Why is China planning new organ transplant institutions in Xinjiang?
www.irishtimes.com
Concerns follow announcement by Xinjiang Health Commission that it would develop six new organ transplant institutions in region up to 2030

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/44734680

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Experts have expressed fears that the Chinese government plans to increase the forced “harvesting” of human organs from people in Xinjiang, home to a large Turkic Muslim population.

The concerns follow the announcement by the Xinjiang Health Commission late last year that it was going to develop six new organ transplant institutions in the region in the period to 2030, among other measures aimed at expanding transplant services.

Xinjiang is a large area in northwest China where the Beijing government has been operating a campaign of oppression against the indigenous population of Uyghur and other Turkic people since 2014.

The United Nations has said the campaign, which includes a vast network of camps, involves serious human rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity. “The announcement raises concerns about the ongoing procurement of organs through human rights abuses in Xinjiang, because there is no obvious reason why the new facilities are needed,” said Wendy Rogers, professor of clinical ethics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

[…]

Enver Tohti [a former surgeon in Xinjiang who now lives in London] said he believes the Chinese authorities are expanding their organ transplant facilities throughout China, and not just in Xinjiang. “Xinjiang is just part of a wider picture,” he said.

He believes the Chinese authorities began to collect biological data from people in Xinjiang in 2016 with a view to building a database that could be searched for matches when organs were needed for transplant operations. “People in inner China just disappear,” he said.

“Maybe they are accused of a crime and sent to prison. In Xinjiang, they simply take the person – say they are a terrorist.” In China, “if you are declared an enemy of the state, then an enemy is not a human being.”

[…]

Recently, at a military parade in Beijing, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, was caught on mic discussing organ transplants with his counterpart from Russia, Vladimir Putin.

“Biotechnology is continuously developing,” Putin’s interpreter was recorded saying in Chinese to Xi. “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality.”

Xi could be heard responding in Chinese: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

Tohti said: “They are talking about organ harvesting. Organ transplanting in China is organ harvesting. They are not taking organs from volunteers. Every organ transplant is part of harvesting.”

In December 2014, Chinese State media reported that China was to stop using organs from executed prisoners in transplant operations. However, Tohti said such statements are just optics. “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) never keeps its promises. They make laws to show to outsiders. They make a constitution to show to outsiders. Inside the country, it is completely different.”

[…]

  • NeilBrü@lemmy.worldEnglish
    124·
    4 hours ago

    EDIT: Pressed the wrong button and accidentally deleted this comment. Fortunately, Lemmy let’s you “undelete”.

    Also, the unsurprising “whataboutism” from CCP apologists notwithstanding, it’s important for other folks to see that, despite “the west” being the techno-feudalist monsters they are, the CCP, the Iranian theocracy, the DPRK, and Putin’s russian imperial revivalist government are not the “noble opposition” that the perpetually butt-hurt temporarily-inconvenienced-dictators-in-waiting will make them out to be. Anyone who says “I’m/We’re in charge forever,” should be ridiculed and held in the utmost contempt for being the asshole bullies they are.

    Here are the sources from the author (and I suspect this won’t convince you; it’s clear your mind is already made up):

    This excerpt on Tiananmen Square tells one exactly why the CCP are authoritarians who should never be trusted:

    Everyone (at least in the West) seems to know about tank man, but there’s another story that’s not as widely known and I never understood why. It shines a whole new light on this and explains why the Chinese government is so heavy handed when it comes to this subject. It was more than just another autocratic crackdown on protestors, which, while terrible, are par for the course.

    A good chunk of military units sent in to squash the protestors refused to carry out their orders, refused to brutalize and kill their countrymen. Some actively joined in on the protests, then units sent in to put a stop it joined in as well. This terrified the Chinese leadership so they sent in the 27th army group, largely comprised of illiterate peasant farmers with no connection to Beijing or its people,  headed by a politically reliable officer. The 27th army group then proceeded to massacre everyone, not ‘just’ students and protestors, but their own comrades in arms, other PLA soldiers.

    Read the British embassy report and tell me it doesn’t completely change your perspective. The CCP wants everyone to think this was just another protest, no big deal. It wasn’t, it was the time they almost lost control, and they know it. It’s why they’re so fearful.

    https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre

    edit: another user recommended a PBS documentary The Tank Man

    Fuck the CCP.

    • Eldritch@piefed.worldEnglish
      103·
      5 hours ago

      Desalines etc there simply won’t accept the accounts of the people who were there and know what they are talking about. Whether it’s Tiananmen Square or the Han genocide of uyghurs in Xinjiang. They would scream in the face of the victims and admonish them for attacking the party. So incapable of thought on their own anymore that they would never acknowledge any of this.Without permission and instruction from the party. But if they hear a rumor about any Western nation. You better acknowledge that shit as fact. Or they will hypocritically dogpile of your ass.

    • Twongo [she/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      47·
      5 hours ago

      i don’t wanna sound like a dick: i read it all, it’s still all from the same newspaper, the wiki link leads to nowhere and it’s not connected to systemmatic organ harvesting.

      it is describing mass surveillance in a region which was ravaged by islamic terrorism. but why is there no outrage about the same stuff happening in western countries on a larger scale? (palantir). mass surveillance is horrible, i agree. but it’s all around us. if china does it tho they have to be singled out.

      i’m not trying to do a whataboutism here but if a “good state” did this in a region with a high terror threat it’d be generally considered fine and necessary. (war on terror)

      ok. there’s a chinese police station in ireland, which is odd. but at the same time europeans have to make peace with US bases which do far more. but china is painted as absolute evil while we’ve been occupied, economically controlled and monitored by a foreign nation since ww2. (rammstein, patch barracks…)

      another false equivalency. every superpower tends to fail in places, it is unfortunately inevitable and i hope technological progress will someday reduce the harm people inflict on others (it won’t happen)

      i can’t say anything on the 1989 protests as the provided source is not working.

      it’s not like i made up my mind but the main point: “systemmatic organ harvesting by making unwanted people disappear on a mass scale” still sounds highly conspiratorial and you did not refute that, you just added more “china bad” into this exchange.

    • Ferrous@lemmy.mlEnglish
      79·
      5 hours ago

      The three sources you posted are all the same. They all come from the ICIJ report - whose contents was originally shared by Adrien Zenz. You know, the Christian Findamentalist who said Hitler was an effective crime fighter? It’s laughable with all of these anti China hit pieces. You never need to go more than one or two sources back before youre hitting radio free Asia or adrien zenz. What you assumed were three sources was actually the same regurgitated slop that’s been juggled between sources for the past 5 years.

      https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202509/1342692.shtml

      GT: You visited China’s Xinjiang region in 2019, 2023 and again this August. Looking back, how would you compare your impressions from these trips? What changes stood out to you most in terms of development and social stability?

      Al Nuaimi: In all three visits I met officials, community representatives, religious leaders, and visited mosques and families, especially during the first trip. I see progress, I see real development. The government has a plan for reducing poverty, and I witnessed the results on the ground, not just what officials told me.

      It’s important to appreciate this achievement, to acknowledge it and to show the world that while many countries face challenges, in China, especially in this region, there has been remarkable progress. People outside China cannot imagine the lifestyle here or the services provided to the people of Xinjiang.

      https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/xw/wjbxw/202405/t20240530_11343216.html

      • Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.orgOPEnglish
        82·
        4 hours ago

        @Ferrous@lemmy.ml

        You are criticizing others over their alleged bad source, but then posting exclusively propaganda sources of the Chinese party-state. Those propaganda trips by influencers who then reports on the so-called ‘progress’ in Xinjiang are well documented as genocidal tourism. The real picture is different.

        There is ample evidence from many reliable sources.

        • Ferrous@lemmy.mlEnglish
          37·
          4 hours ago

          [you are] posting exclusively propaganda sources

          https://theindiaobserver.com/islamic-delegation-visiting-chinas-xinjiang-region-says-all-is-well-here/

          The Western media narrative is, “China’s Xinjiang policy has included intrusive surveillance, religious restrictions, the destruction of mosques, arbitrary arrests, and the detention of an estimated 1.8 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in a vast network of internment camps and prisons. Some have been subjected to sexual assaults, forced labor, and forced sterilizations.”

          In order to counter this narrative an Islamic delegation that compromised of members from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina visited the Xingjiang region.

          Dr. Osama Sayyid Al Azhari, the Egyptian President’s Advisor on Religious Affairs said “I believe that this visit demonstrates that China has attached great significance to preserving the ethnic culture with racial distinctions of many nationalities in Xinjiang province.”

          Dr. Mustafa Ceric, former Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina said “What we’ve heard outside China surely has a bias. I’d say Muslim communities in China include more than Uygurs and there’re more than ten Muslim groups such as Hui and Mongolian and others in the region.”

      • Twongo [she/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        310·
        5 hours ago

        i guess their answer was so bad they deleted it. it also wasn’t about organ harvesting at all, just “china bad” lol

        deleted my response. not screaming into the void.

        • NeilBrü@lemmy.worldEnglish
          61·
          4 hours ago

          No, I pressed the wrong button by accident and “undeleted” it. I stand by what I said. China and average Chinese people are not bad. The CCP is bad.