thelucky8

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17778322

[...]

A proposed deal by labour prosecutors will be presented to the two firms, which could clear BYD and [its contractor] Jinjiang from an investigation.

But they could still face scrutiny from labour inspectors and from federal prosecutors who have requested the sharing of the evidence.

"Measures can be adopted in the criminal sphere," the prosecutor's office said.

[...]

China's model of taking Chinese workers to the countries where it invests has presented challenges to local employment, a priority for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

[...]

Backlash on Chinese social media

The case has triggered a rare backlash on Chinese social media against BYD, opening a discussion over worker rights.

Several internet users said living conditions for the workers in Brazil were typical of those seen at construction sites in China.

Brazilian prosecutors released videos of the workers' living quarters, which showed bunk beds without mattresses.

They said the workers laboured for excessively long hours, sometimes seven days a week, in conditions the authorities called degrading.

Archived link

As the issue of alleged Chinese spy Yang Tenbo’s relationship with Prince Andrew was raised in Parliament last week, a wide-ranging discussion about the U.K.’s relationship with China landed on a recurring theme: the Britain’s reliance on China for solar panels.

“[W]hy are we still buying from China huge numbers of solar arrays that have demonstrably been made using slave labor?” Member of Parliament Iain Duncan Smith asked. “[F]ar from challenging China on human rights, it now appears that we are turning a blind eye.”

Questions about human rights keep turning up because U.K. industry relies heavily on Chinese materials, and there is evidence of a range of human rights violations in their production, including forced labor.

That presents an apparent dilemma. On the one hand, there is the idea of a fast and cheap green transition. On the other hand, there is the idea of a clean human rights chain

[...]

Two routes

Option one is supply chain diversification — buying solar panels from elsewhere.

A report from Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel last year proposed developing a partnership of countries that can together supplement China’s solar contribution.

The view there is that no single country can take over China’s role, but in time, a group of like-minded countries could do so.

[...]

“Its a somewhat unique situation,” professor of Environmental Studies at San Jose State University, Dustin Mulvaney told Domino Theory.

“Much of the problems caused to the industry because of the forced labor issues were because the industry did not have traceability and transparency in supply chains. So I break the dichotomy by saying we should be for transparent supply chains so in the event of a forced labor issue, it can be quickly resolved.”

This idea matches the positioning of Solar Energy U.K. — a grouping which advocates for solar developments in the U.K.

[...]

Solar manufacturers in Xinjiang have been implicated in so-called “labor transfer” initiatives that have been revealed to operate within an environment of coercion, backed by the threat of re-education and internment. So this is a key target of any transparency initiatives.

[...]

There are, though, remaining issues with a transparency approach.

“There is also the issue of coal use in the supply chain that means the solar made on forced labor is probably only saving half of the emissions it would otherwise if [built] with no coal electricity/heat. So there are climate benefits from geographical diversification as well,” Mulvaney noted.

Additionally, one industry insider, working on handing out government grants for small-scale solar projects, noted that while they give advice on procurement, it is not legally binding, and essentially responsibility was deferred to the individual stakeholders.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17778322

[...]

A proposed deal by labour prosecutors will be presented to the two firms, which could clear BYD and [its contractor] Jinjiang from an investigation.

But they could still face scrutiny from labour inspectors and from federal prosecutors who have requested the sharing of the evidence.

"Measures can be adopted in the criminal sphere," the prosecutor's office said.

[...]

China's model of taking Chinese workers to the countries where it invests has presented challenges to local employment, a priority for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

[...]

Backlash on Chinese social media

The case has triggered a rare backlash on Chinese social media against BYD, opening a discussion over worker rights.

Several internet users said living conditions for the workers in Brazil were typical of those seen at construction sites in China.

Brazilian prosecutors released videos of the workers' living quarters, which showed bunk beds without mattresses.

They said the workers laboured for excessively long hours, sometimes seven days a week, in conditions the authorities called degrading.

[...]

A proposed deal by labour prosecutors will be presented to the two firms, which could clear BYD and [its contractor] Jinjiang from an investigation.

But they could still face scrutiny from labour inspectors and from federal prosecutors who have requested the sharing of the evidence.

"Measures can be adopted in the criminal sphere," the prosecutor's office said.

[...]

China's model of taking Chinese workers to the countries where it invests has presented challenges to local employment, a priority for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

[...]

Backlash on Chinese social media

The case has triggered a rare backlash on Chinese social media against BYD, opening a discussion over worker rights.

Several internet users said living conditions for the workers in Brazil were typical of those seen at construction sites in China.

Brazilian prosecutors released videos of the workers' living quarters, which showed bunk beds without mattresses.

They said the workers laboured for excessively long hours, sometimes seven days a week, in conditions the authorities called degrading.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17777948

Archived link

Independent field investigations in China’s Yunnan Province found labor violations at coffee farms that supply coffees purchased and certified as sustainable by coffee giants Starbucks and Nestlé, according to a new report from two labor watchdog groups.

A joint effort from the New York-based nonprofit China Labor Watch and a new Danish nonprofit called Coffee Watch, the report alleges a pattern of “ghost farms” and “coffee laundering,” through which larger coffee producer groups, or certified estates, avoid detailed contractual relationships with the smaller farms supplying them.

[...]

China Labor Watch’s three separate investigations into coffee farms that allegedly supply Starbucks and Nestlé included interviews with 66 individuals, including coffee farmers, their families and teachers from local schools.

The investigations found “substantial abuses” in Starbucks’ and Nestlé’s supply chains, especially among indigenous farming communities.

“These abuses violated the terms of both companies’ certification schemes, namely C.A.F.E. Practices that is run by Conservation International for Starbucks, and 4C which Nestlé uses,” the report states.

[...]

Archived link

Independent field investigations in China’s Yunnan Province found labor violations at coffee farms that supply coffees purchased and certified as sustainable by coffee giants Starbucks and Nestlé, according to a new report from two labor watchdog groups.

A joint effort from the New York-based nonprofit China Labor Watch and a new Danish nonprofit called Coffee Watch, the report alleges a pattern of “ghost farms” and “coffee laundering,” through which larger coffee producer groups, or certified estates, avoid detailed contractual relationships with the smaller farms supplying them.

[...]

China Labor Watch’s three separate investigations into coffee farms that allegedly supply Starbucks and Nestlé included interviews with 66 individuals, including coffee farmers, their families and teachers from local schools.

The investigations found “substantial abuses” in Starbucks’ and Nestlé’s supply chains, especially among indigenous farming communities.

“These abuses violated the terms of both companies’ certification schemes, namely C.A.F.E. Practices that is run by Conservation International for Starbucks, and 4C which Nestlé uses,” the report states.

[...]

China said on Sunday it was taking countermeasures against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in human rights issues concerning the Uyghurs and Tibet.

The measures, which took effect on Saturday, include asset freezes and bans on entry and the targets include Canada's Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canada-Tibet Committee, China's foreign ministry announces on its website.

Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in camps. Beijing denies any abuses.

China seized control of Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a "peaceful liberation" from feudalistic serfdom. International human rights groups and exiles, however, have routinely condemned what they call China's oppressive rule in Tibetan areas.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17728055

The Czech Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a resolution last week condemning the Chinese government’s manipulation of a key United Nations resolution on Taiwan. Similar initiatives in the parliaments of Australia, The Netherlands, the European Union, Canada, and the United Kingdom over the previous months called out Beijing’s longstanding campaign to block Taiwan’s democratic government from participating in U.N. activities. Governments willing to tackle this challenge also should confront Beijing’s strikingly similar threat to the U.N. human rights system.

At a time of global backsliding on democracy and human rights, these efforts may seem niche or Quixotic. But democracies defending one another, particularly through their own domestic institutions and not only as a matter of foreign policy, demonstrates a principled commitment. Few issues matter more to Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping than retaking control of Taiwan, and his regime has lashed out at other governments taking milder positions on the issue. But these six democracies have recognized that Xi’s posture threatens them and the U.N., one of the key international institutions on which they rely, creating considerable diplomatic momentum for a position that was unimaginable at the beginning of 2024.

The parliamentary efforts are informed by groundbreaking report earlier this year by scholars Bonnie S. Glaser and Jacques deLisle for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, “Exposing the PRC’s Distortion of UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to Press its Claims Over Taiwan.” It details Beijing’s decades-long efforts to launder its claims of sovereignty through the United Nations.

But the political pathologies detailed — and the recommendations offered — could equally apply to Beijing’s efforts to undermine human rights at the world’s flagship body. The similarities cannot be an accident: “flawed legal assumptions” (as Glaser and deLisle put it), decades of pressure, diplomatic capitulations, and weak responses from democracies neatly summarize how Xi seeks to neutralize U.N. human rights initiatives.

[...]

The Czech Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a resolution last week condemning the Chinese government’s manipulation of a key United Nations resolution on Taiwan. Similar initiatives in the parliaments of Australia, The Netherlands, the European Union, Canada, and the United Kingdom over the previous months called out Beijing’s longstanding campaign to block Taiwan’s democratic government from participating in U.N. activities. Governments willing to tackle this challenge also should confront Beijing’s strikingly similar threat to the U.N. human rights system.

At a time of global backsliding on democracy and human rights, these efforts may seem niche or Quixotic. But democracies defending one another, particularly through their own domestic institutions and not only as a matter of foreign policy, demonstrates a principled commitment. Few issues matter more to Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping than retaking control of Taiwan, and his regime has lashed out at other governments taking milder positions on the issue. But these six democracies have recognized that Xi’s posture threatens them and the U.N., one of the key international institutions on which they rely, creating considerable diplomatic momentum for a position that was unimaginable at the beginning of 2024.

The parliamentary efforts are informed by groundbreaking report earlier this year by scholars Bonnie S. Glaser and Jacques deLisle for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, “Exposing the PRC’s Distortion of UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to Press its Claims Over Taiwan.” It details Beijing’s decades-long efforts to launder its claims of sovereignty through the United Nations.

But the political pathologies detailed — and the recommendations offered — could equally apply to Beijing’s efforts to undermine human rights at the world’s flagship body. The similarities cannot be an accident: “flawed legal assumptions” (as Glaser and deLisle put it), decades of pressure, diplomatic capitulations, and weak responses from democracies neatly summarize how Xi seeks to neutralize U.N. human rights initiatives.

[...]

Archived

This is an opinionated article by Prof. (Emeritus) Yoel Elizur, The Seymour Fox School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Chairperson of the Council of Psychologists (2010-13). As a mental health officer in reserve, he was the chief supervisor of the IDF's RRC, the Israeli Defense Force's Rear Rehabilitation Centers .

The article was published in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper commonly known as criticial of Netanyahu's government.

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Moral injury occurs when soldiers act against their moral values and beliefs or participate as bystanders. Those injured in this way experience guilt and shame, and are prone to depression, anxiety and suicidal impulses. The IDF provides month-long intensive treatment to traumatized soldiers, some of whom have been morally injured, in Rear Rehabilitation Centers (RRCs). Subsequently, half of these soldiers are discharged as unfit for military duty.

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The discussion of atrocities evokes emotional resistance even though it is intellectually understood that crimes exist in every civilized society and that war crimes have been committed by soldiers in every army. Developmental psychologists have identified callous traits in young children while social psychologists have demonstrated that authoritative directives and social pressure lead ordinary people to harmful behavior.

Still, it is difficult to face the violence of callous soldiers and the brutalization of ordinary soldiers. Therefore, I am not reassured when my grandson says: "Don't worry, Grandpa, I will refuse an illegal order."

I want to protect him and all others who are risking their body and mind when they serve in the IDF. I want them to know how difficult it is to stand up to a callous commander and to resist peer pressure encouraging brutality. I want them to know about the slippery slope of brutalization and get educated about the moral dilemmas they will face during wartime. This motivated me to write this essay both as a grandfather and as a psychologist who has researched soldiers' experience with brutalization.

[...]

We [fellow researcher Nuphar Ishay-Krien and the author] identified five groups of soldiers based on personality traits.

[...]

1. A small Callous group was composed of ruthless soldiers, some of whom confessed to violence before the draft. These soldiers committed most of the severe atrocities. The power they received in the army was intoxicating:

"It's like a drug ... you feel like you are the law, you make the rules. As if from the moment you leave the place called Israel and enter the Gaza Strip, you are God."

They viewed brutality as an expression of strength and masculinity.

"I have no problem with women. One threw a slipper at me, so I gave her a kick here (pointing to the groin), broke all this here. She can't have children today."

"X shot an Arab four times in the back and got away with a self-defense claim. Four bullets in the back from a distance of ten meters ... cold-blooded murder. We did things like that every day."

[...]

2. A small, ideologically violent group supported the brutality without taking part. They believed in Jewish supremacy and were derogatory toward Arabs. Moral injuries were not reported in this group.

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3. A small incorruptible group opposed the influence of the callous and ideological groups on the company's culture. Initially intimidated by brutal commanders, they later* took a moral stand and went on to report the atrocities* to the division commander. Following discharge, most of them viewed their service as meaningful and strengthening. However, one whistle blower [...] was traumatized, depressed and left the country following discharge.

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4. A large group of followers consisted of soldiers with no prior inclination to violence. Their behavior was most influenced by junior officers' modeling and the company's norms. Some followers who committed atrocities reported moral injuries:

"I felt like, like, like a Nazi ... it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews."

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5. The restrained was a large group of inner-directed soldiers who maintained military standards and did not commit atrocities. They responded to Palestinian violence and life-threatening situations in balanced and legally justified ways.

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In each of the companies, an internal culture developed that was largely shaped by junior commanders and charismatic soldiers. Initially, the norms instigated atrocities.

"A new commander came to us. We went out with him on the first patrol at six in the morning. He stops. There's not a soul in the streets, just a little 4-year-old boy playing in the sand in his yard. The commander suddenly starts running, grabs the boy, and breaks his arm at the elbow and his leg here. Stepped on his stomach three times and left. We all stood there with our mouths open. Looking at him in shock ... I asked the commander: "What's your story?" He told me: These kids need to be killed from the day they are born. When a commander does that, it becomes legit."

[...]

There is much evidence of alleged war crimes in the current war and it is easily accessible. Lee Mordechai, an Israeli historian, has been collecting, categorizing, and regularly updating the data. The data include reports by reputable institutions such as the United Nations, reporting by mainstream media outlets, and images, and videos uploaded to social media.

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As the corrupting influence of the Callous and Ideologically Violent soldiers increases, the Incorruptible are marginalized. Max Kresh, a reserve fighter, declared his opposition to participating in crimes against humanity like "flattening Gaza." The result was severe social ostracism: "They kicked me out of my team. They made it clear they didn't want me." He returned from reserve duty feeling "mentally crushed."

[...]

Sde Teiman, a detention facility [where Palestinians are detained], is like a microcosm of brutalization in the current war. It became notorious when an Incorruptible veteran physician reported signs of severe sexual abuse in a detainee. Nine IDF reserve soldiers were subsequently detained on suspicion of aggravated sodomy and other forms of abuse.

[...]

A Restrained student in the reserves described brutalization [in Sde Teiman] and its effect on the Followers.

"I saw sadistic people there. People who enjoy causing suffering to others. … What was most disturbing was to see how easily and quickly ordinary people can detach themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes when they are in a difficult and shocking human situation."

Similarly, a reservist doctor stated:

"There is total dehumanization here. You don't really treat them as if they are human beings ... in retrospect, the hardest thing for me is what I felt, or actually what I didn't feel when I was there. It bothers me that it didn't bother me. There is normalization of the process, and at some point, it just stops bothering."

A Restrained female reservist kept her standards by escaping the facility:

"The dehumanization scared me. The encounter with such dangerous attitudes, which has become more normal in our society, was traumatic for me ... I discharged myself from reserve duty with a psychiatrist's help."

[...]

The author Prof. (Emeritus) Yoel Elizur concludes:

In this context, our government's rhetoric of hatred and revenge, which has been reinforced by its determined undermining of the justice system, led to excessive retaliation and mass killing of civilians in Gaza. It provided a tailwind for atrocities by Callous and Ideologically Violent soldiers, increased their influence over the Followers, and sidelined the Incorruptible.

[...] the senior command is responsible for upholding the values listed in the IDF's code of ethics, including purity of arms and discipline, which dictate: "IDF soldiers will not use their weapon or power to harm uninvolved civilians and prisoners" and "The soldier will ensure they are only giving out legal orders, and do not follow illegal orders." By upholding these values, they can prevent brutalization against the innocent and protect the soul of our soldiers.

We, the citizens who send our children, spouses and grandchildren to military service, must find ways of resistance. We are obligated to speak clearly in order to keep limits on the cruelty of war, to uphold our moral code, and to protect soldiers from moral injury and its long-term consequences.

Neijuan is the Chinese term for “involution”, a concept from sociology that refers to a society that can no longer evolve, no matter how hard it tries. Applied to the individual, it means that no matter how hard someone works, progress is impossible.

In China, the term has been used to describe the feeling of diminishing returns in China’s economy. The characters “nei” and “juan” literally mean rolling inwards. After decades of rapid growth, many Chinese millennials and Gen Z people feel that the opportunities that were available to their parents no longer exist, and that working hard no longer offers guaranteed rewards.

[...]

China’s leaders have made it clear that they don’t want the idea of neijuan to catch on more than it already has. In December, top economic policymakers gathered for the annual Central Economic Work Conference, which sets the national economic agenda. According to the readout of the closed-door meeting, the cadres pledged to “rectify ‘involutionary’ competition”. And speaking at Davos in June, China’s premier, Li Qiang, warned against “spiralling ‘involution’” in the world economy.

[...]

Neijuan is also increasingly used to describe certain industries. China is investing massively in what it calls “new quality productive forces”, which means focusing more on research and manufacturing in certain hi-tech sectors, such as solar, electric vehicles and batteries. But overproduction, coupled with sanctions from the US and other western markets, has led to a price war in some sectors, hurting their profitability.

[...]

Although the term has been around for decades in academic circles, it went viral on China’s internet in 2020. A student from Tsinghua University, one of China’s most elite schools, was filmed riding his bicycle with his laptop open, propped up on the handlebars. Soon he was crowned as “Tsinghua’s involuted king”, and a meme was born.

The meme of the involuted king came to represent the perhaps pointlessly intense pressure of China’s rat race, and the impossibility of catching a break. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people felt physically as well as economically trapped.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17727229

A growing number of Chinese are fleeing their home country, where rising authoritarianism under the rule of Xi Jinping and the difficulties of a faltering economy has prompted some people to look for a way out. The phenomenon has become so widely discussed online that it has its own nickname: runxue, or run philosophy, a coded term for emigration.

Some are relocating on student or business visas, joining growing diaspora communities in places like Japan or Thailand. But tens of thousands of others who don’t qualify or have the resources for such pathways are fleeing in other unconventional and often dangerous ways, known as zouxian, or walking the line.

Most head for the US, trekking from South America through the hostile jungle of the Darian Gap. In September the Guardian revealed a small but growing number were also flying into the Balkans to find smugglers to take them to Germany. Now, another emerging high-stakes escape route has been revealed, through the Indonesian archipelago to a smuggler’s boat destined for Australia.

[...]

Experts say the arrival of Chinese people on this route signals growing discontent at home.

Some Chinese migrants in the US and Europe have said tightening restrictions on political, religious and social freedoms during Xi’s rule led them to flee. Others cited stifling public health policies during the pandemic, and the economic downturn, housing crunch, and youth unemployment crisis that followed.

Meredith Oyen, an associate professor at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, specialising in Chinese migration, says politics and economics are push factors.

“The zero-Covid policy ended up destroying a lot of small businesses and a lot of middle class people’s economic life … The combination of that and the draconian nature of some of those policies led to frustrations and more political dissatisfactions.

“Even if you’re not driven by political repression, the experience of bankruptcy in China is political, it has more blowback on your life compared to places like the US. So it feels like if you’re just going to be languishing in China and you don’t see hope for recovery in a way that makes you a welcome member of society, you might as well risk it.”

[...]

China does not release statistics on people leaving, but the UN’s refugee agency – which has registered around a third of all displaced people and refugees – recorded 137,143 asylum seekers from China in 2023, five times the number registered a decade earlier at the start of Xi’s rule. By July this year it had grown to 176,239.

[...]

Last week, a Chinese resident commented on a Douyin video about zouxian [a term used in mainland China usually for Chinese trying to escape to the U.S. via the -dangerous- Darien Gap in Latin America] to Australia. “I’m at the end of the road. I can’t survive any more. I want to go. I want to go very much,” he said.

[...]