Friday, September 24, 2021

The China Initiative, a Flawed and Dysfunctional Policy — Mel Gurtov

What happens when you don't think things through.

38 comments:

Ahmed Fares said...

An Air China plane carrying Meng Wanzhou has taken off from Vancouver's YVR airport.

After over a 1000 days in Canada, she is now on her way back to China.


A few hours later...

BREAKING – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Michael Kovrig and Micheal Spavor are on a plane back to Canada right now. After a 1000+ days in a Chinese prison, the two Michaels are on their way back home.

source: Trudeau says two Canadian citizens accused of spying by Beijing boarded plane home, hours after Huawei executive’s release

Peter Pan said...

Happy coincidence ;)

Marian Ruccius said...

GOOD TORONTO STAR summary on this and the implications for middle powers.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2021/09/24/meng-wanzhous-game-is-over-but-the-two-michaels-are-forced-to-keep-playing.html

Marian Ruccius said...

Let us not forget Huseyin Celil, the Uyghur-Canadian arbitrarily extradited to China and imprisoned for 15 years (his family have heard nothing of him for four years -- he is likely dead). HE was a peaceful advocate for Uyghur people, and their religious and cultural traditions

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/03/15/huseyin-celil-is-the-forgotten-canadian-detained-in-china.html

Ahmed Fares said...

Marian Ruccius turning lemonade into lemons.

As for Meng, she should have never been charged. She was being used as a political pawn.

A lawyer for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou accused former U.S. president Donald Trump of co-opting her extradition proceedings in an effort to use her as leverage in trade negotiations with China.

Richard Peck told the British Columbia Supreme Court Wednesday that Trump’s words to media after Meng’s arrest amount to an abuse of process.

Ten days after her arrest, Trump was asked if the United States would intervene in Meng’s case to get a better deal with China.

“If I think it’s good for what will be the largest trade deal ever made — which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security, I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Trump told Reuters news agency.

The comment did not exist in isolation, but was the first in a string of repeated statements that demonstrate an ulterior motive, Peck said.

“With that utterance, Ms. Meng became a bargaining chip, a pawn in this economic contest between these two superpowers. Those words amount to the opening salvo in this trade war,” Peck told the court.


As for this:

HE was a peaceful advocate for Uyghur people, and their religious and cultural traditions

Wikipedia says:

Jiang Yu also said that Celil is "a member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. He's a criminal."

Yùshānjiāng is seen by the government of China as a critical organizer and leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a group that has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations since 2002. He has been accused of the assassination of a Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan in March 2000 and the kidnapping of a Chinese officer in June 2000. He has allegedly used the aliases Huseyincan Celil as well as Guler Dilaver.


As for me, I hold no opinion on the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs because I don't have enough information. Are they jailing all Muslims, which is a bad thing, or only the Muslims in towns that have become extremists, which is a good thing?

Tom Hickey said...

On the East Turkestan Islamic Movement:

Brian Berletic, De-Listed Anti-China Terror Group “Rises from the Dead

Marian Ruccius said...

Ahmed Fares:

The Chinese terrorism charges are pure unadulterated lies. Celil was a human rights activist, and it was HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM that led China to label him a "terrorist", a word used for any Muslim who opposes the will of the Chinese state.

When the sentence was announced, Mr. Celil shouted angrily that he was innocent of all the charges. "All of it is lies," he told the court, according to those who attended. "I didn't do such things. I've been wronged."

He begged for permission to meet his family for a moment, but the request was refused and his family members were prohibited from speaking to him. They said he was tearful and bowed his head.

Celil's court-appointed lawyer, Ghayret Wayit, attended the sentencing but was not permitted to speak.

Marian Ruccius said...

Ahmed Fares:

She was clearly guilty of fraud, albeit on a scale so much smaller than the regular conduct of Wall Street and European banksters, that there is an obvious double standard. So there was no error with the charges against her, per se, but there was one with the double standard (obviously political) in the application of the law.

Ahmed Fares said...

Marian,

The following Chinese account could be true, or it could be lies. Neither you nor I have any way of knowing:

According to the court documents, Celil joined the East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), a listed terrorist group active in central Asia, in November 1997 and was appointed as a senior instructor in Kyrgyzstan.

While there, Celil allegedly recruited several people to the ETLO and sent them to terrorist training camps in the Pakistan-controled Kashmir, the documents said.

Celil was also active in another listed terrorist organization, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), for which he helped raise funds, recruit members and organize training, the documents said.

The documents said that in 1997, Celil met ETIM's former head Hasan Mahsum, who was shot dead by the Pakistan army in 2003, and worked directly under Mahsum's command.

Celil was a key member pushing for the alliance of the ETIM and ETLO in 1998, the documents said.

The government said "East Turkistan" terrorists had close links with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and were responsible for a series of murder, bombs, hijacking and arson in Xinjiang.

The documents said Huseyin Celil, with the intention of overthrowing the people's republic and the socialist system, in 1997 provided 80,000 yuan (US$10,256) for the establishment of a new terrorist group, named "Hizbollah", in the southern Guangdong Province.

The money was used for to purchase guns and provide terrorist training, the documents said.


As an aside, I did some searching on him. Apparently, he was an imam in Hamilton. I would be interested to know his religious background and where he was trained and so on. I could tell you everything about him based on that alone.

As for your comment about Meng, it was a balanced comment, so I agree with you there.

Ahmed Fares said...

Further to my comment,

As an imam, he has extensive knowledge of Islamic theology, which is occasionalist, i.e., everything comes from God and that there is no power outside of God.

The Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings became influential in Wahhabism, argued that, while God creates human acts, humans are responsible for their deeds as the agents of their acts. He held that divine creation is good from a causal standpoint, as God creates all things for wise purposes. Thus apparent evil is in actuality good in view of its purpose, and pure evil does not exist. This analysis was developed further with practical illustrations by Ibn al-Qayyim. —Wikipedia

Since evil does not exist, then there is no problem, and because we're talking about a Muslim here, it's the Muslim perspective that matters. For a Muslim to say that there is some power outside of God is the biggest sin in Islam, the one sin that God does not forgive, unless he repents for that sin before he dies.

Peter Pan said...

Sometimes political violence is justified.
If I were describing the perspective of the state, then it is automatically justified.

Tom Hickey said...

There are difference Muslim perspectives, as Ahmed knows but others may not realize or understand.

Ibn Tamiyya opposed Ibn 'Arabi, who among Sufis is known as al-shaykh al-akbar (the greatest master) and also as a qutb (highest spiritual station short of rasool (messenger), the title of Muhammad. Many Sufis and others regard Ibn 'Arabi as insan-e-kamil (perfect man).

Those following Ibn Tamiyya and others like that condemned Ibn 'Arabi and other Sufis who differed from them as heretics. This difference in views is foundational in Islam. It has left the religious and philosophical spheres and influenced Islamic culture, spilling over into politics. BTW, Ibn Tamiyya does not deserve all the blame for this split. Other imams were also involved and continue to be.

Ahmed knows all this, of course. I bring this up here since it is a complicated matter that few in the West even know about, let understand the reasons for. The result is stereotyping that is very inaccurate and potentially dangerous.

Ahmed can explicate this much better than I can.

Matt Franko said...

Word usually translated “Repent” means “comply”

As in

“ Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

It’s rather

“ Comply, , for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Comply with the mosaic law,

Matt Franko said...

“ he repents for that sin before he dies.”

Unless he complies for that sin before he dies?

Doesn’t make sense… how can you comply for a sin?

Peter Pan said...

What the hell is wrong with you people?

They could be atheists and violence could still be justified. As the majority ethnic group in Xinjiang, Uygurs could vote their way out of China. Without a democratic option, what else is left?

Unbelievable how pampered westerners are willing to go to bat for China. When it comes to terrorism and violence the state is always far more lethal, yet it gets excused.

Washington and Beijing are not the 'good guys'.

Ahmed Fares said...

Ibn Taymiyya was the Nicodemus of the Islamic world, i.e., always taking things literally.

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” —John 3:4

(I think that's what you call a reification error, a term which I learned from Matt Franko.)

He was an anthropomorphist. He would argue with people that Allah has a Face, because the Qur'an says so, and that was that. Muslims take that to refer to spirit, essence, etc. And if you disagreed with him, you were wrong. He spent most of his life in jail and died in jail. He wasn't a bad person, he was just spiritually blind.

I only quoted him because he was right on saying that evil does not exist. I thought of putting a disclaimer in my comment, lest people think I was supporting Ibn Taymiyya's views, but I didn't because he was a Hanbilite scholar, and this idea would have come from Ahmad ibn Hanbal, one of the founders of the four schools of Islam. The schools of Islam different in minor things like what does it mean for a woman to cover her beauty. At the very least, she should not display her cleavage, but then they differ if covering beauty means covering their hair, baring arms, etc.

Ahmed Fares said...

re: "he repents for that sin before he dies"

In Islamic theology, all acts come from God. Humans do not create acts, they acquire them, in accordance with their nature. This is called the doctrine of "kasb" (aquisition). It preserves both divine sovereignty and human responsibility. It is also what we mean when we say that God is immanent, as well as transcendent. Here is the relevant Qur'an verse, clear and unambiguous:

While Allah created you and that which you do? —Qur'an 37:96

Other verses of the Qur'an describe how humans acquire acts in accordance with their nature. Here is Britannica on "kasb":

Kasb, (Arabic: “acquisition”), a doctrine in Islām adopted by the theologian al-Ashʿarī (d. 935) as a mean between predestination and free will. According to al-Ashʿarī, all actions, good and evil, are originated by God, but they are “acquired” (maksūb, whence kasb) by men. As for the criticism that his kasb theory attributes evil to God, al-Ashʿarī explained that, by creating evil, God is not an evildoer.

Al-Ashʿarī chose the term kasb to avoid attributing khalq (creation) to anyone but God. His main concern was to maintain God’s total omnipotence and at the same time allow men a degree of responsibility for their actions. Al-Ashʿarī rejected the assertion of the Muʿtazilah theological school, of which he had been a member, that man has the power to will an act or its opposite. He maintained rather that man has the power to will only the act, not the opposite. Man does not initiate anything; he merely acquires what God has created. Thus man’s responsibility comes from his decision as to which actions he should acquire.

Because of its limiting of man’s scope and its emphasis on God’s omnipotence, the kasb doctrine was regarded by many Muslim theologians as being indistinguishable from pure predetermination. Despite the efforts of al-Ashʿarī and his followers (the Ashʿarīyah) to clarify kasb, it remained one of the most vague theories in Islāmic theology, as the proverb aḍaqq min kasb al-Ashʿarī (“more subtle than the kasb of al-Ashʿarī”) indicates.


Back to Matt Franko's queston, if a Muslim dies while saying so-and-so has done this or that for me or against me, he dies in a state of sin. To repent means to say that the act comes not from the person, but through the person.

Matt Franko said...

Try to say what you are saying without using the word “repent”, that word comes with a lot of baggage in English…

Ahmed Fares said...

Matt Franko,

I was just copying other people's phrasing.

The doctrine of repentance as taught in the Bible is a call to persons to make a radical turn from one way of life to another. The repentance (metanoia) called for throughout the Bible is a summons to a personal, absolute and ultimate unconditional surrender to God as Sovereign.

So I can see the meaning in that quote above, i.e., "God as Sovereign", but as you said, it can have other meanings. In any event, I thought the context made it clear that to repent, i.e., "to turn away from", was to turn away from associationism.

Ahmed Fares said...

Back to the previous subject about Huseyincal Celil:

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan – Uzbek authorities said that the fingerprints of a Canadian Islamic religious leader held in police custody in Uzbekistan match those of a Turkish man wanted by Interpol on suspicion of terrorism and murder.

In a statement posted on a government Web site late Thursday, Noufal Kholmatov, deputy director of the Uzbek branch of Interpol, said that Huseyincal Celil's fingerprints matched those of Turkish citizen Guler Dilaver, who it said was accused of terror activities in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

The statement said Dilaver was accused of "membership in terrorist groups, kidnapping, hostage-taking, murder and illegal possession of arms."

Celil, who has lived in Canada since 2002, was arrested March 27 in Uzbekistan, where he traveled to renew his visa and visit his Uzbek wife's relatives.

A political activist who fought for the rights of dominant ethnic Uighurs in western China's Xinjiang province, he escaped a Chinese prison in 2000, Kholmatov said.

The Interpol officer added that after the escape Celil was involved in the murder of an Uighur community leader and an attack on a visiting official delegation from Xinjiang in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.


Another site says this:

"Mr Guler Dilaver (Huseyincan Celil) was born in 1955 in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China and citizen of Turkey," the embassy said. "He was wanted by Kyrgyz law enforcement bodies for membership in terrorism groups, kidnapping, taking hostages and illegal weapon possession.

"The relevant authorities of Kyrgyzstan have also identified that the arrested was Guler Dilaver (Huseyincan Celil). According to information of Kyrgyz law enforcement bodies, Mr Dilaver (Celil) uses undercover names of Hussein Calil, born in 1968, or Calil Husan Siddikovich, born in 1970, or Huseyincan Celil, born in 1969.


This guy sounds sketchy.

Matt Franko said...

Well if you are murdering 3 people per day and you “repent” and reduce it down to only 2 people per day you have “repented”…

So it means “comply” … in that the law said “thou shalt not murder”…

Matt Franko said...

“ i.e., "to turn away from"

It can’t mean that… if you read the context …

I think Paul was talking to Hebrews and said like “what is leading you to repentance?”

It’s an end state… an action… not an adjustment … adjustment is katharsis it’s an action word… adjustment is the action leading to correction (not compliance) … correction is also an end state .. but it’s an end state led from adjustment….

It’s “what is leading you to compliance “ (with the Law).. compliance is an end state under law.. ie living in complete agreement with a strict code of behavior and conduct…

They are two different methodologies…

Paul taught adjustment and correction… Paul never told anybody to “repent”… Jesus tried to get Israel to “comply”…. it didn’t work… they killed him…

Matt Franko said...

“ It’s an end state… an action”

Typo … should be “NOT an action”

Matt Franko said...

Ahmed the thing with these Art Degree people you are dialoging with on this stuff is that they have a MAJOR problem with discrimination…

The “narrow gate”… they have a MAJOR problem with that …

There is violence and exclusion at the neck where the narrow gate meets the broad gate.. they don’t like that that’s why most are biased anti-war in human terms…

Matt Franko said...

They want everybody to get a “participation award” … instead of winners and losers…

Ahmed Fares said...

re: Darwin

A problem afflicting evolutionism all through the living world, which I am not sure I conveyed clearly, is that of multiple simultaneous mutations, sometimes called irreducible complexity. These refer to complicated systems which cannot work at all unless all parts appear simultaneously. When the individual parts have no value, which is usually the case, there is no reason for them to stay in the gene pool.

Consider the horn of the rhinoceros. At the forlorn level of National Geographic or NPR, there is nothing mysterious here. The horn obviously evolved so that the rhino could defend itself against lions. (“So that” raises questions of purpose, which run through evolutionism, but we will here let it drop.) All right, that makes sense. Except that it doesn’t.

The Wikipedia will tell you that the horn is not of bone, but of keratin, and thus evolved from hair. Well, who could doubt it–but just how did this happen? Did a mutation occur that caused hair to clump together into a hard substance? Would one mutation do this? Why laterally centered on the forehead instead of, say, on a hind leg? After the hair-stick’’em-together mutation did another occur to make the hard patch a cleanly limited ovoid? Next, was there a grow-really-fast mutation to make the hard patch get longer, or long at all, accompanied by a grow-faster-in-middle mutation to make it pointed–at which time finally, it would be ready for poking lions. So what kept it in the gene pool all that time when it had as yet no function.kl?(Actually the horn is more complex, and therefore even less likely.)
—Fred Reed

Ahmed Fares said...

re: more on Darwin

Homo sapiens ascorbicus, a biochemically corrected robust human mutant

Abstract

Homo sapiens' gene pool contains a defective gene for the synthesis of the active enzyme protein, L-gulonolactone oxidase(GLO). The absence of GLO in the human liver blocks the normal mammalian conversion of blood sugar into ascorbate, leading to the potentially-fatal "inborn error of carbohydrate metabolism", the genetic disease, Hypoascorbemia (in the older nomenclature- scurvy). To survive, humans need exogenous sources of daily ascorbate. Most mammals have the intact gene for GLO synthesis and produce generous daily amounts of the liver metabolite, ascorbate; for instance, an unstressed 70 Kg goat is capable of producing over 13 grams of ascorbate daily and much more under stress. The recommended dietary allowance of 45 milligrams of ascorbate a day for human adults, now proposed and used by nutritionists, is grossly inadequate to restore Homo sapiens to a normal mammalian ascorbate physiology. To correct fully this human genetic defect and banish epidemic chronic subclinical scurvy requires daily intakes of ascorbate equivalent to, at least, the amounts synthesized by the other mammals. Humans kept on a long term regime of full correction of this birth defect show great salutary benefits in health maintenance, disease therapy and slowing of the aging process. This can be regarded as the creation of a new and more robust, longer-living, tough human sub-species, Homo sapiens ascorbicus, by the biochemical reversal of a primate mutation occurring some 60 million years ago. Some of the practical benefits and pathways of future clinical research are discussed.


Which raises the question, why didn't the primates that couldn't produce Vitamin C die out according to Darwinism instead of the ones that could? (Atheists quickly Googling the question).

Bill Sardi has an interesting article on this. Here's a couple of quotes:

I explained the biological predicament of humans, that a gene mutation occurring long ago in human history shortened the human lifespan. Gulonolactone oxidase is among four liver enzymes most animals utilize to internally convert sugar to ascorbate (vitamin C). A mutation in the GULO gene for this enzyme also occurs in fruit bats, guinea pigs and primate monkeys and has forced these species along with humans to totally rely upon dietary sources of vitamin C to maintain health.

In the 1970s biochemist Irwin Stone explained that animals that make their own vitamin C live 8-10 times beyond their age of physical maturation. Mammals without this ability have a difficult time reaching 3-4 times. Today humans reach physical maturity around age 18 and live 70-90 years. If what is known from animals can be applied to humans, restoration of internal synthesis of vitamin C could theoretically produce humans that live hundreds of healthy years.

The prospect of reinstalling the gulonolactone oxidase gene in humans has been proposed. This reinstatement would theoretically extend the human lifespan to those of the Biblical patriarchs who likely lived before the cursed gene mutation occurred. But the GULO gene would have to be inserted in vitro, that is, in women’s eggs, and the next generation of humans would naturally produce vitamin C.


Interesting article, read the whole thing: Making Up For A Genetic Flaw In Humans With Vitamin C

Peter Pan said...

Keratin is a protein molecule. Amazing what can be done with protein.

The crux of evolution is that it's a blind process that requires no deity.

God botherers thus have the task of busting that narrative.

Matt Franko said...

“ In the 1970s biochemist Irwin Stone explained ”

Biochemistry didn’t exist when Darwin came up with his dialogic theory.., the periodic table didn’t even exist when Darwin came up with his dialogic theory…

But that’s another one these Socratic morons have trouble with ie the time domain…

Matt Franko said...

And another thing .., They are all biased anti-war because war is when their beloved dialogic method breaks down and proves exhibits the futility of their beloved moron dialogic methodology…

Then the rest of us have to suffer thru wars because these douchebags are too vain to admit it..

Matt Franko said...

iow they don’t care about the human carnage, they are more concerned about the reputation of their dialogic method…

These are completely sick and twisted human beings…

Matt Franko said...

SpaceX falcon heavy crashes and NO ONE THERE is dialoging that they should not make an adjustment and instead just launch the same thing and maybe it will succeed…

There is no dialogue…

Everyone there just start to figure out what adjustment is necessary and correct the system and try again…

This is the way everything works..,

Matt Franko said...

“ humans to totally rely upon dietary sources of vitamin C to maintain health.”

lol… what if a human infant doesn’t get protein?

Matt Franko said...

“ i.e., everything comes from God”

“ 36 seeing that out of Him and through Him and for Him is all” Romans 11:38

#tellmesomethingididntknow #duh

Marian Ruccius said...

Ahmed Fares: you can hedge and hum about China's lies, if you like, but one fact that is indisputable is that Celil received nothing remotely like a fair and transparent trial, he was not allowed to choose his own lawyer, and the one he was assigned was not permitted even to speak at his sentencing. Nor have Canadian diplomats been able to visit and inquire into the conditions of his imprisonment.

So, it is hard, on that basis, to assign any legitimacy to any claim of the Chinese government. As usual, it has just gone about its tyrannical and corrupt business as usual.

Ahmed Fares said...

Marian Ruccius,

If Celil is a Muslim, then he does not complain because he knows that everything that happens to him is from God, and you have no right to misrepresent his point of view.

If, on the other hand, he does complain, then you have represented his view correctly, but then that means he's not a Muslim, which means he's an enemy of the Islamic faith, made much worse because in his position as an imam, he cannot claim ignorance of Islam.

Apart from that, and in direct response to your comment:

Canadian consular visits have been banned because China doesn't recognize Celil's dual Canadian citizenship, obtained in 2005, one year before he was arrested in Uzbekistan by the Chinese after his long-standing advocacy for the human rights of his Muslim ethnic Uyghur minority.

The Chinese see it as an internal matter.

Ahmed Fares said...

Matt Franko,

#tellmesomethingididntknow

Theodore Robert Bundy (born Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 homicides, committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown, and could be much higher.

So if I understand you correctly, and please correct me if I don't, the kidnapping, rape, and murder of these women was actually from God. Is that what you're saying?

Because that's what I'm saying.

#youdidnotknowthat

Peter Pan said...

According to Bundy, it was inspired by the violent pornography that God provided him.