Responding to a response about my statement on Xinjiang
The mysterious 'M' has challenged my take on Xinjiang, is there any substance to it? Or does it simply cite the CIA over and over?
This article in video form:
If you aren’t aware, reader (comrade?), the social media platform I am most active on is Tiktok. That is where I have the most following (by far) and where I post the most content (multiple videos daily). Tiktok has a feature in which it gives you the option to repost a video on the anniversary of its initial posting. Yesterday (at time of writing), a video I posted a year ago was presented to me, and I reposted it.
It was about the Uyghur Youth Initiative, and the video they made that just so happened to go viral and get millions of views. This, of course, is purely coincidental, and the fact that they were instructed to make the video by someone who works for an organization funded by a CIA cutout has absolutely nothing to do with it. Totally organic, of course, as with everything online that the CIA gets it hands on.
In this video I reposted, I accuse the members of the Uyghur Youth Initiative (UYI) of ignoring the actual Muslim genocide happening in Palestine and citing CIA propaganda to lie about a Muslim genocide that is supposedly happening in China. I base this criticism on the fact that the UYI refuses to speak about the Palestinian cause at all (because their funders are the ones complicit in the genocide), and even use pro-Palestine music in their videos about Xinjiang. The fucking audacity.
In the comments of this video I reposted, a mysterious, anonymous user with the simple moniker ‘M’, and a PFP with a cat wearing a kufi, posed a question. They asked me to prove my claims (hey, that’s my line!)
I, of course, linked them to the website that I hijacked from the UYI themselves after they so carelessly let the domain expire. It has a nice little breakdown of the UYI themselves and the propaganda they spread. If you want to know more about that, read my previous article or watch my YouTube video about it:
Within hours of me providing them with the link that backs up my claims, they had responded with an entire god damn Google doc addressing them. So allow me to… address that. Here’s the doc, and here’s a backup for if it ever goes down. Let’s dive right in.
Before you read my response I would like to say that I fully read your post on your website (https://whatifithappenedtoyou.com/) and I would appreciate it if you take the time to read my response. I am responding to your section, "So what's really happening in Xinjiang?”. All sources that I have used for the purpose of this are acceptable in scholarly settings and from respectable sources.
Emphasis mine. Do we believe it, folks? I mean, technically there are sources about this topic that are considered ‘respectable’ and ‘acceptable’ in scholarly settings in the West, but that’s because western academia was captured by imperial interests many decades ago. I think a more important question is, would these sources hold up in the court of law? Therein lies the issue. There is a distinct lack of tangible evidence about this so-called genocide. Most of this propaganda stems from witness testimony. This testimony is done in private, never under oath, and never subject to cross examination. If you tried to present that in the court of law, you would be laughed out of the room. But of course, we’ll see what M presents.
I also noticed that in many of your comments, you respond to people bringing up valid criticism and points by saying “Prove it, no CIA” but using American-based and funded sources yourself. I understand that you have a different worldview than my own but I believe it is important we discuss and debate topics like this to come towards a better understanding of issues at large.
So here’s another issue. The reason I use western sources when possible is because those are the only sources that western liberals tend to accept. They love Wikipedia, so if I can cite it, I do. But here’s the thing: western sources are biased against China. If I use them in defense of China, there is no issue. A western source is only bad when it is used to reinforce a commonly held opinion in the west. If I am using a western source that goes against western interests, then it is no issue. A valid point to mention instead of this, would be if I had a habit of citing Chinese government sources. Which I don’t.
In response to my claim that 30 Muslim majority countries sent diplomats to tour Xinjiang and they had nothing but good things to say, M responds with:
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence which clearly shows that China is currently engaging in genocide against the Uyghur people. I understand your point that 30 diplomats from Muslim nations have visited Xinjiang and stated that China is doing an excellent job, however, it is just as important to note that many of these nations rely on China's economic support through the Belt and Road initiative, so they wouldn’t risk talking bad about China.
This is a common response I receive when I provide this source and it disturbs me to great lengths. It’s Islamophobic, for one. To assume that every single Muslim majority country (except the one in NATO) would ignore the suffering of their fellow Muslims just because they might have financial ties to China, is frankly racist. It also makes zero sense. The inverse to the support of China from almost every Muslim majority country, is the condemnation of China from every white western country that is in the Imperial Core. So the Muslim majority countries are lying because they’re all corrupt, but the white western countries (who routinely bomb Muslims) are telling the truth and aren’t corrupt? Yikes. Might want to give that a second thought, M.
They continue:
It's also very important to note and take into consideration that China, has been extremely reluctant to allow United Nations investigators, independent agencies or journalists into the nation to see Xinjiang in the past. I believe the case here to be that China had these diplomats follow an orchestrated visit plan to ensure that these diplomats only saw what the Chinese government wanted to see. In 2018, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern over the disturbing reports of mass detentions in Xinjiang and called on China to allow UN observers into the region (OHCHR, 2022). However, these initial attempts were met with strong resistance from the Chinese Government, who denied all allegations and refused entry to the UN observers (Forbes, 2021)
So again, we’ve got some glaring hypocrisy here. M claims that China only showed Muslim majority countries what they would want them to see. But, China is also bad for not letting white western nations in, who would lie and fearmonger about everything they would see. Case in point, when China allowed the BBC to tour a vocational school, and they completely misrepresented everything they saw, and told the viewer how they should feel about it while spooky music plays in the background. After fearmongering for the entire broadcast, at the end of it (by which point the majority of viewers would have tuned out), they show themselves sneaking back to the outside of what they call a ‘prison’, only to see Uyghurs heading home for the weekend. Genius reporting, BBC.
So how about those UN reports? Let’s start with the 2018 statement. Here’s an article about it:
U.N. says it has credible reports that China holds million Uighurs in secret camps
Reuters
Interestingly, this is the origination of the ‘1 million Uyghurs detained’ lie. I suspect this will eventually be known as the Lie of the Century, when the majority of people have the benefit of hindsight to look back on it.
A United Nations human rights panel said on Friday that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in what resembles a "massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy."
The UN member who made this egregious claim, Gay Mcdougall, didn’t provide a single citation. She referred to ‘reports’ but didn’t specify which, and from where. Utterly useless, fearmongering nonsense. That Chinafile article I just linked gives us a good idea of what these reports would have been, though. The first two entities to make this claim were Adrian Zenz and the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).
Adrian Zenz is an employee of the US Government. He is the architect of the Lie of the Century, and this is far from the last time you’ll see him mentioned in this article. He is a Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VoC), which is based in Washington, DC (of course). The VoC was started by an Act of Congress just after the end of the Cold War with the express goal of spreading anti-communist propaganda against America’s new communist target: China. The VoC is very closely tied to the architects of Project 2025, by the way. The Heritage Foundation. They share a founder.
Zenz made his estimate based on documents that were leaked from an anonymous source. A source which almost certainly doesn’t exist, and documents that are almost certainly forged. Zenz really loves leaked (leaking?) documents.
CHRD is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit (of course) and they based their estimate off of interviews with 8 Uyghurs. Yes, 8. Not 80, not 800, and certainly not 8000. Only 8. With that info, they extrapolated how many Uyghurs were detained in the entire region, and reached that magical one million number. That’s right, a study that encompasses 12 million people used n=8, and the UN essentially cited it. Tell that to your statistician friend, if you have one. Be sure to film their reaction and send it to me.
Now, before we take a look at the 2022 UN report that M cited, let’s look at their Forbes article. Here it is:
United Nations: China Denies Allegations Of Organ Harvesting
Forbes
Yeah… it’s organ harvesting propaganda. Straight from the Falun Gong, a deranged cult that among many other issues, was recently charged by US authorities for money laundering. They’re also racist, homophobic, Trump supporters. The UN (and Forbes) directly cites this cult:
The response follows the June 2021 concerns expressed by a group of U.N. independent experts at allegations of organ harvesting carried out on minority groups including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China.
Hmm, I wonder why China is reluctant to let the UN investigate within their country? Maybe because they take testimony from vile cults at face value?
Anyways, let’s look at the 2022 UN report, finally. Here it is:
UN Human Rights Office issues assessment of human rights concerns in Xinjiang, China
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Well technically that’s an article about the report. Here’s the actual report (PDF warning).
I’ve debunked this report many times, in Tiktok videos, in Substack articles, in YouTube videos, everywhere. It’s bullshit. I’ve mentioned many times that the UN High Commissioner at the time of release, Michelle Bachelet, didn’t even sign the thing and resigned immediately upon its release. I’ve asked who was pushing so hard for it to be released (you know). I’ve pointed out how the majority of its citations are to CIA funded think tanks like the ASPI (which we’ll get to) or US government workers like Zenz. I’ve pointed out how it doesn’t claim genocide, or even human rights violations. They say human rights violations may be occurring. They can’t even conclusively determine that.
For an example of how ridiculous this report is, we need to look no further than the third citation on page 1:
3. For a list of articles and media pieces on the situation in XUAR, see “Bibliography of Select News Reports & Academic Works”, compiled by M. Fiskesjö, available at: Bibliography - Uyghur Human Rights Project (uhrp.org)
The UN recommends you, the reader, to head to the Bibliography created by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) to learn more about the situation. The UHRP was started with a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Here is a page from the NED’s website where they brag about giving millions of dollars to ‘Uyghur Advocacy’ Groups to spread propaganda about China. The UHRP is listed as one of the recipients.
The NED is a regime change organization of the US government. Both of the founders admitted it’s a CIA cutout. Carl Gershman said that the NED was created because, "It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA”. Allen Weinstein said, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."
Oh, and Carl Gershman is also on the National Advisory Panel of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Adrian Zenz’ outfit. This propaganda is very circular, as you’ll see.
Oh, and one more thing, the UHRP was co-founded by an alleged sex pest, Nury Turkel.
Anyways, if you download the PDF of UHRP’s bibliography (linked above) and hit CTRL-F, you’ll get 585 results for the search term ‘Zenz’. Wow. Better yet, search ‘rfa.org’ and you’ll get 1411 hits. Radio Free Asia is US state media, founded by the CIA during the Cold War specifically to spread anti-communist propaganda about America’s enemies. It’s currently operated by US Congress through the USAGM. Like Zenz, this isn’t the last time you’ll see them in this article.
But yes, the 2022 UN report that M cites explicitly tells people to read the Bibliography of an org funded by a CIA cutout, which cites a US government worker over 500 times and an American state media outlet started by the CIA almost 1500 times. Yikes.
Let’s see if M can redeem themselves. In response to my claim that a small portion of Uyghurs in Xinjiang were radicalized by ISIS to commit over 200 terror attacks, M says:
From my research, I agree with you that only a few hundred Uyghur people joined ISIS. As you said this is a tiny portion of the Uyghur population (There are roughly 11 - 12 Million Uyghur people within Xinjiang). I also don't disagree that there were 200 terror attacks committed by the Turkistan Islamic Party from 1997 onwards.
Good. We agree on something. I do find the wording here interesting, M seems to want to emphasize that it’s only a small portion that were radicalized by ISIS. I want that to be clear as well, though, because only a tiny portion of Uyghurs were actually arrested during the ‘crackdown’ that started in 2017. Western propagandists like Zenz want to combine two different types of facilities that existed in Xinjiang as a result of this ‘crackdown’. Vocational schools, which are simply used to prepare Uyghurs who were previously living in underdeveloped villages without modern amenities to enter the modern, working world, and actual prisons, for violent offenders. These are completely different things. The west wants you to believe that all vocational schools are actually concentration camps or whatever. They aren’t.
The only motivation I could see for M wanting to emphasize this on their end, is if they believe Zenz and CHRD when they use junk science to claim that a million+ Uyghurs have been ‘detained’ in ‘camps’. In that case, punishing a million people for the actions of a select few would obviously be bad. Surely M doesn’t believe that, though? They wouldn’t believe such silly propaganda, right? I’m not about to be immediately proven wrong, am I? *wink wink*
In response to my claim that the CPC arrested the small portion of radicalized extremist Uyghurs and also established vocational schools (separately), M said this:
First, You didn’t include any sources for this claim.
Yea… I don’t have the burden of proof in this instance. We’re talking about whether or not China is doing a genocide or at least committing human rights violations against their Uyghur population. If someone believes that is happening, they must prove it. I have no obligation to provide a source for anything, as it is impossible to prove a negative. M, if you read this, feel free to completely disregard any ‘claims’ I make that you feel require a source. It isn’t important to the matter at hand. You must prove your allegations. Let’s continue:
The Chinese government intervened and arrested Uyghur terrorists but they also arrested thousands of innocent Uyghur people under the guise of “re-education”. According to various sources, an estimated one to two million Uyghurs are detained in what is known by the Chinese government as “vocational training centers” (Genocide Watch, 2023) (CNN, 2021).
Oof. They did the thing. They not only claimed a million Uyghurs are detained, they said it could be as high as 2 million. Once again, this is exactly what Gay Macdougall baselessly claimed at the UN in 2018, without even citing sources. And once again, what she was referring to could only have been Government Worker Adrian Zenz with his ‘leaked documents’, and Washington, DC based CHRD with their sample size of 8. But of course, let’s take a look at M’s citations here. This is the first:
Genocide Emergency: Xinjiang, China
Genocide Watch
Genocide Watch is an NGO headquartered in Washington, DC (of course), founded by a fed, and with a Board of Directors/Advisors composed of a bunch of American feds, NATO pervs and military members. Great source, I’m sure they’re interested in human rights.
The report that I believe M is citing is a quick little one-pager. Nice. It directly cites Adrian Zenz. Not so nice. It states:
Since 2017, between 800,000-2,000,000 million Uyghurs have been held in Xinjiang's concentration prisons, commonly referred to as "re-education camps."
Even though many keywords (like ‘Since 2017’ in that excerpt) in this report are blue, as if they should be hyperlinks, they are not hyperlinks. Therefore, I cannot verify the source of Genocide Watch’s claim here. Too bad, I bet it’s something super interesting. Anyways, it mentions Zenz by name, so it’s invalid anyways.
But on the page that M directly linked to, they have this cute little table:
Genocide Watch, which is, once again, run by a bunch of feds, labels China as Alert Status ‘Emergency’ and Genocide Stage 9: ‘Extermination’. Huh? Here is their explanation on Stage 9:
Extermination begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.”
There’s more, but I feel like that’s the important part. Is Genocide Watch claiming that China is exterminating Uyghurs? Mass killing them? Because not even the CIA itself claims that. In fact, their own one-pager report doesn’t claim that. What the hell is going on here?
There’s a good rule of thumb to see if these organizations are complete bullshit or not. We must see what they think about what’s happening in Palestine. After all, at least 40 countries in the world say Israel is committing genocide. Amnesty International and our friend the UN also says they are. So what does Genocide Watch say? Here’s their page on Israel/Palestine, and here’s the table:
Wait wait wait a second here. So China is apparently in the process of exterminating people, but Israel isn’t? It’s only a genocide ‘warning’? It’s only up to Stage 7, ‘Preparation? What happened to the hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians? They just ceased to exist of their own accord?
Genocide Watch is also both-sidesing the Genocide in Palestine. They claim that Hamas is one of the perpetrators, and that the targeted groups include Israelis and LGBTQIA+ people (I assume they claim that Hamas is targeting them, instead of Israel with their indiscriminate bombs).
M, did you actually look into this organization? This is wild, my mysterious friend. Here’s their next citation for the same excerpt:
‘Some are just psychopaths’: Chinese detective in exile reveals extent of torture against Uyghurs
CNN
This article uses an anonymous source:
The ex-detective turned whistleblower asked to be identified only as Jiang, to protect his family members who remain in China.
Utterly useless.
CNN cannot independently confirm Jiang’s claims
Yep, figures. Anyways, the claim that M is trying to prove with this source is that up to 2 million Uyghurs have been detained. Here’s the relevant part:
The US State Department estimates that up to 2 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017.
M, buddy, you’re citing the god damn US State Department. Why are you doing this? This is outdated, anyways, the State Department isn’t even claiming this any more, they’ve shifted gears to accuse China of forced labor (which also isn’t true, obviously).
This propaganda was weak when it was current and ‘relevant’, and it isn’t even current anymore. Here’s what M says next:
These facilities are described as deradicalization camps by the Chinese government, their purpose is to deradicalize those who the Chinese government believe has been radicalized. In reality, these centers operate as sites of torture, indoctrination, and forced labour. Multiple reports and sources that cover this genocide highlight how the Uyghur people who are being detained within these camps face systemic abuse such as sexual violence and forced sterilization (OHCHR, 2022) (USIP, 2023) (HRW, 2021).
Great. New claims. Sexual violence and forced sterilization. Source numero uno is the same 2022 UN report from before. Sigh, let’s see the relevant citation:
Numerous research and investigative reports published since that time by a diverse range of non-governmental organizations, think-tanks and media outlets – as well as public accounts by victims – have alleged arbitrary detention on a broad scale in so-called “camps”, as well as claims of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, and forced labour, among others. 3
Emphasis mine. That what fucking citation 3 is. The one that goes to the UHRP Bibliography that cites Zenz 500+ times and Radio Free Asia 1400+ times. Wow. But hey, you know what, there’s actually a second source in that same citation that I skipped over the first time. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not some CIA nonsense?
3. […] public victim accounts are available on the Xinjiang Victims Database: www.shahit.biz.
The Xinjiang Victims Database. I’ve obviously covered it before. It’s a database of supposed victims of China’s wrath. It’s user submitted; anyone can submit someone who they claim has been arrested or abused or killed or whatever. When you submit a victim, you’re supposed to provide a source along with it.
I did a little experiment with this source. It’s a database, right? So it should be searchable? Well, sort of. They have a page of lists. You can download a spreadsheet or PDF of a subset of the entries that all share a specific feature. I found the biggest list, which is of entries that mention specific prisons. It has 26,999 entries of the total 83,911 that exist in the whole database.
It’s so long that it has to split the PDF into 6 parts. I just downloaded the first part, it’s a 12 MB file, which is big for a PDF, and it took forever to load. I hit CTRL-F and searched for ‘Radio Free Asia’. I got 358 hits. That’s the problem, right? When people submit these ‘victims’, they’re just citing CIA reports about it.
There’s something I forgot to mention earlier about RFA. They almost exclusively use anonymous sources. Yes, it’s US State Media, originally started by the CIA, and they exclusively use anonymous sources. I picked one of the RFA articles at random in this list (one of the English ones). Here it is.
RFA’s Uyghur Service received a letter last month from an anonymous former official in Xinjiang. The author of the letter said he was undergoing mandatory political education, and he and fellow cadres were shown a political study film made by the police.
Anonymous former official. This is the CIA saying “trust me bro”, and people like M… do. For some weird reason.
Next citation in this excerpt is:
Don’t Look Away from China’s Atrocities Against the Uyghurs
United States Institute of Peace
Yep, this is another governmental organization, created by Congress, just like the VoC. Why, M? From their About page:
USIP has deep partnerships with the Department of Defense, having a long history of conducting tabletop simulation exercises to help military planners and diplomats develop and implement U.S. policy.
They’re military hawks, M, they want to manufacture consent against the enemies of America to bolster defence spending to appease the three defence contractors in a trenchcoat who actually run the US.
USIP’s priorities are to counter the destabilizing influence of China and other U.S. adversaries in fragile states
Their main priority is to ‘counter China’. Come on, bud.
Here’s the relevant part of this report anyways, remember that M is using this to claim that China is sexually abusing and sterilizing Uyghurs:
Over one million Uyghurs have been imprisoned in “re-education centers” and subjected to forced labor, torture, rape and sterilization.
That link goes to another USIP report featuring Gulchehra Hoja. She’s a reporter for Radio Free Asia. Remember when I said this is all circular?
Next citation:
“Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots”
China’s Crimes against Humanity Targeting Uyghurs and Other Turkic Muslims
Human Rights Watch
Another report I’m deeply familiar with. I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t tackle this from a legal perspective. Jaq James is, though, and she’s thoroughly debunked this report in a paper from Co-West-Pro. Give it a read (especially you, M).
What I can do is the same thing I always do. CTRL-Motherfucking-F.
‘Zenz’ - 20 results
’Radio Free Asia’ - 18 results
But of course, M is using this for their claims of sexual violence and sterilization. Page 36 is about that. The first citation is this:
'Their goal is to destroy everyone': Uighur camp detainees allege systematic rape
BBC
Yes, BBC. British State Media.
Human rights groups say the Chinese government has gradually stripped away the religious and other freedoms of the Uighurs, culminating in an oppressive system of mass surveillance, detention, indoctrination, and even forced sterilisation.
That link goes to another BBC article.
China is forcing women to be sterilised or fitted with contraceptive devices in Xinjiang in an apparent attempt to limit the population of Muslim Uighurs, according to new research.
The report, by China scholar Adrian Zenz, has prompted international calls for the United Nations to investigate.
Zenz again. Full circle. There’s another part of the HRW report I’d like to highlight:
There are indications that these national birth control policies have been implemented more strictly than before in Xinjiang during the Strike Hard Campaign, out of a stated concern that resistance to family planning policy is the result of an adherence to religious extremism as an “ideological virus” that the government has determined needs to be eradicated.198
Citation 198 is a direct Zenz citation, it’s for an article he wrote for the Jamestown Foundation. It’s a Washington, DC based (of course) conservative, defence policy think tank. From Wikipedia:
Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Casey helped back the formation of the Jamestown Foundation, agreeing with its complaints that the U.S. intelligence community did not provide sufficient funding for Soviet bloc defectors
It was founded by the CIA director at the time, during the Cold War, and was created to spread propaganda about the Soviet Union. Nice.
Alrighty, in response to my claim that vocational schools were designed to prepare Uyghurs who were living in underdeveloped villages to enter the modern, working world and even enter job placement programs, M says this:
You didn't include any sources for this claim.
Once again, feel free to disregard. Burden of proof is still on you. You’ve failed spectacularly so far.
First, I would like to point out that you frame these “vocational schools” as sounding optional, this is extremely misleading because these “vocational schools” are not optional. These places serve as prisons and torture grounds for the estimated one to two million Uyghurs that have been wrongfully detained by the Chinese government.
Hello, M. I grew up in Canada. School was not optional for me. It was mandatory. I’m pretty certain it’s the same wherever you grew up. That’s totally normal. Thinking it’s wrong when it happens in China is orientalism. As for if these schools are ‘prisons’ and ‘torture grounds’ for ‘one to two million Uyghurs’, you have yet to prove that. You’ve only cited random nonsense and anonymous hearsay straight from the US Government.
Second, many of these “job placement” opportunities you describe are forced labour camps or factories. While forced labour is not explicitly stated under the genocide act, it can be argued that forced labour is a tool used to cause bodily and mental harm to members of the Uyghur population which would be another violation of Article II (B). A report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report documents that Uyghur people that the Chinese government has detained are transferred from camps to factories across China (ASPI, 2020).
Oof. New player has entered the game. The ASPI. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Love them. Well, I love bringing up their funding sources. It’s fun.
From the ASPI Funding Page, 2022-2023:
The ASPI, for one, was started by the Australian government to give recommendations on defence policy to… the Australian government. They’re a wholly owned commonwealth corporation. Secondly, as you can see above, in addition to the ~4 million they receive yearly from the Australian State Department and Department of Defence, they also receive ~3.4 million per year from Overseas Governments. Mainly the US, but also several other enemies of China. This is essentially the Australian USIP (cited previously). They want to manufacture consent against China to increase defence spending.
ASPI also receives funding from defence contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, obviously. These are the entities that create the weapons that are currently being used to slaughter Palestinian children.
I highlighted my favorite entry above just for you, M. Almost half a million dollars for ‘Disinformation and social-media projects’. Wildly ironic. Of course, this isn’t the ASPI and the US State Department straight up admitting that they’re doing disinformation on social media, but it’s hilarious because that is exactly what the ASPI exists to do.
Here’s the website they created with that half a million. This project trawls Twitter to find ‘disinformation projects’ from government actors. Here’s the list of countries they identified as bad actors:
Notice something missing? No Australia, no USA. In fact, none of ASPI’s funders appear on this list. What a crazy coincidence, right??? It’s almost like when an organization is funded by someone, they are biased in favor of that entity! Wow, what a surprise!
Of course China is on the list. And Cuba, and Russia, and Iran, all of America’s biggest enemies. Now of course, it could technically be true that the US just isn’t doing disinformation operations on Twitter, right? That could be why they’re not here, instead of because of the extreme conflict of interest, right? Oh wait:
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic
Reuters
This was done on Twitter, by the way. The Pentagon used sock puppet accounts to spread memes to try to convince people in the Phillippines not to take China’s COVID vaccine, Sinovac. There was almost certainly a death toll due to these actions, by the way. US disinformation campaigns on Twitter literally kill people.
Better update that website, ASPI! Toot-suite.
Well, now that we know who the ASPI is, let’s see this citation:
Uyghurs for sale
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Jaq James from Co-West-Pro also debunks this article from a legal standpoint, by the way. Go read her paper.
This report is being cited for the claim that China does forced population transfers from ‘camps’ to factories.
The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority1 citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.
Emphasis mine. Utterly useless report. This is vibes-based reporting from an organization funded by China’s enemies. I don’t particularly care if the ASPI thinks that these conditions ‘strongly suggest’ forced labor. They’re just job placement programs. The US has those. So does Australia. Vocational schools train Uyghurs to work in certain areas, then they get offered a job to work at. God fucking forbid.
I do love that they mention Volkswagen here as one of the ‘well-known global brands’ that employ Uyghurs. Volkswagen has done multiple audits of their plant in Xinjiang. Both times they found zero evidence of forced labor:
Volkswagen says audit finds no sign of forced labour at Xinjiang site
Reuters
They used a ‘German human rights due diligence firm’ and did ‘on-site interviews and inspection of employee contracts and salary payments for the site's 197 employees.’
"The employees are paid above average and have little to do," Loening said, highlighting that the plant, which previously assembled the Santana model, now only handled "technical commissioning and deliveries to the region".
Paid above average and not overworked. The audacity of the CPC! How dare they treat their minority population this way!
Skechers isn’t mentioned by ASPI in that paragraph but they also did an audit of their Xinjiang operations and also found zero evidence of forced labor:
Since the ASPI Report was published, Skechers has conducted two additional audits of Lu Zhou, including an unannounced audit in June 2020 specifically directed at investigating the ASPI allegations and another audit in November 2020. Neither of these audits revealed any indications of the use of forced labor, either of Uyghurs or any other ethnic or religious group, nor did the audits raise any other concerns about general labor conditions.
Do you know who does have legalized, forced labor? The USA does, of course. You know, ASPI’s main overseas funder?
Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
Associated Press
If you’ve consumed products from any of these companies, they were likely produced using forced labor:
The US never abolished slavery, they simply modernized it into the Prison Industrial Complex. They made up laws and introduced drugs to black and brown communities specifically so that they could imprison mostly black and brown people and use them for slave labor. Unlike the ‘slaves’ in China, they aren’t paid above average salaries (they might make a dollar an hour if they’re lucky, but many make nothing) and they are definitely overworked.
The US has 25% of the world’s prison population despite having only 5% of the world’s total population, meaning they imprison 5 times more people than the world average.
But still, the US passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which is designed to take jobs away from Uyghur people in Xinjiang. They did this without ever actually providing any evidence that forced labor is happening, and ignoring actual audits of factories in Xinjiang like the ones Volkswagen and Skechers did. But wait, I thought the US cared about Chinese Muslims? Why are they preventing them from earning a living?
Gee, I sure wish some organization would publish a report on the forced labor problem in America, and how they project their own atrocities onto their enemies. Maybe the ASPI could do it? Oh wait, they don’t report negatively on their funders. Which is why they should never be cited by anyone who values unbiased reporting.
The ASPI report that M cited also directly sources Adrian Zenz multiple times, by the way. It’s all a fucking circlejerk. Pathetic nonsense.
M continues:
Within these factories, Uyghur detainees are forced to work under dangerous and oppressive conditions. Uyghurs are denied basic labour rights and subjected to dangerous working conditions, and long and hard hours with very little or no compensation for their work. These factories supply goods to major international brands, implicating global supply chains in the exploitation of Uyghur labour (ASPI, 2020). The US Department of Labour confirmed that forced labour is used in the textile, electronic and agricultural industries within China (DOL, 2024). International corporations have played an indirect role in the Uyghur genocide by benefitting and profiting from forced labour.
The same ASPI report cited again, skipped. Next link is to a US Department of Labor report. Another US government source. It cites Zenz three times and ASPI once. I was wrong before, I said USIP is like the American ASPI, but the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is actually the ASPI of the US. They have the same types of funding and the same goals. This DOL report cites CSIS too. What’s wrong with you, M?
Finally, in response to my claim that the de-radicalization facilities and vocational schools closed years ago and that Xinjiang is open for tourism, M says:
There is some evidence to suggest that China closed some of their detention camps but it is clear that China has replaced these camps with high-security prisons. Journalists from NZZ published an article in March of 2024 after visiting the Xinjiang region to see these camps themselves. The first camp/prison the journalists visited seemed unused however the second camp they visited was clearly in use (NZZ 2024).
M, they were just always prisons. China has prisons. People in China commit crimes, too. This is more orientalist nonsense. It’s really interesting that M cited NZZ here though, because I recently found this article and was planning to debunk it. Kismet?
There’s an interesting history with NZZ’s reporting on Xinjiang. NZZ is a Swiss-German publication, and in 2023 they sent a few German sinologists and a lawyer to tour Xinjiang. They reported that things were normal there. I covered this story myself here on Substack.
Now here’s what happens when a publication like NZZ posts something that doesn’t demonize China enough: the CIA steps in to ‘correct’ things. A mere 4 days after the original article was published, another one was posted on NZZ:
The Chinese government commits genocide against the Uyghurs
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
It’s google translated to English, but it’s probably just as blunt in German. Not beating around the bush, eh CIA? Here’s the footnote in this article:
Dolkun Isa is president of the Uyghur World Congress; Rizwana Ilham is President of the Uyghur Association Switzerland.
This is who wrote the thing. Dolkun Isa, for one, is an alleged sex pest, just like Nury Turkel who I mentioned earlier in this article. Here’s the same article about that again if you missed it. This man (allegedly!) used his position as the president of an ‘Uyghur advocacy’ organization to prey on women. Gross. Allegedly.
But, of course, he’s also on the CIA payroll. Not surprising for an (alleged😉) sex pest. He used to run the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which is also listed on that NED article I posted above. Here it is again.
The WUC is actually an umbrella organization. The other author of this article is from the Swiss Uyghur Association. It’s under the WUC’s umbrella. Which means they’re also connected straight to the CIA.
So what happened here, is Dolkun Isa (the alleged sex pest on the CIA payroll) was sent to correct the record on what’s supposedly happening in Xinjiang after someone told the truth. To lend credence to his article, he got someone from their affiliate group in Switzerland (remember, NZZ is Swiss-German) to co-author it so that it doesn’t seem too obvious that the CIA is stepping in.
If this alone doesn’t prove to you that you’ve been lied to, M, you don’t care about the truth.
But here’s the actual NZZ article M cited:
Has China really closed it’s reeducation camps in Xinjiang?
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Is this perhaps the result of another CIA directive? Let’s see.
The article made waves internationally. Last year, two German experts on China wrote in a guest article for the NZZ that the camps «have now largely been dissolved.» They demanded, «If the human rights situation continues to normalize demonstrably, the EU should enter into dialogue and reconsider the sanctions imposed on China over Xinjiang.»
The reality is more complex, however, as an NZZ investigation in Xinjiang shows. On a weeklong trip in November, NZZ journalists visited 30 prisons in various parts of Xinjiang – a region five times the size of Germany.
So they claim the authors were just simple, woefully mistaken guests and so they sent some real journalists to actually check it out.
The exact locations of the camps were pinpointed by the think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) using satellite images. The think tank, which is partly funded by governments in Australia, Japan, the U.S. and Europe, classifies both reeducation camps and prisons under the term «detention facilities.» Based on satellite images, ASPI found in 2020 that there were 384 such detention facilities in Xinjiang at peak times.
ASPI, oof. Hey, at least they do mention the ASPI’s funding. They don’t talk about how the ASPI has documented instances where they prove they’re biased towards their funders and against their funders’ enemies, though.
The second camp the NZZ visited was still in operation. The village of Dabancheng is a district of Urumqi and located just over an hour's drive southwest of the capital, in front of a picturesque mountain range. According to ASPI, the prison was rebuilt in 2019. A handful of people were waiting outside the visitors' entrance, possibly relatives of detainees. Cars and buses were parked next to it.
The first ‘camp’ was closed. The second one was active. Yep, as I said, China has prisons. Nothing strange there.
M continues:
Further, the journalists found the location of these camps by referencing previously mentioned data from an ASPI report and The Xinjiang Data Project (https://xjdp.aspi.org.au/map/?). In my opinion, this accuracy further reinforces the legitimacies of the data published by the ASPI. Of the 30 camps NZZ visited, 23% (7 camps) still appear to be still in use.
M is directly citing ASPI here again, no surprise there. They directly mention the Xinjiang Data Project. From the About page:
The initial phase of this research project is supported by the US government’s State Department, but we are actively seeking further funding to continue this research project.
Right straight from the State Department.
But again, M, you have cited nothing that proves these facilities aren’t just regular ol’ prisons like every country on earth has. You also haven’t shown that the vocational schools that China readily admitted to having were in fact sinister ‘camps’. You haven’t proven that China used sexual violence and forced sterilization against Uyghurs. You haven’t proven the State Department’s allegations of forced labor. You’ve just cited the CIA, over and over and over again.
M also attached three reports that they say they wrote to their document. This article is already way too long, so I’m not touching them, but I skimmed through the sources and it’s just the same (and also more!) CIA slop again and again.
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