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posted by mrpg on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the as-long-as-they-dont-touch-livers dept.

Human Rights Watch has issued a report about DNA collection in Xinjiang province in China:

Chinese police have started gathering blood types, DNA samples, fingerprints and iris scans from millions of people in its Muslim-majority Xinjiang province to build a massive citizen database, according to report by activist group Human Rights Watch.

The report, published Wednesday, said officials are collecting the data from citizens between the ages of 12 and 65 years old using a variety of methods. Authorities are gathering DNA and blood types through free medical checkups, and HRW said it was unclear if patients were aware that their biometric data was being collected for the police during these physical exams.

According to the report, citizens authorities have flagged as a potential threat to the regime, and their families—named "focus personnel"—are forced to hand over their DNA regardless of age.

So far, 18.8 million citizens have participated in the medical checkups, called "Physicals for All" by the government, according to an article by a state news agency Xinhua on November 1.

Previously: Massive DNA Collection Campaign in Xinjiang, China


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:25AM (2 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:25AM (#609650) Journal

    China will eventually be homogenous, or nearly so, racially and religiously. Politically - maybe not. We may expect to see an upheaval in the party, but I'm not even guessing how long that might take.

    China is pretty darn homogenous already. 92% of the population is Han Chinese, with the difference being a mix of Tibetans, Mongolians, Uighurs, and a baker's dozen of tiny hill tribes. Nearly all of the non-Han population is far away, very spread out, in land nobody wants to farm, and where nobody wants to be, in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai (a province so miserable the only ones who are there are the ones who have no choice--in the Chinese gulags), Tibet, and the mountainous southwest near the border with Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. Go to any of the Chinese cities you can think of, Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Suzhou, Xian, etc. and seeing anyone who's not Han would be rarer than seeing a black person in North Dakota.

    In other words, conquering diversity is not their problem, as far as the country as a whole is concerned. It is a slight problem, a very slight problem, as far as their buffer states of Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia are concerned, because as incredibly outnumbered the minorities are nationally, they are local majorities in those areas (with the exception of Inner Mongolia, I believe, where the ethnic Mongolians are outnumbered by Han already). Beijing has tried to import Han to colonize and outnumber the locals to quell any fantasies they might have of independence, but as mentioned above those places are so miserable that even Han living 20 people to a studio apartment in Chongqing don't want to live there.

    Also - China, unlike the US or most other western nations, doesn't plan ahead a mere few months, or few years. They have a long range plan. I expect that they will probably realize their plan, whether it takes a couple decades, or a century or more.

    5 years. That's how far ahead they plan. The Party comes up with a 5-yr plan when they meet. Do we plan ahead less far? Let's see, we built an interstate highway system that has served us for 70-80 years. We built dams all across the country that have powered large regions since the 30's. We built an Internet that is going on 40 years now helping information flow around the country and world.

    I do think that coping with China is the main, the absolute central geopolitical challenge of this and perhaps next century. However, let's temper our rush to build them up into scary supermen who see all, know all, and can do all. Theirs is a very fractious society with little margin for error. As much as we're suffering partisan break-down in America, they have about 15 similar divides to our 1 to manage.

    China as a nation also has no friends. Nobody likes them and will go to war to fight with them if they're attacked. A couple years ago certain figures in the foreign policy club were hyperventilating about BRICs, but they look quite foolish now. Brazil is in full meltdown mode. Russia is playing its own game and knows full well China wants to be friends with it as much as a wolf wants to be friends with sheep. India is behind China on the modernization curve, but it is nearly as populous and has fought a couple wars with China in recent memory; they are rivals, not friends. As much as America has misbehaved and been a bad friend in recent years, it still has many friends who will fight for it and to whose defense it will come.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:35PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:35PM (#609688) Journal

    Do we plan ahead less far?

    The examples you offer were in my grandfather's and great grandfather's time. Today, I am a grandfather. Government and corporations alike can't see four years into the future. It's always this quarter, or this fiscal year. Individuals who can see any further out than that, have to wait for the political climate to shift in their favor for funding. And, then, if the political climate changes, they may lose the funding already promised.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @08:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @08:47PM (#609860)

    China as a nation also has no friends. Nobody likes them and will go to war to fight with them if they're attacked.

    Trudat. Name a Chinese ally, Pakistan, Russia, Myanmar, several African states, they are all allies of convenience, if that. N. Korea may be an exception, but that's a desperate "maybe", and fat lot of good N. Korea can do for China.

    Contrast that to America - despite all our fuckups, we still have allies that would come to our aid when a need arises.

    Of course, our problem is rot from within, not some external enemy.