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Buzzfeed: This Is What A 21st-Century Police State Really Looks Like (Xinjiang, China

China is way worse than Russia though and a stricter authoritarian state, if you look at studies and metrics like the Democracy index Russia is ahead in civil liberties, more political representation like in localities, etc than China.

Chinese government last year organised thugs to surround a woman's home who was running for election in her local district as opposition when a BBC journalist wanted to interview her.

You know you're getting blasted when fucking Russia has more civil liberties than China. Goddamn.
 

Squire

Banned
I see people piling on you, but you're not wrong at all here.

Obviously this is way worse than the invasions of privacy in the US, but it is absolutely similar. If Trump had things his way we'd be dealing with this on a nationwide level or worse tbh.

And he doesn't have his way because we have systems in place to prevent that, as are inherent to the design of republic democracy where they are not in a communist police state.

You can dislike both systems for different, very valid reasons (I do myself). It's better and smarter than trying to justify a very silly comparison.

Edit:

I think one is capable of having a nuanced view of a particular country, applauding them for the good things they do, and criticizing them for the bad things they do. It's not an all-or-nothing prospect here.

100%
 

KillLaCam

Banned
Notice how they don't do this with the Hui.

Isn't part of this because the Hui can usually speak Mandarin and they're spread out all over the country. Even though they have the Ningxia Autonomous Region they've barely ever tried to get independence or even increased autonomy from China.

In Beijing right now and there are security checkpoints and armed guards everywhere.

Yeah theyre even in the subway
 
Incredible. Just how much bloody manpower do they have devoted to this kind of policing?

Think Star Wars during the Empire, minus the technological military advantage (for now). They sink an absurd amount of resources into making sure the populace stays complacent or under the heels of the government boot.
 

ISOM

Member
Shit like this is why I refuse to visit China.

Man, comments like this are just stupid. They aren't going to do anything to tourists. Plenty of people can go to China and enjoy the people and culture without even noticing their police state.
 

Piecake

Member
Man, comments like this are just stupid. They aren't going to do anything to tourists. Plenty of people can go to China and enjoy the people and culture without even noticing their police state.

I don't think its stupid that some people don't want to actively support the economy of a police state that is engaging in the cultural genocide of a group of its own citizens.

Sure, its likely impossible NOT to support the economy of China because they make everything, but I think that passive support is different than actively going and spending money there, at least in a moral sense.
 
I don't think its stupid that some people don't want to actively support the economy of a police state that is engaging in the cultural genocide of a group of its own citizens.

Sure, its likely impossible NOT to support the economy of China because they make everything, but I think that passive support is different than actively going and spending money there, at least in a moral sense.
Yeah, if you don't want to support China it's time to stop buying electronics for example.
 

Apath

Member
Meh
Us isn’t much better either. At least in the Washington DC metro area
Have you ever been to Washington DC? The text in the article isn't even a remotely accurate description of going through DC. People can walk through the White House with less intrusions and hostility.
 
Yet there are still people that want China to be the future. Genocidal, firewall, actual police state China.

Fuck that. I'll say it again, if China is right then I'm glad the whole world is wrong.
 

JimiNutz

Banned
If Americans and Europeans were told that there would never be a terrorist attack in their nations again but the price to pay would be a society as described in the article I wonder what the majority would vote for?
 

Renekton

Member
That much is obvious. Remember, it's people who were Warlords from the outside less than 100 years ago in charge now. China has a history of this.
Well in that 100 years they got their asses kicked by Brits, Japs, Koreans, etc.

The Brits in particular force-fed them into opium-addled junkies.

Even Vietnamese fondly remember one L China got from them.
 

stenbumling

Unconfirmed Member
If Americans and Europeans were told that there would never be a terrorist attack in their nations again but the price to pay would be a society as described in the article I wonder what the majority would vote for?

If asked in the immediate aftermath of an overwhelmingly devastating terrorist attack? Possibly. Or any other time where there's a prolonged and escalating air of unsafety and fear in public life.
 

vern

Member
It sucks because Xinjiang is amazingly beautiful and diverse and it’s an incredible place to visit. It feels so different from the rest of China. Also the people were so incredibly friendly when I was there. And the food is secretly the best style of “Chinese food.”

Everyone should visit the region if given the chance. Shame about the way the place is run and the people are treated.
 

Squire

Banned
If Americans and Europeans were told that there would never be a terrorist attack in their nations again but the price to pay would be a society as described in the article I wonder what the majority would vote for?

The US would vote against living like this probably overwhelmingly. Communism is still a fringe ideology here. Socialism is only just now becoming a not-so-bad word.

People want measures to be taken, but not as drastically as the picture painted here.
 
Most of china isn't like that at all. In fact it feels more free than America. It's very laxed and they hardly do any of that in most of the county. I never see police when I'm around. You have to go to the police station to get a resident permit and I can walk around freely and they don't give a shit.



When i see how people act to each other, being rude, bullying etc. Trust me, china is right to keep all that out of china imo. When i left china and walk in the western world it just feels wrong how people have this high and modify attitude everywhere I go.


I feel the western mentality will eventually spread there but for me I prefer the eastern mind set more often cause its just more simple and straight forward
 
The US would vote against living like this probably overwhelmingly. Communism is still a fringe ideology here. Socialism is only just now becoming a not-so-bad word.

People want measures to be taken, but not as drastically as the picture painted here.

This has absolutely nothing to do with socialism or communism. What is wrong with your education system that you think that?
 
It sucks because Xinjiang is amazingly beautiful and diverse and it’s an incredible place to visit. It feels so different from the rest of China. Also the people were so incredibly friendly when I was there. And the food is secretly the best style of “Chinese food.”

Everyone should visit the region if given the chance. Shame about the way the place is run and the people are treated.
It's always interesting to see people hate things they really don't understand. I totally can see why they don't want fb and youtube there. The way things escalate into fighting and name calling where I grew up to seeing it mostly be opposite of that in china.

I'm not surprised to see them Crack down on things there, but overall I never felt any issues in the rest of the country.

I was nervous the first time I went to a police station to get a form but now it's not bad. If rather do paper work in a Chinese police station than go through customs in the west, that says it all.
 
So Xi announced today that they will push for all foreign companies in China to include a communist party unit inside the company. So it can "understand" the Chinese socialist system while operating there.

Apparently only 71% of foreign companies comply so far.

Whether the police are visible to the average citizen or not clearly the ruling party is not about to let any possible levers of power out of their sight.
 

Lime

Member
I bet Trump gets a boner when he reads this kind of stuff.

Scary as hell.



Yeah, it sucks having to go through that checkpoint when I want to go to the mall. /s

They are not equivalent.

With the primary difference being that they then don't barge into too many people's homes at midnight

classic Lime shitpost

The NSA disappears people into camps for using non-approved social media apps? Fuck off, man.

The NSA etc. are all problematic, but they do not censor and do not use the information they collect in anywhere near the manner China does.

It sounds incredibly dissimilar lol

Especially the part where they put people in organ farms and dissect them.

Wait, no, does the TSA have that program? I forget.

People need to get it straight, China is a straight-up police state.

You've got a mighty broad definition of "similar."

Your tinfoil hat looks like it's a bit tight.

This is the sort of shit that Russian trolls post.

Whoa, what a reaction. Yes, this is what happens to people who gets red-flagged via the mass surveillance of the NSA, TSA, and HS. There's a reason why the US uses off-shore & foreign black sites for imprisoning people they have surveilled. Or Guantanamo for that matter.

And US security forces do barge into homes in the night.

And regarding the checkpoints, this is basically what happens when you go through border security in US airports. Maybe US citizens don't know it because they aren't exposed to the invisible and visible security checks foreigners go through.

Anyway, my point was to highlight that this shit isn't new.
 

Squire

Banned
This has absolutely nothing to do with socialism or communism. What is wrong with your education system that you think that?

Sorry, I meant that that would be the larger public perception of something like this as smaller things are now. People think universal healthcare will lead to socialist government, will lead to communist government, will lead to the collapse of western civilization or something.

If we started talking about "surveillance like China" the conversation would turn to socialism/communism because it's a boogeyman very well-rooted in US culture.

Whoa, what a reaction. Yes, this is what happens to people who gets red-flagged via the mass surveillance of the NSA, TSA, and HS. There's a reason why the US uses off-shore & foreign black sites for imprisoning people they have surveilled. Or Guantanamo for that matter.

And US security forces do barge into homes in the night.

And regarding the checkpoints, this is basically what happens when you go through border security in US airports. Maybe US citizens don't know it because they aren't exposed to the invisible and visible security checks foreigners go through.

Anyway, my point was to highlight that this shit isn't new.

Eh, it was a bad comparison and still is. Retina/facial scans? Literalizing social capital? Forcing people to delete harmless photos (LOL)? Come on.
 

Eylos

Banned
Whats the problem with beards? Marx and Engels have a big Full beard. They should love full bearded Men.
 
Whats the problem with beards? Marx and Engels have a big Full beard. They should love full bearded Men.

To the government, it is associated with a more conservative practice of Islam, which they fear undermines the legitimacy of the state. It's also a way to enforce a degree of social cohesion and bind the population as a single polity, something that lots of places use for similar reasons (schools with uniforms, jobs with uniforms/dress codes, western countries banning niqabs, North Korea's limited selection of hairstyles, etc).
 

Eylos

Banned
To the government, it is associated with a more conservative practice of Islam, which they fear undermines the legitimacy of the state. It's also a way to enforce a degree of social cohesion and bind the population as a single polity, something that lots of places use for similar reasons (schools with uniforms, jobs with uniforms/dress codes, western countries banning niqabs, North Korea's limited selection of hairstyles, etc).
Oh got It, thx, its cool to learn New things on GAF.
 
I remember watching a documentary once about the 20 most polluted cities in the world and they were interviewing this Chinese dude from a village who was detailing how nasty the water was. Cops roll up mid interview, talk to him and he comes back talking about how great the water is and saying he was kidding.
 
Yeah...even though China has over a billion people, I wonder if a concentrated effort of half the population would be enough to overthrow the government? Or maybe at this point, being raised in a society like theirs, they just accept humans rights abuses as every day life?

I would assume that one thing that keeps normal people currently happy is the fast growing economy. When that ends maybe they start to care more about the shit government pulls.
 

Armaros

Member
Whoa, what a reaction. Yes, this is what happens to people who gets red-flagged via the mass surveillance of the NSA, TSA, and HS. There's a reason why the US uses off-shore & foreign black sites for imprisoning people they have surveilled. Or Guantanamo for that matter.

And US security forces do barge into homes in the night.

And regarding the checkpoints, this is basically what happens when you go through border security in US airports. Maybe US citizens don't know it because they aren't exposed to the invisible and visible security checks foreigners go through.

Anyway, my point was to highlight that this shit isn't new.

Post an example similar to the article. Of US forces interrgotating someone living in the US, in the middle of the night for calling their 85 year old grandmother just because of their ethnicity.
 

pr0cs

Member
Yet there are still people that want China to be the future. Genocidal, firewall, actual police state China.

Fuck that. I'll say it again, if China is right then I'm glad the whole world is wrong.
Qft, on this forum China can basically do no wrong.. threads like this reaffirm that I'm glad I don't live there
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
Post an example similar to the article. Of US forces interrgotating someone living in the US, in the middle of the night for calling their 85 year old grandmother just because of their ethnicity.

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...er-town-residents-checkpoint-racial-profiling

I've heard of border agents searching phones at the border, and I've heard of border agents stopping vehicles and people *inside* the US, and while I've not heard of "internal warrantless phone searches," I wouldn't be surprised. Honestly the China situation seems less "cautionary tale" than "Republican wet dream."
 

Armaros

Member
https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...er-town-residents-checkpoint-racial-profiling

I've heard of border agents searching phones at the border, and I've heard of border agents stopping vehicles and people *inside* the US, and while I've not heard of "internal warrantless phone searches," I wouldn't be surprised. Honestly the China situation seems less "cautionary tale" than "Republican wet dream."

So not similar at all.

Those are searches at a border or customs.

This is about continual active survielance of a minority group within a region with active police forces reacting in near real time.

Not a border situation, they are not questioning the persons phone record as they tried to end the country, they barged in and interrogated her in her home after she called her grandmother.
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
So not similar at all.

Those are searches at a border or customs.

This is about continual active survielance of a minority group within a region with active police forces reacting in near real time.

Not a border situation, they are not questioning the persons phone record as they tried to end the country, they barged in and interrogated her in her home after she called her grandmother.

From the linked article.

But federal regulations allow border patrol agents to operate within 100 miles of America’s territorial boundaries. This means, according to the ACLU, that about two-thirds of Americans, some 200 million people, are in that zone.

Backed by the ACLU, members of an Arivaca community group, People Helping People, fielded a lawsuit last year claiming that Border Patrol has unconstitutionally hindered their attempts to monitor the checkpoint close-up. They are expecting a ruling soon. The group released a report saying that its monitoring showed that Latinos were 26 times as likely as whites to have to show identification and 20 times more likely to have to go through a secondary inspection.

Latinos 20x more likely to be searched by border guards *inside* the country. They're not crossing into the US, border guards are conducting checks for citizenship at an internal highway checkpoint.

Wray is originally from Mexico and believes that agents treat her with suspicion as a result. “I have a brown colour and I’m very proud of my colour,” she said. “A couple of times they have asked for an ID for me to prove that I am a US citizen and they don’t believe my words. That makes me feel bad because if I’m saying I’m a US citizen it’s because I am. But they don’t believe it."

It's not *as bad* as in China, but it's not for lack of trying. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. I really haven't seen cause over the last decade that the US is moving away from the kind of totalitarian monitoring that China operates under, if anything there's been a move towards it by the Repulican party inspite of push-back at the level of the courts.
 

Armaros

Member
From the linked article.



Latinos 20x more likely to be searched by border guards *inside* the country. They're not crossing into the US, border guards are conducting checks for citizenship at an internal highway checkpoint.



It's not *as bad* as in China, but it's not for lack of trying. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. I really haven't seen cause over the last decade that the US is moving away from the kind of totalitarian monitoring that China operates under, if anything there's been a move towards it by the Repulican party inspite of push-back at the level of the courts.

That is still nowhere close to what is reported in the OP...

People are getting jailed for talking about the government in online conversation.

The act of speaking to people of a specific minority no matter if the person is not suspect makes you subject to active survalience.
 

Piecake

Member
From the linked article.



Latinos 20x more likely to be searched by border guards *inside* the country. They're not crossing into the US, border guards are conducting checks for citizenship at an internal highway checkpoint.



It's not *as bad* as in China, but it's not for lack of trying. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. I really haven't seen cause over the last decade that the US is moving away from the kind of totalitarian monitoring that China operates under, if anything there's been a move towards it by the Repulican party inspite of push-back at the level of the courts.

Despite federal law allowing certain federal agents to conduct search and seizures within 100 miles of the border into the interior of the United States,[5] the Supreme Court has clearly and repeatedly confirmed that the border search exception applies only at international borders and their functional equivalent (such as international airports).[4][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

That right there is the huge difference between the US and China. Government actions can and are declared unconstitutional and unconstitutional searches and seizures by federal agents will be thrown out of court.
 
You won't to know how off base most of you are?

The people that I knew in china came there because of how lax and easy it was, what were they doing? Mostly some kind of drug or pot because of how cheap their rent was and how lax it was. A lot of them come there for other reasons too that I don't really care for but there is a big difference in how the foreign men treat women and how the chinese men do. And I'd say it's often the foriegners doing then wrong 80 percent of the time imo

Yeah, I know the rules and what can go down for such a thing and no I wasn't a part of that and I have never had possession or tried any drug in my whole life, but when you see people flying there cause of that life style well, that can tell you a whole lot of things that a lot of you obviously aren't getting with this hyper fear spy stuff.

I have never had nothing but help from those in power rather it be government, airports etc They may not have always helped but they at least never were in anyway trying to be harmful or an ass about it. I never experienced that, but hell let me get pulled over in my home country and see how that could go down.

There is no doubt bad there, but no more than any other place, I think you are 100 percent safer in China than the US, minus some pollution in certain cities, but safer without a doubt when it comes to interacting with the rules and people.

I have only known of a few people that actually got in trouble and arrested in China, they were just sent back home for working illegally. Which we all know and are told very clearly when we are visiting the various offices for work or other situations. They try to be helpful, not counter productive.

If your not doing anything wrong there, you have no reason to have any issue most of the time, compared to what you may go through in other countries for being tired , having a certain look or whatever.
 
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