A group of Australian journalists in their never-ending hostility to China keep throwing stones at China for human rights breaches in Xinjiang, but largely ignore Australian and other breaches. Their ignorance of China explains a lot.
Echoing Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo, they point regularly to the human rights abuses and possible genocide of the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese Government, against the Uighur people in Xinjiang.
Chinese actions in Xinjiang need close international examination for likely human rights breaches. We should be part of that examination.
But as Professor Colin Mackerras has pointed out, we need to look carefully at the full story in Xinjiang where the Uighur population has increased substantially.
Pompeo and Blinken are wrong: China is not committing genocide in Xinjiang
We must also look at the wider context of human rights abuses not only by China but also by ourselves, our allies and our neighbours.
Let’s start with our Frontier Wars that really were genocide. More than 50,000 of our Indigenous people were murdered by settlers and police on our frontier for more than a century. Our First Nations people were hunted, killed, poisoned, forced from their land and separated from their children. The policy then and in subsequent decades was to eliminate our Indigenous people. We don’t want to acknowledge or remember what early European Australians did.
With a population of only 1 to 2 million in Australia at the time, this was genocide and human rights abuse on a vast scale. And the legacy of that genocide is still with us – in the much lower life expectancy of Indigenous people and a much higher incarceration rate. Australian history is grounded in genocide. We hardly have clean hands in throwing stones at others. Any mention by the anti-China brigade?
We have treated refugees and asylum seekers cruelly since the days of John Howard. We have breached human rights and refugee conventions, but scarcely a whisper about this from out anti China brigade.
Again and again, we turn our back on the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the dispossession, cruelty and human rights abuses to which the Palestinian people have been subjected.
Along with six other countries, as a member of the International Criminal Court, we have just intervened to argue that the ICC does not have jurisdiction to investigate war crimes and breaches of humanity in Palestine. But once again, our anti-Chinese hawks show little interest in Australian breaches of human rights conventions. But China is always in their prejudiced minds.
And what of human rights’ abuses and likely genocide in West Papua. As Professor Stuart Rees in Pearls and Irritations wrote on 16 February 2021:
Colonial-type genocide in West Papua: living in constant fear
A citizens’ tribunal held in Sydney in 1998 reported on hundreds of Papuans murdered on Biak Island. Violence to suppress any signs of pro-independence activities was documented in a subsequent report from the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University, ‘Anatomy of an Occupation: the Indonesian Military in West Papua.’
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch confirmed the Sydney findings and a corresponding conclusion from Griffith University researchers that in the previous 50 years, the killing of half a million West Papuans amounted to ‘a slow-moving genocide’.
But what do the China critics say about this ‘slow moving’ genocide’ on our doorstep?
Media hysteria is serving us very badly. All human rights abuses need urgent international action. We detract from our role in the defence of human rights when we are so partisan on the issue.
So much of the hostility to China is ignorant, unbalanced, damaging, pointless and so unnecessary.
John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
49 responses to “People in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones”
Thank you. John for maintaining Australia’s human rights hypocrisies on public notice as for our mainstream media.. it doesn’t exist, journalists have been replaced by public service clerks spruiking propaganda.. 63 years ago Ed Murrow warned us.. ” ….
It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments, can survive….We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”
It’s too late except for the alternate press.
I accept both that China’s actions in relation to Uyghurs is muddy and involves sociological complexity and that all nations have committed egregious human rights abuses in the past and often in the present. I also accept that John often sees the need to ‘stir the pot’.
And I accept both the fact (despite hand-wringing wailing from some sympathisers here) that China has had a ‘dictator for life’ since March 2018 and the fact that both the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Government regard, and act upon their belief that, any person of Chinese heritage is to be made subject at least to their influence and indeed to their control.
Sorry but ‘Crystal Night’ comes so very quickly to my (addled??) mind.
The two biggest enemies of the truth have always been:
A. Self righteousness
B. Double standards
While the reality is most commonly “might is right”
And this applies to all sides.
John, I’m surprised that you’d draw such a long bow in the criticism of Australia’s human rights record. Going through the comments I’m also amazed at the sheer confidence that what is happening in Xinjiang is purely a myth fabricated by Western media. It seems as if greater trust placed in State-funded propaganda and all its opaqueness on what’s happening in Xinjiang, over mainstream Western media where intention is easily traceable if you’re well-read.
The main argument, why Australian human rights issues aren’t discussed with the same intensity, is obvious. Political bias and allegiances notwithstanding, media will always produce content on what people want to read. For the average person, issues in China and Xinjiang are simply more relevant to them than the issue of our treatment of asylum seekers or our government’s reaction to the mistreatment of West Papuans twenty years ago. And there are far more practical reasons for this than the propaganda model that seems to be all the trend here, such as our increasingly close ties to China through things such as business, culture, and ethnicity. There also appears to be the ignorance of the political reality, such as that the ALP (which, last I checked, has its own agency to bring these issues to light in the media and fight the Libs on human rights ground) because the current status quo on Australian human rights is tolerated.
Rather than it being the ignorance or people being played like puppets on strings, I think it’s more realistic to think it’s grounded in the experiences of people. For instance my dad who suffered growing up in China in the 50s and 60s, and knows first-hand the likelihood of persecution and mistreatment that is happening in Xinjiang. What happens in modern Australia does not compare.
“I’m also amazed at the sheer confidence that what is happening in Xinjiang is purely a myth fabricated by Western media.”
Don’t be amazed, how about you produce some actual evidence instead of Zenz’s BS reports slapped with your choice of MSM brand. I’m all ears.
What a lazy response that feeds into exactly my point- that people here would rather accept the opaqueness of Chinese propaganda that only ever publishes favourable reporting on Xinjiang, versus the reports of a researcher’s may or may not be influenced by his religious beliefs and government associations. And of course, let’s assume that the drone video footage is all doctored, that interviews with the Uyghur people are all done by those brainwashed by the CIA, and when Western media is invited it is not at all a sanitised depiction of day-to-day lives of those in Xinjiang- and yes, those empty mosques are definitely thriving with practising Muslims.
This, and trying to put the onus on me to validate and/or provide additional report without bothering to substantially question the legitimacy of MSM reporting from Zenz, or even tackling the main argument? Come on.
So did they find any WMDs in Iraq or not? What a lazy response, just dismiss anything out of Chinese media as propaganda but anything from the West no matter how crazy, requires careful examination. Where is the actual evidence?
Did you even read the Zenz report. He interviewed a couple of overseas Uyghurs, asked them how many people are sent to vocational training that they know of in their tiny village, then he extrapoalted this ratio to the entire province of Xinjiang.
If you think that’s legitimate, then I got a bridge to sell you. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence mate, otherwise it can be dismissed.
I just want to take you up on your point about being grounded in the experience of people and how your dad suffered in China in the 50s and 60s. That period was around the Great Chinese Famine- 1959-1961. If you dive into the real history, it was a combination of real natural disasters, vicious political infighting between the right and left, failed experiments with the ‘Great Leap Forward’, a split between China and the then USSR, and China being left embargoed by the entire Western world.
(At the time of the Chinese Famine, Australia, and many other countries had record harvests- not one grain went to China. As an ethnic Chinese person myself, it’s important to record the persistent anti-Chinese Western sentiment among just about ALL Western countries since year dot, and will, without doubt continue for a long time).
And of course, later on for 10 years from 1966, the Cultural Revolution. We all also know about the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.
In other words, if you were Chinese, and you grew up in the 50s and the 60s, you were extremely unlucky. BUT it is not as if was personal- I think the entire China suffered tremendously, not just your dad.
Fast forward to today’s China- in the few years before Covid, each year around 120 million Chinese would leave China, and guess what each year around 120 million Chinese would return to China.
My point to you is that based on exactly your argument about the experience of people (not your dad’s but 120 million of today’s Chinese), the current China is 100% different from your dad’s China in the 50s or 60s. That world is long gone, and you can’t make an argument about the current situation based on that. Apart from it being a historical footnote.
Perhaps one of John’s points is that we each need to overcome our own prejudices, and not only read content that confirms our prior biases? Specifically, we need to be aware of (and do our best to overcome) the bias that comes in-group favouritism (equivalently, out-group prejudice), which manifests itself in being unwilling to scrutinise our own actions (and those of our friends), while being willing to attribute fault to the actions of those who fall outside our group identity.
That said, I acknowledge that overcoming in-group favouritism (out-group prejudice) is hard. It doesn’t help when we are accustomed to a media that simply reflects our own prejudices, and think (falsely) that the media we consume delivers objective content.
Perhaps one of John’s points is that we each need to overcome our own prejudices, and not only read content that confirms our prior biases? Specifically, we need to be aware of (and do our best to overcome) the bias that comes in-group favouritism (equivalently, out-group prejudice), which manifests itself in being unwilling to scrutinise our own actions (and those of our friends), while being willing to attribute fault to the actions of those who fall outside our group identity.
That said, I acknowledge that overcoming in-group favouritism (out-group prejudice) is hard. It doesn’t help when we are accustomed to a media that simply reflects our own prejudices, and think (falsely) that the media we consume delivers objective content.
We need an explanation for ABC anti-China journalism. There is a breed of ABC journalist, especially the celebrity types (up-market Alan Joneses), who are extremely vain about their personal power over politicians, which is very real in the case of popularly elected leaders. Where they are shown to be impotent, as they are in the case of Chinese leaders, they go overboard with spite, and and end up spouting the same stuff as other political players whose power over China is much less than they would like it to be.
It took a bit longer than I had expected for the “rape” stories to start emerging in the Western propaganda narrative about the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, but I am not at all surprised that they emerged from the BBC. The sexual immaturity, hypocrisy, guilt and prurience of the British public and the notorious perversions of their ruling class guarantee a ready audience for fairytale porn of this kind. The two most recent examples of rape propaganda before this one are the “rape camps” allegedly run by the Serbs in the Balkan wars and the story about Gaddafi’s troops being issued Viagra, all the better to ravish their victims. One could almost hear the heavy breathing of the dirty-minded schoolboys of the British media as they reported this garbage.
this from moonofalabama (great source for crtitque on rubbish pushed out by western msm)
“Why Do These Uighur Witnesses’ Stories Constantly Change?”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/they-dont-only-rape-but-also-bite-all-over-your-body-horror-stories-told-by-chinese-defectors-contin.html
A perfect example happening at the moment. While there was a BBC report sent out to the world making claims about Chinese men raping women said to be detained in Xinjiang camps, and carried by the media here on the front pages, we’ve had in Canberra’s parliament house what allegedly looks like a cover-up over an alleged rape by an unknown person on the 23rd of March, 2019, in the Defence minister’s office of all places. The prime minister had called the election for the 10th of April 2019. Imagine if word had got out before the election. And the man in question has still not even been questioned by police.
Of course the cry is ‘we knew nothing’ as usual, but tell me if anyone was raped in most workplaces in the land wouldn’t everybody in the office know just through gossip alone ?
Interesting item from The Economist warning of harm to the narrative when the anti-China material is too extreme: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/02/13/genocide-is-the-wrong-word-for-the-horrors-of-xinjiang
Thanks for your comment Bob, but I can’t get through the paywall with your link.
One doesn’t need a subscription – can register with an email address for limited access (and regular ‘newsletter’ summary)
Is it not the case that the man in question has not been interrogated by the police because the victim made no complaint? And, as a responsible adult, that is her choice, for whatever reason. The police can’t investigate on the basis of gossip.
And the Canberra case has certainly been on the front pages. No hypocrisy by msm there, George. I think a lot of the dismissal of the msm, here on this site, other leftist sites and right-wing sites, comes straight from powerful ideological lens that you recognise in others but not yourselves. And you all seem to follow the msm and get various information from it.
I’m not really claiming it is the media here, I agree they have covered it well. And it is usually the case when it involves sex and politics.
The comparison I make is mainly about our government and what appears to me as a cover-up of an alleged rape. So we are hypocritical in accusing China of reports of rape in Xinjiang, but hide it here on the part of the government for the sake of the Party’s name when an election is around the corner.
As far as the media goes I could speculate that in an environment like parliament house where I find it hard to believe they could hide such an incident, the media have done nothing anyway or even tried to engage with the victim until now. I understand she has a right to privacy, but is is often something the MS media does not care much about.
There is a precedent with this: They did the same with Barnaby Joyce when he had his by-election after it had been revealed that it he was a dual national with NZ. They said nothing about his affair yet they admitted they knew well before the by-election.
Yes George, or back to Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot, and I’m sure much further still. I seem to remember reading of the covering up of affairs by Evatt, or it might have been Chifley.
It’s a tricky one. There is a difference between “in the public interest” and “what the public is interested in”. I didn’t know of their affair or Joyce’s or Alan Tudge’s (he is my MP), but I really don’t consider any of it my business. It they are rorting the taxpayer to do it, or it presents a conflict of interest in their jobs, that is different. We’re talking here of consensual affairs which, for example, Tudge’s was.
The media is taking an interest now because the victim has come out publicly now. You can see what a difference that makes to the ethics of the situation.
Your accusation about hypocrisy over respecting privacy is, alas, very much warranted.
Thanks Barney, once more we always appear to be able to discuss a subject fairly and understand each other’s views.
“I think a lot of the dismissal of the msm, here on this site, other leftist sites and right-wing sites, comes straight from powerful ideological lens”.
I don’t know how you can say that with a straight face Barney. You think a lot of things but who cares, you got any evidence? The MSM lies so much these days it’s hard to find anything honest.
Let’s see what crap has your beloved MSM been sprewing in the last couple of days oh wait here it is.
“On W.H.O. Trip, China Refused to Hand Over Important Data” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-health-organization-coronavirus.html
NYT, your fav I’m sure. Big bad China again….. oh wait
The actual WHO team who went to China calling NYT bullsh!t.
https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1360551108565999619
https://twitter.com/TheaKFischer/status/1360590441817772034
But I’m sure you’ll just say WHO is all bought and paid for by CCP and all is well with the world and maybe your self worth.
As far as I can see, journalism in the Western corporate media relating to the big geo-political issues is DEAD, and has been dead for quite a while.
https://namelyliberty.com/the-cia-and-the-corporate-media-cannot-be-distinguished-the-censorship-of-the-alternative-media/
I would rather hear it straight from the State Department or the Pentagon- the story lines are the same, but at least they don’t pretend to be ‘journalists’.
Sorry Meeple. I tried to engage with you seriously. I forgot what a total d!ckhead you are. Won’t make that mistake again. After all, you have absolutely no interest in what I have to say.
You provide no evidence other than some wishful thinking while I provide the evidence and you choose to simply ignore. Who is spewing ideology and who’s doing the projection here mate. Pathetic.
I suggest we take some advice from Dr David Brophy of Sydney University who knows Xinjiang and the Uyghur people far better than most in this country. He wrote a book called ‘Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier’. Fluent in several languages needed to understand the views in the region, and having spent much time there, he is the person any of these lazy journalists should take advice from. We know they won’t though, it is not their intention to give a fair and balanced account.
I say they are lazy journalists because they do minimal research and paint pictures that start from a biased standpoint; they are only ever about spreading ‘yellow journalism’ style misinformation full of omissions for the sake of the US, and serving the current Morrison government’s disaster in diplomacy. I think also that there is a culture in journalism these days around parliament house where in order to be accepted, towing the government line makes you more popular with the government itself, and a more favoured journalist as a result. It is how it worked with Trump too and straight out of his manual on how to avoid scrutiny.
Xinjiang and the situation with the Uyghurs is very complex and deserves much time to even understand, yet these journalists fall into writing very simplistic propagandised stories. It’s finger pointing again because it is not about looking at what we are doing, or America, in terms of human rights abuses, and as you point out John, we show no consistency levelled out to other countries over similar issues.
The government recently hailed completing a FTA agreement with Israel, a country with an appalling human rights record that we also frequently run to defend. We also sell military equipment to Saudi Arabia, a country that still carries out executions by public beheading for even ‘sorcery’, and is with the help of the US causing thousands of deaths, famine, and malnutrition (particularly with children) in Yemen, ironically against another Muslim minority.
These journalists whip up readers minds and fill them with hate, sometimes racism – you can see that by readers comments that are associated with the articles written in the respective newspapers and other media that they welcome. Although I would admit the situation for Uyghurs in Xinjiang is bad, and worthy of criticism, I would also say that there is a lot of information out there which is often found to be false. Much of the campaign against the Chinese is carried out in countries thousands of kilometres away from the region. Recent rape claims for example have been found to be told by women living outside the country whose accounts over the years have been very inconsistent. Cross-examination would reveal a contradiction in their own stories. We also have to realise that the Uyghurs want their own nation, and Xinjiang is exceedingly important for China’s BRI. It also borders with eight other countries.
I think we also have to be careful of US and British propaganda on this issue because they already did it with WMD in Iraq many times, on the path to an illegal war. How many faked photos said to be something they were not did we see? It is also a convenience to the US to use a remote part of the world that few people have been to, or could even go to, to make up stories that no one can check.
I will link here a short article by David Brophy who in his expertise still counsels ‘Positive change in Xinjiang must come from within China’ – not through finger pointing by hypocrites in other countries.
https://www.asiamediacentre.org.nz/features/david-brophy-positive-change-in-xinjiang-can-only-come-from-within-china/
Mr Menadue, I stopped subscribing to SMH some time ago because I found the journalism unbearably biased. I believe that they threaten the very foundation of our democracy just as the Murdoch media did in playing a big part in creating the Trump phenomena. We can’t actually talk of a free press or media anymore if the press in Australia continues to operate with an odious political agenda. My Little Oxford Dictionary defines “free” as “not in the power of another”. They are in the power of their owners who would not hesitate to use it to advance a political cause.
Despair about media bias took me to the MEAA (Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance) Journalist Code of Ethics. The Code of Ethics begin with:
“MEAA members engaged in journalism commit themselves to:
Honesty
Fairness
Independence
Respect for the rights of others”
I am afraid the MSM in Australia have broken much of what ethical code their journalists have committed themselves to. They have been neither honest, fair nor independent. Neither have they respected the rights of China to a fair coverage. Further illustration of this violation can be found in the list of standards provided for their guidance. I just extracted four of them:
# “Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis. Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply.”
# “Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence.”
# “Disclose conflicts of interest that affect, or could be seen to affect, the accuracy, fairness or independence of your journalism. Do not improperly use a journalistic position for personal gain.”
# “Use fair, responsible and honest means to obtain material. Identify yourself and your employer before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast. Never exploit a person’s vulnerability or ignorance of media practice.”
By their reports, they couldn’t have been able to comply with the first item listed above that they should be honest and strive for accuracy. The Uighur problem is not a transparent one. The usual practice is to pass off speculation and innuendo as truth because they have no facts to disclose. We all know and understand that the Chinese system is not a transparent one. No one really knows what goes on inside.
On the second item listed above, their personal interest, belief and commitment underpinned by a political agenda, either of their own or their employer’s, has utterly undermined their code of ethics.
One cannot but sense a conflict of interest in the often rabid campaign waged against China over the Xinjiang issue. There is an arguable but a high likelihood that biased articles were written to protect livelihood or career advancement. Most of us at one time or another have the dilemma or weighing career against moral ethics. This is quite understandable and the outcomes lie on a spectrum between the utter lack of scruples on one end to leaving our jobs on principle on the other.
I have seen a number of journalistic reports on the Uyghur issue. The stories are usually woven around aerial photographs of camps on the ground. One ABC report even connected the increased number of cars parked outside from a satellites image as an indication of increased incarceration and activities. One women who claimed persecution on Deutsche News turned out to be a Kazak instead of a Uyghur. One would not know whether they are telling the truth because there is no way of verifying their claims. Integrity seems to have been abandoned in such reporting. I provided a CGTN article some time ago that provides the Chinese point of view. Here it is again:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-06/Fact-Check-Lies-on-Xinjiang-related-issues-vs-the-truth-XEFuvz6b84/index.html
If politics is about winning or losing, no amount of reason or explanations can stop the Murdoch Press or Channel 9 or even ABC from using the power (a privilege given to them by our democratic system) they have to distort the views of the reader.
You still have a bias towards everything “Western”.
I don’t understand why are you giving any benefit of doubt to false Western MSM reports using techniques that is tried and true in planting false flags and demonise other nations for one’s own gain. There are so many examples its really amazing. Fool me 100 times, does that make me an idiot?
Pompeo openly said they lie cheat and steal yet somehow the West has suppose to have some kind of moral superiority?
Evidence can’t be verified? I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, otherwise it can be outright dismissed.
Curiously, there are many documentaries made on the Chinese side on Xinjiang vocational centres and also independent Youtubers who went to Xinjiang to understand the situation there. Heck you can go to Xinjiang too instead of lamenting on how the West has fallen on its morals when it had none in the first place.
The reasons are not even that hard to imagine. Xinjiang borders on Afghanistan, yeah that country that got bombed to the sh!t house, Wahhabi extremism has crept into Xinjiang province which led to several terrorist attacks. The Chinese want to do something about it, and the best way to do this is to give economic opportunity so these vocational training centres were setup. Since then, terrorist attacks have reduced to zero and Xinjiang economy is booming. Is that so hard to understand?
Meanwhile, the yanks have been killing muslims dropping bombs on their head in the name of FREEDOM yet nobody bats an eyelid about whether that’s a “human right” abuse.
And then, you throw an CGTN article as “Chinese point of view” almost like hey, this is a non-Western less reliable count of things for balance.
The “West is Best” inferiority complex permeates throughout your writing. You should really start visiting China a bit more and spend less time reading about it through Western lens.
You are spot on regarding the strategic situation in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has been successful in wiping out terrorism, and is necessarily working hard to grow the economy for everyone. And you can bet that the US military, regardless of who the President is, will not withdraw from Afghanistan. It’s a nice place to transit trained terrorists into Xinjiang, and a great listening post on Chinese military activity.
For those of us who have affixed Western lens, it’s a great idea to visit China, and to access non-Western media too.
Well as the saying goes, you can’t wake someone up who is pretending to be asleep. Every country has different reasons to make up “human right abuse” stories about China and it isn’t the first time these stories have been made up.
Europeans use these stories as bargaining chips for better deal in the Sino-Europe investment deal, US use it for better trade terms, as for Australia… well…. to shoot itself in the foot?
These allegations are about as real as WMDs in Iraq but people still take these seriously because the Western MSM brand give this a glaze of legitimacy even though the whole thing was practically made up by an anti-homosexual fundamental far right wing Christian German named Adrian Zenz.
Of course Western MSM totally gloss over this guy’s shady history or the dodgy data but who needs facts when you are promoting propaganda. The pollies all know its all BS. Pity the plebs.
This is the original report, it might as well be all made up.
https://www.nchrd.org/2018/08/china-massive-numbers-of-uyghurs-other-ethnic-minorities-forced-into-re-education-programs/
Also John shouldn’t be so naive as to believe the West actually gives a sh!t about “human rights”, its really just an excuse to do what colonialists have always done to others, rob cheat steal.
Very true. “Human Rights” and “Democracy” are just part of the tool set to lie, cheat and steal. I stand to be corrected but I believe that ‘HRW’ and Amnesty International are also nothing more than CIA fronts these days, among many hundreds of other NGOs operating in many countries. It’s all part of what Michael Hudson calls “Super Imperialism”.
On first read of this: https://www.ned.org/region/asia/burma-2019/ , you would think that the NED (another CIA joint) are great! The CIA playbook is truly impressive. For a lousy few hundred million bucks (and another thousand tricks), it is able to turn people in so many countries to become enemies of their own government or country (I am not defending the coup here!).
When the CIA did their hatchet job in Ukraine, they were able to get Ukrainian speakers to viciously attack their Russian-speaking fellow Ukrainians in the South-East of the country. They used the same ploy in Hong Kong, and were successful in getting Cantonese-speaking Hongkongers to physically attack the mainland Mandarin speakers amongst them.
It’s the good old ‘divide and rule’ tactic, but these days the techniques are a lot more sophisticated, including using CIA-friendly Big Tech (Google, Facebook, etc).
HRW is based in New York, and I have watched them on occasions. I cant be absolutely sure, but it seems to me that while elements within HRW clearly act on behalf of the US, other elements can be critical on occasions. However Kenneth Roth, an American attorney who has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993, always supports the US.
Thanks for the link to NED – The National Endowment for Democracy, a US NGO that ‘supports freedom around the world’, in their own words.
The link shows the grants by NED to groups throughout Burma in 2019. I intended to sum them up but gave up after listing 42 items – probably about half the total. They varied between about US$300,000 and just 10.
In total these grants must constitute a massive foreign input to the political system of Burma.
Is this what the military regard as corrupting their election?
I think Aung San Suu Kyi had not been wise to allow for the wholesale indoctrination of the people, especially the young people, of Burma by US NGOs over so many years. I have little doubt that the election itself was not corrupt. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party did win a massive majority.
However, the Burmese military sees itself as the Custodian of Burma/Myanmar who ensures the integrity and independence of the nation, which is made of of many competing ethnic groups (think Yugoslavia…). Its role is almost an equivalent of the role of the Communist Party of China in China.
The military will not give up power, regardless of what the US has in mind. There is literature linking the military to corruption, to big business in the country. May or may not be true, but their stranglehold on the country is complete.
The CIA/NED will have by now pressed all the buttons to overthrow the military but they won’t succeed; the military government will kill as many people as required. That is realpolitik.
The rebellion will probably go on for quite a while. Burmese young people, especially, have been well trained to want to demand ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’- like the young people of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand. Very well trained by US NGO’s!
Interesting take on the Burmese situation by Filipino Foreign Secretary (he is racist in how he sees the West):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Ae6DHfOyI
and let’s not forget the heart wringing tale of ‘babies being thrown out of incubators’ in the first gulf war, brought to us by a tearful young lass who said she was a nurse in the hospital where it happened, and who turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in New York. A few days ago the BBC ran a similar piece of footage, this time a young lass weeping because three men stormed into her cell in a Uighur concentration camp and, in her own words, did ‘unspeakable’ things to her. The two pieces of footage are remarkably similar. The BBC story did not explain how the young woman had got out of that predicament and was able to air her grievances on the BBC in London. But, I suppose in fairy stories, magical outcomes are the norm.
That’s an excellent reminder of what transpired! See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmfVs3WaE9Y
She was coached very well! Fast forward to Xinjiang 2020/21… . We have many multiples of these sob stories. True or False?
If you told a lie enough times, and especially if you are the Custodians of your country’s very existential well-being, well it is not so difficult! You scare the bejesus out of them. In 2002/2003, 90% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein not only had WMD, but was the biggest sponsor of terrorists!
Joseph Goebbels would be proud of his modern day students in the US and the UK!!
Joseph Goebbels learnt his craft from the British who used propaganda extensively in WW1. The Germans did not use propaganda in WW1. After the war Kaiser Bill complained bitterly about the propaganda disparagement of the German soldiers by the British. These days of course it is Goebbels who gets the credit for the use and development of war propaganda. But this accreditation is merely one more example of British propaganda.
I see! Thanks for your more accurate version. The darn British, yet again! (Is there anything in the modern geo-politics that the Brits hadn’t had their dirty hand in it?!)
Oh yeah I remember that Oscar worthy performance, not sure which one’s better, that one or the veil of washing powder. So many to choose from.
And the White Helmets fairytale.
Sometimes its laziness or ignorance, more often a straightforward approach of putting an anti-China spin on any item about China. Not ‘reporting’ (recording what’s occurred), nor ‘journalism’ (creating a narrative founded in facts) but ‘agitprop’.
Dominic Dwyer, Australian member of the WHO team which visited Wuhan, said on return that he was essentially satisfied with the collaboration and assistance the group encountered in Wuhan.
Headlines in Australian media were in the manner of “China refuses to provide data”
Compare the reports in The Guardian; ABC News with the interview Dwyer gave to Norman Swan.
Guardian Feb 14
“WHO investigator claims China refused to hand over key Covid information”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/who-investigator-claims-china-refused-to-hand-over-key-covid-information
ABC News Feb 13
“China refused to provide WHO with raw data on COVID cases, says Australian investigator”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-13/china-refused-to-provide-who-with-raw-data-on-covid-cases/13152786
Health Report interview with Dominic Dwyer Feb 15
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/who-visit-to-china/13156324
Some of the WHO inspectors themselves are complaining about the misinformation too, not that anyone is going to say a word here in Australia’s junk food media.
“After the report was published, two WHO experts slammed New York Times for misquoting them in the report to fit its own narrative, with the report casting a shadow over the scientific work of seeking for virus origin.”
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1215614.shtml
‘This a good way to fact check the veracity of our own media. Sure, Global Times, is a Chinese government outfit, but we don’t have to swallow everything that they say.
And since the editor of Global Times Hu Xijin apparently has connections to the highest echelons of power in Beijing, the website is a useful reference point of Chinese government thinking on the day.
The thing is that whatever comes from China is cast as lies and propaganda, while many in the West think our media services never lie, omit important facts, or manufacture stories.
In other words Westerners are honest and Chinese people are not and that has been going on here since the 1860s. In the US people still believe Trump even though every one of his mistruths were counted, and it was well into a tally many thousands by the time he left office.
I actually find the Global times pretty mild in how it engages with Australia and they frequently make a lot of sense on the key issues. They often suggest other ways that problems can be dealt with and show a willingness to engage cooperatively on most issues.
Those who live in glass houses should’nt throw stones – an old English/European proverb I learnt at school. I believe that human right abuses occur universally, those in the West are frequently exposed but on the other side the expose is infrequent. Man inhumanity to man must be exposed but it must exposed by those whose hands are clean and not blooded. Politician who are involved in starting wars or other atrocities should not be making statements at all. The truth is, there may be incidence of human abuse and most governments would deny it. The allegations made against China is controversial at best, and the level of human right abuse is exagerrated and spun to resemble genocide. This extreme allegations (paid with 30 pieces of silver) dwarf the the real incidents of such abuse and counter propanganda if successful, would ridicule the alleger. My message: Spinning of the allegations to its worst scenario expunge the smoke from the smoking gun.
The Uighur story is unreliable, and seems to be cut from the same cloth as the weapons of mass destruction story that got us into Iraq in 2003. Like the weapons of mass destruction story, the Uighur story began smallish with accusations of suppression of Uighur culture by Beijing, but has been constantly added to, without any additional evidence, to now become one of genocide and rape and torture allegations. Tell a small lie, get that accepted, and then build the narrative you really want on that. I have never trusted this story, and the later embellishments convince me it is mostly phantasy.+