 ( +18 / -0 )

They are having a laugh... this is the sort of story that's usually a parody... except this is real. Seems like the tiger can't change it's stripes

14 ( +15 / -1 )

@Tigers - agree with you fully on this one. There was also a recent article in the NY Times about Chinese racism in Kenya (constantly referring to the Kenyans as monkeys - link below)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/world/africa/kenya-china-racism.html

The Taiwan issue is done. The rest of the world has already capitulated with the issue regarding flights to Taiwan (China's demand to change the name).

China is dangerous and I have no interesting in ever living there nor doing business with or in China.

I was in Krakow Poland last week and took time to visit Aushwitz and Aushwitz-Birkenau. I often wonder how whole societies can be capable of performing such awful acts (Cambodia is another example).

I find China scary and agree - those complaining about Japan should think carefully about what is going on in East Asia

18 ( +19 / -1 )

That really sounds like an Orwellian hellhole they have been thrown into.

It reminds me of the residential schools in my home country where native children were sent against their will to learn English and Christianity, basically to "teach" them to forget their native culture. That was a really horrible crime and a generation of survivors of it are scarred to this day. Now China is doing the same reprehensible thing only on a much vaster scale, its truly despicable and frightening.

19 ( +20 / -1 )

We all knew, China has abducted journalists, abducted film stars, abducted Book editors, so a few million more facelesss people what the hell. North Korean camps are hell but Chinese camps are probably more ordaly with films and all you have to do is nod your head, tow the line. You can probably get out after 6 months if you smile. And have enough citizens points. The Chinese can vote for change....oh guess they have to suck it up. Nothing like having a President for life to destroy your life

19 ( +20 / -1 )

Confirmation, for those of you who put down any Japanese criticism of Chinese encroachment on seaways, that this is the end game my friends. The Chinese are an absolute disgrace for the internment of a million Chinese Muslims and then calling it 'vocational training'. Don't criticise Japan for trying to take a stand. If I were Taiwan, I would invest billions in American and Japanese defence.

17 ( +22 / -5 )

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