Vice Magazine recently produced a documentary about life in Xinjiang, China. The area is historically Muslim and in recent years has come under intense surveillance by the Chinese government as the communists are attempting to commit cultural and religious genocide against the Uighur peoples.
Some will say that the approach China is taking is justified to fight terrorism. However, I must beg to differ, as the Uighur peoples are historically regional and very little terrorism in the modern sense comes from them. China’s use of “counter terrorism” and Islam is, in this particular case, using the spectre of Islam and legitimate abuses committed by Muslims to justify their own and far worse abuses. Consider that Islam, while being in China since the year 748, has never once invaded or attempted to invade China. To the contrary, Chinese Muslims have been very influential in Chinese history and supporting a given Chinese political regime, such as with Admiral Zheng He, or how it was Chinese Muslims who stood alongside pagans in butchering Christians during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
Throughout Chinese history, it is not the Han (the largest “ethnic Chinese” group in China) that has ruled China, but successive bands of Turkic tribes or peoples who have conquered and subjugated her. Even the four things that are considered stereotypically Chinese- the peculiar language, the Great Wall, her unique system of time, weights, and measures, and the terra cotta soldiers -were not the creation of “ethnic Chinese”, but of Emperor Qin, who was of Tocharian stock and whose origins were among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. Much of Chinese history is the story of the valley-dwelling peoples of China being invaded and raped by the mountain and steppe-dwelling Turkic neighbors.
The Chinese fear the Uighurs because of their history with the Turks, that the Turkic peoples may rise up again and subjugate her. Turkic nationalism is very strong in Xinjiang as well as throughout the areas near Mongolia, with some of it appearing to have backing from the US government through her various foreign aid groups. The Chinese are concerned about a rebellion, and are oppressing them to ensure the survival of the Communist Party. Since China is an “atheist” nation, as they have no god but themselves, they are forcing people to in essence “worship” the state and are using deadly means to do so, including torture and death. They have extensively integrated the use of artificial intelligence technologies into this, and thus have made in Xinjiang the closest representation of some from Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World.
Now it is right that the US should oppose this because what China is doing is evil. However, as Ted and I have pointed out, the philosophy of socialism that the Chinese are using is, as far as fundamental principles are concerned, the same as those which the US has willingly adopted. The difference is in the execution. The Chinese use the international socialism of the Russians and former USSR, while the US uses the nationalistic socialism of the former German Reich. The end result is the same in both cases, but the difference is in the execution. What the international socialists do in public for the world to see, the national socialists are better at doing in private and away from such scrutiny or criticism.
Consider what is happening in China with the use of AI. Does one not think that the US is not doing the same, or at least working towards the same end goals? Indeed, there is not the same open use of force or violence, but do not think that the same potential for violence does not exist in the US or would not be applied for political reasons, but it would likely be done in a way that is regarded as culturally acceptable. For example, the US is less likely to “whisk” people away into the middle of the night never to see them again, or as the video shows, place children into what are open-air prison camps that have the pathetic design of a “school” through which anybody with even a dull sense of intelligence can see.
How would it look in the US? The US would have more technology, better developments, and the cover of “law” so that everything was “legal.” Yes, it would be more of a surveillance society than the Chinese, but done so under the cover of comfort, ease, and personal assistance. For example, one’s phone, credit cards, and social media would work with each other, and the government would overlook most “small” infractions, unlike where the Chinese would punish them severely. Such “infractions” would go into a file and just be monitored, and would overlap with existing AI technologies.
We know for a fact that the US has AI technology that is far more advanced than what China has, as most of what China develops is either a stolen copy or purchased from others. The US in that regard has far more insidious technology, and as history has shown, a far better ability to temper her actions so to win the social acceptance of her people while quashing a rebellion of any kind at the same time. One only needs to look at the sodomite issue to see this, as it took a mere thirty years of work to get people, including an absolute majority of Christians, to accept homosexuality and to come and persecute those who would oppose it, even on the basis of adherence to Christian dogma.
Artificial intelligence is being sold to the public as a way of preserving security, enhancing quality of life, and making things “easier” to do, and people are accepting it as it is being gently forced upon them but in a socially acceptable way.
For many years, people bemoaned the conditions of the USSR, and they were very awful. However, the USSR could only have dreamed of the technologies in use today. China’s surveillance state is far more advanced than anything that Stalin could dream of.
What is to be said of the USA, which has even more advanced technology and embraces the same philosophy as both the USSR and Communist China, albeit different in her execution? Does one not consider that it is entirely possible that one day the people will wake up and find themselves in the same situation as these nations but more insidious and difficult to escape from?
It is something to think about.