You ask:

Why are supposedly Leftists so biased against the PRC, the one (somewhat) socialist government that has actually been a success at improving its citizens well-being? [sic]

It’s not a socialist government, even with the qualification “somewhat”, and speaking as someone who has been on the far left most of her conscious life I’m always offended when someone associates my banner with the conduct of repressive and/or capitalist regimes. China is a crony capitalist regime — kind of like what the mafia would be like if they achieved state power.

No, it’s not totalitarian but its brutality is pervasive.

Used to express irritatin when newcomers arrive and wreck the joint: Europeans in Australia, Han Chinese in the north west.

Another pertinent example is the State policy of “transmigration” within the Indonesian Republic with locals objecting to the arrival of Javanese, in various obscure backwaters of the archipelago. Murder, demonstratin, murfer, etc ensuing.

But as j_p_z pointed out very skilfully earlier, if you delve into the history it gets murky. Migration and change is a general phenomenon, oui?

The characters Xin & Jiang mean (New,fresh, modern) & (Boundary, Border, Frontier) so “obscure backwater” is pretty much right, literally.

In that context Australia, Aodaliya is
Ao-(inlet, bay, dock, bank)-
Da-(big, great, vast, large, high)-
Li-(gains, advantage, profit, merit)-
Ya-(Asia, second), so

Hugely profitable safe harbor/ plan B

A protest by Uighurs demanding further investigation of these killings was then subject to heavy-handed policing, which saw it turn into a riot. Further violence has apparently ensued with groups of Han Chinese committing revenge attacks.

Gotta love the slanted interpretation (“heavy-handed policing”) and use of the passive voice here (“saw it turn into a riot”).

I suggest calling a spade a spade. This was a pogrom. P-O-G-R-O-M.

The rioting Uighurs turned ugly real quick and went on the hunt for Hans to kill. The police obviously acted with restraint, from what I can see of the footage. Wikipedia’s report elaborates:

[the rioters were] targeting anyone who is a Han Chinese. Jane Macartney of The Times characterized the first day’s rioting as consisting mainly of “Han stabbed by marauding gangs of U[y]ghurs.”

About 1,000 police officers were dispatched with tasers and weapons, and they fired gunshots into the air to try to quell the unrest. Up to Sunday evening, 1,434 suspects in connection with the riot were arrested.

Soon, between 700 to 800 people went from the People’s Square to Daximen and Xiaoximen area, with “fighting, smashing, looting, torching and killing” along the way… riots continued in side streets and alleyways, with Hans being attacked and cars overturned or torched.

…according to the Times’ journalist, most of the victims appear to have been Han Chinese.

No doubt the PRC should not have sent Han Chinese to live in a nation in which they were not welcome. You would think Left-liberals should be celebrating this cultural diversity?

Committed multiculturalists should be asking themselves a couple of hard questions relating to the management of ethnic affairs here:

1. Maybe its not a good idea to introduce massive numbers of another ethnic group into a previously more or less homogeneous nation. As empires like the UK, USSR and PRC have done. (And US with Hispanics.) Once ethnic critical mass is attained it generates centripetal force which leads to enclavism.

2. Market-dominant minorities like the Han Chinese, mercantile Indians and Azkhenazi Jews are invariably subjected to pogroms. This kind of problem frequently afflicts Chinese immigrants. It may be because the locals have a xenophobic reaction. Or possibly because the Han Chinese have superior economic ability. (even in AUS, remember Lambing Flats riots?)

Robert Merkel says:

Chinese government policies towards the Uighurs, including a gradual erosion of the use of their language in the school system, and the fact that most of the economic spoils from growth seem to be going to Han Chinese.

The plight of the Uighurs, like the Tibetans, is unfortunate. In a perfect world they would have more autonomy. OTOH, the PRC govt has generally done something useful for the Han people, who are more than likely mostly responsible for producing the economic growth. Therefore, as with Cartman, we must respect the PRC’s authority.

Robert Merkel says:

While China remains a totalitarian state, it seems likely that minority rights will continue to be trampled on. But if and when the current political system changes, it will be interesting to see how China’s relationship with the ethnic minorities in its border provinces sort themselves out.

It wont be pretty. Democracy does not tend to make multi-ethnic states into nice places to live. Probably what happened when the USSR went democratic. It broke up with lots of nasty ethnic conflicts, still simmering, occasionally bursting into all out civil war eg Chechnya, Georgia etc.

Also, the PRC is not “totalitarian” by any measure. It allows capitalist enterprise and substantial contact with the outside world. The Party is fairly inclusive, recruiting Christians and capitalists. It only brings out the tanks when state sovereignty is directly threatened.

Why are supposedly Leftists so biased against the PRC, the one (somewhat) socialist government that has actually been a success at improving its citizens well-being?

And Mr/Ms Xinjiang, I suspect even your average Beijinger or Shanghaiese would regard Xrumqi as an obscure backwater, and would have almost as much trouble finding it on a map as they would Melbourne.

You think they’re that ignorant? Urumqi isn’t a Beijing or Shanghai that’s for sure. but it’s the major commercial, political and transportation hub of northwestern China and pretty much the only city in that region that stands out on a map. It’s far from being a backwater and Chinese people aren’t stupid about their own country.

Some people will believe anything. The fact that we don’t here about violence may simply be (and probably is) because the Chinese government is good at censoring things like this, and because it happens to suit both the Chinese (who want to pretend nothing bad happens in China) and the Uighurs (who don’t at present want to be seen as “muslim terroists” to the international community) to say they don’t commit nasty shit against each (much). In this respect, it seems rather hard to imagine that you can go from largely peaceful to murdering people on the streets with no intermediate stage.

A protest by Uighurs demanding further investigation of these killings was then subject to heavy-handed policing, which saw it turn into a riot. Further violence has apparently ensued with groups of Han Chinese committing revenge attacks.

Gotta love the slanted interpretation (“heavy-handed policing”) and use of the passive voice here (“saw it turn into a riot”).

I suggest calling a spade a spade. This was a pogrom. P-O-G-R-O-M.

The rioting Uighurs turned ugly real quick and went on the hunt for Hans to kill. The police obviously acted with restraint, from what I can see of the footage. Wikipedia’s report elaborates:

[the rioters were] targeting anyone who is a Han Chinese. Jane Macartney of The Times characterized the first day’s rioting as consisting mainly of “Han stabbed by marauding gangs of U[y]ghurs.”

About 1,000 police officers were dispatched with tasers and weapons, and they fired gunshots into the air to try to quell the unrest. Up to Sunday evening, 1,434 suspects in connection with the riot were arrested.

Soon, between 700 to 800 people went from the People’s Square to Daximen and Xiaoximen area, with “fighting, smashing, looting, torching and killing” along the way… riots continued in side streets and alleyways, with Hans being attacked and cars overturned or torched.

…according to the Times’ journalist, most of the victims appear to have been Han Chinese.

No doubt the PRC should not have sent Han Chinese to live in a nation in which they were not welcome. But shouldnt LP’ers be glad about such culturally mixing diversity? Committed multiculturalists should a couple of hard questions relating to the management of ethnic affairs here:

1. Maybe its not a good idea to introduce massive numbers of another ethnic group into a previously more or less homogeneous nation. As empires like the UK, USSR and PRC have done. (And US with Hispanics.) Once ethnic critical mass is attained it generates centripetal force which leads to enclavism.

2. Market-dominant minorities like the Han Chinese, mercantile Indians and Azkhenazi Jews are invariably subjected to pogroms. This kind of problem always afflicts Chinese immigrants because they are industrious and intelligent, usually more so than the locals. (even in AUS, remember Lambing Flats riots?)

Robert Merkel says:

Chinese government policies towards the Uighurs, including a gradual erosion of the use of their language in the school system, and the fact that most of the economic spoils from growth seem to be going to Han Chinese.

The plight of the Uighurs, like the Tibetans, is unfortunate. In a perfect world they would have more autonomy. OTOH, the PRC govt has generally done something useful for the Han people, who are more than likely mostly responsible for producing the economic growth.

Robert Merkel says:

While China remains a totalitarian state, it seems likely that minority rights will continue to be trampled on. But if and when the current political system changes, it will be interesting to see how China’s relationship with the ethnic minorities in its border provinces sort themselves out.

It wont be pretty. Probably what happened when the USSR went democratic. It broke up with lots of nasty ethnic conflicts, still simmering, occasionally bursting into all out civil war eg Chechnya, Georgia etc.

Democracy does not tend to make multi-ethnic states into nice places to live.

Also, the PRC is not “totalitarian” by any measure. It allows capitalist enterprise and substantial contact with the outside world. The Party is fairly inclusive, recruiting Christians and capitalists. It only brings out the tanks when state sovereignty is directly threatened.

Why are supposedly Left-wing LP’ers so biased against the PRC, the one (somewhat) socialist government that has actually been a success at improving its citizens well-being?

And meanwhile where are their computers, with all the highly confidential information on iron ore pricing negotiations? Call me suspicious, but the Chinese authorities have taken their sweet time over letting RIO or the Aussie government know the grounds for taking these guys.

Meanwhile those guys no doubt have high level clearances and passwords for the RIO databases. With threats of untold hardship, might they be induced to provide the Chinese government IT chappies with the necessary access codes…?

And for the future, how are the Aussie resources companies going to conduct future pricing negotiations? Is this signalling a really serious change in modus operandi for commercial dealings with Chinese state-backed companies?

I mean they still have the factories etc. We still have the demand of flat screen tvs, etc…? The Chinese dragon is not so easily toppled methinks.

Mind you, this is all academic. I would be incredibly surprised if any area of current Chinese territory is given independence in any meaningful sense in the next 20 years at the least.

As in, capital accumulation driven by the profit motive trumps human rights…again?

(game of dominos)…The Chinese realise that Xinjiang is one of their most dangerous areas, but it is also one of the most valuable because of its vast oil, gas and coal reserves – including the potential for massive coal-seam gas developments, where companies such as Arrow Energy are in the front line. There is a gas pipeline to Shanghai and large new coal mines are planned … while not approving of human rights abuses, Australia has a lot at stake in western China. If western China starts to break up then the China growth story will also start to break down and with it will come a much lower demand for our resources …. Australia needs a strong unified China, and essential to that strength is Xinjiang. ” (Robert Gottliebsen)

Aside- What a hoot, China accusing someone (Rio Tinto) of industrial espionage, a grande reverse ‘Qui s’excuse, s’accuse’, with double pike: talk about taking one to know one. My favourite’s the guy they lauded big-time, including a microelcetronics deanship at Shanghai’s Jiaotong uni, and the full national-hero wenjiabao workplace visit treatment, for developing “the first DSP chip to have been wholly developed in China”. It’s said to just be a motorola chip with it’s logo simply ground off and replaced with the Hanxin company’s. He’s pretty severely persona non grata now, and apparently won’t be working on any more government projects.
I’m well aware, BTW, we have our own history of dodgy boffins, but we couldn’t hope to achieve dodginess such a grand scale.
Oh wait, clean coal…

I’m sure there are multiple informed perspectives out there.

Indeed there are.

I’m sure there are multiple informed perspectives out there.

What a bind to be in!

Still, they’re probably too busy supporting a military coup that overthrew a democratically elected government in Honduras…