[rich_sasha]

It's very, very hard to know what's really going on in a totalitarian / authoritarian country, even when they let you in and explore unreservedly.

Famously, the Red Cross inspected one Nazi concentration camp and gave it the thumbs up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_Ghetto_and_the_...

Needless to say, there was nothing good about that camp, or any of the other ones.

[oreally]

First, how can you get closer to the truth without ever going to the damn place?

Second, I agree there's a capability of falsification from either side, be it china or a news outlet. But neither does it translate to guilt on either side.

In the absence of such you'll have to consider from the first principles, and you'll find the US/west/people involve have a lot more incentive to keep china down. As such the better entities to trust are the third parties, ala the muslim states.

[rich_sasha]

I'm quite wary of "taking sides"; what's public is alarming, I mostly take it at face value, but don't add weight. I'm not saying the truth is somewhere between the extremes, I suspect the accusations are right, but I don't confuse my suspicion with proof.

If something has no value as evidence, then you should disregard it. If China is a murderous totalitarian state, it will show beautiful, pristine "reeducation camps" to outsiders. If it is not a murderous totalitarian state, it will also show beautiful, pristine "reeducation camps".

You can totally learn about something without physically going there. Satellite imagery, intelligence-gathering... in fact for sure you can learn a lot more from document caches or finding insiders willing to talk than seeing some kind of "micro" insight into these camps. If I find a small handful of victims, well who knows, maybe they were unlucky. If I find a document specifying how to torment those incarcerated en masse, that's a smoking gun.

[oreally]

> You can totally learn about something without physically going there.

And you can make mistakes with that learning too. And this isn't the first time - I recall the CIA claiming some farm buildings being missile silos. This is why you get closer to see if there are any mistakes. Otherwise you're just taking a single narrative and running with it, and repeating it. Multiple perspectives HELP.

Regarding evidence - do consider that it has a potential to be tainted too, similar to the claims about China and camp tours. News outlets don't verify these studies thoroughly and already present it as truth for outrage points.

[rich_sasha]

You're arguing against points I'm not making. All I'm saying is, arranged visits by Chinese government to Xinjiang are meaningless and can't prove, or even hint, what China is really doing there. The "evidence" provided by China will look the same, regardless of their fault or virtue.

So going/not going on such trips, and any authority rejecting or accepting this as evidence are meaningless.

[oreally]

> All I'm saying is, arranged visits by Chinese government to Xinjiang are meaningless and can't prove, or even hint, what China is really doing there. The "evidence" provided by China will look the same, regardless of their fault or virtue.

Just following the lines of thought. Essentially they've already accepted that the china trip is tainted and meaningless, even before taking the chance to opening their perspective on whether they could be wrong.

If life is suffering why not give up then?

This goes counter to the values of being 'open'. For someone of the free world this isn't very free.