Unprecedented Leaks Underscore Deep Discontent Inside China

The Federalist ^ | 12/02/2019 | Helen Raleigh

[Maris Crane]

I thought they had a “one Child” plan.

[Grimmy]

The Uyghurs were far enough away from the center of gravity and isolated enough that they were simply “saved for last” in the long long long long standing and ancient practice of Han Chinese cultural extermination of anything that isn’t Han inside China.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

...the inner workings of the camps, the severity of conditions behind the fences, and the dehumanizing instructions regulating inmates’ mundane daily routines.

IOW, the Chinese are simply treating muslims like muslims treat everyone else.

[Chad_the_Impaler]

Back in 2003 Hu Jintao addressed Australia’s parliament and tacitly claimed Australia as Chinese.

According to Gordon Chang, General Secretary Xi Jinping believes China is the only sovereign state. Under the principle of tianxia or All Under Heaven, all other nations other than China should disappear to be ruled from the center.

[Reily]

That doesn’t necessarily mean actual physical occupation. It means that barbarian stats acknowledge their client status to the Middle Kingdom.

[ifinnegan]

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason still gets the job done.

[ifinnegan]

Yes. 天下。

literally sky or heaven under.

See the Zhang Yimou movie Hero from the same time as Hu's speech in Australia for another message that the Communist Chinese think they rightfully should rule the world.

[Chad_the_Impaler]

China has a long history of the tributary system. I think this is the model Xi cherishes and has in mind for the future.

[Reily]

Agree!

[Zhang Fei]

[The age old strategy of the Middle Kingdom. You don’t have to necessarily physically occupy the barbarian states (everyone who is not China!) you just need to control their behavior.]

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The short term strategy is to convert the raw barbarians into cooked barbarians, i.e. the Sinicization of foreigners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian#Cultural_and_racial_barbarianism

The long-term strategy was to convert foreign lands into Chinese provinces, whether this annexation took place through a negotiated surrender or armed conquest. Contra George Santayana’s observation that only the dead have seen the end of war, the Chinese view is that only under universal empire will there be universal peace. Throughout its long history, Chinese rulers have sought to attain that goal by expanding the reach of the empire. They repeatedly fell short because of strife within the empire, whether from peasant rebels unhappy with their lot, or ambitious courtiers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wu_of_Song
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goguryeo%E2%80%93Sui_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Lushan_Rebellion

The problem for Chinese rulers is that they faced not only threats from rival court factions, senior officials and ambitious generals. There was also the ever-present threat from peasant rebels who, unlike Spartacus in Rome and Wat Tyler in England, have had a pretty good record of success, managing to found dynasties accounting for about 1/3 of China’s history, including the Han, the Ming and the present Red dynasty. Numerous other peasant rebels came within a hair’s breadth of the throne, unlike either Spartacus or Wat Tyler, both of whose movements seemed more like a cathartic discharge than viable replacements for the ancien regimes they challenged.