73 Comments

I'm commenting here after listening to the Honestly podcast "Vanished by China". That podcast and this story by Suzy Weiss were both very informative and thought provoking. So first off, thanks to Bari Weiss and all those who contribute to "Common Sense" for all their terrific work!

Secondly, I wonder if we aren't too quickly giving up on the argument that a liberalized Chinese economy will ultimately bring about China's political liberalization?

China's population is still being lifted out of a level of poverty completely unfamiliar to us in the United States. As long as there is an economic misery which is probably even more despairing than stifling political oppression, then does that not allow the CCP to maintain political legitimacy with the Chinese people until a certain tipping point arrives, a moment which is not likely to occur within the United States' timeframe?

Also, if the Chinese social order is that of a caste system, and the Chinese government is currently trying to protect the social status quo, then should we not read the frustration of political liberalization in China as a result of the CCP's retreat back toward a mercantilist economy rather than the ineffectiveness of economic openness to bring about political openness for China?

To sum up, is it possible that we've (The United States) have had the right theory, but we've been expecting it to work within too short of a time frame?

P.S.

Does anyone know where you can comment on an Honestly podcast? Thanks!!

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Praise seems gratuitous for a reportage so real but it is necessary and extraordinary. A chilling account palpable to those so far away.

Thank God you guys exist.

For anyone who wants to see a graphic (but thankfully fictional version) of not-long-gone China, Chen Kaige's 1993 "Farewell, My Concubine" is a terrifying and yet accurate depiction of Mao's land.

In more colloquial language, Bari, Suzy and Patrick rock.

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China is highly effective in building dams. The US is highly effective in enforcing PC. Which country will dominate the 21st century? The answer is obvious.

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Loved this! Thanks for sharing.

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No Jews, No News, just a million irrelevant Muslims, I suppose.

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"An open-air prison" - get ready it's coming here (the US, but regardless wherever you are)

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Bari, thanks so much for this important blog. Sorry, there's no way to contact you directly but FYI I sent a check to FAIR which was never cashed, and sent an email to the address on the website but nobody responded. So I subscribed to you instead. I want to donate, but need to get that straightened out first. Keep up the good work!

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founding

Excellent article. May we never adopt such a coercive system. There are elements in the US however, as noted, who would enforce their view of morality with similar methods.

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Look at the companies named here--Kodak (NYSE KODK), Apple (NASDAQ AAPL), Airbnb (NASDAQ ABNB)--and you quickly get the picture that these are mainly publicly-traded entities. Who owns them? The people who own their stock do. Who are those owners? They are widely diffused through investment firms, mutual fund companies, pension funds, etc. A large part of it ultimately comes down to people like you and me who are investing for retirement. We have expectations for portfolio growth and it troubles us when those expectations are not met. And I think that is a large part of the reason why companies that are little more than pass-through mechanisms for money are unlikely to behave with moral centering. It is also a source of China's power, because its ability to shut off access to its consumer market would leave many of us in an unpleasant situation.

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As I read this article and view the photos, I recall a similar process documented in “Meltdown in Tibet”, including the ethnic theme parks for Chinese tourists. And at a SF protest against Chinese occupation in Tibet about 10 years ago, a counter-protestor yells “What about Texas?” This is clearly the story of colonialism at the intra-national level.

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An excellent book just published in English translation is "The Chief Witness" by Sayragul Sauytbay and

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... Alexandra Cavelius. Sauytbay was a Kazakh living in East Turkestan, a Kazakh-majority territory that was merged into Xinjiang by the Chinese Communist government.

The book details how this impacted the Kazakhs in general and her and her family in particular. She was a teacher and then administrator of several kindergartens and witnessed what was happening. She was arrested and put in a concentration camp, where she was assigned teaching duties and say much more of the brutality.

They escaped into Kazakhstan, where she was arrested at the request of the Chinese government. The book's title refers to her trial in 2018, where the judge in the end found her not guilty. The family moved to Sweden in 2019, where she wrote this book.

I urge anyone who doubts the evils of the Communist Chinese government to read this book.

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The Lapdog UN should be closed and China shunned by capitalist countries ....not a peep from the Diplomates. Disgraceful. Tibet is next. The world will look away.

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Not to disagree with your major premise, but unfortunately Tibet was first and provided the model. And you are right. The world looked away.

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Our time is vain enough to judge the past in terms of the present. And judge mercilessly. Some of us even believe in cliches like "the right side of history" as a way of self-validation.

And I wonder: What will the future think of us? Will Xinjiang compromise all our judgment in future minds? Will some of our contemporay heroes be seen to distant future eyes as we see slave owners and colonizers now?

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Mark Rustad22 min ago

Why is any of this a surprise? Kodak sold assets to Sino Promise which previously were responsible for 56% of Kodaks annual gross revenue. Sino Promise manufactured all the assets it purchased for a few dimes on a dollar--so it now has a direct link to the consumers of it's paper and chemistry business and a greater margin on those sales. A huge portion of the remaining 36% of Kodaks Photo revenues come from within the Chinese market. Just as importantly, the newly restructured Kodak is seeking to divest from the dependency upon the photo/camera/development market by moving into pharmaceutical manufacturing, sales and distribution. Guess where they source 95+% of all their base pharmaceutical raw inputs! Bet the whole load....CHINA! If the CCP Dog Brain says wag, Kodak's tail moves. Soon enough, unless Kodak seeks India's help (the world's second largest supplier of pharmaceuticals raws and finished pills/capsules), even those efforts will fail and Kodak will fall again into bankruptcy and China will buy the whole load for pennies on he dollar. Just look at GNC....slowly the dragons tail choked out GNC's USA pulse. https://www.insideimaging.com.au/2020/kodak-paper-and-chem-to-chinese-company/

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Same thing is happening here....not sure if it will get worse here or people will wake up. Scary times ahead for the US.

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Thanks for the interview and for the photos! The world said "Never again" after the Holocaust, but somehow, atrocities keep recurring. The US and the Europeans should be taking a stronger stand against China over this and the crushing of Hong Kong, but both are preoccupied with local politics and obsessing over the pandemic. Even more surprising, not a word from the Muslim World. I grew up during the second half of the Cold War and sadly find myself more pessimistic now than I was then.

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