cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57036724

Archived

[...]

The law was designed to create a "shared" national identity among China's 56 ethnic groups.

"A law that brazenly pushes non-Han ethnic groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians toward a single, state-defined national identity rather than protecting their distinct cultures and languages," [Amnesty International's deputy regional director Sarah] Brooks said.

[...]

The Han Chinese are China's largest and most dominant ethnic group, accounting for 17 per cent of the world's population.

But 125 million Chinese citizens belong to 55 non-Han ethnic groups, including the Zhuang, Uyghur, Hui, Manchu, Yi, Tibetans and Mongolians.

Parts of China's history were dominated by non-Han Dynasties: the Manchu Qing (1644–1912) and the Mongol Yuan (1271–1368).

[...]

The Chinese government insists the new laws are not being implemented to suppress ethnic groups or languages, but to prevent separatism.

Following the 1911 revolution in which the Manchu Qing dynasty was overthrown, Mongolia, followed shortly afterwards by Tibet, declared independence from China.

Outer Mongolia became a communist nation in the 1920s, remaining so until the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Inner Mongolia has remained a part of China, while the independent state of Tibet was annexed by the Chinese in 1951.

[...]

Life under Communist China

Initially, Inner Mongolia was organised into an autonomous region with greater political rights.

What followed was decades of persecution.

Mr Togochog said government crackdowns started in the 1950s, when tens of thousands of Mongolian elites were accused of being national separatists, suffering politic persecution and imprisonment.

This was just a taste of what came when Chairman Mao declared his decade-long "Cultural Revolution", which saw the destruction of cultural artefacts, societal upheaval and the persecution, imprisonment or death of millions.

[...]

According to a study published by the University of Cambridge, more than 16,000 Mongols were killed and five times that many were maimed.

Mr Togochog said the Mongolian population was "completely devastated by this large-scale genocide campaign".

According to a 2020 census, Mongols have now become a minority within Inner Mongolia, representing just 18 per cent of the total population.

[...]

Amnesty international's Tibetan advocate, Kyinzom Dhongdue, said the new ethnic unity law "unambiguously promotes and reinforces China's long-running policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups".

"The Chinese government is pursuing a long-term project of forced assimilation. Or, as described by Tibetans, a cultural genocide.

"It seeks to fundamentally reshape how Tibetans, Uyghurs and other peoples, including Southern Mongolians speak, learn, worship and, ultimately, understand who they are."

Ms Allen said Chinese President Xi Jinping was pushing China towards a sort of monoculture.

"The very heavy-handed push towards assimilation should be seen through the lens of control and Xi Jinping's paranoia."

[...]

In 2020, protests rocked the region of Inner Mongolia after the Chinese government ordered an end to Mongolian-language classes for first-year primary students, in favour of Mandarin.

[...]

Authorities also began a region-wide censorship campaign, shutting down Mongolian WeChat groups and removing Mongolian-language books from the shelves of retail outlets.

"Southern Mongolians know that this is the last chance to stand as Mongolian People … if you lose your language, you lose everything," Mr Togochog said.

"What is remaining is the language, that's the last defence of the Mongolian national identity … what we call the 'final solution' to the Mongolia question."

[...]

"This is nothing but cultural genocide … they want to make you directly Chinese," Mr Togochog said.

[...]

Ms Allen said the new laws made her "really sad" and she said for many of the ethnic groups inside China, there was no diaspora for them to look to for cultural and linguistic preservation.

"I think it's such a shame for China to be heading in this direction when many other similarly situated countries are working very, very hard to preserve and revive their minority languages."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57036724

Archived

[...]

The law was designed to create a "shared" national identity among China's 56 ethnic groups.

"A law that brazenly pushes non-Han ethnic groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians toward a single, state-defined national identity rather than protecting their distinct cultures and languages," [Amnesty International's deputy regional director Sarah] Brooks said.

[...]

The Han Chinese are China's largest and most dominant ethnic group, accounting for 17 per cent of the world's population.

But 125 million Chinese citizens belong to 55 non-Han ethnic groups, including the Zhuang, Uyghur, Hui, Manchu, Yi, Tibetans and Mongolians.

Parts of China's history were dominated by non-Han Dynasties: the Manchu Qing (1644–1912) and the Mongol Yuan (1271–1368).

[...]

The Chinese government insists the new laws are not being implemented to suppress ethnic groups or languages, but to prevent separatism.

Following the 1911 revolution in which the Manchu Qing dynasty was overthrown, Mongolia, followed shortly afterwards by Tibet, declared independence from China.

Outer Mongolia became a communist nation in the 1920s, remaining so until the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Inner Mongolia has remained a part of China, while the independent state of Tibet was annexed by the Chinese in 1951.

[...]

Life under Communist China

Initially, Inner Mongolia was organised into an autonomous region with greater political rights.

What followed was decades of persecution.

Mr Togochog said government crackdowns started in the 1950s, when tens of thousands of Mongolian elites were accused of being national separatists, suffering politic persecution and imprisonment.

This was just a taste of what came when Chairman Mao declared his decade-long "Cultural Revolution", which saw the destruction of cultural artefacts, societal upheaval and the persecution, imprisonment or death of millions.

[...]

According to a study published by the University of Cambridge, more than 16,000 Mongols were killed and five times that many were maimed.

Mr Togochog said the Mongolian population was "completely devastated by this large-scale genocide campaign".

According to a 2020 census, Mongols have now become a minority within Inner Mongolia, representing just 18 per cent of the total population.

[...]

Amnesty international's Tibetan advocate, Kyinzom Dhongdue, said the new ethnic unity law "unambiguously promotes and reinforces China's long-running policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups".

"The Chinese government is pursuing a long-term project of forced assimilation. Or, as described by Tibetans, a cultural genocide.

"It seeks to fundamentally reshape how Tibetans, Uyghurs and other peoples, including Southern Mongolians speak, learn, worship and, ultimately, understand who they are."

Ms Allen said Chinese President Xi Jinping was pushing China towards a sort of monoculture.

"The very heavy-handed push towards assimilation should be seen through the lens of control and Xi Jinping's paranoia."

[...]

In 2020, protests rocked the region of Inner Mongolia after the Chinese government ordered an end to Mongolian-language classes for first-year primary students, in favour of Mandarin.

[...]

Authorities also began a region-wide censorship campaign, shutting down Mongolian WeChat groups and removing Mongolian-language books from the shelves of retail outlets.

"Southern Mongolians know that this is the last chance to stand as Mongolian People … if you lose your language, you lose everything," Mr Togochog said.

"What is remaining is the language, that's the last defence of the Mongolian national identity … what we call the 'final solution' to the Mongolia question."

[...]

"This is nothing but cultural genocide … they want to make you directly Chinese," Mr Togochog said.

[...]

Ms Allen said the new laws made her "really sad" and she said for many of the ethnic groups inside China, there was no diaspora for them to look to for cultural and linguistic preservation.

"I think it's such a shame for China to be heading in this direction when many other similarly situated countries are working very, very hard to preserve and revive their minority languages."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57036724

Archived

[...]

The law was designed to create a "shared" national identity among China's 56 ethnic groups.

"A law that brazenly pushes non-Han ethnic groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians toward a single, state-defined national identity rather than protecting their distinct cultures and languages," [Amnesty International's deputy regional director Sarah] Brooks said.

[...]

The Han Chinese are China's largest and most dominant ethnic group, accounting for 17 per cent of the world's population.

But 125 million Chinese citizens belong to 55 non-Han ethnic groups, including the Zhuang, Uyghur, Hui, Manchu, Yi, Tibetans and Mongolians.

Parts of China's history were dominated by non-Han Dynasties: the Manchu Qing (1644–1912) and the Mongol Yuan (1271–1368).

[...]

The Chinese government insists the new laws are not being implemented to suppress ethnic groups or languages, but to prevent separatism.

Following the 1911 revolution in which the Manchu Qing dynasty was overthrown, Mongolia, followed shortly afterwards by Tibet, declared independence from China.

Outer Mongolia became a communist nation in the 1920s, remaining so until the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Inner Mongolia has remained a part of China, while the independent state of Tibet was annexed by the Chinese in 1951.

[...]

Life under Communist China

Initially, Inner Mongolia was organised into an autonomous region with greater political rights.

What followed was decades of persecution.

Mr Togochog said government crackdowns started in the 1950s, when tens of thousands of Mongolian elites were accused of being national separatists, suffering politic persecution and imprisonment.

This was just a taste of what came when Chairman Mao declared his decade-long "Cultural Revolution", which saw the destruction of cultural artefacts, societal upheaval and the persecution, imprisonment or death of millions.

[...]

According to a study published by the University of Cambridge, more than 16,000 Mongols were killed and five times that many were maimed.

Mr Togochog said the Mongolian population was "completely devastated by this large-scale genocide campaign".

According to a 2020 census, Mongols have now become a minority within Inner Mongolia, representing just 18 per cent of the total population.

[...]

Amnesty international's Tibetan advocate, Kyinzom Dhongdue, said the new ethnic unity law "unambiguously promotes and reinforces China's long-running policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups".

"The Chinese government is pursuing a long-term project of forced assimilation. Or, as described by Tibetans, a cultural genocide.

"It seeks to fundamentally reshape how Tibetans, Uyghurs and other peoples, including Southern Mongolians speak, learn, worship and, ultimately, understand who they are."

Ms Allen said Chinese President Xi Jinping was pushing China towards a sort of monoculture.

"The very heavy-handed push towards assimilation should be seen through the lens of control and Xi Jinping's paranoia."

[...]

In 2020, protests rocked the region of Inner Mongolia after the Chinese government ordered an end to Mongolian-language classes for first-year primary students, in favour of Mandarin.

[...]

Authorities also began a region-wide censorship campaign, shutting down Mongolian WeChat groups and removing Mongolian-language books from the shelves of retail outlets.

"Southern Mongolians know that this is the last chance to stand as Mongolian People … if you lose your language, you lose everything," Mr Togochog said.

"What is remaining is the language, that's the last defence of the Mongolian national identity … what we call the 'final solution' to the Mongolia question."

[...]

"This is nothing but cultural genocide … they want to make you directly Chinese," Mr Togochog said.

[...]

Ms Allen said the new laws made her "really sad" and she said for many of the ethnic groups inside China, there was no diaspora for them to look to for cultural and linguistic preservation.

"I think it's such a shame for China to be heading in this direction when many other similarly situated countries are working very, very hard to preserve and revive their minority languages."

Archived

[...]

The law was designed to create a "shared" national identity among China's 56 ethnic groups.

"A law that brazenly pushes non-Han ethnic groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians toward a single, state-defined national identity rather than protecting their distinct cultures and languages," [Amnesty International's deputy regional director Sarah] Brooks said.

[...]

The Han Chinese are China's largest and most dominant ethnic group, accounting for 17 per cent of the world's population.

But 125 million Chinese citizens belong to 55 non-Han ethnic groups, including the Zhuang, Uyghur, Hui, Manchu, Yi, Tibetans and Mongolians.

Parts of China's history were dominated by non-Han Dynasties: the Manchu Qing (1644–1912) and the Mongol Yuan (1271–1368).

[...]

The Chinese government insists the new laws are not being implemented to suppress ethnic groups or languages, but to prevent separatism.

Following the 1911 revolution in which the Manchu Qing dynasty was overthrown, Mongolia, followed shortly afterwards by Tibet, declared independence from China.

Outer Mongolia became a communist nation in the 1920s, remaining so until the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Inner Mongolia has remained a part of China, while the independent state of Tibet was annexed by the Chinese in 1951.

[...]

Life under Communist China

Initially, Inner Mongolia was organised into an autonomous region with greater political rights.

What followed was decades of persecution.

Mr Togochog said government crackdowns started in the 1950s, when tens of thousands of Mongolian elites were accused of being national separatists, suffering politic persecution and imprisonment.

This was just a taste of what came when Chairman Mao declared his decade-long "Cultural Revolution", which saw the destruction of cultural artefacts, societal upheaval and the persecution, imprisonment or death of millions.

[...]

According to a study published by the University of Cambridge, more than 16,000 Mongols were killed and five times that many were maimed.

Mr Togochog said the Mongolian population was "completely devastated by this large-scale genocide campaign".

According to a 2020 census, Mongols have now become a minority within Inner Mongolia, representing just 18 per cent of the total population.

[...]

Amnesty international's Tibetan advocate, Kyinzom Dhongdue, said the new ethnic unity law "unambiguously promotes and reinforces China's long-running policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups".

"The Chinese government is pursuing a long-term project of forced assimilation. Or, as described by Tibetans, a cultural genocide.

"It seeks to fundamentally reshape how Tibetans, Uyghurs and other peoples, including Southern Mongolians speak, learn, worship and, ultimately, understand who they are."

Ms Allen said Chinese President Xi Jinping was pushing China towards a sort of monoculture.

"The very heavy-handed push towards assimilation should be seen through the lens of control and Xi Jinping's paranoia."

[...]

In 2020, protests rocked the region of Inner Mongolia after the Chinese government ordered an end to Mongolian-language classes for first-year primary students, in favour of Mandarin.

[...]

Authorities also began a region-wide censorship campaign, shutting down Mongolian WeChat groups and removing Mongolian-language books from the shelves of retail outlets.

"Southern Mongolians know that this is the last chance to stand as Mongolian People … if you lose your language, you lose everything," Mr Togochog said.

"What is remaining is the language, that's the last defence of the Mongolian national identity … what we call the 'final solution' to the Mongolia question."

[...]

"This is nothing but cultural genocide … they want to make you directly Chinese," Mr Togochog said.

[...]

Ms Allen said the new laws made her "really sad" and she said for many of the ethnic groups inside China, there was no diaspora for them to look to for cultural and linguistic preservation.

"I think it's such a shame for China to be heading in this direction when many other similarly situated countries are working very, very hard to preserve and revive their minority languages."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56902971

Archived

[...]

Addressing Shanghai’s World AI Conference in July, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said that AI should be “an important driver for shared prosperity and common security”.

But that goal is being pursued amid an increasingly fragile labour market. As well as suffering from high levels of unemployment, China has seen tens of millions of workers drop out of formal employment into the gig economy. According to one thinktank, the number of people in flexible employment will rise to 320 million this year, up from 160 million in 2019. That is about 44% of China’s workforce.

[...]

Taxi drivers are one part of this huge cohort. Across the country, as previously heavyweight industries such as real estate and education have floundered, workers have turned to ride-hailing apps to make ends meet. But now the rollout of robotaxis, one of the most popular applications of AI that is already in use in China, is threatening their livelihoods.

“If the state really took you into consideration, Apollo Go would never have gone on the market,” says one Wuhan driver.

“If things keep going this way in the future, sure, rapid development and scientific progress are great, but ordinary people like us will have no place to survive,” she adds.

[...]

Tian Zemin, a cinematographer who works in Beijing, has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades. But now he’s out of work. “I spent six gruelling years working my way up to become a cinematographer, only to be replaced by a piece of software,” he wrote in a social media post about AI.

“I thought I would spend my whole life in this industry. But the emergence of AI has made me feel a huge shock for the first time,” he tells the Guardian.

Many of Tian’s peers are losing out as AI becomes more widely adopted across the film industry. His own rate as a freelancer is now 40% of what it was in 2019.

[...]

“We could be replaced at any moment,” he says. “Perhaps the only thing we can do is adapt as quickly as possible, and try to find the corner that AI still cannot replace – but that corner is getting smaller and smaller.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56904976

Coal demand and prices in China have jumped in recent days as scorching heat waves across most of the country boost electricity demand.

The benchmark spot coal prices at the port of Qinhuangdao have erased a slump from earlier this month and are on track for further increases in the coming weeks amid intense heat, according to the China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association.

[...]

Most of central and eastern China are in the grip of high summer temperatures, while northeastern China, including the large cities of Beijing and Shenyang, is expected to see unusually high temperatures into this weekend.

Heat waves are also depressing hydropower output and wind power generation, which China will have to partly offset with increased coal consumption.

China’s coal inventories are sufficiently high, but its domestic production has seen setbacks since the deadliest mining disaster in 16 years in May prompted authorities to step up safety checks and order suspension of activities in a number of mines in the Shanxi region.

[...]

Meanwhile, thermal coal futures climbed to around $134 per ton in late July, reaching more than one-month highs as coal demand in China strengthened after a relatively mild start to summer gave way to hotter weather, boosting air conditioner use and electricity consumption.

[...]

[While China recently announced that it generates less than half of its electricity from coal, the countries coal consumption is set to rise.]

Chinese authorities are not restricting coal power growth in the new five-year energy plan as Beijing doubles down on the fossil fuel as a “bottom-line guarantee” of the electricity system amid rising shares of renewable power.

[According to the five-year plan, coal consumption in China will rise by 8-10%. China is already the world's larges coal producer and consumer.]

Coal demand and prices in China have jumped in recent days as scorching heat waves across most of the country boost electricity demand.

The benchmark spot coal prices at the port of Qinhuangdao have erased a slump from earlier this month and are on track for further increases in the coming weeks amid intense heat, according to the China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association.

[...]

Most of central and eastern China are in the grip of high summer temperatures, while northeastern China, including the large cities of Beijing and Shenyang, is expected to see unusually high temperatures into this weekend.

Heat waves are also depressing hydropower output and wind power generation, which China will have to partly offset with increased coal consumption.

China’s coal inventories are sufficiently high, but its domestic production has seen setbacks since the deadliest mining disaster in 16 years in May prompted authorities to step up safety checks and order suspension of activities in a number of mines in the Shanxi region.

[...]

Meanwhile, thermal coal futures climbed to around $134 per ton in late July, reaching more than one-month highs as coal demand in China strengthened after a relatively mild start to summer gave way to hotter weather, boosting air conditioner use and electricity consumption.

[...]

[While China recently announced that it generates less than half of its electricity from coal, the countries coal consumption is set to rise.]

Chinese authorities are not restricting coal power growth in the new five-year energy plan as Beijing doubles down on the fossil fuel as a “bottom-line guarantee” of the electricity system amid rising shares of renewable power.

[According to the five-year plan, coal consumption in China will rise by 8-10%. China is already the world's larges coal producer and consumer.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56902971

Archived

[...]

Addressing Shanghai’s World AI Conference in July, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said that AI should be “an important driver for shared prosperity and common security”.

But that goal is being pursued amid an increasingly fragile labour market. As well as suffering from high levels of unemployment, China has seen tens of millions of workers drop out of formal employment into the gig economy. According to one thinktank, the number of people in flexible employment will rise to 320 million this year, up from 160 million in 2019. That is about 44% of China’s workforce.

[...]

Taxi drivers are one part of this huge cohort. Across the country, as previously heavyweight industries such as real estate and education have floundered, workers have turned to ride-hailing apps to make ends meet. But now the rollout of robotaxis, one of the most popular applications of AI that is already in use in China, is threatening their livelihoods.

“If the state really took you into consideration, Apollo Go would never have gone on the market,” says one Wuhan driver.

“If things keep going this way in the future, sure, rapid development and scientific progress are great, but ordinary people like us will have no place to survive,” she adds.

[...]

Tian Zemin, a cinematographer who works in Beijing, has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades. But now he’s out of work. “I spent six gruelling years working my way up to become a cinematographer, only to be replaced by a piece of software,” he wrote in a social media post about AI.

“I thought I would spend my whole life in this industry. But the emergence of AI has made me feel a huge shock for the first time,” he tells the Guardian.

Many of Tian’s peers are losing out as AI becomes more widely adopted across the film industry. His own rate as a freelancer is now 40% of what it was in 2019.

[...]

“We could be replaced at any moment,” he says. “Perhaps the only thing we can do is adapt as quickly as possible, and try to find the corner that AI still cannot replace – but that corner is getting smaller and smaller.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56902971

Archived

[...]

Addressing Shanghai’s World AI Conference in July, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said that AI should be “an important driver for shared prosperity and common security”.

But that goal is being pursued amid an increasingly fragile labour market. As well as suffering from high levels of unemployment, China has seen tens of millions of workers drop out of formal employment into the gig economy. According to one thinktank, the number of people in flexible employment will rise to 320 million this year, up from 160 million in 2019. That is about 44% of China’s workforce.

[...]

Taxi drivers are one part of this huge cohort. Across the country, as previously heavyweight industries such as real estate and education have floundered, workers have turned to ride-hailing apps to make ends meet. But now the rollout of robotaxis, one of the most popular applications of AI that is already in use in China, is threatening their livelihoods.

“If the state really took you into consideration, Apollo Go would never have gone on the market,” says one Wuhan driver.

“If things keep going this way in the future, sure, rapid development and scientific progress are great, but ordinary people like us will have no place to survive,” she adds.

[...]

Tian Zemin, a cinematographer who works in Beijing, has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades. But now he’s out of work. “I spent six gruelling years working my way up to become a cinematographer, only to be replaced by a piece of software,” he wrote in a social media post about AI.

“I thought I would spend my whole life in this industry. But the emergence of AI has made me feel a huge shock for the first time,” he tells the Guardian.

Many of Tian’s peers are losing out as AI becomes more widely adopted across the film industry. His own rate as a freelancer is now 40% of what it was in 2019.

[...]

“We could be replaced at any moment,” he says. “Perhaps the only thing we can do is adapt as quickly as possible, and try to find the corner that AI still cannot replace – but that corner is getting smaller and smaller.”

Archived

[...]

Addressing Shanghai’s World AI Conference in July, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said that AI should be “an important driver for shared prosperity and common security”.

But that goal is being pursued amid an increasingly fragile labour market. As well as suffering from high levels of unemployment, China has seen tens of millions of workers drop out of formal employment into the gig economy. According to one thinktank, the number of people in flexible employment will rise to 320 million this year, up from 160 million in 2019. That is about 44% of China’s workforce.

[...]

Taxi drivers are one part of this huge cohort. Across the country, as previously heavyweight industries such as real estate and education have floundered, workers have turned to ride-hailing apps to make ends meet. But now the rollout of robotaxis, one of the most popular applications of AI that is already in use in China, is threatening their livelihoods.

“If the state really took you into consideration, Apollo Go would never have gone on the market,” says one Wuhan driver.

“If things keep going this way in the future, sure, rapid development and scientific progress are great, but ordinary people like us will have no place to survive,” she adds.

[...]

Tian Zemin, a cinematographer who works in Beijing, has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades. But now he’s out of work. “I spent six gruelling years working my way up to become a cinematographer, only to be replaced by a piece of software,” he wrote in a social media post about AI.

“I thought I would spend my whole life in this industry. But the emergence of AI has made me feel a huge shock for the first time,” he tells the Guardian.

Many of Tian’s peers are losing out as AI becomes more widely adopted across the film industry. His own rate as a freelancer is now 40% of what it was in 2019.

[...]

“We could be replaced at any moment,” he says. “Perhaps the only thing we can do is adapt as quickly as possible, and try to find the corner that AI still cannot replace – but that corner is getting smaller and smaller.”

Archived

Natural disasters are common in China, particularly in the summer, when some regions experience heavy rainfall while others are plagued by extreme heat. However, the frequency and scale of these events are increasing as global warming accelerates—driven, in particular, by the use of fossil fuels. Among the affected regions are Guangxi, Guizhou, and Hunan in the south and center of the country, home to a population of over 150 million—more than in Russia.

[...]

The alerts [by Chinese authorities] certainly enabled preventive evacuations in some areas, but not in all, as evidenced by these accounts gathered by an Agence France-Presse correspondent who was able to visit the town of Liulan (Guangxi), where floods destroyed homes, swept away livestock, and caused the collapse of a major dam (and another, smaller one near the town of Gantang). The dam’s walls collapsed, unleashing torrents of muddy water downstream, with a preliminary death toll of 26 and seven people missing.

[...]

China’s compensation system for flood victims was expanded in 2025 to include storage areas where authorities deliberately divert floodwaters to reduce flooding downstream. The scope of compensation for people living or working in these storage areas has been expanded.

[...]

[However], there can be a wide gap between the law and reality. The selection of storage zones obviously involves a political dimension (affluent residential neighborhoods or business districts related to those in power will be spared).

Corruption is endemic at all levels of the administration, and repression is commonplace. In the absence of more or less independent social organizations, it is very difficult to ensure the collective defense of the rights of working-class, peasant and popular communities over the long term. Under these conditions, with every extreme weather event, new segments of the population are plunged into poverty—a situation from which they will find it all the more difficult to escape as climate disasters follow one after another.

More generally, climate-related disasters threaten to wipe out the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars in commercial activity each year due to urban flooding, halted industrial activity, submerged crops, and livestock swept away by the floodwaters—all while the Chinese economy is already sluggish.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56856501

After nearly 10 years carrying out Chinese government repression in Xinjiang, a former police officer is now seeking asylum in Germany.

Archived

Halfway through a short speech he was giving at the German Bundestag, Zhang Yabo began to choke back tears.

Mr. Zhang had served for nine years as a police officer in Xinjiang, an enforcer in China’s campaign to surveil, detain and indoctrinate that region’s Uyghur population. At the campaign’s height, an estimated one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities were held in internment camps.

Tens of thousands of police officers carried out China’s state oppression in Xinjiang, but Mr. Zhang is a rare voice speaking out about it. Standing before German lawmakers and human rights activists in June, he described Xinjiang as a giant prison enclosed by an “ironclad wall.” “That wall imprisoned not only countless innocent Uyghurs,” he said, “but also the souls of those ordered to enforce it.”

Mr. Zhang related the pressure of participating in China’s security apparatus: endless shifts, sleeping in the office and constant fear of punishment. After he requested asylum in Germany last summer, Chinese authorities froze his bank accounts, he said, branded him a traitor and harassed his family.

[...]

By the end of the speech, he was sobbing “like a child,” he later told me. He hurried from the room and did not return.

[...]

Mr. Zhang’s account of his time in Xinjiang corroborates what has long been documented about the Chinese Communist Party’s brutal repression of the Uyghurs while adding detail and an inside perspective to that record. It also reveals what an ordinary man pursuing upward mobility could gain, and lose, by helping to carry out those repressive policies.

Mr. Zhang provided extensive documentation of his service history, including copies of his police identification and pay and social security records, as well as photos of him at interrogations and political propaganda sessions. But I could not corroborate exactly what he did or did not do in Xinjiang; I relied on his telling of the story, and there may have been things he did not share.

[...]

With China’s record of retaliating against citizens in exile, Mr. Zhang has shown considerable courage in coming forward as a witness to injustice. But he is asking for something more than praise; he wants to be recognized as a victim himself — a victim of the apparatus he participated in for nearly a decade.

[...]

A Grim Path Out of Poverty

For Mr. Zhang, moving to Xinjiang, and later joining its police force, offered a way to move up in the world. Born in 1986 into a poor rural Han Chinese family, Mr. Zhang lived in a village in central Henan Province that did not have electricity until he was 8. He moved to Xinjiang for college in 2006 and stayed to teach mathematics at a rural primary school. He married a woman from his home province, and they had a son in 2011.

In late 2014, he left teaching for better pay as a guard at a detention center in the Hotan region, where about 90 percent of the population was Uyghur. His monthly wages rose to about $650, from $400 as a teacher.

For nearly two years, he said, his duties included monitoring surveillance footage, distributing food and medicine and gathering incriminating information from detainees, most of them Uyghurs. He heard screams from the interrogation rooms and saw detainees beaten up and deprived of sleep. He sometimes found broken batons when picking up the detainees. At the time, he said, he accepted the government’s claims that the men being interrogated were terrorists and separatists.

[...]

In early 2017, Chen Quanguo, the new Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, called for a “smashing, obliterating offensive,” including, according to leaked government documents, the detention of anyone who displayed “symptoms” of religious radicalism or antigovernment views. Those symptoms could be the wearing of long beards, studying Arabic and praying.

[...]

For much of 2017, Mr. Zhang traveled in bus convoys transporting hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of Uyghur detainees to prisons across Xinjiang, which is nearly four times the size of California. The detainees were handcuffed, hooded and ordered to use plastic buckets as toilets during the journey. Mr. Zhang distributed bread and water.

[...]

In late 2018, when he was assigned to a police station, he began to grow despondent. His colleagues brought in Uyghur prisoners at all hours, he said, and he was responsible for searching them and helping determine where they would be sent. His sleep was constantly interrupted, and his superiors were short-tempered.

He was pleased to be briefly reassigned to supervise about 3,000 Uyghur laborers who had been sent to pick cotton for Han Chinese farmers. They rose at 5 a.m., traveled for hours to the cotton fields and were not returned to their dormitories until late at night.

[...]

He learned of the international criticism of forced labor in Xinjiang through statements by China’s foreign ministry and accepted the government’s claim that the accusations were false and intended to vilify China. “I didn’t think much about it,” he said. “I never paused to consider whether it was true or not.”

[...]

The government’s surveillance system generated automatic alerts for “abnormal” activity. If a household’s electricity use rose, he said, the officers would visit and ask what had kept the family awake.

Police work brought Mr. Zhang money, status and privileges: expedited treatment at hospitals, free parking. By 2023, his monthly take-home pay had risen to about $1,250.

[...]

The overtime was relentless, and he was separated from his family for long periods. He had not celebrated Lunar New Year with his parents since 2017 and was denied leave for his sister’s wedding. On average, he could visit his wife and his son once a month.

There were also quotas to meet. Starting in 2023, he was required to produce one lead a week that could be used to justify a detention. Mr. Zhang said he had frequently failed to hit the quota and had to submit self-criticism reports and work 24-hour shifts as punishment. Working closely with the villagers began to challenge the stereotypes he had absorbed about Uyghurs. He became increasingly reluctant to enter their homes or search their private communications, even as he continued to carry out the surveillance his job required.

[...]

[Now] he has applied for asylum and lives in a shelter in southern Germany, where his son is staying at a foster facility not far away. Over a dinner of pasta, the 15-year-old told me that he missed Xinjiang’s spicy stir-fried rice noodles. Mr. Zhang’s wife remains in Xinjiang, and the couple have filed for divorce.

[...]

“Of the millions of Chinese police officers, he is the only one who has come forward to speak the truth,” said Haiyuer Kuerban, an official at the World Uyghur Congress who has been helping Mr. Zhang settle in Germany. He said his organization had initially viewed Mr. Zhang with deep skepticism, but that its doubts had begun to ease after reviewing his documents.

[...]

Mr. Zhang insisted that he had never personally tortured or mistreated any Uyghurs. He described himself as a small cog in the state machinery who filled out forms, guarded facilities and handled logistics. Responsibility lay with senior officials and with the Uyghur police assistants who, he said, carried out many of the most direct and abusive tasks. Low-level Han Chinese police officers like him, he insisted, were innocent.

It is unclear whether Mr. Zhang’s self-exoneration is a form of self-protection, an inability to bear what a fuller recognition would mean or simply a habit of mind formed by years inside the system. Haiyuer Kuerban [an official at the World Uyghur Congress ] said he did not believe the blindness was deliberate. After repeatedly pressing Mr. Zhang, I had come to a similar conclusion: He seemed genuinely unable to see his role in the wider context of the immense injustice inflicted on the Uyghurs.

[...]

Working inside an abusive system did not automatically make someone a monster, Mr. Kuerban said. But neither did performing a minor function, or not personally carrying out the worst abuses, eliminate responsibility.

Mr. Zhang said his faith had taught him that his responsibility now was to speak out.

“If you stay silent,” he said at the end of his Bundestag speech, “you’re part of the problem.”

[...]