A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. The last got clogged with random conspiracy theories.
To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such.
John Quiggin 
One thing that puzzles me is that we have a great many economists talked in learned fashion about how to manage the pandemic, but very few epidemiologists being asked about managing the economy.
Well if someone his here on a regular basis there must be reason for it. So if I am here on a regular basis there must be a reason for it as well. I just do not know what it is anymore. Well maybe the reason is as simple as I do not know where else to go.
Some cultures are only worthy of complete obliteration: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/17/female-teenagers-in-pakistan-shot-dead-by-relatives-over-video
“… visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such.” Do the Illuminati control the Trilateral Commission, or vice-versa?
https://de.yahoo.com/nachrichten/china-will-m%C3%B6glichen-corona-impfstoff-weltweit-verf%C3%BCgung-stellen-114410790.html
So the Chinese say that if they develope a treatment or vaccine they will make it available to the rest of the world. But will they dare do that? That would make it appear that they planned the covid 19 event all along. We will see what happens.
But I bet that if the Chinese come up with something, something that they may already have, that they will sell it, or perhaps give it to one of their favorite western researchers, to disquise where the vaccine or treatment came from.
Hugo,
A few patriarchs and brothers of that culture considered their “wayward” daughters worthy of complete obliteration. I’m not sure how replicating their error would get anyone anywhere. The culture you refer to is not monolithic. The local or at least state authorities are treating it as a crime and pursuing criminal justice. Murders happen in our culture over money. Does that make our culture worthy of complete obliteration? Money and honor are both social fictive constructions.
I agree with the CCP’s refusal to take our barley. I would also agree with their refusal to take our coal, gas and iron ore. Indeed, I think the rest of the world should help the CCP as much as possible by sending them no resources. The CCP is so great, perfect and self-sufficient it doesn’t need us. Let us assist them towards their pure goal.
As a general principle, is it right to trade with a totalitarian regime? The answer must be “no”. Trading with totalitarianism legitimizes and assists totalitarianism. History demonstrates that trading with totalitarian regimes emboldens them. It does not bring them into the democratic or humane fold. Trading and treating with totalitarians is appeasement. We know that does not work. While we should not seek to obliterate the CCP and all the people they hold hostage, neither should we trade or treat with them. Appeasement does not work.
COVID-19 statistics are not comparable across countries, taking countries as statistical areas. This is because the criteria for counting deaths as being caused by COVID-19 vary by country and also the ability to count potential COVID-19 deaths at all varies widely by country. A “better way to measure the damage caused by the pandemic is to look at “excess mortality,” which looks at the gap between the total number of people who died, and the historical average for the same place and time of year.” – The Economist.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries#eid-britain
https://de.nachrichten.yahoo.com/china-will-m%C3%B6glichen-corona-impfstoff-weltweit-verf%C3%BCgung-stellen-114410790.htm
and someone in the comments made a good point that I should have thought of.
The comment was that who would even trust a Chinese vaccine at this point. So that is two reasons why it would not be a good idea for China to announce that it has a vaccine.
Moz of Yarramulla at 12:17 pm
” but very few epidemiologists being asked about managing the economy.”.
I tried asking yesterday after reading your comment.
Not even a phone number for Australasian Epidemiological Association (AEA)
https://aea.asn.au/
Nor in topic or post in https://aea.asn.au/forum
Nor a response from National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health (NCEPH) at ANU.
https://rsph.anu.edu.au/research/centres-departments/national-centre-epidemiology-population-health/about
They are too busy?
Who died and left you in charge?
Philosopher. logician and mathematician, Lars Syll, has mentioned the issue that scientists were “smart” because they restricted their models to laboratories where conditions were strongly controlled. This was as opposed to economists who try to apply their models to the real world. Now I may be making a “straw man” critique of Syll’s no doubt nuanced position. In that case I am open to criticism and correction.
As I see it, in at least my characterization of Syll’s position, it leaves out the issue of the successes and failures of applied science. Science does not just work in the laboratory. It works in the real world as applied science. Of course, we have to further analyze how it works and how it does not work. Coal fired power stations work to generate some energy for useful work, while releasing a lot of waste energy and CO2. They do not work to preserve our benign Holocene climate. Indeed they work to destroy it. This raises the whole issue of unforeseen consequences in complex real systems but let us set that aside for now.
Lars Syll is really talking about (economic) models and whether they are valid and applicable to the real world . In my opinion, we need an ontological explanation for good modelling results versus poor modelling results. The ontological explanation must. I consider, relate to the correspondence theory of truth. There really is no other candidate for plausible explanation. The model must possess some consistent homomorphic correspondences between the model system and the real system. It was Bertrand Russell who pointed out the need for homomorphic correspondence in this context. These homomorphic correspondences must be structural and in dynamic models processual.
Science models a real system with a notional system (often the notation of mathematics). There is a clear demarcation between the real system and the notional model in this modelling process. There is also a well-founded assumption that the hard-science-discovered fundamental laws of real systems are consistent across all real systems in at least our “local” time and place in the cosmos.
Economics models a real system / notional system hybrid with notional models. There is not a clear demarcation between the real and the notional in the modelling process itself. The real economy is real but the money/financial economy and all the legal laws and regulations which support it are notional. “Notional” here also contains the extended meaning that they are social fictive creations, that is to say they are developed from human notions. Every legal law and regulation made one way could be made another way. These legal laws and regulations are not fundamental in the sense that the fundamental laws discovered by science are fundamental.
Economics in this sense equates to attempting to make a science of a real-notional amalgam, the real plus the fictive and imaginary, including social and political creations by humans. This is a nonsense proposition and a nonsense research promgram. Instead, we must make recourse to ethics first and then to the hard sciences of real systems. Economic decisions must be made on ethical grounds first and then subjected to scientific analysis to find what is possible. Economic decisions must not be made on notional money calculations based on elite private property rights.
The first decisions to be made are what is ethically and morally correct to do according to our belief systems and as decided democratically in a pluralistic society. Is it moral to have widespread poverty and homelessness (as an example)? The answer for the majority of people is clearly “no”. The next question is this. Is it physically possible to alleviate and even abolish poverty and homelessness in a developed country (as the first and easiest example)? The answer clearly is “yes”. We have enough resources and productive capacity. Since it is ethically impimperative and physically possible it should be done. The only argument against this comes from the argument for the privilege of great possession of private property and riches. According to this ethic, some few should be permitted to keep excessive property and great riches despite the clear corollary of poverty and homelessness.
The answer is simple in moral, scientific and logical terms, though apparently difficult in realpolitik terms due to the power of rich privilege. Abolish the privilege of great private property holdings, abolish the privilege of excessive riches. Do this to alleviate poverty and homelessness and to help all humans achieve their full potential. It is simple moral philosophy. Economics is or should be the mere administrative allocation of resources after the moral decisions are made by consesnus and according to what is scientifically/technically and ecologically/sustainably possible.
We should not make too big a deal out of economics. It is not of prime importance. It is merely about making allocations after the needs for allocations determined by ethical decisions and then scientific/technical decisions. Economics, as implementation of ethically/ scientifically determined allocations is a third or fourth order concern of society as John Ralston Saul has correctly identified. Economics is the merely logistics of ethics and science.
Many thousands of innocent girls, apparently. But it certainly occurred to me when I wrote my comment that a J-D would be outraged by the thought of these girls *not* being knived, stoned, strangled or shot, such is the measure of the man. In fact I would’ve put a hundred quid on it.
Wow this degenerated quickly – one commenter demanding the extermination of a culture, another recommending a complete trade embargo of 1.4 billion people, another suggesting that those people designed a disease so that they could give away the vaccine for propaganda purposes … what a sewer
Umm, the extermination of the particular culture of “honour” and the associated “honour killings”. And given your cheer leading for the racist oppression of Tibetans and Uighur, please don’t pretend the sewer in which you reside is the high ground.
faustusnotes, As an ideologically blind supporter of CCP totalitarianism you have no credibility.
Yup, I’ve seen faustusnotes dismiss the 20 million deaths in Mao’s cultural revolution as mere house cleaning. He is more Birdist than leftist.
Here in the world which I inhabit, the only way to obliterate or exterminate a culture is by obliterating or exterminating the population whose culture it is …
… which would be no better for them than being knived, stoned, strangled, or shot.
However, it would be interesting to learn about the technique used wherever it is that you are to obliterate or exterminate a culture without obliterating or exterminating a population, and also what colour the sky is there.
Although it does not inspire confidence in your judgement, the way you jump to the conclusion that I am a man without evidence to support it.
Australia obliterated the culture of capital punishment with nary a broken finger nail. Culture is fluid. It always has changed and always will. In other exciting news (for J-D, at least) 2 plus 2 equals 4.
@ikonoklast How about we refuse to take any weaponry from USA while we are at it ? Or if you prefer, we could refuse to buy any weapons from anybody. It appeals to me way more than your idea of refusing to sell things to China.
Cultures change, but they don’t obliterate themselves. The culture of capital punishment has not, I regret to observe, been completely obliterated in Australia. However, it is true that capital punishment has been eliminated from Australian law. If it’s not already the case that honour killings are against Pakistani law, then Pakistani law needs to be changed; but that goal will not be advanced by describing amendment of the law as complete obliteration of a culture. If Pakistanis get the idea that amending their laws amounts to complete obliteration of their culture, it will not increase their support for amendment but rather the reverse.
I dunno Ikonoclast, call me old fashioned but I think you’d have more credibility on the rights of a Chinese minority if you hadn’t just called for the deliberate starvation and impoverishment of 1.4 billion people.
Faustus old sport, according to the organ of State Council of the People’s Republic of China, namely Xinhua, fascist China produces one-quarter of the world’s food. There is no reason why 1.4 billion would starve if the world stopped trading with China.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-10/16/c_138475888.htm
Faustnotes,
You miss summarized what I said with my comments above. In those comments above I did not say or imply that the Chinese government created a virus so that it could gain propoganda points by giving away the vaccine. I said that it would give the APPEARNCE to MILLIONS of people around the world that China had created (or researched and released) a dangerous virus so that it could profit in one way or another with the vaccine.
The impression that it was all a Chinese plot from the get go will be lessened if the vaccine or treatment is discovered somewhere else. (Except the vaccine or treatment can not be discovered in Russia, Iran or North Korea either. That will just make it look like the release of the virus was a joint project since these countries are cozy with one another.)
“Based on the annual grain output in China, food consumption per capita reached 350 kg in 2004, 400 kg in 2010 and 450 kg in 2015. Believe it or not, China now has the highest number of obese people in the world. In the coming decade, annual grain production should stabilize at about 600 million tons which will allow food consumption per capita above 430 kg.” – A look at food security in China – Kai Cui & Sharon P. Shoemaker. – Nature dot com
China now has the highest number of obese people in the world. Doesn’t sound like a nation that will starve without food imports.
Yeah, don’t worry, Faustus- Comrade Winnie the Pooh will always keep enough cash on hand to pay your retainer.
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855
“China now has the highest number of obese people in the world. Doesn’t sound like a nation that will starve without food imports.” Oh come on. Maybe that has something to do with China simply having most people in the world? Its rather disturbing actually that China did not have most obese people until recently.
More fantasy-land stuff over the last few days — Jacqueline Maley in the Herald, Katherine Murphy and David Hetherington in the Guardian — about how the Coalition, and Morrison in particular, might resist the entropic pull of returning to business as usual, how he could stare down vested interests to maintain higher unemployment benefits, make progress on decarbonisation etc. etc.
All this despite the abundant evidence that Morrison and the Coalition are opposed to these things because of genuine and deep-seated ideological commitments. It’s like reading op-eds in the Shire Times about how Sauron might decide to unilaterally disarm
It is interesting that people’s perceptions remain static while the world itself is dynamic. It is particularly the case that people’s perceptions of China have remained mired in the past. In little more than three decades, China has been transformed. China is now;
(1) The richest nation on earth in absolute terms.
(2) The most advanced nation on earth in absolute terms.
(3) The nation with the largest standing army.
(4) The second or third most powerful nation in conventional military terms.
(5) The fourth strongest in nuclear weapons.
Special pleading for China to be seen as anything other than a rich, powerful, aggressive and inimical superpower is quite absurd in the modern context. To set the record straight I will say, as I have said before in this blog, that the USA is also a rich, powerful, aggressive and inimical superpower. Russia too falls into this category except that it is not rich in conventional economic terms. It is however rich in land and resources and has a vast number of nuclear weapons as does the USA.
By “inimical superpower” I mean a nation which does as it wishes without let or hindrance (except by checks from other superpowers or by voluntary checks via alliances) in relation to middle and minor powers who individually are a magnitude or several magnitudes smaller than the superpowers. The USA, Russia and China all show these characteristics of being inimical superpowers to at least some of the polities and peoples who fall within the zone of their regional hegemony.
To reiterate, large nations naturally become inimical to small nations except as checked by balance of power considerations and alliance considerations. Self-interest on the massive scale pursued by superpowers becomes, by the very fact of its mass, inimical to small nations and small interests whether the intent is something which can be characterized as malicious or merely selfish disregard.
To sum up, the perception that China is poor or weak is obsolete. China is rich and powerful in absolute terms which are the only terms that matter in international power relations, not per capita terms. For a small nation too assume that a superpower is anything other than naturally inimical or potentially inimical is naive. For a small nation to assume it has friends is also naive. As Charles de Gaulle once said, “Nations do not have friends, only interests.”
China is dangerous, very dangerous. This is just as the USA and Russia are dangerous, very dangerous. The only thing a small nation can do is find an ally in interests for the time being, not a friend, because friends do not exist in international power politics. But my intent here is not to enter further into alliance theory. It’s simply to point out that China is rich, powerful, dangerous and not a natural ally in interests with Australia.
China’s recent behavior has shown the utter contempt and disregard in which it holds Australia and Australians. People need to read the signals. We are useful only as a quarry for China’s global hegemonic ambitions. Is that what we want to be?
…I mean, how do you look at any of Morrison’s entire political career, start to finish, and think “oh, here’s a guy who would help poor people and the environment if not for that pesky Murdoch press and talkback radio”
Jones at 6:57 am
Yes… “It’s like reading op-eds in the Shire Times about how Sauron might decide to unilaterally disarm”.
I think we had a 2 week window where such op-eds may have been potentially worthy. 2 weeks in fear and panic – then back to snapback.
I wonder why people here, JQ included, feel that real change from recent past neiliberal zietgiest was going to happen. The polity was in a change frame of mind for about 2 weeks at the beginning of March. After that all potential collapsed into “when do we get out”. And this is what is pulling the strings… “neoliberalism has shown is that it’s about strong states, which construct the kind of market society that neoliberals believe in.”.
And when younconsider these groups sriving one way…
…”This point binds together a lot of sub-schools of neoliberalism, which vary from the Chicago School to the Austrian School, the Geneva Globalists, the German ordoliberals, and so on.”… ‘we’ have about as much leverage as a kitten.
Why the Neoliberals Won’t Let This Crisis Go to Waste
Interview with Philip Mirowski. Author of ‘Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown’
Intro: Many observers expected that the 2008 financial crisis would mark the end of neoliberalism. Instead, we saw a wave of privatization and sharp cuts in public services. Today, the forces best placed to exploit the coronavirus pandemic are still those who already have power: the neoliberals who’ve been shaping the economic policy agenda for decades.
One salient point, though, is that neoliberalism is not advocacy of laissez-faire and the small state. If anything, the lesson that work on neoliberalism has shown is that it’s about strong states, which construct the kind of market society that neoliberals believe in.
… Mirowski… “Over and above various national and cultural differences, I think there’s one shared point. Neoliberals really believe that people are inherently bad cognizers — they can’t work their way out of their problems just by thinking. Of course, that sounds like a very negative doctrine: i.e., telling us that people are incapable of understanding the nature of their problems and pursuing their own democratic ends.
But for the neoliberals, there’s an upbeat answer: the market. And they have changed the meaning of what a market is from earlier economic thought which tended to treat it as an allocation of scarce resources. They tend to think of it more as an epistemic problem — that the market is the greatest information processor known to mankind. This starts with Hayek but then feeds through the other main thinkers.
This is important, because it means that people have to be brought to understand politically that they have to, in a sense, concede that the market knows more than they do. So, they have to adjust their hopes, their fears, to what the market tells them is necessary. This point binds together a lot of sub-schools of neoliberalism, which vary from the Chicago School to the Austrian School, the Geneva Globalists, the German ordoliberals, and so on.”
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/neoliberals-response-pandemic-crisis
To all here… “Retract your teeth and claws. Gladden your people.” Who wrote this and when?
“Sickness will arrive during your time. How will it be when the city becomes, is made, a place of desolation? Just how will it be when everything lies in darkness, despair? You will also go rushing to your death right then and there. In an instant, you will be over.”…
“They warned:
Do not be a fool. Do not rush your words, do not interrupt or confuse people. Instead find, grasp, arrive at the truth. Make no one weep. Cause no sadness. Injure no one. Do not show rage or frighten folks. Do not create a scandal or speak with vanity. Do not ridicule. For vain words and mockery are no longer your office. Never, of your own will, make yourself less, diminished. Bring no scorn upon the nation, its leadership, the government.
Retract your teeth and claws. Gladden your people. Unite them, humor them, please them. Make your nation happy. Help each find their proper place. That way you’ll be esteemed, renowned. And when our Lord extinguishes you, the old ones will weep and sigh”
https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2020/05/10/aztec-king-rules-plague-covid-19-survival/ideas/essay/
Like I said, a sewer.
Why did we pick a fight with China?
The USA demanded an immediate enquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 virus in China.
The USA demanded that the WHO be excluded from any enquiry.
The USA demanded ‘weapons inspector’ powers for investigators, overriding national governments to access their places and their information.
Australia chimed in. Australia used diplomatic language to avoid explicitly demanding ‘weapons inspector’ powers and to avoid explicitly demanding an enquiry immediately and only into the origin of the virus in China. But that’s what our officious Deputy Sheriffs were supporting.
Now the USA has not got what it demanded. Australia has failed to get any support for any element of the USA demands it supported.
The World Health Assembly has unanimously settled on an enquiry as soon as appropriate – that is, once the crisis has settled.The World Health Assembly has made that an after-action review of the international health response, with virus origin and species transfer only implicit in reviewing international response. China supports that, and always supported a full review of the outbreak of the virus and of the international health response.
The World Health Assembly has a review committee of the WHO to do the enquiry, in consultation on origins and species transfer of the virus with the world’s animal health body. The WHO has no ‘weapons inspector’ powers.
After action review of the international health response won’t be directed only at China. The USA’s extreme failures in managing health response will get scrutinised too, along with all the other responses.
Our barley exports are hammered (after a near two year long dumping review) and the USA will export more of its inferior and more expensive barley to China.
So why did we pick this fight?
David Horowitz has opened his FrontPageMag platform to the most unhinged COVID19 deniers.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/video-mask-hides-gods-image-frontpagemagcom/
I guess I shouldn’t rise to this bait but I will. Per capita, Australia is holding more people in illegal prison camps under worse conditions for longer than China is in Xinjiang. The people in Australia’s camps receive no healthcare, no education, no access to the outside world at all, and are never allowed to leave. They are beaten, raped and tortured by their guards, and treated so badly that suicide and self-harm is rampant. There are children in these camps who are abused by older camp members and guards, and at one stage a long long time ago (before Uyghur were ever mentioned in Australia) those children stitched their mouths shut in protest against their condition. This vicious abuse of these people has been continuously supported by both political parties and repeatedly endorsed by every major news outlet in the country, and is generally defended even by opponents of the government. It was being implemented at extremely cruel levels at the same time as the government was refusing to admit to the existence of the Stolen Generations. Media are not allowed into those camps, and anyone attempting to film them can go to prison, though that’s impossible because they are far more remote than the camps in Xinjiang. Australia runs one of the cruelest, longest-lived, and vicious camp systems on the planet, and everything about it puts the labour camps for Uyghur to shame. By any civilized standard, Ikonoclast’s recommendation for the treatment of China should be applied to Australia; if any culture is to be exterminated as demanded by Hugo, it is this Australian culture. Yet it is never mentioned, never raised, never discussed. Instead we have Australian leftists preening about the camps in Xinjiang, as if they are comparable in any way. You present the treatment of Uyghur as evidence that China is a terrible nation that shouldn’t be respected or trusted on the global stage; in that case your own nation should be an absolute pariah. You do nothing about this, and never have. You take no risks to stop it, you do not march against it, you don’t even speak against it under an anonymous name in a blog in a country with unrestricted media.
When I see this I know that your attacks on China are just racism, pure and simple. You have no regard for the welfare of these Uyghur, you can’t be bothered to educate yourselves on what the labour camps are or what they do, and you throw around words like genocide and ethnic cleansing that mean nothing to you, and would never apply to the situation in Xinjiang. It’s all just words and rhetoric to you – convenient ways to attack a nation whose people you hate. That’s all there is to it. It’s ignorant hypocrisy at best, racism at worst.
Use every country after its desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?
There’s no way you can know who’s been on which marches.
“The West’s complacency towards China is criminal” – Liao Yiwu.
“Those who participated in the events (Tian’enmen Square Massacres and aftermath) … cannot understand why the West is so tolerant, passive, accommodating and naive towards Beijing. To make the repression go away and to give the people “opium”, the Chinese were encouraged to run after the money. The country has been corrupted by this quest for profit, this pollution of greed. But this phase has just ended: today, those who have made a fortune go into exile, they are afraid because the regime wants to put everyone in step, even in the economic field. Westerners look at China with incredulous eyes, they are seduced like an old man in front of a young girl. The country has done everything to seduce and forget the crime against humanity of 1989. But today, the Chinese government has caught up with the West. His new strategy is to weaken the West and take revenge. The government never accepted what happened thirty years ago. Everything was filmed live. Authorities have vowed not to let it happen a second time. After showing themselves in their best light, the ruling elite wants to lock everything down. Citizens are on file, justice is under control, social networks are fully controlled. A new Tian’anmen is impossible today.
But why are you pointing the finger at the West? – Le Point International.
Because he is an accomplice. Nobody in Europe says anything when a high-ranking police officer, director of Interpol “disappears”. Not a voice is raised to denounce the arrest of a dissident. Everyone is silent when the Chinese services kidnap a troublemaker on European territory as it was the case in Sweden a few months ago. Thirty years ago, François Mitterrand welcomed the dissidents. Today, Emmanuel Macron rolls out the red carpet to the murderer Xi Jinping, Italy opens the doors of his economy to him. And everyone trembles before Chinese omnipotence. Europe shows all its weakness. She does not realize that the Chinese offensive threatens her freedom and her values. And as the only one who resists somewhat, Donald Trump in the United States, does it in a hazy and ridiculous way, the Chinese rub their hands. Faced with China, Europeans behave like politicians and not like statesmen. Where have your de Gaulle, your Churchill gone? Your naivety is culpable.”
Translated from the French via Google Translate.
This below is an example of what CCP apologist, supporter of state-sanctioned murder, propagandist for oppressive totalitarianism and very likely Fifth Columnist, faustusnotes, is fully in favor of:
Tian’enmen Square Massacres and aftermath
“Enforcement of martial law declared by Premier Li Peng in certain areas of Beijing executed by force from June 3, 1989 (declared from May 20, 1989 – January 10, 1990, 7 months and 3 weeks)
Civilians – including bystanders, protesters (mainly workers) and rioters barricading the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops – shot by the PLA at multiple sites (excluding Tiananmen Square) in Beijing
Hundreds to thousands killed, thousands wounded inside and outside Tiananmen Square
Several soldiers killed, thousands wounded by rioters on June 3 to 4 after civilians were killed on June
More protests across China in reaction to crackdown
Protest leaders and pro-democracy activists later exiled or imprisoned
Rioters charged with violent crimes were executed in the following months” – Wikipedia
I’ve been a consistent opponent of the prison camps run by Australian right-wing crypto-fascists. Indeed, I have used that very term. Some of those trenchent criticisms have appeared on this very blog. But I can walk and chew gum. That’s why I have also been a consistent opponent of Chinese totalitarianism and its human rights abuses.
By contrast, Pro-CCP propagandists are entirely one-eyed and would have us believe totalitarian, expansionist CCP-run China is as pure as the driven snow. Only a naive fool would believe such one-eyed rubbish. Indeed, naive, appeasing fools who believe such nonsense are likely to come under that conquering totalitarian boot sooner or later unless they are very, very careful.
On the topic of racism, it is clearly rampant among Mainland Han Chinese and this can be confirmed from innumerable sources. Imagine the furor if an ad like this ran in the West.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/28/china-racist-detergent-advert-outrage
“mostly the ad was met with apathy (in China), perhaps because there is limited public debate about racism in China, where a bestselling toothpaste is still called “Black Man Toothpaste” more than two decades after its English name was changed from Darkie to Darlie.”
Yet our resident, fifth-columnist advocate of Han Chinese totalitarian world dominance presumes to lecture us on racism.
Faustus has done what he always does, which is tell one falsehood after another on behalf of his master. For instance he claims the 58 women and 1,313 men (March 2020 figure) in Australia’s immigration detention is per capita more than the 2 to 3 million Uighur, Kazakh, Krygyz detained in China’s Xinjiang concentration camps.
For a taste of what life is like in the camps:
We know that even Uighur in Australia are terrorised by Chinese authorities. We know that Uighur are too afraid to call relatives because that can result in torture and imprisonment for the relative.
Is Faustus saying Australia’s immigration detention forces folk to sign documents that forbid laughing and crying and impose the death penalty for breaking the rules?
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-million-people-are-jailed-at-china-s-gulags-i-escaped-here-s-what-goes-on-inside-1.7994216
As bad as all of the above sounds, the Xinjiang camps are a teddy bear’s picnic compared to what other groups disliked by Faustus’ handlers face. Institutionalised rape, starvation, torture and organ harvesting has been the fate of Falun Gong practitioners, for instance.
Ikonoclast, you would campaign to make the Australian prison camps more comfortable, and then they might end up as comfortable as the camps Uyghur are imprisoned in. Even then the term of imprisonment would be longer and the conditions for release much harsher. Then you’ll be on here accusing China of great crimes.
Hugo, how long have the camps been running in Australia? How many have they held at one time? The 1400 currently interned are the remnants of how many? What was their peak population? Do you believe the government’s numbers? How many are imprisoned in Xinjiang, do you know? The woman quoted in the article you link to is a fraud who has never been held in a detention centre in China.
Now Ikonoclast has moved onto the Han supremacy thing, another lie being peddled by the US “China experts”. I can tell you know nothing about China, or indeed about how racism works in Asia. But accusing others of racism doesn’t absolve you of yours.
J-D, I’m confident these guys have done nothing about Australia’s camps. I’m confident of that because no one in Australia has done or is doing anything about it. The entire nation is under a collective silence about it.
Vast concentration camps in Xinjiang:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-camps-china/
For example, here in 2013 is John Quiggin commenting on the Rudd/Gillard government. He mentions asylum seekers as one of its flaws; people in the comments (e.g. Mel) defend the ALP’s betrayal on this issue. Ikonoclast comments under this post but has nothing to say about refugee detention, only taxes. Big, brave defense of the rights of asylum seekers and the evil of prison camps in Australia from our anti-Chinese crusader!
Muslims in camps were beneath your notice when the ALP did it. Now they’re a big deal to you when the Chinese do it.
Faustus:
OK, so your CCP handlers have told you Sauytbay is lying and you’ve chosen to believe it. Problem is, her testimony merely adds to the testimony of others. What you are doing here is showing that you are cut from the same cloth as holocaust deniers like David Irving.
Orynbek Koksybeks testimony is similar to that of Sauytbay :
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47157111
Mihrigul Tursun’s testimony re the CCP concentration camps:
Mihrigul Tursun’s testimony:
//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/28/begged-kill-uighur-woman-describes-torture-us-politicians/
Good work Hugo. Now let’s compare these people’s stories (which, btw, are not true in two of the three cases, since they’re known liars) with those from Australia’s detention camps. This BBC article reports on the high levels of self-harm in children who have lived their whole lives in detention. Here is the story of Behruz Boochani, imprisoned without trial or rights for 6 years and only freed because of intervention by NZ. I challenge you to find any report in any Australian media about someone who spent only “several months” in detention in these islands, to match Orynbek’s experience. Can you find such accounts?
You’ve never even bothered to look, have you? Because you don’t care.
Do you know where the “1 million Ughur in camps” number comes from? Do you know who produced that figure or how? How did it become 3 million in a different news report? Have you bothered to investigate the source for your stories? Or do you just repeat anything bad you hear about China without checking it?
Another testimony about CCP’s racist torture camps in Xinjiang, this one from Omer Bekali:
https://apnews.com/6e151296fb194f85ba69a8babd972e4b
keep it up Hugo. Does it ever occur to you to wonder why it is that these news services have so many accounts from people who were in internment in China, but none from internees of the Australian system? Do you ponder that at all?
@Jones Yeah it’s kind of head-scratching to see some of these journalists churn out pieces contemplating such a change in character. They’re political reporters so they must follow the actions and actors of the Coalition closely, yet they seem to have no sense of history or character.
It’s Andrew Elder’s endless complaint and it really annoys me too. The Coalition will not change it’s spots, it will double down while you’re looking elsewhere and establish a new status quo, which at best the press-gallery will belatedly realise and tut-tut about. The Coalition isn’t going to suddenly start championing a green tech led recovery – even cursory attention paid to who is getting plum gigs on advisory panels etc. during this crisis, and how e.g. energy policy is being slanted would tell you that. The mind boggles.