Real Slavery vs. Modern "Slavery" in China &
Net Benefit of Today's China Trade
Maybe the precise level of "slavery" is the same today. However, the living standard of everyone in China is higher today than 60 years ago as a result of trade with the West, and so trade with the U.S. has made everyone in China better off, including any "slave" workers there, of any nationality or culture or religion. (And has also made all Americans better off.)
A rising tide doesn't lift a boat tied to the seabed.
What "rising tide"? Once you concede that the rising tide happens, you also concede the possibility of the boats being unfastened from the seabed. Untying a boat from the seabed is an easier feat to accomplish than causing the tide to rise.
(Is this poetry & metaphors contest really necessary?)
What's the evidence that Tibetans and Uighurs today are any worse off than they were before 1970? or any worse off than the average Africans today? or most other poor populations? Haitians? Vietnamese? Cambodians? Bangladeshis?
1) Why are you comparing them to other populations?
It's all relative. How bad off are they? compared to whom? Aren't there many other oppressed populations? Should we boycott every country in the world which has an oppressed minority group in it? Almost every poor country is doing something oppressive toward someone in the population. E.g., many migrants to the U.S. from Central America where they were mistreated.
Back before China trade. Maybe change the exact year. At some point back there we began a significant increase in trade with China. And all the economies improved as a result of that increased trade, both in China and the West. Where's the evidence that conditions for Uighurs and Tibetans got worse since then because of that increased trade? How is trading with them to blame, or how did this trade somehow cause those populations to suffer some setback different than before? making them worse off than they would have been otherwise?
3) "Evidence": I love mountains (even though I won't consider climbing anything that's not just a walk-up), Tibet is a place I would like to visit. I'm sure my wife would go for some of the ancient temples, also. (She likes ancient buildings that are still in good shape -- even though obviously they are renovated to approximate what they were like back then.) At the time of year we typically visit a trip to Tibet is unlikely to be permitted. Even when trips are permitted an escort is required for pretty much everything other than Lhasa. That's making sure the truth doesn't get out.
Whatever this horrible "truth" is -- crimes against Tibetans etc. -- what does it have to do with trade with the U.S. or other western countries? How is this trading to blame for it? How is this evil magically cured by means of boycotts and embargoes and punitive trade barriers?
The existence of such escorts makes it pretty clear there's stuff they feel they need to hide. (Note that this is different than what Nepal has recently done with mandating local guides for hikers. That's a combination of a tax and that they don't like the bad publicity when people go where they shouldn't and die. It's shielding people from the wilderness, not shielding them from the locals.)
More trade with a country serves to
increase the openness, increase the contact with the outside, expose both populations to more knowledge of those from other cultures than their own. If anything happened that cut off contact and information, it could not have been an increase in trade with the West. As more trade is encouraged, there's also increased business and profits for both the populations. This encourages incentives to increasing the information and knowledge to locals and outsiders. Blaming those who invest and expand their business to new markets, hating them for wanting to make more profit, is not based on a concern to improve people's lives, but on hating the capitalists per se, and scapegoating them because of ideological prejudice.
4) Evidence: The security procedures for visiting Uyghur territory are too intrusive for my taste -- and as a foreigner they aren't nearly as onerous as for the locals. Again, why the precautions if they aren't hiding anything?
So we need boycotts and embargoes and sanctions against anyone in the world who is "hiding" something? How does that make anyone better off? or reduce their instinct to hide something? Is this punishment of them going to change them, or expose/thwart some insidious Conspiracy going on there which threatens our survival?
In general, more trading between cultures leads to increased knowledge between them, and improved interactions and reduction of the barriers. The pro-democracy movement in China was partly inspired by the increased trade with the West, happening when "precautions" against people, suppressing human rights was the worst ever.
If I were to visit I would assume my hardware was compromised.
Whatever this refers to, how is it somehow corrected by imposing boycotts, embargoes, sanctions onto trade going on there? Is anything suspicious going on made 10 times worse because it's happening in China? What if it's in India instead? Hasn't India done some underhanded insidious acts against Sikhs? If you visit some Sikh friends in India, should you assume the government there spies on you, hacks your devices, infects your computer with malware? The government of India hates the Sikhs, conspires against them and even murders some of them.
Nothing about trading with China makes anyone in China worse off. The real reason for China sanctions is China hate, because China is a competitor. And the ones who are hated are not the rulers of China, but the Chinese wage-earners who are willing to work for lower wages than U.S. workers, which makes them scum and enemies of uncompetitive whining American workers who can't stand to have anyone in the world do the same job at lower cost. The China-bashing by Biden and Trump is done to pander to these crybaby American workers who want to hear that their Demagogue Leader will protect them against cheap labor from China.
It's not just hate. It's that the US government quite rightly does not want hardware made under the auspices of Chinese State Security used in sensitive systems. And there have been sanctions because Chinese companies sold products with US-made parts to countries we don't want getting those parts despite agreeing not to.
99% of the China-bashers in the U.S. don't have a clue about some US-made parts China sold despite promising not to. They like to hear such paranoia, but such claims are not why they hate China. Rather, it's because they already hate China that they want to hear any China-bashing talking points, and why they vote for China-bashers Biden and Trump etc.
Why do we want someone not to get those parts and yet it's OK for China to get them? If China is our main Bad Guy, why do we approve of them getting the parts but make them promise not to sell them to another country which is not the bad guy?
Why should the average citizen or consumer care who has US-made parts? or whether China sells them to someone or made a promise not to sell them and then violated that promise?
It sounds like you're fishing around for some excuse to condemn China, to find some propaganda gossip to feed to China-bashers, to appease their appetite for China-bashing dirt.
Are the Uighurs "slaves"? What is "slavery"?
Most are not slaves, but the ones in the reeducation camps are. And that's been estimated at a million+.
About one out of a thousand (of the whole population of 1+ billion). ---- = .1%.
By comparison, the number of Americans drafted into military service during Viet Nam was more than 2 million, or 2/300 or so = about .5% to 1% of the U.S. population. .7 to .8%.
Which is worse? 1 or .5 percent of your population enslaved? (U.S.A.)? or
or .1% (one tenth of one percent) enslaved? (China)?
You could argue that this Chinese "slavery" is worse than the U.S. "slavery" of the draftees. But maybe not if you figure in the period
before the "slavery" that was imposed onto these "slaves." Many of the U.S. "slaves" were taken out of college and other places where their lives were reasonably well off. What about those Uighurs taken away from their earlier lives of convenience and high living standard? hmmmm? Were they taken away from college and profitable careers into this "slavery"?
It matters
how much worse off the "slaves" are made by the new "slavery" imposed onto them by the oppressive regime in power.
When you consider that the "slavery" you're preaching about began only with the advent of China trade with the West, not the earlier oppression during the Mao rule, it's hard to see that there really was any new "slavery" at all (after trade began). It looks like the same evils imposed onto the Uyghurs are no worse afterward, or today, than they were 50-100 years earlier. But even if we bend over backward to give some credibility to your argument and pretend that the "slavery" got worse since 1970 or so, how is it any worse than the U.S. "slavery" imposed onto 2+ million Americans (draftees) during the Viet Nam War, when their lives were disrupted and they were taken away to be made much worse off than they had been before? and the percentage of the U.S. population thrust into this "slavery" was ten times greater than that of the today's Uighurs enslaved by China? Of course you could argue that the term of "slavery" of the U.S. draftees was only 2 years. But still we're talking about 2 years of "slavery" -- right? So "slavery" is OK if it's only for 2 or 3 years?
And what about some historical cases of military conscription for much longer terms, even 20 years or longer? Should the U.S. and Europeans have imposed boycotts, embargoes, and trade sanctions against Russia forcing draftees to serve long terms to defend itself against Napoleon's Empire?
In all the modern examples, the only time trade penalties against a nation were successful was the case of South Africa, where the ruling White minority oppressed the Black majority. Let's assume this is the classic case for trade sanctions. The only reason this succeeded is that a large majority of nations cooperated with the boycott. All other cases have been failures, because there was not the needed cooperation from other nations to make it work.
If we apply the test of world democracy (among all nations), there is no case for China trade sanctions, as most countries want to trade with China, or oppose sanctions. If most nations come together to oppose China, arguably you could make a case for a global China boycott. But for the U.S. alone to lead the charge cannot work, anymore than it has worked in the case of Cuba.
Yet most Chinese probably are fine with the treatment of the Uyghurs and Tibetans (which is more a form of racism than slavery).
Agreed that there is major racism over there. We have had a relative of hers concerned about our plans to visit a part of China where the Han do not dominate. (Really, now, in a tourist-driven area you don't do serious things to tourists without a major police response!)
Most of the people are fine with it because they don't realize what's going on and it's not "their" people anyway. That's like saying that Confederate slavery was ok because most whites were fine with it.
That "most whites were fine with it" is largely incorrect, or maybe only 50% correct. How can we describe this most accurately, in simple terms, without doubling this Wall of Text even longer? And how is the Chinese "slavery" of Uyghurs to be compared? Should the U.S. conduct a crusade against today's "slavery" of Uyghurs similar to the North's anti-slavery crusade against the South in the 1860s?
Rather than "most whites were fine with it," it's more correct to say that most Whites, both North and South, were apathetic about either preserving the South's slave culture or abolishing it. Most Whites were "fine" with staying out of the fight and letting the Abolitionists and pro-Slavery ideologues condemn each other.
However, the fact is that the Northern Abolitionist movement was very strong, though they were a minority of the population, whereas the South pro-Slavery crusade was very weak, because virtually no one was philosophically defending slavery. Rather, the South found other ways to oppose the North's Abolitionists' war against southern slavery. But the Northern Abolitionists won this debate decisively, and everyone, North and South, had to either admit that the Abolitionists were right, or they had to try to change the subject and find other arguments to fight back against the North (Abolitionists) who gradually won, especially persuading those in power to their side. So e.g. the North's cause at first was only to
stop the spread of slavery to other states, but gradually changed to total Abolition in all the states. And the pro-slavery crusaders never seriously fought back against this. Even though they couldn't say so outright, they knew they were wrong and had to surrender by default.
So even the Southern Whites were not really "fine" with slavery. They fought back, but couldn't really articulate what they were fighting for, because hardly any of them really preached that Slavery was good for the country and for human society generally. Had they really been "fine" with it, they would have argued serious pro-slavery philosophy and economics.
Whereas in the North, even the majority of apathetic Whites were pressured by the minority Abolitionists who preached at them and virtually coerced them (with arguments) into supporting the Abolitionist cause. So the side that's right does win the war without the other side ever admitting they were wrong. Rather, they retreat and surrender by default.
How does this compare to the current "enslavement" of Uyghurs in China? This form of "slavery" is seen there as a social necessity/benefit similar to military conscription. It does not mean a Chinese citizen may purchase a Uyghur slave at a slave market and do anything they choose to this slave, on their personal property, plantation, etc. This private ownership of slaves by individual slave-owners is what was abolished in the U.S. and many other countries in the 19th century. But the practice of governments conscripting private persons into national service was not abolished.
The need for such government conscription of private individuals to serve a national purpose is something which differs greatly from one nation to another. A poor country with a huge population might more likely engage in this kind of "slavery" than a smaller and richer nation which is less desperate. The luxury of not needing to conscript private citizens is one of the benefits of the modern world, due to progress in science and technology and resulting economic improvements. But some forms of conscription -- like mandatory education of children -- are still practiced, and this is promoted by a very strong segment of society, even if a minority, whereas hardly anyone carries on a serious crusade against mandatory education.
So we should stop pretending that China's conscription of Uyghurs is the same as "slavery" which was officially abolished before 1900. The extreme evils of slavery were those of the private plantations, in both recent and ancient times, and cannot be honestly equated to the cases of modern states engaging in conscription of private persons, even though these in some cases might cause more damage than benefit.
The likely injury caused to the victim(s), or the net harm, is greatly multiplied when the decision-maker is one private property owner with virtual unlimited license to inflict anything he chooses onto victims -- vs. the state under power of several public officials who make the decisions how the victims are to be treated. It should be obvious that these 2 kinds of "slavery" are not equivalent evils.