[jruthers]

I'd really like to read more Chinese-from-China views on this kind of article.

Although the content of the article scares me personally, it would be interesting to have more of a discourse about more plausible reasons why this kind of surveillance is "good" from a genuine different perspective. One mistake the Chinese govt makes is never explaining themselves in a plausible way so it always comes across as Orwellian. Further, because no Chinese national is supposed to acknowledge the govt power, most nationals can't comment on it without getting themselves or their family in serious trouble.

I have a (non-Chinese-from-China) friend who works most of the year in China and he explained the surveillance state as "well, if you've got a nation of more than a billion people and a huge range of wealth levels and, culturally, you value stability of the nation more than individual liberty, yeah, you're going to go to extremes on security and surveillance. It's all about ensuring stability and adherence to 'normal' behavior. Yeah it's creepy but it's _safe_ if you stay in line."

I'm not saying I agree with the exchange of individual liberty vs surveillance but it would be refreshing to read more plausible takes on the "China has it right" viewpoint.

[gumby]

> I'd really like to read more Chinese-from-China views on this kind of article.

Note that this level of surveillance is not pervasive throughout the rest of China; this is about a region populated by non-Han Chinese (Uyghurs, a who are Muslim and speak a Turkic language); most han residents are colonists. The Chinese language is the official one but is not spoken at home by most people there. The central government promotes Han migration/colonization of Xinjiang as they do with Tibet.

So I suspect you'd find most Chinese people outside Xinjiang very supportive of this: the government and newspapers describe it as an integral part of China with a terrorist separatist movement no different from, for example, how the government of Spain used to describe ETA, or, without the violence, the Catalonian independence movement).

In addition, every time a western politician claims that "all muslims are evil terrorists" it gets printed in China as support for the narrative that these "security" measures are justified (Uyghur separatists have bombed Beijing and other han cities).

I expect this to be routine in OECD countries within the next 20 years. Hell, I remember dystopian movies always had bizarre, pointless "security" announcements as a way of showing how creepy the future had become and how the future didn't believe in people having time to think...and now that happens in every airport and train station in the world! ===

My second paragraph is simply the situation on the ground. The territory around Xinjiang has been under Chinese control for over 250 years; in the preceding millennia it sometimes has; at other times, as part of various Khanates it's been part of empires that controlled China (just as Tibet has at various times been independent; been under the control of China; and been in control of the emperor of China) So depending on what time point you pick you can justify an argument that Beijing's control of the area is "legitimate" or "illegitimate". I have zero connection to any side (not Chinese, not turkic, not muslim, buddhist, whatever).

[HowardMei]

|> I have zero connection to any side (not Chinese, not turkic, not muslim, buddhist, whatever).<|

But your information source is limited to English world, which favors separatists over the other side.

|> Note that this level of surveillance is not pervasive throughout the rest of China; this is about a region populated by non-Han Chinese (Uyghurs, a who are Muslim and speak a Turkic language); most han residents are colonists.<|

Hah? Xinjiang was founded after the extinction of Dzungar people who were mongolians. Most han and manchu residents in Xinjiang are desendants of military migrants of Qing dynasty. The Nothern half of Xinjiang had never been populated by Uyghurs and although the Uyghur population has been expanding much more rapidly than other ethinics in Xinjiang, they are NOT the owner of the entire Xinjiang. Please stop repeating these disgusting FAKE claims.

|> the government and newspapers describe it as an integral part of China with a terrorist separatist movement no different from, for example ...<|

They're terrorists. You're a terrorist defender. Pure and simple. Attacking innocent people to attain certain political influnce is the essense of terrorism. I've been fed up by your kind of takiyah and abuse of political correctness.

|> all muslims are evil terrorists <|

It's not true given the Hui muslim in China get many many privileges over Han and other ethnic minorities. One of the most important PRC founding fathers, Zhou Enlai, is a desendant of muslim as his niece recently disclosed. The PRC ethnic and religion policy framework was set up by Zhou Enlai. The Xinjiang problem was sparked by Zhou's wife Deng Yinchao in 1980s. The CCP censoring departments are established and controlled by Hui muslim CCP leaders according to the Criminal Law Act 250/251 (which was set up by a Hui imam in 1997).

In fact, many atheist and agnostic people are fearing the rapid islamization of China society, especially the legal/eductional sectors and the hatred the Hui CCP leaders showing towards Han and other secular ethinic groups.

In conclution, you know NOTHING about the REAL China. Han people don't have the proprotional ruling power and influence over the CCP elites with respect to the population scale. Keeping China as an integral nation is the responsibility of the PRC government, not the duty of common Han people. It's Hui wumaos who have been yelling to nuke Taiwan.

REPEAT AGAIN: Zhou Enlai was a Hui deceived as Han and set up a lot of laws against so called "Han chauvinism". This month alone there are two legal cases sentenced 2 Han people into jail for humiliating respectful historical ethnic figures.

Downvote me as you wish. Given the twisted information the English media keep spreading, I won't be surprised there'll be a civilization collision between West and East, beneficial to all muslims, if one day the Han people fight back the islamization led by those Hui CCP elites.

Great civilizations never fail to rising challengers but always fail to their own arrogance and ignorance.

[gumby]

> But your information source is limited to English world

Thanks for letting me know I only speak English; I’ll be sure to tell my non-English-speaking relatives that I’ve been speaking to them in English all these years rather than their various languages.

[jtmcmc]

wow your post reeks of nationalism...

[dsfyu404ed]

>Hell, I remember dystopian movies always had bizarre, pointless "security" announcements as a way of showing how creepy the future had become

"Hello, this is MBTA Police Cheif Kenneth Green reminding you if you see something, say something"

[stuffedBelly]

I am a non-Han (the Yi tribe to be exact) Chinese from China and grew up in a province next to Tibet called Yunnan. One of the reasons surveillance is heavier in Xinjiang is because of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. They are basically the ISIS equivalent in China and have had carried out quite a few terrorist attacks.

One of the attacks happened in a train station in Kunming where my parents' home is close to and caused mass casaulty in 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack). Surveillance in the Uyghur area has got a lot tighter since. Just like the Middle East issues to US and other western countries, Ugyhur issues to China are quite complicated. However, if the bottom line on stability/security of an area is crossed by a particular ethnic group (Uyghur Muslim in this case), maximum surveillance/crackdown would be imposed.

Areas such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Yunnan tend to get heavier surveillance treatment given their track record of independent movements. Yunnan once had its own independent military force called Dian Jun (滇军) but it soon got acquired by the Chengdu military force after the Sino-Vietnamese war due to trust issues between the Yunnan local government and the central Chinese government.

[xster]

The CIA's overt branch NED doesn't exactly hide that they fund separatist movements in Xinjiang either.

[stuffedBelly]

welp, what worked on the dissolution of the Soviet Union might work on China. It's a never-ending political game.

[jhedwards]

I am a non-Chinese who lived in China and I would talk about this subject with a retired businessman from Beijing who lived next door to me in Sunnyvale. His view was basically what you described: there are a ton of people in China and the vast majority of them were only recently raised out of abject poverty, and on top of that the cultural revolution had a dramatic impact on public education. So the feeling is that there is a massive potential for chaos and that the iron grip of the government prevents that chaos from emerging. I don't know how true that is, but it did feel pretty safe when I lived there, and there _is_ a history of massive riots in China which seems to validate the theory of potential chaos. At any rate, he thought that as China develops and education improves the need for the government to have an iron grip will be lessened and the country will gradually become more free. Time will tell I guess.

[avmich]

> the feeling is that there is a massive potential for chaos and that the iron grip of the government prevents that chaos from emerging

This is similar to how Russian government presents the situation in Russia, and lots of people getting the information from government channels tend to agree with that.

The difference is that China is moving ahead economically much faster than Russia today. As soon as advancement stops, subsequent talks about maintaining stability are met with slowly growing scepticism. Stability is only good when it a stable advancement or if the state of affairs is perceived as good (i.e., after recent raising out of abject poverty). As soon as stability is preserving the undeserving status quo, it's not as good.

This change of view may not necessarily happen soon after slowdown though.

[RobertoG]

>"[..] the situation in Russia, and lots of people getting the information from government channels [..]"

It's not only people getting the information from government.

I have spoken to Russians living in the European Union, that don't support the current Russian government, and there is an agreement that the current situation is better that the 90's , that they frequently describe like the "wild west".

This is, I think, one of the reasons of the popularity of Putin in Russia.

[vidoc]

>>"[..] the situation in Russia, and lots of people getting the information from government channels [..]" > It's not only people getting the information from government.

Getting the majority of information through government media is widely known as not necessary to having the populace think exactly how the government wants it to. In fact, an independent/private media can be more pro government than a government stated media, extremely well known paradox.

Look no further than the united states and make a very simple exercice: pick a random media of just any political stance, pick a random foreign policy or national security topic and count the number of times you dont see gospel of the state department.

[woodandsteel]

>Look no further than the united states and make a very simple exercice: pick a random media of just any political stance, pick a random foreign policy or national security topic and count the number of times you dont see gospel of the state department.

That's simply not true. Take any international issue and look at the mainstream media and you will find lots of debate. To take just one example, in the run-up to the Iraq War, there were many well-known voices both for and against it.

I may be wrong, but I am guessing you know this perfectly well, and are trying to mislead people for some political or ideological motive.

[vidoc]

> in the run-up to the Iraq War, there were many well-known voices both for and against it.

I'm certain you realize a 'media' and a 'well known voice' aren't exactly the same thing. The Iraq war is an excellent example and you are absolutely right that 'medias' were certainly proposing oped columns to those voices here and there. Those voices were sometimes occasions for a little bit of intelligence and sanity, other times unfortunately, in a way, just a way to make the idea of not being 100% pro war kind of dumb and unpatriotic. Sometimes debates were simply being made on alex jones level kind of conspiracy theories, such as the idea that Saddam Hussein has links to Al Qaeda (lol).

Anyhow, digressing a bit .. I'm talking about the media here, and my claim is that it is overwhelmingly unanimous on those category of issues, at large, and generally speaking aligned on the positions of the state department. US media coverage of Iraq war before the runup is actually a state of the art example of what I am claiming. If not, I would be curious to hear you explain the reason for this trend: http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/ol...

> I may be wrong, but I am guessing you know this perfectly well, and are trying to mislead people for some political or ideological motive.

The second part of your sentence is not right or wrong, it's just inelegant, given you just allowed yourself to speculate on negative intentions of mine, to mislead people for political or ideological motives. I dont know if the idea here is to corner me into disproving a negative such as being a supporter of a particular president of the US? :)

[ChampTruffles]

Chinese from China here. I live nowhere near these places (Xinjiang and Tibet), I can say I agree with you mostly, but I highly suspect my opinion is popular here. The level of surveillance is scary but as discussed above, it is probably not uncommon. What scared me more is that any of these is not up to discuss and to be acknowledged in China, like even though I am shocked by this article I would not share it on any of my social media for obvious reasons. And for people like most of my family and friends who live far away from there, if you personally don't know anyone from Xinjiang then big chance you don't know what's happening there as it never broadcast in any sort. News like this can only be read by passing the GFW and by people who know English, real journalism in China is dead. So when 99% of this massive population only fed on what the authority gave them, the authority has virtually no control and everyone just live at their mercy. So basically if someone agrees on the safety > liberty, then I say lucky you. For anyone who disagrees with the authority action, can only suck it up and accept the reality.