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Author Topic: Random Chinese News Thread
BlackBlade
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In case you were not aware, in Hong Kong, students occupied government buildings over the weekend, and refused to disperse. Police responded with tear gas (Very unusual for Hong Kong where political protest is healthy and regular) on Sunday and that seems to have drawn thousands to the streets.

Monday morning travel is seriously disrupted in downtown with protestors refusing to vacate the streets. My father had to get off the bus well short of his stop and find another way in.

In case you need a primer. China promised way back when the 1997 turnover was being negotiated that in 2017 Hong Kong would be permitted to vote for their own Chief Executive Officer. Up until now a person is always nominated by a small pro-Beijing panel. Over the Summer China published a document called the "White Paper" that clearly placed the "one country" in a superior position to the "two systems" part of the statement. They also indicated that any CEO would have to be approved by Beijing, and *then* the Hong Kong people could vote on one of two candidates. So Pro-Beijing Candidate A or Pro-Beijing Candidate B. There were large protests in Hong Kong over the Summer while I was there, and a group called Occupy Central held an unofficial ballot where hundreds of thousands of people voted in support of reform.

Beijing responded with a rent-a-crowd counter protest and signaled they would not be capitulating on this point. It looked like perhaps the protests had run out of steam, but here we are.

Link.

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Mucus
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Been watching this with great interest.

A few minor historical thoughts.

1) The last significant use of tear gas was when the British used tear gas in Hong Kong in 1967. 30 years later, they were gone. 30 years out from 2014 is almost at the eve of the end of two systems, one country. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the CCP will be gone.

2) The pro-unification party/leader in Taiwan formally rejected Xi Jinping's stupid idea to bring up one country, two systems while on a trip there. Great timing!

3) Hong Kong had a significant role in sheltering Sun Yat-sen (credited, probably overly, with revolution against the Qing) and the CCP after Chiang Kai-shek crushed them in Shanghai. We know how both of those turned out. Third time's the charm? (Unfortunately, Beijing is probably well aware of this too)

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BlackBlade
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Migrants to China try to come to grips with the protests in Hong Kong.

The protests are still ongoing and it looks like both sides are digging trenches. Central, Admirality, and Causeway Bay are not Tiananmen Square, they are more like Wall Street. It's the center of finance and economic activity in Hong Kong. I'm not sure how long the protestors will be able to hold out but if they can manage it for weeks that would be incredible.

I've read several blogs about how the protestors are carefully recycling and cooking food supplied to them by sympathizers. Everything I've read seems to indicate that the protests have remained peaceful and non-violent.

I feel truly sad for the police many of whom I know sympathize with the protestors and yet they have to work 30 hour shifts in the heat because it's their job. I can't say I see a good outcome from these protests, but they are an important moment in Hong Kong history. People are making their statement to Beijing, and casting aside all uncertainty that Hong Kong wants to nominate and elect their CEO. It's only a question of will Beijing let them.

edit: So glad I got to have a taste of this while I was in Hong Kong last Summer. Love seeing all my friends from Hong Kong blow up Facebook with updates on the protests. The umbrella movement has all the makings of a major moment in Chinese history.

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BlackBlade
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From Facebook,

"Yes, USA politics is as dirty as it gets. But it's not democracy that is doing this. It is the way they allowed the corruption to happen in the name of democracy that is wrong. We are in a different place, a different era, different circumstances and we are a different people. We just have to make it right. I'm not saying it is easy. But we must walk the path. Telling our children you cannot have democracy just because other countries did it wrong is like the fairy tale where Dame/Mother Gothel locking up Rapunzel in a tower and not allowing her to see the world because there are bad people "out there"."

Too right.

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Lyrhawn
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If they can capitalize on it. Occupy in America took a golden opportunity and frittered it away.
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Samprimary
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I kind of doubt that the HK Occupy is going to have the same troubles endemic with Occupy's progressive stack uselessness and identity politics self-cannibalism
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BlackBlade
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CY Leung's (CEO of Hong Kong) daughter decided to do some PR work for her father on Facebook.

Link.

Just kidding, she totally just set his PR campaign back several miles.

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Rakeesh
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I'm not a Marxist, but god class warfare is honestly a thing.
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BlackBlade
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So yesterday a rent-a-mob was sent to attack protestors in Mong Kok. Police response was very limited and permissive. One of the protesting groups cancelled the negotiations with Mr. Leung's second over the incident. Unity between the protestors seems to have frayed just a little bit.

Numbers have dwindled as well, but I don't think that means people won't stream back out again if the right things happen.

I'm not sure what sort of compromise is possible. Beijing seems to have locked themselves into an uncompromising position. Seems like the bare minimum would be permitting the people of Hong Kong to elect a percentage of the panel that selects the CEO, but I don't think even that could be put on the table by Beijing.

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Mucus
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I'm going to say the attacks on journalists are especially suspicious.

http://fcchk.org/article/fcc-condemns-attacks-journalists-covering-h-k-protests

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BlackBlade
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More counter protestors try to remove the barricades in downtown Hong Kong.

The police still haven't tried to seriously enforce the government's demand the protestors clear the streets by this week. The protestors still appear to have a very healthy presence and entrenchment. I think so far we can expect the protestors really will stay for the long haul, and the people of Hong Kong are not resenting this development to the point the government doesn't have to actively do anything.

Government's move I think.

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BlackBlade
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[Big Grin]

Link.

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BlackBlade
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Chinese plainclothes policeman (allegedly) are caught on camera leading Civic Party member Ken Tsang off to a dark area and beating him. Allegedly he has claimed he was further slapped and hit with a heavy object at police headquarters. Photos of his injuries are being widely circulated.


Link.

A hundred protestors have stormed the HK police headquarters to lodge complaints against the officers and police handling of these protests. Things are definitely heating up, not quieting down.

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BlackBlade
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CY Leung comes back to the table. Sorta.

I suspect it's another play for time, to see if the government appearing reasonable and willing to talk can deflate the movement.

Probably doesn't hurt that CY Leung is in the middle of his own political scandal, and needs to look proactive in governing rather than taking money from foreign firms surreptitiously.

I don't envy the calls CY Leung has to take from Beijing these days. The police brutality *really* put fuel on the protesting fire.

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Samprimary
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"People of Hong Kong! I offer my daughter as tribute!"
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BlackBlade
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Hong Kong legco member argues that umbrellas are far more aggressive and deadly in a fight, than tear gas.

Link.

Not even exaggerating.

[ October 18, 2014, 01:39 AM: Message edited by: BlackBlade ]

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BlackBlade
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Pretty good synopsis by NYTs of where things are.

Link.

So what remains to be seen is which side can force the other's hand.

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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
Hong Kong legco member argues that umbrellas are a far more aggressive and deadly in a fight, than tear gas.

Link.

Not even exaggerating.

Cool
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BlackBlade
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HK Government officials agree to a public debate with the students regarding the clashes with police.

Link.

Awesome. I hope the students prepare, and give us a fantastic presentation of their concerns and wishes. I would have absolutely loved it if Occupy Wall Street had publicly debated with Mayor Bloomberg.

Neither side loses anything when they publicly state their views and respectfully exchange dialogue. Would love to see this tact taken more often.

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BlackBlade
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High Court orders protestors of the major areas of Mong Kok and Admirality. Link.

Curious how this will pan out.

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Mucus
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A couple interesting tidbits. Somewhat contrary to my expectation, expectation for the protests has actually grown compared to about a month ago.
quote:
The level of support grew 6.7 percentage points from a poll a month earlier, and opposition shrank by 10.8 percentage points. The university conducted the earlier survey between September 10 and 17, just days before the class boycott started.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1622223/occupy-movement-continuing-gain-momentum-survey-shows

I suspect that this might be due to the government's rather spectacular own goals.

Apparently, appreciation of Cantonese among the young in Hong Kong is increasing (yay!)
http://qz.com/283395/how-hong-kongs-umbrella-movement-protesters-are-using-their-native-language-to-push-back-against-beijing/

There's also a blacklist of roughly 46 celebrities that have been blacklisted from China. There are about three that are very obviously true, but the remainder are unconfirmed for now but could include an awful large percentage of Chinese actors of note if true.

---------------------------------

On a different topic, here's an interesting article (for people interested in language) about the etymology of a term translated as either "rule of law" or "rule by law"
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15334
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/20/rule-of-law-or-rule-by-law-in-china-a-preposition-makes-all-the-difference/

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BlackBlade
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"I suspect that this might be due to the government's rather spectacular own goals. "

That's a great way of putting it.

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BlackBlade
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Beautiful summation of the protests in The Atlantic today.

"If the government disagrees—if Leung, as he told the foreign media this week, is afraid of a tyranny of the masses who make less than $1,800 a month—then let’s have that debate on the merits of democracy. In Tuesday’s meeting, student protest leaders made their case for why truly universal suffrage would enrich our lives by holding the government accountable to all of us, not just some, but not once did the government explain how pre-selecting candidates for chief executive would make Hong Kong better, or why open nominations would make it worse. Free elections are impossible, we are told, not because they won’t help bridge the wealth divide or sustain our way of life, but simply because Leung’s bosses say so."

Boom, this.

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BlackBlade
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Joshua Wong's op-ed in the NYTs.

"In the future I may be arrested again and even sent to jail for my role in this movement. But I am prepared to pay that price if it will make Hong Kong a better and fairer place.

The protest movement may not ultimately bear fruit. But, if nothing else, it has delivered hope.

I would like to remind every member of the ruling class in Hong Kong: Today you are depriving us of our future, but the day will come when we decide your future. No matter what happens to the protest movement, we will reclaim the democracy that belongs to us, because time is on our side."

Boom, yes!

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BlackBlade
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"American slaves were liberated in 1861 but did not get voting rights until 107 years later. So why can't Hong Kong wait for a while?"
-Laura Cha

Ms. Cha is a board member of Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, the largest depositor in HK and its currency printer. So basically her bank thrives off the people of Hong Kong's deposits.

You can't write this stuff.

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Jake
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It's so crazy when you realize that black people got the right to vote the same year that the first Superman movie came out.
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JanitorBlade
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So I write about business topics, particularly Chinese ones on LinkedIn.

Figured I'd scour more of the internet for readers.

Link.

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JanitorBlade
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Investigative journalists are saying that for about 16 years China has been murdering political prisoners and criminals so as to harvest their organs.

Link.

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JanitorBlade
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TIL everyone on Hatrack has had their organs harvested by the Chinese government.
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Elison R. Salazar
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quote:
Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
Investigative journalists are saying that for about 16 years China has been murdering political prisoners and criminals so as to harvest their organs.

Link.

The Epoch Times is trash. They literally parroted an article about how some General said there were plans to create a super virus to wipe out all white people.
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JanitorBlade
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Did you know CNN also did an article about this? Also, the US House of Representatives unanimously voted to condemn this practice?
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Mucus
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Let's break this down.

1) The Epoch Times is indeed a very sketchy source and should not be confused with an actual news outlet. Honestly, we can let them speak for themselves.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/3946-commentary-4-on-how-the-communist-party-opposes-the-universe/

2) It is natural and healthy to be suspicious of news from sketchy sources, especially ones that claim to speak on behalf of the universe.

The National Enquirer or Scientology publications may incorporate facts into their narrative from time to time, but you're damn sure I'm going to fact check it. All things being equal, I'm also going to be suspicious of someone who presents a news source in this category, full stop.

Just replace the source, there's no need to intentionally distract from the issue that you're interested in.

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JanitorBlade
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Sure. I've got not loyalty to The Epoch Times.

Link.

And here is the Report URL.

Here's a UN Report.

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PanaceaSanans
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quote:
Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
Investigative journalists are saying that for about 16 years China has been murdering political prisoners and criminals so as to harvest their organs.

Horrible. If true.

One thought, though: They do transplant mostly livers and kidneys, which happen to be the organs that can be taken from a person without killing them (one kidney per person, obviously, and more than half of the liver.). Then maybe the "donors" don't die. Maybe the "state secret" they spoke of is that in China it is (semi)legal to sell your organs? Which then would be kinda like a surrogate pregnancy...

When you look at the waiting lists for (would be) organ recipients, it is very clearly kidneys and livers needed most, so why do the above statements make me think? Well, have a look at the leading causes of death:


quote:
Originally posted here.
The three leading causes of death (diseases of the heart, malignant neoplasms, and cerebrovascular disease) accounted for 66.0 percent of deaths from all causes.

The five leading causes of death from vascular disease were cerebrovascular disease (mortality, 276.9 per 100,000 person-years), chronic pulmonary heart disease (137.6), coronary heart disease (85.5), heart failure (14.5), and rheumatic heart disease (9.7).

The five leading causes of death from cancer were malignant neoplasms of the lung (mortality, 71.5 per 100,000 person-years), liver (54.7), stomach (48.6), esophagus (31.3), and colon and rectum (17.4). However, stomach cancer was the second leading cause of death from cancer among women (Figure 1). [...]

So when you kill people to take their organs, and you take only ONE organ per person, and you can do it within hours, and most of your (paying) patients die of a failure of heart or lung rather than failure of kidney or liver, then WHY not take either heart or lung from the involuntary donor? That doesn't make sense to me...

quote:
Originally posted in the above article:
Parts of the report, drawing from whistle blower testimonies and Chinese medical papers, state that some donors may not have even been dead when their organs were removed.

[...]

Most hospitals in China only perform liver and kidney transplants. They also rarely plan to transplant the kidneys and liver of a specific donor into two or three recipients at the same time, as would be common in the West.

Which would then make sense, wouldn't it?

[ June 29, 2016, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: PanaceaSanans ]

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JanitorBlade
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quote:
One thought, though: They do transplant mostly livers and kidneys, which happen to be the organs that can be taken from a person without killing them (one kidney per person, obviously, and more than half of the liver.). Then maybe the "donors" don't die. Maybe the "state secret" they spoke of is that in China it is (semi)legal to sell your organs? Which then would be kinda like a surrogate pregnancy...
Other than hearts, which take some serious expertise to perform, what other organs are there that we can transplant?
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kmbboots
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Lungs, pancreas, intestine, corneas...
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JanitorBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Lungs, pancreas, intestine, corneas...

Learn something new every day. I've heard of lung transplants, but none of those other ones.
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Mucus
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Ummm, if that's the case you might want to read the documents that you're so credulously linking to before doing so.

The third link in your last post quotes in bold right on the front page "Vital organs including hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas were
systematically harvested from Falun Gong practitioners at Sujiatan Hospital, Shenyang,
Liaoning province, beginning in 2001."

But let's pull on that thread since you brought it up. Your link title describes it as a "UN Report." In fact, it is not. The document is hosted by "falunhr.org" (the Falun Gong again) and is in fact a series of small excerpts of much larger UN documents stripped of most of their context.

The actual excerpts are not actually conclusions formed by UN staff but are a series of allegations by Falun Gong and responses from the Chinese government. Well, that's odd one might wonder and Sujiatan Hospital is an oddly specific claim. So did the allegations pan out?

Thanks to Wikileaks, we can find out what the US Congressional Research Service actually discovered when they did research on this specific hospital.

quote:
In March 2006, U.S. Falun Gong representatives claimed that thousands of
practitioners had been sent to 36 concentration camps throughout the PRC,
particularly in the northeast, and that many of them were killed for profit through the
harvesting and sale of their organs. Many of these claims were based upon
allegations about one such camp in Sujiatun, a district of Shenyang city in Liaoning
province. The Epoch Times, a U.S.-based newspaper affiliated with Falun Gong, first
reported the story as told by a Chinese journalist based in Japan and a former
employee of a Sujiatun hospital that allegedly operated the camp and served as an
organ harvesting center.

According to Epoch Times reports, of an estimated 6,000 Falun Gong adherents detained there, three-fourths allegedly had their organs
removed and then were cremated or never seen again. American officials from the
U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the U.S. consulate in Shenyang visited the area as well
as the hospital site on two occasions — the first time unannounced and the second
with the cooperation of PRC officials — and after investigating the facility “found
no evidence that the site is being used for any function other than as a normal public
hospital.” Amnesty International spokespersons have stated that the claims of
systematic organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners cannot be confirmed or
denied.

https://file.wikileaks.org/file/crs/RL33437.pdf

So it didn't pan out.
Let's see how the rest of the links pan out.

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PanaceaSanans
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quote:
Originally posted by kmbboots:
Lungs, pancreas, intestine, corneas...

and skin. And vessels - which are not technically organs. [Smile]

Intestine is very sensitive though and has to be transplanted within 2-6 hours. I.e. the doctors have to get to the donor, explant the organ, check it for diseases, transfer it to the recipient and implant it within that time. Which is why it is not done very often.

And the heart transplant is not really any more complicated than the lung, intestine or even pancreas transplant.

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Mucus
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As one might expect from CNN, the CNN link actually includes no investigation. It merely links to and largely repeats your second link.

Your second link is to an organization headed by David Kilgour and David Matas. That completes the circle, these authors are also named in the same Congressional report.

quote:
On July 6, 2006, two Canadian investigators,
former Liberal Member of Parliament David Kilgour and David Matas, an
international human rights attorney, published Report into Allegations of Organ
Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China. The report concludes that the
allegations that “large numbers” of Falun Gong practitioners in the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) have been victims of live organ harvesting are true. For the most
part, however, the report does not bring forth new or independently-obtained
testimony and relies largely upon the making of logical inferences. The authors had
conducted their investigation in response to a request by the Coalition to Investigate
the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China (CIPFG), a U.S.-based, non-profit
organization founded by the Falun Dafa Association in April 2006. In addition to
interviewing the same former Sujiatun hospital worker as featured in the Epoch
Times, Kilgour and Matas refer to recordings of telephone conversations provided by
CIPFG.

...

The report’s conclusions rely heavily upon transcripts of telephone calls in which PRC
respondents reportedly stated that organs removed from live Falun Gong detainees
were used for transplants. Some argue that such apparent candor would seem
unlikely given Chinese government controls over sensitive information, which may
raise questions about the credibility of the telephone recordings.

Seems pretty dubious to me. A report started at the behest of Falun Gong, based on disproved allegations about a specific hospital and probably faked telephone calls where people claiming to be "PRC" but actually provided by Falun Gong simply said what they wanted to hear.

But let's move forward to 2016. Has their rather gullible investigative approach changed?

quote:
Jeremy Chapman, an Australian transplant surgeon and former president of the Transplantation Society, which is based in Montreal, called the estimates in the new report “pure imagination piled upon political intent.”

He questioned whether China has sufficient transplant surgeons to carry out tens of thousands of operations. “Pharma companies in China have been providing nowhere near enough medication for this number, and felt the downturn with the reduction in transplants as the executed prisoner organs dried up,” he said.

...

He also questioned the underpinnings of the new report. “Look at the sources of those documents. They are all Falun Gong,” he said.

Many of the report’s researchers, a network of Chinese-speaking volunteers, are Falun Gong practitioners. The primary authors – including the Nobel-nominated Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas – do not adhere to Falun Gong.

They heavily document their work, with 2,360 footnotes. Of the small number verified by The Globe and Mail, each matched with the report contents, although some point to unattributed Falun Gong research.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/report-alleges-china-killing-thousands-of-prisoners-to-harvest-organs/article30559415/

Ten years later, the same authors still do their work with no real access and working with a Falun Gong staff.

[Roll Eyes]

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JanitorBlade
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Mucus: Sorry for taking so long. But are you saying you don't believe China is killing anyone so as to harvest organs?
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Parkour
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Individually I think they probably are but the Falun Gong's claims through this organization aren't really evidence that would prove the scale and tremendousness of this claimed rate of organ harvest.

China does some pretty creepy stuff but the falun gong people have made some pretty crazy allegations overall.

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Mucus
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JB: Are you saying that you don't believe that anyone in the US is killing anyone to harvest organs? Anyone at all?

Of course in a country as large as the US or China, it is possible, somewhere. That is not the question at hand. The question is proof of scale and how systematic it is. The Falun Gong have shown no good proof as to either. It shouldn't be hard to show proof either if their interpretation of the scale was correct.

Instead, we have probably faked data with a heavy layer of Falun Gong fanciful interpretation telling Americans what they want to hear.

I no more believe their interpretation of the scale of the problem than I believe that 200 million Chinese have contacted the Epoch Times to quit the CCP.

And there's no virtue in siding with such company, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend in other words. Such obvious fabrications only discredit real credible opposition in the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario, they can lead to tragic miscalculations, if you'll recall Curveball and the Iraq War.

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JanitorBlade
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Ah, I see. Thanks for responding. I agree the scale could be off, but hasn't the Chinese government already admitted it takes organs from prisoners on death row? And that that practice has likely not stopped?
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JanitorBlade
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I mean it's this or annex Vancouver right?

Link.

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Mucus
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I've read a bunch of news/responses on that. In my opinion, it's one of the more saavy political responses I've seen from a provincial politician. Reap potentially 1 billion per year from foreigners who literally don't have a vote or discourage a housing bubble (getting some credit from young people?). It seems like a win-win unless they do provoke a crash and annoy some boomers, which would still be worth it.

They also did it the right way by copying a tax from Hong Kong that has proven to be successful instead of inventing their own and they did it in mostly secret with a short deadline to avoid too much of an avoidance rush.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
Ah, I see. Thanks for responding. I agree the scale could be off, but hasn't the Chinese government already admitted it takes organs from prisoners on death row? And that that practice has likely not stopped?

Oh, forgot about this. Yep, which is why the focus of the new report is not that it happened (which is agreed to by both sides) to some extent, but the alleged scale.

The difference here is not a trivial one. Let me explain it this way.

~ 2,400 executions per year claimed by credible human rights organizations
~ 60,000 (to 100,000) executions claimed by the report primarily for organ harvesting

That's not even a one order of magnitude difference. On the high-end, that's a two order of magnitude difference.

To be clear, they get there by alleging that roughly a million "extra" transplants, one transplant = one human life.

It's actually kind of awe inspiring, the kind of competence that you'd need to ascribe to the government in order to
a) round up 60k to 100k Falun Gong per year (without them running out)
b) cover up the event for ten-plus years to the extent that only a handful of people notice (years that include the Beijing Olympics)
c) run a healthcare system some ten times more efficient than it claims to be

Just that last one is probably impossible for even the US, let alone China.

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PanaceaSanans
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This is not news really, but it is very touching:

A 'Lost' Daughter Speaks and All of China Listens

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JanitorBlade
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:/
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PanaceaSanans
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You don't like it, Blade?
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