[margoaroyo]

My point was that yes, Oerdin is correct - insofar as China and Iran are making rather spurious cases for their actions based on some abstract foreign justification. My post about America's own examples was meant to show that most nations do this too, including my own nation - not just "repressive" nations (and no, I do not consider America to be a repressive nation). I've stated this point more than once in this thread, but it doesn't appear to be doing much good. Not that that surprises me anymore.

Did you have some kind of recent example of America defending domestic policy with claims that dissent against it was a "foreign plot"?

[we0MA4MI]

To Kitschum: Agreed on the difference between de jure and de facto. I believe the Chinese constitution is typical of many socialist countries', in that they promise considerably more protections than democratic countries' constitutions, but in reality they fall far short of their lofty aspirations. Chinese laws, as you say, are one thing - but the economic and political situation on the ground in Xinjiang are another entirely, and I agree with your point that unequal application of the laws are a reality. I'm very much of the opinion that the central government needs to re-examine its policies and it may be in the best interests of all parties involved to consider steps even as extreme as a devolution of governance in the area (depending on how strong the separatist sentiment is, and across what spectrum of Uighur citizens).

Concerning your other point - about China's lack of historical contacts and the assertion that the Communist government essentially occupied a foreign nation - I do contend this. I will go back to the relevant sources and read up on the subject before making any assertions of fact, though. I am fairly certain that Han majority rule had been imposed on parts of modern Xinjiang long before the Manchus took power in the Qing dynasty. I believe such rule was imposed intermittently.

I'm particularly interested in the issue of sovereignty and nationhood, and how they would be interpreted under current international laws. (East Timor's separation from Indonesia would be a really good case study to give guiding principles on what makes an area part of a country.) This will have to wait until I dig out my law books though, for which delay I apologize.


To Kuci:

Did you have some kind of recent example of America defending domestic policy with claims that dissent against it was a "foreign plot"?

The domestic/foreign policy distinction is something you've introduced post-facto to the argument - neither my post nor Oerdin's makes any mention of it. My point with the post is that large numbers of voting Americans (myself included) feel strongly about the Bush administration's poor rationales for taking us into the war - and accusations of foreign plots were foremost among them. In both cases, a government has generated domestic support through manipulations and misrepresentations.

I'm not interested in following you down arbitrary self-defined discussion paths, so if it's that important to you then go ahead and assume nolo contendere on this point.

[arindiruppyr]

There's a huge distinction between "fearmongering about other nations" and "using other nations as a scapegoat for your own problems".

[Knqzjbmf]

Also, AC: as much as you claim to oppose the PRC's policies (and I believe those claims are in good faith), I know you know that "the US did this too" is always the first argument of apologists.

[Pharmaciest2007]

Is AC saying that China is over a century behind the West?

Plus Obama has apologized for everything we have ever done so our slate is clean

[drugstore]

Yet more bad news.

China reimposes curfew on Urumqi

There was also another BBC story about how the Chinese leadership ordered mosques to be closed Friday, but now I can't find it. Maybe it got merged into the curfew story.

Summary: The Chinese authorities tried to close the mosques early Friday, but many mosques defied the curfew and opened anyway. Unsurprisingly, this attempted closure triggered at least one protest rally and sentiments are even worse.

As is usual for the Chinese government, foreign press were kept on tight leashes and basically told they were free to leave the country but not much else. (Although that conflicts with an earlier (Wednesday) BBC news report that suggested the Chinese was trying to co-opt the foreign media to put a more pro-China spin on things... that might have been from before the curfew was re-imposed.)

Further missteps by the Chinese leadership, in my opinion. I honestly don't see how this is going to help. Granted, there might be some vague abstract security gain by shutting down mosques, but the move is sure to cause outraged sentiments among peace-abiding Muslims who just want to observe their religious duties.

And (on paper at least) mosques are supposed to be places of peace and calm and introspection. I can't imagine that angry calls for violent overthrow would be welcome in most of the mosques, anymore than it would be tolerated in any religious place of worship.

Maybe the Chinese have some weird piece of insider intelligence pointing to a specific threat, but I can't imagine that's very likely.




(To Kitschum: I have not forgotten about your post and am still getting round to the facts on it. Stay tuned.)

[BWJfEkOB]

My take is the Chinese authorities are running scared. This seems to have caught them completely unawares, given that Urumqi is usually a quiet city. Even President Hu Jintao cancelled his G8 summit participation to go back to deal with this crisis.

I guess it's good news (of a sort) that the Chinese are placing this on such high priority that it overrides the president's overseas social engagements. But it's bad news that their response to date has been so cack-handed.

At times like this, if you want to be sending in police to keep the peace, you don't want to be alienating the same people you're supposedly trying to protect. Even at the height of the most recent Iraq war, the US army exercised care and caution not to hit religious targets, even if there were some indications they might be housing insurgents, because there's a strong likelihood that it would result in little tactical gain versus much heavier reputational losses.

China's hard line stance on separating religion from politics is another issue that has much greater reverberance in Xinjiang and Tibet. Both provinces had ethnic minorities that had a different religion from much of the central provinces, and their ethnic minorities placed considerably greater cultural weight to these religions. So any anti-religious policy, even if applied seemingly evenly across the nation (which is in itself a somewhat questionable hypothetical) would have greater actual adverse effects on Xinjiang and Tibet than elsewhere.

[sandyphoebetvmaa]

The Chinese gov should hold plebiscites in these regions to see if the citiizens want to remain part of China or not.

I won't hold my breath waiting for them to do so.

[lLianneForbess]

Well, many colonies or border provinces have been held as part of the country's territories by a strong metropolitan centralized government, only to become acclimated through time.

Are you not simultaneously arguing China has exercised control of the region for hundred of years (off and on)?

How many centuries do the Chinese need to "acclimate" unwilling citizens?

[Muhabsssa]

I wish I could remember more of my International Law class. A lot of the principles there would be really useful here - not necessarily to prove one side or another wrong, but more just to shed light on what the general international normative legal standards are for this sort of issue.

Afaik while there is something like "peoples have the right of self-determination" the (nation) state's sovereignty goes usually first. The self-determination bit usually refers to people organised in a nation state, and there is no "normal" option to break away (to execute the said self-determination) in intl law if some just want to get their own state.

In cases were certain people are clearly oppressed within a nation state the 'intl community'/UN might be pro-secession, but this usually is not acknowledged by the 'oppressor' running the nation because they can insist on their own national sovereignty and territorial integrity coming always first and that any such conflicts are internal affairs only. Which side is the legitimate one is usually object to lots of political meddling due to various interests...

[jamisi]

Afaik while there is something like "peoples have the right of self-determination" the (nation) state's sovereignty goes usually first. The self-determination bit usually refers to people organised in a nation state, and there is no "normal" option to break away (to execute the said self-determination) in intl law if some just want to get their own state.

In cases were certain people are clearly oppressed within a nation state the 'intl community'/UN might be pro-secession, but this usually is not acknowledged by the 'oppressor' running the nation because they can insist on their own national sovereignty and territorial integrity coming always first and that any such conflicts are internal affairs only. Which side is the legitimate one is usually object to lots of political meddling due to various interests...

There was a case (name I don't remember nor the year, I think it was a League of Nations case so it would be roundabout 1920s or so) which largely weakened the self-determination school of thought. IIRC it based on an island off one of the Scandinavian countries that wanted to be part of another neighboring country. The people there all voted on a referendum for the change, and the target country was willing to take them in, but the governing international body considered the request and rejected it.

It was a really weird case, too, because as I recall the island spoke the language of the target country and was in most respects closer to the target country than the host country.

Edit: It's the Aaland (Åland) Island, an autonomous island that is administered by Finland but is culturally closer to Sweden, with whom they wanted to reassimilate. The League turned this down, relying in large part on the Finnish administration's promise that Aaland would be allowed its own culture and language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85land_crisis

One other issue that dealt the self-determination school of thought a serious reputational blow was its use as a justification by Adolf Hitler during his drive to reclaim irredentist territories for Germany and Anschluß with Austria. I'm personally disinclined to condemn a given line of thought merely by the accident that a given person subscribed to it (in much the same way as I don't call all vegetarians Nazis) but it is a trend of the international legal framework that self-determination in the classic sense had its peak around the 1930s and then fell out of vogue.

It's interesting, from a purely academic viewpoint, that the main example of border changes and alterations in territorial control appear to be more heavily geared towards fragmentation than assimilation. East Germany is the primary example I can think of for a reversion of a territory into another administration's control, in recent years. (Although North Korea may well provide a second example if it collapses and the South has to pick up the pieces.) Hong Kong and Macau may or may not count to this - they were territories that merely reverted from one nation's administration to another.

Much more numerous is the breakup of a larger state into several smaller ones. The USSR's disintegration is the obvious candidate here, but Indonesia's separation of East Timor is a much more recent affair - and one largely overseen by measured international supervision, rather than a sudden accidental collapse (as was the case in the Soviet Union).

[Tactattcahhaw]

I don't know if you guys are aware of our "Clarity Act". It is where Canada is going with this issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act

[CedssypeEdids]

Interesting! So Canada is implementing a clear legal procedural structure for peaceful secession? That puts it closer to European sensibilities than to American. (Not that that should surprise you )

We are a civilized people.

It is why I think of this as a moral issue. I think a majority of Canadians (myself included) would agree to peaceful secession if Quebecers were to clearly demonstrate this is what they desire. It seems pointless to include people in your "tribe" if they don't want to be there. The problem we faced (and the impetus for the SCC references and subsequent Clarity Act) was the prospect of a bare majority on an unclear question. Canadians wanted to see the clear expression of Quebecers will to a clear question (both referendums here were on very vague questions).

As to the international law - It is vague because no two cases are ever identical. Is the region going independent or joining another? Can they be a viable independent unit? Is there dispute over borders? Have the people expressed an opinion through a free vote? Was/is a "free" vote even possible or allowed?

[CoenceLomneedtrue]

tldr

[KernJetenue]

Wezil (concerning the Kashgar article, three posts up): This reminds me that the Quebecois issue has been another keystone case for international normative law. IIRC, the significance of Quebec is that secession had been held unreasonable, based on the level of cultural allowances given to the region (not least that the whole nation is largely Anglo-French bilingual) and also that the Quebecois cannot qualify as "politically repressed" by any stretch of the definition (it's had at least one Canadian prime minister represented among its number). Given these metrics, the case I studied concluded that there was no undue hardship to the individual minority, and thus the overriding concern of national integrity was still the prevailing consideration.

I cannot recall which body handed down this opinion. It could have been a domestic Canadian court, or it's possible it made it up into the UN appellate structure. I faintly recall it was a human rights case, which may explain the rather severe level of proof of hardship they had to prove (and could not meet).

In China, clearly the political participation branch cannot be met. Given the Communist party's authoritarian nature, it's hard enough for even ethnic Han to take part in their government. Also, as you point out, the typical socialist government's march towards "progress and development" tends to hold historical sites as low in value. (During the worst of the Red Guard actions in 1966-1976, the Communist Party had to call out the army to stand guard near the Forbidden City and Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou and other UNESCO heritage sites, otherwise the ultra-radicals would have razed them.) You can see much of the same "tear down and rebuild" mentality in Beijing, where the historic city walls and hutongs are either already gone or fast disappearing.

The article you quote is further indication of this. I don't think it crosses the line into racially targeting Uighurs because they're Uighurs - but it definitely shows the CCP's insensitivity to local sentiment. It's a parallel to the dismantling of the historic Qing dynasty Manchu hutongs in Beijing and elsewhere, so in an administrative sense it's an apparently even-handed policy (even if rather heavy-handed uniformly). But looking at the actual on-the-ground effects, it's clearly not good policy and may well have uneven disparate effects. Something similar can be said about arresting the demonstrators: that can very easily be seen as an anti-Uighur measure, even if the CCP's policy is generally to make arrests at each large-scale protest of late (Han or not).

The last paragraph of the story is actually a little amusing, in a sad sort of way. The Chinese government has typically shown little regard for historical buildings, viewing them as something redundant and linked to a backwards past. But the moment that a foreign body recognizes the given site as worthwhile (as happened with several Chinese areas that were slated for redevelopment) the government reassessed it and backpedaled. This has given rise to accusations that the Chinese government either has purely mercenary grounds for deciding the fates of the sites, or they're manifesting some inferiority complex to foreign tastes, depending on who you ask.

[grubnismarl]

Wezil (concerning the Kashgar article, three posts up): This reminds me that the Quebecois issue has been another keystone case for international normative law. IIRC, the significance of Quebec is that secession had been held unreasonable, based on the level of cultural allowances given to the region (not least that the whole nation is largely Anglo-French bilingual) and also that the Quebecois cannot qualify as "politically repressed" by any stretch of the definition (it's had at least one Canadian prime minister represented among its number). Given these metrics, the case I studied concluded that there was no undue hardship to the individual minority, and thus the overriding concern of national integrity was still the prevailing consideration.

Yes, the level of freedoms enjoyed by the minority is another one of those variables. I'm not sure of the specific example you are referring to but yes, that issue was important. It is why our government and courts went the way they did with the Clarity Act. As the Int Law on this is so murky it is believed a sensible and reasonable approach to the issue would be more likely to be respected by the international community than a position of intransigence.

I cannot recall which body handed down this opinion. It could have been a domestic Canadian court, or it's possible it made it up into the UN appellate structure. I faintly recall it was a human rights case, which may explain the rather severe level of proof of hardship they had to prove (and could not meet).

I think it was UN HRC but I can't be arsed looking for it. Your summary is essentially correct.

In China, clearly the political participation branch cannot be met. Given the Communist party's authoritarian nature, it's hard enough for even ethnic Han to take part in their government. Also, as you point out, the typical socialist government's march towards "progress and development" tends to hold historical sites as low in value. (During the worst of the Red Guard actions in 1966-1976, the Communist Party had to call out the army to stand guard near the Forbidden City and Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou and other UNESCO heritage sites, otherwise the ultra-radicals would have razed them.) You can see much of the same "tear down and rebuild" mentality in Beijing, where the historic city walls and hutongs are either already gone or fast disappearing.

Agreed wrt radicals however I point out ethnic Han pulling down their own history is one thing, destroying the history of others is the problem the article addresses. I have not yet been convinced the Uyghurs are Chinese.

The article you quote is further indication of this. I don't think it crosses the line into racially targeting Uighurs because they're Uighurs - but it definitely shows the CCP's insensitivity to local sentiment. It's a parallel to the dismantling of the historic Qing dynasty Manchu hutongs in Beijing and elsewhere, so in an administrative sense it's an apparently even-handed policy (even if rather heavy-handed uniformly). But looking at the actual on-the-ground effects, it's clearly not good policy and may well have uneven disparate effects. Something similar can be said about arresting the demonstrators: that can very easily be seen as an anti-Uighur measure, even if the CCP's policy is generally to make arrests at each large-scale protest of late (Han or not).

No, it isn't the same (see above).

The last paragraph of the story is actually a little amusing, in a sad sort of way. The Chinese government has typically shown little regard for historical buildings, viewing them as something redundant and linked to a backwards past. But the moment that a foreign body recognizes the given site as worthwhile (as happened with several Chinese areas that were slated for redevelopment) the government reassessed it and backpedaled. This has given rise to accusations that the Chinese government either has purely mercenary grounds for deciding the fates of the sites, or they're manifesting some inferiority complex to foreign tastes, depending on who you ask. I think it shows how bad this government actually is.

[Pdarassenko]

That is weird. I wonder what inspired it?


Another opinion piece on Kashgar.

Urumqi, the capital of China's northwest province of Xinjiang, for most people in the West could well be on the dark side of the moon.

Yet news has seeped out of that remote region of ethnic unrest and violence as a reminder that beneath the surface of the world's fastest growing economy there is much trouble.

Xinjiang is the largest of China's provinces and the traditional home of Uighurs, a people of Turkic ancestry and Muslim faith. The region was brought under Chinese rule in the mid-18th century, named as a Chinese province in the late 19th century and, after communists took power in October 1949, reorganized as the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region.

Uighurs have chafed under Chinese rule of the majority Han people.

Their ethnic affinities lie with the Turkic people of the Central Asian states bordering China. These states -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan -- once ruled from Moscow, are now sovereign and they represent together the same longing for independence among Uighurs.

China's official figures for 2007 show Uighurs number over 10 million and comprise nearly half the population of Xinjiang. In terms of percentage, the 2007 figures indicate a sharp drop from a high in 1949 of 95% of Xinjiang's population as Uighurs.

The huge increase of non-Uighurs in Xinjiang -- rich in oil and gas reserves as in neighbouring Tibet -- is a result of Beijing's deliberate policy to secure control over these distant autonomous regions through transfer and resettlement of Han Chinese people.

Colonization

Both Uighurs and Tibetans have been made to bear the oppressive burden of Han Chinese colonization directed by Beijing. Their cultures and religious traditions have been severely constrained and under communist rule any display of cultural autonomy without Beijing's approval has been brusquely dealt with.

Kashgar in Western Xinjiang is the ancient seat of Uighurs of Western Turkestan. Several years ago travelling with a couple of friends over many weeks on the ancient Silk Road through Xinjiang into the Central Asian republics, I spent some time in Kashgar.

In Kashgar's main market and around the central mosque -- the original built in the 10th century and standing -- I witnessed the ethnic tension goaded by the unmistakable signs of Han overlordship.

Kashgar is now threatened by Beijing's plan to tear down and rebuild the ancient city. This is Beijing's way of demonstrating authority and control over the lives of Uighurs, even as their language is restricted and religious tradition mocked under communist dispensation.

To escape communist tyranny the Uighur diaspora has grown in size and now numbers over a fifth of the 10 million in Xinjiang. But neighbouring states are under immense pressure from China not to lend support to Uighur aspirations.

The recent violence in Urumqi suggests, irrespective of the immediate cause, that historic grievances of Uighurs against Beijing's tyranny will keep ethnic tensions going without any satisfactory resolution.

Communist rulers of China displayed their ruthlessness 20 years ago in crushing the aspirations of young Chinese students for democracy gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

They will do the same repeatedly in Xinjiang, in Tibet, and anywhere else in China where the desire for decency and hopes for freedom threaten their rule. They also know the rest of the world will appease them.

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/co...98201-sun.html