# News & Current Events > World News & Affairs >  China's Han Superstate: The New Third Reich

## Swordsmyth

_More than a million people, for no reason other than  their ethnicity or religion, are held in concentration camps in what  Beijing calls the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and what traditional  inhabitants of the area, the Uighurs, say is East Turkestan. In addition  to Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs are also held in these facilities._
  Families in this troubled area, shown on maps as the northwestern  portion of the People's Republic of China, are being torn apart. The  children of imprisoned Uighur and Kazakh parents are "confined" to "schools" that  are separated from the outside by barbed wire and heavy police patrols.  They are denied instruction in their own language, forced to learn  Mandarin Chinese. The controls are part of a so-called "Hanification"  policy, a program of forced assimilation. "Han" is the name of China's  dominant ethnic group.
*Because Uighurs and Kazakhs are dying in the camps in considerable numbers, Beijing is building crematoria to eradicate burial traditions while disposing of corpses.*


*The camps, a crime against humanity, are spreading.* China is now building similar facilities, given various euphemistic names such as "vocational training centers," in Tibet, in China's southwest.
*At the same time, Beijing is renewing its attempt to eliminate religion country-wide.* Christians  have come under even greater attack across China, as have Buddhists.  China's ruler, Xi Jinping, demands that the five recognized religions   official recognition is a control mechanism  "Sinicize." The Chinese,  as a part of this ruthless and relentless effort, are destroying mosques  and churches, forcing devout Muslims to drink alcohol and eat pork, inserting Han officials to live in Muslim homes, and ending religious instruction for minors.
*These attempts, which have antecedents in Chinese history,  have been intensified since Xi became the Communist Party's general  secretary in November 2012.*
  At the same time, Xi, far more than his predecessors, has been promoting the concept of a world order ruled by only one sovereign, a Chinese one.
*In broad outline, Xi's vision of the world is remarkably similar to that of the Third Reich, at least before the mass murders.*
  The Third Reich and the People's Republic share a virulent racism, in  China politely referred to as "Han chauvinism." The Han category, which  is said to include about 92% of the population of the People's  Republic, is in truth the amalgamation of related ethnic groups.
  Chinese mythology holds that all Chinese are descendants of the  Yellow Emperor, who is thought to have ruled in the third millennium  BCE. The Chinese consider themselves to be a branch of humanity separate  from the rest of the world, a view reinforced by indoctrination in  schools, among other means.
*Chinese scholars support this notion of Chinese separateness with the "Peking Man" theory of evolution, which holds the Chinese do not share a common African ancestor with the remainder of humankind.* This theory of the unique evolution of the Chinese has, not surprisingly, reinforced racist views.
*As a result of racism, many in China, including officials,  "believe themselves to be categorically different from and impliedly  superior to the rest of the humankind,"* writes Fei-Ling Wang, author of _The China Order: Centralia, World Empire, and the Nature of Chinese Power_.
*The racism, therefore, is institutionalized and openly promoted.* That was painfully evident last year in the 13-minute skit on  China Central Television's Spring Festival Gala, the premier television  show in China. In "Let's Celebrate Together," a Chinese actress in  blackface played a Kenyan mother, who had an enormous bosom and  ridiculously large buttocks. Worse, her sidekick was a human-size  monkey. The combination of the monkey and the woman was an echo of the  Hubei Provincial Museum exhibit, "This is Africa," which in 2017 displayed photographs of Africans flush next to images of primates.
  In recent years, there have been many ugly portrayals of Africans in  Chinese media, and although the skit last year was not the worst, it was  striking because the main state broadcaster, by airing it to about 800  million viewers, made it clear Chinese officials think of Africans as  both objects of derision and subhuman. In these circumstances, it is a  safe assumption that these views are shared by the Beijing leadership,  which, alarmingly, is making more frequent race-based appeals to Chinese  people  and not only those in China.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ew-third-reich

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## Swordsmyth

*Beijing's tyranny over its people is fast becoming more terrifying than anything in Nineteen Eighty-Four...*

_It has become fairly cliché to call China’s surveillance state -  its artificial intelligence-driven facial recognition, the new “social  credit system,” its cultural policing and re-education camps for Uyghur  minorities - “something right out of George Orwell’s Nineteen  Eighty-Four.”_
  But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
*Orwell’s dystopian vision, first published 70 years ago this  June, was informed by the fascist and communist movements that triggered  worldwide military conflict and the deaths of millions of people during  the mid-20th century.* But Orwell’s warning went well beyond the wars we knew. It cautioned, noted Erich Fromm in  an afterword in the 1961 edition, against the loss of humanity and free  thought, and the new, increasingly centralized “managerial  industrialism, in which man builds machines which act like men and  develops men who act like machines.” It showed how that could be used as  a tool of totalitarian ambitions.
  China convulsed in revolution during the 1940s; Mao Zedong  established the one-party state of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)  in 1949. But Orwell, according to Fromm, had his gaze on Joseph Stalin  and the Soviet Union when he wrote _Nineteen Eighty-Four_, which  is set in fictional Oceania, one of three of the world’s superstates.  Oceania is run by one party, Ingsoc (English Socialism), headquartered  in what is left of post-war London. “Big Brother” is the god-like,  mustachioed visage serving as the party’s fearsome symbol of absolute  authority.
*As rooted as Nineteen Eighty-Four is in Orwell’s own  uncertain world, he could not have imagined how his predictions for  humankind would morph and metastasize beyond the terrors of Mao’s  Cultural Revolution and into the cyber-authoritarianism we are seeing in  Xi Jinping’s China today (still run by the Chinese Communist Party).*
  Where the Soviet experiment failed, China’s has evolved more  powerfully into a hybrid of state-run capitalism. Control is maintained  through coercion and social management. There is no rule of law as it is universally understood, and electionsare compulsory, with all candidates, from the most local to the top, pre-approved by the party. Only sanctioned religious worship is allowed. Private enterprise is only “free” by courtesy. Successfully petitioning the government is nearly impossible, if not dangerous.
  The Internet of course is strictly censored. While one can buy a copy of _1984,_ any reference comparing it to modern authoritarian governments, especially Maoism, isforbidden. 
 *“The Chinese Communist Party does not say ‘war is peace,’  but it does claim to care about ‘democracy,’ while denying space for  competing views to be expressed in public,”* Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, tells _TAC_, drawing a line from Orwellian Newspeak to language published in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manifestos.Furthermore, he compares the “stamping out of any discussion” about  the Tiananmen Square massacre 30 years ago to the “memory hole” through  which pages of undesirable history are tossed by worker drones in  Ingsoc’s Ministry of Truth. Last year, the CCP announced a takeover of  all mass media regulation by China’s Central Propaganda Department.  Major broadcasters, in part, will be responsible for “propagating the  party’s theories, directions, principles and policies.”
  So it should come as no surprise that  citizens are now pressured to  spend more and more time on the “hottest app” in China—“Study the Great  Nation”—a bible of sorts highlighting the teachings and goings-on of  president Xi Jinping. Individual participation rates are recorded, and  those who don’t spend enough time on the mobile app everyday are  punished by employers and chastised by school teachers.
 _“He is using new media to fortify loyalty toward him,”_ Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, told _The New York Times._Outside observers say say  Xi’s consolidation of power within and for the party reflects the need  to minimize political and economic rancor at home, and position China as  a unified power player abroad. Indeed, the government seems to find new  ways to use technology to manifest this power every day. Ironically—and  Orwell himself may have never dreamed this—is that thanks to  globalism’s successes, much of that technology is coming from us.
 _“Certainly the social credit, the total face recognition systems, the concentration camps in China, evoke all the dark imaginings of a 20th century dystopian like Orwell,”_ Adam Simon, a Los Angeles-based science fiction screenwriter, director and producer, tells _TAC._
  “But what is perhaps most pernicious is how many of the Chinese  techniques are created and enabled directly and indirectly not by some  nefarious ‘communist’ social weapons lab or politburo but by the ‘best  of the West’ from London to Silicon Valley.” (Think Microsoft, IBM, Google.)Repeated attempts by _TAC_ to reach officials at the Chinese embassy in Washington for comment on this story were unsuccessful.
*All Seeing Eye*  For Winston Smith, _Nineteen Eighty-Four_’s doomed  protagonist, his inner thoughts, a running conversation with himself,  were the only thing Big Brother wasn’t watching. Yet.
  The moment he put pen to paper in a secret diary, written just out of  sight of the telescreen dual-functioning as a surveillance camera in  his London flat, he considered himself “a dead man.” Sadly, he wasn’t  far off base.
  In his one-room apartment, there was “no way of knowing whether you  were being watched at any given moment” through the telescreen. “How  often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any  individual wire was guesswork,” Winston surmised. “It was even  conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.”
  Outside, cameras and microphones picked up everything. The Police  Patrol, hovering in helicopters, were forever “snooping into people’s  windows.” In the Ministry of Truth, the propaganda nerve center at which  Winston worked, telescreens served the same purpose—in the cubicle, the  canteen, the restrooms.
*In China today, there are more than 200 million cameras and an unknown number of security robots roaming  the streets, watching the populace, in public and private spaces. But  unlike Oceania, these “telescreens” are equipped with artificial  intelligence, including the ability to identify faces and match them  with massive amounts of personal data already harvested by the state.*
  These cameras are not only used to catch crooks and identify potential terrorists, but to predict when someone _may_ commit a crime, which sounds more like _Minority Report_ than _Nineteen Eighty-Four_. They also monitor more mundane social transgressions, like public intoxication, jaywalking, or using too much toilet paper. Culprits are publicly shamed, or worse, their social credit score goes down and they’re blacklisted (more on that below).
*Right now, facial recognition is feeding a national database  that, according to reports, is striving to identify any one of China’s 1.4 billion people within three seconds.* Research firm IHS Markit estimates that about 450 million new cameras will be shipped to the Chinese market by the end of 2020. China certainly has more cameras per person than any other country in the world (though with more than six million cameras, Britain is not far behind).Facial recognition is already creeping into police work in the U.S (some estimate 50 million cameras here), but localities across America are starting to ban its use. There is no such luxury of protest in China.
  In May, _The New York Times_ reported that  the Trump administration is considering limits on the ability of  Chinese-run Hikvision to buy American components for its video  surveillance technology. The report said Hikvision tech already boasts  the ability to “track people around the country by their facial  features, body characteristics or gait, or to monitor activity  considered unusual by officials…”
*While there was no internet, no cloud, no algorithms in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston always feared that his facial expression and body language would seal his doom.*
 “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were  in any public place or within range of a telescreen,” Winston explains.  “The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious  look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried  with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide.” *Not showing the proper joy when it was warranted, or hate when it was called for, could be punished as a facecrime.*Not only used at ATMs, facial technology is now deployed by banks in  China to gauge whether a person is honest when they are applying for a  loan. Ping An,  a financial services conglomerate, has developed software for its banks  that “can pinpoint 54 brief, involuntary micro-expressions that a face  often creates before the brain can control the movements of the face.”
  Because this technology is deployed everywhere—people are now “paying with their face” at  a growing number of retail chains and travel stations—the government  has access to broader and more complex data streams: where individuals  shop, how much debt they carry, where they socialize. Everyone’s story  is told with one capture of their face (made easier now, as police in  select areas have sunglasses that can call up tons of data on a person on the spot).
  To grasp the full realization of this new technology, one need look  no further than how the country’s 11 million minority Muslim Uyghur  population is being tracked.
According to reports,  facial recognition is being used to racially profile Uyghurs based on  their distinct facial characteristics. Surveillance cameras have been placed in individual homes in Xinjiang, the autonomous region where the biggest concentration of Uyghurs live. There, according to Human Rights Watch,  (HRW), an Integrated Joint Operations Platform is being used by police  to aggregate “data about people and flags to officials those it deems  potentially threatening.” That information includes personal behavior  and relationships, the location of personal phones and vehicles, buying  habits, and more. All is fed through a database that can both monitor  and “predict” threats.
 “[These findings] shed light on how mass surveillance functions in China,” warns HRW. *“While  Xinjiang’s systems are particularly intrusive, their basic designs are  similar to those the police are planning and implementing throughout  China.”**“A Boot Stamping on a Human Face”*  “The innovation now of course is that the technology—above all the  algorithms—obviates the need for human collaborators,” says Adam Simon.
*“It’s the driverless-car version of surveillance.”*Simon is right about how social control will work for China’s  massive, sprawling population in the future. But in Xinjiang, “human  collaborators” are still at work—“re-educating” an estimated one million Uyghurs who  have reportedly disappeared into heavily fortified concentration camps  there in the last three years. In addition, a million Chinese nationals  have been sent to live with Uyghur families to serve as their cultural  minders and as spies for the PRC.
*For its part, the government, which has severely restricted  outside access to Xinjiang, has said that its tracking and detention of  Uyghurs, as well as its crackdown on their Muslim culture, is a matter  of national security and “unity.”*
  Since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, critics say the  Chinese have used terrorism to justify their repression of the Uyghur  population. In 2017, public intellectuals, teachers, and other  high-profile Uyghurs began vanishing.  Several, it turns out, were convicted of “separatism” and sent to  secret prisons. For all others, their whereabouts are a mystery. Reports  over the last year indicate that tens of thousands are in the so-called  “education conversion centers,” where, according to the few who have  made it out, detainees are beaten, brainwashed, and broken. The goal:  total “transformation,”much like Winston at the end of _Nineteen Eighty-Four._ After  his interrogator O’Brien said that the future was a “boot stamping on a  human face—forever,” Winston was sent to torturous “re-education” in  the bowels of the Ministry of Love, after which he ultimately “loved Big  Brother.”
 *“The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country in decades,”* charged Sophie Richardson,  China director at HRW, in 2018. The group described wholesale  “political indoctrination, collective punishment, restrictions on  movement and communications, heightened religious restrictions, and mass  surveillance in violation of international human rights law.”In _Nineteen Eighty-Four_, Winston describes a world in which  any transgression against the state’s arbitrary rules or codes of  behavior could mean one was “vaporized” or completely “annihilated” from  existence. Some were sent to camps. “In the vast majority of cases  there was no trial, no report of the arrest,” Winston said. “People  simply disappeared, always during the night.”
  Kamatürk Yalqun last saw his father, Yalqun Rozi, when he visited his  family in Washington in 2015. They later learned that Rozi, chief  editor of middle school textbooks in Xinjiang, was sentenced to life in prison by the Chinese government on charges that he was a separatist.
  Kamatürk told _TAC_ that after his disappearance and other  editors’ for the school system, the PRC cracked down on all the  textbooks. Now they are all written in Chinese, and the students forced  to wear Chinese school uniforms—no Muslim dress allowed. In the  streets, there is a battle over the dress code,  with reports that Chinese authorities are keeping women with hijabs and  men with beards off public buses—even detaining them—and cutting women’s skirts if they are too long. People are reportedly arrested for reading Muslim books and praying.
 *“[Uyghur culture] is as different as American culture is to Chinese culture,” and the people are understandably resistant,*  said Kamatürk, standing in front of a life-size photo of his dad, from  whom he has had no word. “My father was the harbinger,” he said. “The  true number of deaths in the camps, or died immediately after release,  is unknown, given the veil of secrecy and fear.”When the Chinese government finally broke its silence about  the detention centers, officials said they hosted a “vocational  education and training program” in which the “students” were treated  humanely and “according to the law.”
  “Its purpose is to get rid of the environment and soil that breeds  terrorism and religious extremism,” exclaimed Shohrat Zakir, chairman of  Xinjiang’s government, in October. He added that while some may  “graduate” from “deradicalization” successfully, “the duration,  complexity and intensity remain acute, and we must maintain high  vigilance.”
  Just as disturbing are the million mostly Han Chinese nationals who  have been sent to Xinjiang in three waves since 2014 to assimilate the  Uyghurs.* The PRC actually calls them “relatives.”* A statement in December 2017 called the project “United as One Family.”
  The reality is much darker. These “relatives” are billeted in homes  armed with “gifts” of food and appliances and a better understanding of  how to behave in the Chinese way. Some live with their “families” for a  year or more. They serve as spies, minders, and tutors—in other words,  social engineering on a scale not seen since Nazi Germany sent 200,000  Polish children to live with German families to be “Germanized” between 1939 and 1944.
  Family and community are the last line of resistance to the state.  “Only China can do this because they have the manpower and they have the  will to do it. They are like robots. They do what they are told,” said  Turdi Ghoja, a Uyghur expatriate in Washington who has not heard from  anyone in his family since late 2017.
 *“They [“relatives”] have absolute power, they are terrorizing Uyghurs,” he tells TAC. “In my mind it is even worse than the concentration camps.”*The last time Ghoja spoke to his brother-in-law, the man was arrested  shortly afterward. Ghoja has no idea if there are “relatives” in the  home preventing communication, or if his mother and sister have been  taken away, too.
 *“They know everything you say, they monitor all interactions,”*  Ghoja said. “Sometimes I feel that not knowing is better. Maybe they  are in the camps, maybe they are not. I just keep calling, and no one  picks up the phone.”*Social Credit System*  According to various reports over the last two years, the PRC has  rolled out several social credit pilot programs in which individuals and  institutions that are deemed “trustworthy” are given positive points,  and therefore rewards, while those who transgress lose points. A  super-low rating can lead to being “blacklisted,” blocking one’s access  to health clinics, private schools, plane and train travel, and jobs.
 *“At its core, the system is a tool to control individuals’,  companies’ and other entities’ behaviour to conform with the policies,  directions and will of the [Chinese Communist Party],”* writes Samantha  Hoffman, a visiting fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy  Institute. And government is using all the artificial intelligence  described above to do it.
  “It combines big-data analytic techniques with pervasive data collection to achieve that purpose.”Some 43 cities are now testing some form of social credit, while a national system is expected to roll out by 2020 to  “put people first, broadly shape a thick atmosphere in the entire  society that keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is  disgraceful,”according to early planning documents.
  Each pilot is different but typically gives an individual 1,000  points to start. Some depend on electronic data streams coming from  camera surveillance, banks, and public institutions to take away points  for myriad reasons—everything from evading taxes and playing too many video games  to violating traffic laws. On the other hand, giving to charity, donating blood, and paying bills on time help increase points.
  In places like Jiakuang Majia village everything  is done with a designated official spending her day checking in on  neighbors and filing reports by hand to the state. Every month she  tallies up scores on a single sheet and assigns “little red stars and  flags” by villagers’ names on public bulletin boards. In the cities,  individuals can check scores on their mobile devices.
*Good behavior is rewarded mostly with streamlined services  like getting in a faster queue at the hospital, not paying a deposit on  rental cars, or better foreign exchange rates.* Bad  behavior—which can include protesting and petitioning the government—can  leave one locked out of public services and social media. According to  reports, more than 11 million people have already been prevented from  taking flights or high-speed rail (the difference between a three-hour  or a 30-hour trip) based on bad social credit scores.
*The government says this is making not only individuals but  businesses more trustworthy. Companies on the blacklist, for example,  are prevented from bidding on government projects or issuing corporate  bonds.*
  Meanwhile, private financial companies are developing their own  credit regimes outside of the government using the popular QR code  payment systems. In China, almost everything is paid for by scanning a  barcode via mobile app, like WeChat, Alipay, or Tencent. Individuals can  also use QR codes for identification, tracking family and pets,  charitable giving, or posting to job boards. Companies are collecting  all that info to build profiles and assign scores.
 _“What’s troubling is when those private systems link up  to the government rankings—which is already happening with some  pilots,”_ says Mareike Ohlberg,  research associate at the Mercator Institute for China Studies. “You’ll  have sort of memorandum of understanding like arrangements between the  city and, say, Alibaba and Tencent about data exchanges and including  that in assessments of citizens.”Surveys indicate that the vast majority of the Chinese people are in  favor of this, particularly among the more privileged classes. According  to a September 2018 survey by  the Mercator Institute, “wealthier, higher educated, urban respondents”  viewed it “as an instrument to close institutional and regulatory gaps,  leading to more honest and law-abiding behavior in society, and less as  an instrument of surveillance.”
  This buy-in ensures it will be self-enforcing and public protest will be at a minimum. So when a government petitioner lost 950 points and  plummeted to a “D” rating for supposedly writing too many online  letters on behalf of his mother’s long held medical dispute with the  state, no one seemed to care. When investigative reporter Liu Hu was blacklisted and completely cut off from travel and social media for the crime of being “dishonest,” only the Western media took notice.
 _“Their eyes are blinded and their ears are blocked,”_ Hu said of his fellow Chinese people.
_“They know little about the world and live in an illusion.”_In China, technology has created a system of both commercial rewards  along with state controls. Most people say the surveillance keeps them  safe and the credit system keeps them trustworthy. Perhaps this is where  the comparisons to the bleak and relentless “boot in the face” end, and  the iron fist in the velvet glove of Aldous Huxley’s _Brave New World_ (1932) begins, says Adam Simon.
 _“(Huxley) probably came closer to pre-visioning the  seemingly non-coercive, but ultimately totalitarian technologies that  simultaneously watch and entertain, crush and seduce today.”_Crush seems to be a key word here. In the end, Hoffman says, the  government is using societal problems to justify this authoritarian  project, even though *“[it’s] a state driven program designed to do one thing, to uphold and expand the Chinese Communist Party’s power.”*


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ightmare-china


Let's import millions of them here to enrich our culture, they're probably more liberty loving than American Republicans.

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## Swordsmyth

For Christians, even getting together for a meal is now off-limits in  China. It seems that dinners are now considered religious gatherings,  which as such should be authorized.
 That’s the hard lesson 11 believers from a Sola Fide house church in Xiangyang city in central China’s Hubei Province  learned on March 13, 2019, the night they were arrested after having  dinner together. Just as the believers were leaving the meeting venue,  they were surrounded by more than 20 police officers, who rounded them  up, herded them into police cars and took them down to the police  station. The officers reported they had been tipped-off, possibly by  neighbors seeking a reward for having denounced an illegal religious  gathering.
_Bitter Winter_ has learned that, when one believer, a woman  in her 60s, simply asked the cops what they were doing, the answer was a  punch on her chest. The woman suffers from heart disease and high blood  pressure. Ignoring her condition, the police officer assaulted her  until she passed out. When she woke, he continued the attack.
 At the police station, personnel from the local Religious Affairs  Bureau reprimanded the believers, saying they are not allowed to hold  gatherings, and much less to preach in other regions. In fact, some of  them had come by bus from another county,  which the government officials considered as forbidden “cross-regional  preaching.” Ultimately, the believers were released, but the health of  the woman with heart problems continued to deteriorate. She developed an  irregular heartbeat, vomiting, and urinary incontinence. She was taken  to a hospital where it was determined that she had multiple injuries to  her chest, abdomen and face. In addition, her heart condition worsened.  More than 3,000 RMB (about $450) had to be spent on hospitalization  expenses.
 The woman prepared a written report about the incident, and asked the  government for an explanation. Not only did officials not provide one,  they gave her something else. Another warning. As reported to _Bitter Winter_ by  local believers, she was told that, “Believing in God is illegal. If  you continue holding gatherings, we will arrest you once again.” When  she complained that all this was illegal, and mentioned that the Chinese  Constitution includes a provision about freedom of belief, an officer  answered, “How can you talk about the law with me? Whatever I say is the  law. Otherwise, go ahead and file a lawsuit.”


More at: https://bitterwinter.org/share-a-meal-and-go-to-jail/

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## Swordsmyth

China’s  Police State tracks down expats, and threatens their family back home  to turn them into informants who spy for the regime

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## tod evans

More 'racism' only from China this time..

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## Swordsmyth

Christian parents in China have shared how their schoolchildren are  being taught that Christianity is an “evil cult” and encouraged to “hate  God” as the officially atheist country continues to tighten its grip on  religion. 
According to Chinese persecution watchdog Bitter Winter,  since the Regulations on Religious Affairs legislation was implemented  last year, schools around China have adopted “unprecedented measures” to  keep students away from Christianity. Schools in China are  government-controlled, and therefore Communist in ideology.
The  policy has resulted in difficult situations for families as children are  encouraged to question the beliefs of family members and report those  closest to them to authorities. 
Several Christian parents shared  their stories with Bitter Winter, revealing the magnitude of China’s  animosity toward Christianity. 
“My teacher says that Christianity  is an evil cult,” one boy explained to his mother. “[That] if you  believe in it, you will leave home and not take care of me. You might  set yourself on fire, too.”
Another mother shared how, after  discovering an anti-Christian school textbook in her son’s backpack, she  hid many of the items that identified her as a believer to help her son  with his anxiety.
A month later, when her son found another  religious leaflet in his mother’s bag by chance, he “angrily took a  fruit knife from the kitchen and fiercely poked several holes in it,”  according to the outlet. 
He then threatened his mother to give up her faith because “Christianity is an evil cult” and she “mustn’t believe in it.”
“Before  starting school, I told my child about God’s creation, and he believed  it,” the woman explained. “But after being taught at school, my child is  like a different person. In atheistic China, these pure and innocent  children have been taught to hate God.”
Kindergarten and primary  schools are also teaching children how to oppose religion. In late  April, a primary school in Xinzheng city in the central province of  Henan encouraged young children to refrain from believing in any deity. 
“If your mom goes to church and believes in God, she doesn’t want you as her child anymore,” one teacher said.
Another  school screened a propaganda video in which Jesus followers were  depicted as big scary monsters. After the presentation was complete, a  teacher warned that Christian relatives might “cast spells” on the  youngsters.
One of the parents at the school said that as a  result, her son actively opposed her reading religious books in the  family home. Another student was terrified that his mom was going to be  led away by police.
Others students were advised to “supervise” their parents to ensure that they don’t practice their faith. 
“It  leads to a dead-end,” one young student said of his father's Christian  faith. “If you attend gatherings, you will be arrested.”
China  introduced revised regulations on religion in February, which included  banning under-18s from attending church or receiving any religious  education.
The new regulations have also forced primary schools in Henan to warn parents that they are not allowed to breach the country's laws on the practice of religion.


More at: https://www.christianpost.com/world/...evil-cult.html

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## Swordsmyth

Earlier this week, I met with some Christian friends who have lived  and worked in China for many years. What they shared with me was  chilling and sobering. (They are well-connected and not simply airing  personal opinions.)

First, the crackdown against Christian  believers in the country (not to mention the crackdown against Muslims  and others, which we did not discuss in detail), is getting increasingly  severe.
Just a few years ago, there were real signs of change. Persecution was lessening and liberties were increasing. But not today.
There is a systematic attempt to purge the Gospel from the nation.
Even  the national, Three-Self churches, in which there were some real,  Gospel preaching pastors, are now virtually bereft of such leaders. And  it is true that the Communist Party is rewriting  the Bible to make it suitable for their purposes. This, then, would be  the Bible used in these government-run churches. Talk about an utterly  blasphemous act.
As for the underground churches, the crackdown against them is intensifying.
My friends have Chinese colleagues whose family members have received life sentences because of their faith.
Arrests,  brutal interrogations, imprisonments, disruption of meetings, beatings,  destroying of “unauthorized” Bibles and Christian books are  increasingly common. In one instance that was shared with me, those  owning non-approved Bibles and other resources were hit with “stiff  fines and the books earmarked for destruction.  But not before they (the  materials) were first dumped in piles on the street before they were  carted off…followed by the pastor who was then sent to prison.”


To be sure, much of this has been known for some time now and I myself have written about it, most recently, last September. But, to repeat, the persecution is increasing, and it is chilling to hear about it firsthand.
Second, President Xi really does have megalomaniacal plans. By removing presidential term limits, he is setting himself up to be emperor for life (as my friends couched it).
Not  only so, but I was told that the government, from top to bottom, seems  to be in lock step with him (in particular, when it comes to persecuting  Christians).
In the past, Beijing might say one thing and a local  province would do another. Today, I was informed, that is not the case.  The cooperation and harmony are deep.

Third, while the Chinese  people may have enjoyed having more liberties, they are more concerned  with a healthy economy. And since more and more Chinese have more and  more money, they don’t mind the crackdowns on their liberties, which  include greater monitoring of their day-to-day lives.




Not only so, but the government is now regulating what  days certain factories can run and having more say about certain cars on  the road, which is leading to less pollution and more blue skies.
Simply  stated, as the people have more money in their pockets and more blue  skies over their heads, they are all the more supportive of President  Xi. In fact, my friend felt that if China went to war, people would  enlist in the army _en masse_.
Fourth, my friends believe  that China is increasingly becoming the antagonist in the world today,  and they stated plainly that someone needed to stand up to China’s  aggression.

More at: https://townhall.com/columnists/mich...china-n2552258

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## r3volution 3.0

If the yoots don't recall, that look on Ron's face was about McBomb claiming that Saddam would have been the next Hitler. 

The nationalistic jingo-jango has departed Baghdad, eastbound.

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## Swordsmyth

> If the yoots don't recall, that look on Ron's face was about McBomb claiming that Saddam would have been the next Hitler. 
> 
> The nationalistic jingo-jango has departed Baghdad, eastbound.


Nobody here says we should bomb China, but we should not allow them to destroy or dominate us any more than we should have allowed Hitler to do so.
Noninterventionism is not surrender.

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## r3volution 3.0

> Nobody here says we should bomb China, but we should not allow them to destroy or dominate us any more than we should have allowed Hitler to do so.
> Noninterventionism is not surrender.

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## Swordsmyth

> 


Thank you for admitting that you want us to surrender to China.

ALL HAIL EMPEROR XI!

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## Swordsmyth



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## Swordsmyth

Chinese  facial recognition spots someone jaywalking, fines them, notifies them,  and extracts the money from their account in twenty seconds

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## Pauls' Revere

I bet the citizens are safe as F***K

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## Swordsmyth

> I bet the citizens are safe as F***K


Those that haven't been disappeared.

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## brushfire

About the only threat I see China posing, is providing our government with the winning formula for a totalitarian state.

I must admit though, those Hong Kong folks have made a pretty good sh!tstorm.   They mainland will just bundy-ranch their a$$es when nobody's looking.   They're a patient bunch.

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## Swordsmyth

China’s top technology hub Hangzhou plans to assign government   officials to work with 100 private companies including e-commerce giant   Alibaba, according to state media reports, in a move likely to raise   concerns over the growing role of the state.
 The step underscores how Chinese government and party authorities are   growing more deeply integrated into the private sector, as its economy   sputters amid an intensifying trade war with the United States.
 The city of Hangzhou, home to Alibaba, will designate government   officials to work with 100 local companies in the eastern province of   Zhejiang, the local government said on its website.
 The directives, presented as a means to boost the local manufacturing   industry, did not name the 100 companies subject to the policy, but   state media reports said Alibaba and auto maker Zhejiang Geely would be   among the companies.
 Alibaba said the plan would not interfere with its operations.
 “We understand this initiative … aims to foster a better business   environment in support of Hangzhou-based enterprises. The government   representative will function as a bridge to the private sector, and will   not interfere with the company’s operations,” Alibaba said in a   statement.
 Geely did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
 Chinese law has long required private companies, including foreign entities, to establish formal party organizations.

More at: https://nypost.com/2019/09/23/china-...uding-alibaba/

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## timosman

> China’s top technology hub Hangzhou plans to assign government   officials to work with 100 private companies including e-commerce giant   Alibaba, according to state media reports, in a move likely to raise   concerns over the growing role of the state.
>  The step underscores how Chinese government and party authorities are   growing more deeply integrated into the private sector, as its economy   sputters amid an intensifying trade war with the United States.
>  The city of Hangzhou, home to Alibaba, will designate government   officials to work with 100 local companies in the eastern province of   Zhejiang, the local government said on its website.
>  The directives, presented as a means to boost the local manufacturing   industry, did not name the 100 companies subject to the policy, but   state media reports said Alibaba and auto maker Zhejiang Geely would be   among the companies.
>  Alibaba said the plan would not interfere with its operations.
>  “We understand this initiative … aims to foster a better business   environment in support of Hangzhou-based enterprises. The government   representative will function as a bridge to the private sector, and will   not interfere with the company’s operations,” Alibaba said in a   statement.
>  Geely did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
>  Chinese law has long required private companies, including foreign entities, to establish formal party organizations.
> 
> More at: https://nypost.com/2019/09/23/china-...uding-alibaba/


Government officials will be driving diversity efforts?

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## Swordsmyth

> Government officials will be driving diversity efforts?


It's China, they will probably be enforcing anti-diversity.

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## Swordsmyth

The Chinese regime announced a new rule which requires residents to pass a facial recognition test in order to apply for an internet connection via smartphone or computer.
 The rule will be implemented from Dec. 1, 2019. In addition, no cell phone or landline number can be transferred to another person privately.
 This  is an upgraded restriction after the Chinese Ministry of Industry and  Information Technology (MIIT) required all applicants to present a valid  ID and personal information to register for a cell phone or a landline  number since January 2015.

More at: https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijin...t_3099181.html

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## Swordsmyth

https://twitter.com/HarmlessYardDog/...24376705835008

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