China's internal troubles (not the Far West)

[davidbfpo]

Was the jeep fire a "violent terrorist attack" in Tiananmen Square on Monday October 28th China's 9/11? The square IMHO is a similar iconic target, even if the two dead and thirty-eight injured are not comparable to 9/11.

The initial reporting was minimal, partly as the Chinese authorities moved rapidly to control information, taking images off Weibo (China's main social media site) for example and declaring martial law in the vicinity for a time.

Today China has admitted, citing Xinhua news agency:

The police said that what happened at Tiananmen Square was a "violent terrorist attack" which was "carefully planned and organised".

Today five suspects have been detained who it is suspected come from the Muslim Uighur minority in the restive western region of Xinjiang.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24742810 and http://news.yahoo.com/uighur-group-f...031852215.html

There is a thread which includes Xinjiang, China's Far West provinces (inc. Tibet) at:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...splay.php?f=84

[davidbfpo]

Meng Jianzhu, chief of the commission for political and legal affairs of the ruling Communist party:

The violent terrorist incident that happened in Beijing is an organised and plotted act. Behind the instigation is the terrorist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement entrenched in central and west Asian regions

According to the story:

Alleged terrorist group has not claimed responsibility and critics accuse China of using its name to excuse repression of Uighurs

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...beijing-attack

[davidbfpo]

A CSM article title and sub-title:

What the Tiananmen Square attack reveals about China's security state; China blames a Uighur separatist group for the Tiananmen car attack this week. But that's highly unlikely, analysts say.

The key point:

On the contrary, say a number of Chinese and foreign experts on security in Xinjiang. In the restive far western province where most Uighurs live, they say, it may have been the attackers’ very lack of ties to any organization that helped them evade the Chinese police.

Link:http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pa...security-state

[Ray]

Icon indeed.

But it has only caused China to 'lose face'.

And for China, one could assume it was as big an attack as 9/11.

'Losing Face' is a very big issue.

The terrorists seem to be slowly taking grip over and cocking the snook at the the Chinese 'harmony & stability' mantra.

Another iconic building, one of the State Communist HQ at Tiayuan, in the Shanxi Province was subjected to a terrorist attack, causing one death and several injured!

[davidbfpo]

An explanation for the Tiananmen Square attack, via a link in The Guardian to Radio Free Asia:

....recollected Hesen (the jeep driver) making an emotional speech soon after some 100 police officers surrounded the mosque as workers demolished the courtyard.

Hesen made the speech as he told the mosque community to stand down after they argued with the armed police.

“At that time, Usmen Hesen jumped in and persuaded the community to disperse by saying, ‘Today they have won and we have lost because they are carrying guns and we have nothing—but don’t worry, one day we will do something ourselves’,” Turdi said.

“As Usmen Hesen finished his emotional speech, [his mother] Kuwanhan Reyim (also in the jeep) went to him crying, and hugged and kissed his forehead because of her pride in him. The crowd was also moved to tears and retreated.”

Link:http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uygh...013163042.html

The Guardian article has other views and links:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ent-repression

[Bill Moore]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...03-01-13-30-50

China: Train station attack an act of terrorism

BEIJING (AP) -- China's official Xinhua News Agency says authorities consider the attack by a group of knife-wielding assailants at a train station in southwestern China in which at least 27 people died to be an act of terrorism.

Xinhua did not identify who might have been responsible for the Saturday evening attack at the Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan province. But the news agency said authorities considered it to be "an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack."

[davidbfpo]

That is a shocker. I had to check Kunming's location, it is near the Vietnamese border and a very long way from the known, occasional flash point in Xinjiang Province - where knives have been the preferred weapon in attacks. This maybe a repeat of the jeep attack in Tienanmen Square last year.

[Bill Moore]

That is a shocker. I had to check Kunming's location, it is near the Vietnamese border and a very long way from the known, occasional flash point in Xinjiang Province - where knives have been the preferred weapon in attacks. This maybe a repeat of the jeep attack in Tienanmen Square last year.

I guess it could be tied to the Uighers, but I think there are quite a few other possibilities. Heck, it could be a Green Peace like movement on steroids. If you Google unrest in Kunming you'll find several articles going back a few years.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ce-baha-attack

Chinese villagers attack factory after reports of polluting

Environmental protests are on the rise in China, with the public becoming increasingly critical of the fouling of the country's air, soil and waterways during decades of breakneck development. The unrest poses a serious political challenge to the Communist party – anger over the party's response, or lack thereof, to environmental crises has fuelled wider dissatisfaction with corruption and a lack of official accountability.

Most protests have taken place along China's developed coastal region, reflecting the area's heavy pollution from industry as well as the rising demands of the country's well-off. But the latest unrest was in rural Yunnan, indicating the protest has now spread further inland.

Yunnan's provincial capital, Kunming, was the site of large protests last year against a planned petroleum refinery that were largely peaceful despite minor scuffles between demonstrators and police.

Maybe more to the point, is the rail road itself?

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/201.../#.UxJds42Ybug

Railroading debt into Laos

The construction of an ambitious rail link between Kunming and Vientiane reflects China's growing economic clout in Southeast Asia

However, the plan sparked surprisingly vocal protests from Lao villagers whose rural communities would be at threat of being bulldozed away.

Now, both governments involved have become more determined in their bid to push ahead, and one-party states are not known for being listening for too long to the voices of those opposing bureaucratically ordained projects.

Then again terrorist attacks are not unheard of in Kunming, in the run up to the Olympics in 2008....

http://ww4report.com/node/5818

China: Kunming blasts signal growing unrest in countdown to Olympics

BEIJING — Two public buses exploded during the Monday morning rush hour in the city of Kunming, killing at least two people and injuring 14 others in what the authorities described as deliberate attacks as China is tightening security nationwide and warning of possible terrorist threats in advance of next month's Olympic Games.

While it is difficult to cease speculating, I don't claim to have a clue on what actually prompted this attack.

[davidbfpo]

I don't dismiss the possibility that the Kunming attack originates locally, but from faraway I'd still go for a link to Xinjiang - which is of course what the (official) Chinese media are indicating.

There is a thread on the violence in China's Far West, which includes Xinjiang Province:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...read.php?t=246

Normally I'd post this report there, today it is here:

Police in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on Friday shot dead six attackers, while another six died in an explosion, local authorities revealed Saturday.

Two explosions took place in a beauty salon and a grocery market in Xinhe county, Aksu prefecture at around 6:40 pm Friday. A group of terrorist suspects threw explosives at police, who were making arrests, and police opened fire and gunned down six, the Xinjiang government announced on its official website ts.cn.

Link:http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/83...l#.UxMeDuN_vk9

It is noteworthy that I've yet to see any foreign reporting from Kunming, where I'd be surprised foreign reporters are based. In the past far better, non-orchestrated reporting has come from non-Chinese sources, e.g. a visiting BBC World Service reporter in Lhasa, Tibet a few years ago.

[Bill Moore]

It is noteworthy that I've yet to see any foreign reporting from Kunming, where I'd be surprised foreign reporters are based. In the past far better, non-orchestrated reporting has come from non-Chinese sources, e.g. a visiting BBC World Service reporter in Lhasa, Tibet a few years ago.

Not surprisingly there is no additional news coming from China, what did sort of surprise me is the lack of social media reporting from Kunming. In an article I read yesterday it stated China's government effectively removed most SM comments related to the attack. That could have been done for good reasons, for example, to prevent social rage movement against the Uyghurs who may or may not have been the culprits. It may also have been blocked to cover something up.

As a tactic, the cat is out of the bag. I suspect there will be copy cat attacks in the future globally along these lines. Based on what little I could find on witness accounts it didn't seem the attackers were well versed in the best way to inflict lethal blows with a knife, since more than one witness said they were focused on the striking the head and shoulders. Probably would have been more fatalities if they chose other target areas.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...icle-1.1707232

Sean Roberts, a cultural anthropologist at George Washington University who has studied Uighurs and China for two decades, said the Kunming violence would be a new kind of attack for ethnic Uighurs — premeditated, well-organized and outside Xinjiang — but still rudimentary in weaponry.

“If it is true that it was carried out by Uighurs, it’s much different than anything we’ve seen to date,” Roberts said by phone.

If it was Uyghurs this particular group doesn't seem to be tied to Al-Qaeda (some are, and we captured and killed a few in Afghanistan over the years), because they probably would have access to explosives and other weapons. I wouldn't rule out a martial art cult either.

[Bill Moore]

China's internal ideological warfare seeks to promote so-called correct thinking and love for the f'd up communist party.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/22...-end-in-sight/

China’s Mass Internment Camps Have No Clear End in Sight
Around 1 million Uighurs have disappeared without trial. Worse may come.

It is not surprising, then, that the most common officially cited purpose for the internment camps is to purify people’s thoughts, “eliminating extremism” and instilling a love for the party. A recorded announcement leaked this month from Xinjiang’s Communist Party Youth League, designed to calm rampant fears about the re-education camps, explained that camps “treat and cleanse the virus from their brains.” The names used for camps have varied widely, both for the same camp over time and from one camp to the next, but most have included the word “transformation”—for example, “concentrated education transformation center.”

This is the real Chinese Communist Party, as ugly as it have ever been throughout its long history of repressing its people. Once again we see mass internment, and the party leveraging a youth league to impose its will. It reminds me of Mao's atrocities when he used youth leagues to conduct mass murder of teachers and others who didn't have the correct political views. Today the world can see it happen, but much of the world turns a blind eye to it. Why? To pursue a superficial Chamberlain peace in our time? In hope of gaining economic benefit through trade with China that could be damaged if they demonstrated incorrect thinking? There is a point when the illusion of the communist party as modern political party that shares many common interests with the majority of the advanced countries must end.

The content of the indoctrination reflects a new emphasis on nationalism throughout the PRC. State media outlets tout the party as China’s savior as they always have, but “China” is now more tightly linked to the culture of the ethnic majority, the Han Chinese. In this view, religions deemed foreign, for example Islam and Christianity, are seen as threats, as is the purportedly Chinese religion of Buddhism when it is practiced by non-Han people such as Tibetans. More than any leader since Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping has promoted the idea that he himself is the embodiment and protector of the Chinese nation. In some camps, inmates are required to replace the common Islamic blessing before meals, bismillah, with thanks to Xi Jinping.

It isn't just Uighers, but CCP also suppresses other religions such as Tibetan Buddhists and Christians. The state has destroyed numerous churches, and put large pictures of Xi in the churches remaining. I guess he views himself as superior to Jesus Christ, or maybe it is Christianity with CCP socialist traits? Despite this the Pope recently reached out to China to reach some sort of accommodation, but now the Pope has recently awakened from the illusion that accommodations can be made with the CCP at an acceptable cost.

There is no limit to the CCP's brashness:

The strangest of these were the coerced line-dancing competitions that spread across the region in 2014. These were supposed to move people away from “extremist” forms of Islam that forbid dance. In other places they pushed children to sign promises not to believe in God and arranged public ceremonies for pledging loyalty to the CCP.

The following is not wild speculation, there is ample historical evidence that provides credibility for this assertion.

Local officials have already expressed dehumanizing outlooks on the role of the re-education camps as “eradicating tumors” and “spraying chemicals on the crops to kill the weeds.” Should authorities decide that forced indoctrination has widely failed, much of Xinjiang’s minority population will be framed as irredeemable. And with the state-controlled Global Times claiming, in response to the recent U.N. condemnation of China’s racial policies in Xinjiang, that “all measures can be tried” in the pursuit of China’s “stability,” mass murder and genocide do not look like impossible outcomes.

When viewed as a whole, hyper-nationalism promoted by the CCP; rapid expansion of its military which it uses to coerce other nations; illegal expansion of its territory; mass internment camps, and a return to youth leagues to enforce "correct thinking, " it is clear that dangerous storm clouds are forming in East Asia. Mao used the youth leagues to kill millions, and then the CCP promoted the same behavior in Cambodia when they supported the Khmer Rouge. The trade war should be the least of our concerns. Communism is a sick form of extremism that is at least as evil as the pseudo-religious ideology that ISIS claims to adhere to.

[Bill Moore]

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...llness/568525/

China Is Treating Islam Like a Mental Illness

Here’s an excerpt from an official Communist Party audio recording, which was transmitted last year to Uighurs via WeChat, a social-media platform, and which was transcribed and translated by Radio Free Asia:

Members of the public who have been chosen for reeducation have been infected by an ideological illness. They have been infected with religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology, and therefore they must seek treatment from a hospital as an inpatient. … The religious extremist ideology is a type of poisonous medicine, which confuses the mind of the people. … If we do not eradicate religious extremism at its roots, the violent terrorist incidents will grow and spread all over like an incurable malignant tumor.

[Bill Moore]

https://www.ibtimes.co.in/after-isla...-bibles-777252

After Islam, China cracks down on Christianity; razes churches and confiscates Bibles

Police officers are known to have visited hundreds of churches in Henan, ordering that they be shut down. Officials also showed up at a church and ordered the removal of paintings of the Last Supper and wall calligraphy of Bible verses

While China is known to crack down on ethnic minority Muslims, especially in the north-western region of Xinjiang, its latest focus seems to be on the Christians residing in the country. The ruling communist party has raised serious concerns after it recently raided and demolished hundreds of churches in China and also confiscated Bibles and other holy books in the province of Henan.

[Bill Moore]

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/201...hina-and-tibet

Human Rights Watch Report on China

When a state becomes a police state it becomes a non-state. It is a political entity that is only sustained by force. A fragile mass that China risks setting ablaze with its abusive policies. Just as concerning is watching the world turn a blind eye to increasingly abusive police state.

China’s growing global influence means many of its rights violations now have international implications. In April, security officials at the United Nations headquarters in New York City ejected from the premises Dolkun Isa, an ethnic Uyghur rights activist, who was accredited as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) participant to a forum there; no explanation was provided.

In June, the European Union failed for the first time ever to deliver a statement under a standing agenda item at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) regarding country situations requiring the council’s attention. This stemmed from Greece blocking the necessary EU consensus for such an intervention due to its unwillingness to criticize human rights violations in China, with which it has substantial trade ties. Chinese officials continued throughout the year to pressure governments around the world to forcibly return allegedly corrupt mainland officials despite a lack of legal protections in China or refugee status determination procedures outside China.

At the UN Security Council, China joined Russia in February in a double veto of a resolution that would have imposed sanctions related to use of chemical weapons in Syria. In September, the council held closed-door discussions on Burmese military atrocities against Burma’s Rohingya Muslim minority; diplomats said China opposed language recognizing the right of return of the more than 630,000 Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh. While senior UN officials described the military campaign as “ethnic cleansing,” Chinese state media endorsed it as a firm response to “Islamic terrorists.”

[Bill Moore]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/02/...-rights-abuses

The Deafening Silence on China's Human Rights Abuses
Published in Al Jazeera

It is amazing that cowardly European countries feel obligated to criticize President Trump, and admittedly there is much to criticize, BUT they remain dead silent on much more important issues. At least President Trump has the courage to hold China accountable for unfair trade practices, while the EU seeks to use this opportunity for personal gain.

The question for democracies or businesses isn't whether to engage: it is how to engage in a principled manner. This means treating China like many governments treat US President Donald Trump when he makes outrageous statements or adopts retrograde policies. Democratic leaders condemn Trump's remarks about "fake news" - but don't condemn China for its censorship or propaganda. They criticise Trump for his hostility towards the UN, but have nothing to say on China's efforts to weaken the institution.

It is time for new standards to reverse these highly abnormal relationships with China. Forty years into China's "reform era", Beijing has made clear it's not moving on democracy, a free press, or an independent legal system, though courageous people continue to push for these at considerable personal risk. If powerful outside voices mindlessly engage, they not only stab these brave people in the back - they may also find themselves obliged to dance to the tune of a highly repressive government.

[Bill Moore]

https://www.rferl.org/a/china-muslim.../29503526.html

Pompeo Denounces China’s Treatment Of Uyghur, Christian Minorities

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the "awful abuses" of Muslim Uyghurs detained in Chinese reeducation camps and criticized what he said was a government crackdown on Christians in the country.

The comments on September 21 come after a recent UN report assailed China’s mass internment of Uyghurs under the pretext of preventing extremism in the western Xinjiang region.

[SWCAdmin]

Chinese Patriot League,

At first I thought you were a spammer. Almost banned you.

On second look, I see you have a cause. And it looks like you took the time to post in an appropriate forum. Thanks.

You are welcome to continue to post objective observations of significant developments on the ground, and to engage as a member in rational discussion with others. I'm leaving these posts up only because I have a glimmer of hope that you have something more to say, and will say it without cut & paste sloganism.

Don't make this a rant, and don't make random calls for activism a habit. We don't go for that here.

How would boycotting the Olympics help? What are the other options? How does it connect to the one child policy?

[SWCAdmin]

P.S. For our non-Chinese readers, here's the Google translation of the Chinese portion of the post above.

According to the report in the Apple Daily, violence by local officials to implement "family planning" (one-child) policy triggered by the Guangxi Bobai County townships of mass anti-tyranny incident. On the 17th of this month from the beginning of the incident spread Bobai County townships, The angry villagers caught fire up the township government program of the Office of the Health Station, smashing burning cars, motorcycles and other objects. On the 20th Bobai emergency authorities from neighboring Guigang, and the north, such as Rong, transferred a large number of police force to control the situation in the townships. According to local sources, the government has requested the villages were unemployed when the "Task Force" to see women can do Rafah sterilization surgery "but no one to see objects that were not on the demolition," Nabuzou it smashed, Sasha meters depth. TAN Lian town of a secondary school girls and a 50-year-old woman was picked up by recruiters surgery resulted in a number of ruined the incident. He refers to the residents, "Now the whole Bobai County streets, everywhere was covered with a 『beat SU (Mr. White County Chief), and shot Huang Shao-ming (Mr. White County)』 slogans farmer who was forced to the fire. "At present, Bobai all tense inside, outside, a police car along the street in possession of a large number of public security, County 200-meter passage on a large number of plainclothes police, more government officials on duty on the streets to prevent public access.

[goesh]

-it's just hard to keep hormones suppressed, much like keeping safety standards in mines intact over there. It seems the booming economy in China is rippling in many ways and not all for the better.

[goesh]

On the other hand, China appears to take corruption seriously. According to this FOX report, they are going to execute their former drug regulator. It appears he gave the nod of approval for some cash to some drugs that killed a few people.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,276035,00.html