discipline posted:
I wish jools! I really do. In reality he's like, this guy who lived in China for a long time. I know everyone is atheist nowadays but listen man just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it don't exist!

let me guess he lived downtown in a major first or second tier city? admittedly the last time i was in China was around 6 years ago but i spent about a month in Xinjiang and a few of my Uyghur friends there were packed about 6 to a 250 sq foot apt and they each made like 6 or 8 kuai a day i think. the women did better because they had factory work, the men had to hustle erryday. the factories they worked in were shit, the place they lived in could certainly be fairly described as a slum. pretty much if you spend any time west of Xi'an you're going to run into terrible living conditions on a regular basis and anyone who claims otherwise is ignorant or lying

vampirarchist posted:
What do you think about this analysis of the future of Xinjiang?

it's a lot of handwaving. an independent Xinjiang implies a major Chinese civil war which isn't outside the realm of possibility but i don't see any obvious path from here to there. there's not going to be any Han exodus, many or most of the Han settlers who are there now consider Xinjiang their home (despite them doing weird shit like being on Beijing time and going to work before the sun's up so they can open shop at 7AM beijing time etc). the Uyghurs in the East are in the early stages of sinicisation, give it another generation and they'll be more or less integrated. they're doing things like intermarrying with Hui (the comment about Hui being "all too willing to identify themselves as Chinese" is really bizarre incidentally, they've been in the heart of Chinese empires for a millenia or more) etc. there's going to be some ongoing conflict in the West but barring a civil war or something there's not going to be any Uyghur-led gov't or anything like that. the comment about Straits Chinese diaspora populations being "politically impotent" is also really bizarre given that they tend to be among the wealthiest communities there, and that's in much smaller proprotions than in Xinjiang. i doubt you'd see Uyghurs dominating an independent Taklamakan state, anyway.

that comment also overlooks that the taklamakan basin is arid as fuck and is going to get more so with climate change. the legendary grape fields in places like turpan are fed with glacial meltwater (the irrigation troughs are nice and cool in the summer with 40 deg C weather, great swimming), all that's going to dry up. cities like urumqi might be marginally viable but most of the south and west is going to be devastated. a lot of people are going to be moving north into the taiga (people forget that the northern 1/3 or so of xinjiang is basically russian/canadian style taiga forest). that's also going to marginalise uyghur populations who tend to be based around the taklamakan, there are more kazakhs, kyrgyz, mongols, russians, etc in the north

babyfinland posted:

shennong posted:

vampirarchist posted:
What do you think about this analysis of the future of Xinjiang?

it's a lot of handwaving. an independent Xinjiang implies a major Chinese civil war which isn't outside the realm of possibility but i don't see any obvious path from here to there. there's not going to be any Han exodus, many or most of the Han settlers who are there now consider Xinjiang their home (despite them doing weird shit like being on Beijing time and going to work before the sun's up so they can open shop at 7AM beijing time etc). the Uyghurs in the East are in the early stages of sinicisation, give it another generation and they'll be more or less integrated. they're doing things like intermarrying with Hui (the comment about Hui being "all too willing to identify themselves as Chinese" is really bizarre incidentally, they've been in the heart of Chinese empires for a millenia or more) etc. there's going to be some ongoing conflict in the West but barring a civil war or something there's not going to be any Uyghur-led gov't or anything like that. the comment about Straits Chinese diaspora populations being "politically impotent" is also really bizarre given that they tend to be among the wealthiest communities there, and that's in much smaller proprotions than in Xinjiang. i doubt you'd see Uyghurs dominating an independent Taklamakan state, anyway.

that comment also overlooks that the taklamakan basin is arid as fuck and is going to get more so with climate change. the legendary grape fields in places like turpan are fed with glacial meltwater (the irrigation troughs are nice and cool in the summer with 40 deg C weather, great swimming), all that's going to dry up. cities like urumqi might be marginally viable but most of the south and west is going to be devastated. a lot of people are going to be moving north into the taiga (people forget that the northern 1/3 or so of xinjiang is basically russian/canadian style taiga forest). that's also going to marginalise uyghur populations who tend to be based around the taklamakan, there are more kazakhs, kyrgyz, mongols, russians, etc in the north

all of those errors can be attributed to MPC's generalized racist ideology (check the OP of that thread for example)

They sure love talking about race over there huh

vampirarchist posted:

jools posted:
lmbo why on earth is MPC being linked here

they're the bizzaro world version of this forum. tne is the bizzaro version of wddp.

They're more Correct than liberals at least, especially in recognizing the problem that dare not speak it's name.....

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

vampirarchist posted:

jools posted:
lmbo why on earth is MPC being linked here

they're the bizzaro world version of this forum. tne is the bizzaro version of wddp.

They're more Correct than liberals at least, especially in recognizing the problem that dare not speak it's name.....

no doubt

babyfinland posted:
all of those errors can be attributed to MPC's generalized racist ideology (check the OP of that thread for example)

ok yeah i prob shouldnt have bothered responding to that lol

vampirarchist posted:
theyre assholes but they seem to have an interesting point of view + that post had a lot of content! idk, discourse between two opposite sides of the fringe is cool

its not complete nonsense its just that its the Stratfor School of Analysis where you look at the CIA factbook article for chinese demographics and then you assume that the mentioned groups are these homogenous entities with special traits (Uyghurs are Desert Muslims w/ +2 to mercantile) etc.

the Hui comment makes more sense in light of bf pointing out that those guys are crazy racists as the only way you could ever argue that the Hui are not a Chinese people is if you're a racial essentialist who believes that if one of your ancestors 1000 years ago was persian you can never be Chinese or something. it's weird that he brings up the Hui also because the Hui are a perfect example of how integration into chinese culture works and tells you exactly why Uyghur culture as-we-know-it will be dead within a few generations. as a poor Uyghur, if you want to get anywhere in a place like Xinjiang, or even if you just want to leave, you need guanxi and the only way to get guanxi is to speak chinese and know chinese people and do chinese things, so thats what they do

shennong posted:
as a poor Uyghur, if you want to get anywhere in a place like Xinjiang, or even if you just want to leave, you need guanxi and the only way to get guanxi is to speak chinese and know chinese people and do chinese things, so thats what they do

lol come to think of it the only reason why they haven't been sinicized already is because the abassids defeated the tang at the battle of talas and retained central asia as its sphere of influence, the PRC reassertion of power over the area is the continuation of inevitable expansion

amirite

Edited by vampirarchist (Jan. 14, 2012 02:33:26)

vampirarchist posted:

shennong posted:
as a poor Uyghur, if you want to get anywhere in a place like Xinjiang, or even if you just want to leave, you need guanxi and the only way to get guanxi is to speak chinese and know chinese people and do chinese things, so thats what they do

lol come to think of it the only reason why they haven't been sinicized already is because the abassids defeated the tang at the battle of talas and retained central asia as its sphere of influence, the PRC reassertion of power over the area is the continuation of inevitable expansion

amirite

there was a museum i was at, i think it was urumqi because i remember a lot of han being there. they had a lot of cool mummies that had their skin preserved and you could see the funeral paint they had on, and some crazy ass tang military officer who was in charge of some outpost or sth. the exhibits were pretty cool but every plaque started off with sth like "In Xinjiang, which has historically been part of China since the Tang,"

the Uyghurs are sort of in a tough spot in that the most important areas in Xinjiang are mostly highly accessible to the state, and so is much of the employment that's made available to Uyghurs. so if you want to have a job, you live in an area where they can make sure your kid is learning mandarin in school, where wearing a square cap and drinking kawasz is an exception instead of the norm

shennong posted:

babyfinland posted:
Soviet Socialist Republic of Turkestan lives forever in my heart

i always wondered if that thing about stalin and mao agreeing to have the leaders of the east turkestan republic killed was true

i thought he was killed before the mao period?