Should we all reduce our consumption of Chinese goods to force China to stop Russia's genocide?

Has China actually done anything wrong, that we can conclusively prove (keep it to Ukraine, don't move the goalposts and bring the Uyghurs into it as it wasn't your original argument)? While China hasn't condemned Russia, it also hasn't encouraged them either. They're basically sitting on the fence and getting both bites of the Apple. This isn't uncommon in war. Yes, it's a crap thing to do, but it's their prerogative and as long as they're not breaking any international treaties or laws, then they've not really done anything to end up on the naughty step. Let's compare this to countries who are sitting on the side lines condemning Russia, but the moment the rebuilding starts they'll swoop to get their contracts. There's probably some stuff getting smuggled or whatever that is so well hidden we'll never know, but that happens with all countries (even countries that are at war with one another), and is sometimes ignored depending on what it is when they get caught.

Chinese hackers hacking Ukrainian infrastructure, starting during the winter olympics and continuing until the day before the invasion.
 
Pretty soon I end up in a situation where I've replaced the entire car.

1. The fact that you can't entirely eliminate Chinese products from your life doesn't mean you can't eliminate as many as possible.

2. One aspect of a boycott that is sometimes forgotten: making sure suppliers know why you made particular choices. For instance, you can email suppliers to determine the provenance of products you're considering, and when they respond, make it clear that you've decided to avoid X because it's made in China (and give the reason – Uyghur genocide, support for Ukraine, etc).
 
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Chinese hackers hacking Ukrainian infrastructure, starting during the winter olympics and continuing until the day before the invasion.
I hate to break it to you, but hacking goes on between nations at the best of times, and between nations that are outwardly friendly to one another. Regardless of whether it's something designed to be a nuisance (DDoS for example) or something targeted and designed to do more damage, it happens. It's also not illegal in the way that supplying weapons is. Naughty yes, but nothing you can really get anything done about.

Can you also conclusively prove it was conducted with the backing of Chinese authorities? It's probable that the authorities knew what was going on, but didn't get involved because the hackers weren't bothering with local systems. The hackers may have had backing, but you'll never be able to prove it conclusively. Saying something bears all the hallmarks of being something is not the same as saying it definitely is.

1. The fact that you can't entirely eliminate Chinese products from your life doesn't mean you can't eliminate as many as possible.

2. One aspect of a boycott that is sometimes forgotten: making sure suppliers know why you made particular choices. For instance, you can email suppliers to determine the provenance of products you're considering, and when they respond, make it clear that you've decided to avoid X because it's made in China (and give the reason – Uyghur genocide, support for Ukraine, etc).
1: There becomes a point where it's no longer practicable whether for physical or financial reasons. I'm not going to start checking and sourcing where all my products come from because I'd probably never buy anything again. I spend a lot of money on tech, and considering a lot of chips and chipsets are produced in China there's nothing I can do. Sometimes there are alternatives, but they'll be a lot more expensive, and as I'll usually buy 7 or 8 at a time it's already expensive. Am I going to pay £2000 for 8 motherboards, or £3000 just to make a point?

2: Suppliers don't care about people e-mailing them and telling them their world views. At any given time, people will refuse to buy any product for whatever reason, be it it doesn't taste nice or because it's made from the blood of new-borns. For every person who mails them, there will be 100 people who buy the product because they simply don't care, and have more important things to worry about.

It all goes back to what I said about convenience. I've donated money, a large amount of digital tokens that have monetary value, and bought a few Ukraine software bundles. The reason was basic convenience. I've got my own problems going on, and unfortunately they haven't decided to lay off because of Russia invading Ukraine. By doing what I did, I got a warm fuzzy feeling from doing something nice, and then went and dealt with stuff that has real world consequences if ignored. I don't have the time to research where individual things come from. There are things I won't buy because I've been made aware of a reason, but it has to be a lot better than a country remaining neutral.
 
Russia is committing awful war crimes, but it is not genocide.
 
Russia is committing awful war crimes, but it is not genocide.
I disagree. Genocide is not confined to specific ethnicities or religions. It can be an attempt to wipe out a nation and that is very much what Putin set out to do. Yes these are war crimes at the individual level but Putins attempt to eradicate the nation of Ukraine is an act of genocide.
 
I disagree. Genocide is not confined to specific ethnicities or religions. It can be an attempt to wipe out a nation and that is very much what Putin set out to do. Yes these are war crimes at the individual level but Putins attempt to eradicate the nation of Ukraine is an act of genocide.

I disagree. I don't see any orchestrated plans to eradicate the Ukrainians as a people. Civilians being murdered, while awful, doesn't make it a genocide.

 
If you are posting on here then you are almost certainly either posting on a Chinese made "gadget" or one that is using Chinese sourced materials/parts.

This is the price we are paying for globalisation and uncontrolled capitalism.
 
I disagree. I don't see any orchestrated plans to eradicate the Ukrainians as a people. Civilians being murdered, while awful, doesn't make it a genocide.

Putin has said that Ukraine should not exist as a country so while he clearly cannot eradicate every Ukrainian he wants them to no longer be Ukrainian and doesn’t see them as having a national identity. He has told his soldiers they are fighting nazis. He has attempted to dehumanise them in just the same way as the jews were dehumanised through successive pogroms and the creation of ghettos long before the holocaust began in earnest.

Russia has a history of sending Russian speakers and supporters to populate other parts of the Soviet Union as a means of Russifying them.
 
Putin has said that Ukraine should not exist as a country so while he clearly cannot eradicate every Ukrainian he wants them to no longer be Ukrainian and doesn’t see them as having a national identity. He has told his soldiers they are fighting nazis. He has attempted to dehumanise them in just the same way as the jews were dehumanised through successive pogroms and the creation of ghettos long before the holocaust began in earnest.

Russia has a history of sending Russian speakers and supporters to populate other parts of the Soviet Union as a means of Russifying them.

All that is true, still doesn't make it genocide, which has a defined legal meaning.
And saying this is by no means attempting to minimise the sick things that Russian soldiers have done in Ukraine.
 
@Aristaeus
The United Nations Genocide Convention came into effect in 1951 and defines genocide as committing any of the following acts with "the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group":

  • Killing members of the group
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
  • Deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction, in whole or in part
  • Putting measures in place to prevent births within the group
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
 
@Aristaeus
The United Nations Genocide Convention came into effect in 1951 and defines genocide as committing any of the following acts with "the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group":

  • Killing members of the group
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
  • Deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction, in whole or in part
  • Putting measures in place to prevent births within the group
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
I think those definitions apply to Putins objectives and his forces behaviour. Whilst it’s a different sort of genocidal act than we’ve seen before because it lacks the ethnic religious aspects it still has the essential hallmark.
 
Unfortunately most are obsessed with buying things as cheap as possible. Are people willing to pay more for locally manufactured products, rather than cheap imports?
The answer is of course no.

Most of the time it makes economic sense to buy imports. That's the way the country gets richer. And it can benefit both sides. Most people in the UK have a higher standard of living that when we were a major manufacturer, often having more interesting jobs. Despite all the work going to China etc we are still close to full employment - indeed many sectors have worker shortages. China itself has certainly lifted many out of poverty.

Would a consumer boycott of China really change the attitude of the leadership? If it would I would be all for it but I think in practise I would just end up paying more for things and it would have no effects on China.
 
@Aristaeus
The United Nations Genocide Convention came into effect in 1951 and defines genocide as committing any of the following acts with "the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group":

  • Killing members of the group
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
  • Deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction, in whole or in part
  • Putting measures in place to prevent births within the group
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

I'm not seeing an intent to destroy a national ethnic group.
 
Doesn’t have to be ethnic or religious. Can just be a national group. It’s a list, it doesn’t have to satisfy all categories. It only needs one.

But there needs to be intent to go with it. What I'm seeing is indiscriminate killings by soldiers.

I've seen individual Ukrainians standing in front of Russian soldiers giving them an earful without being harmed, I've also seen hundreds of Ukrainians protesting in Russian-held cities with no attempt at killing them, neither of those scenarios are really compatible with genocide.
 
Better start thowing away your expensive phones , Tv's just about everything including scrapping your vehicles becaue more that likely the internals are made in china .. No way on earth can people stop purchasing goods made in China .. I daresay the p.c's that people use have chinese parts . most probably weapons as well
 
But there needs to be intent to go with it. What I'm seeing is indiscriminate killings by soldiers.

I've seen individual Ukrainians standing in front of Russian soldiers giving them an earful without being harmed, I've also seen hundreds of Ukrainians protesting in Russian-held cities with no attempt at killing them, neither of those scenarios are really compatible with genocide.

I agree this is not genocide, just extreme cruelty and barbarism by the invading soldiers. And I can't say if this is just troops going insane on the ground, or a directive coming from on high.
But whatever, we now know the way Russian forces operate, and god forbid if this happens again, people won't hang around and get the hell out ASAP.
 
But there needs to be intent to go with it. What I'm seeing is indiscriminate killings by soldiers.

I've seen individual Ukrainians standing in front of Russian soldiers giving them an earful without being harmed, I've also seen hundreds of Ukrainians protesting in Russian-held cities with no attempt at killing them, neither of those scenarios are really compatible with genocide.
The intent by Putin, at least at the outset, was to eradicate Ukraine as a nation and to take over it’s government as a Russian vassal state. There certainly has been indiscriminate killing by soldiers and I don’t believe they were necessarily ordered to kill all Ukranians although it would be interesting to know what orders, if any, they were acting on.

I agree that in some places the occupying forces did not appear to have been ordered to kill civilians randomly. Whether that changed later who can say but the attacks on mainly civilian areas did appear to be an attempt to eradicate large numbers of civilian. Acts of genocide don’t have to be by individual soldiers with guns.
 
I don't see the reasoning behind "we can't dispense with Chinese products or components entirely; therefore there's no point in dispensing with Chinese products as much as we can".

How would that work in other contexts?

"We can't eliminate emissions entirely; therefore there's no point in reducing them."

"I can't give up sugar entirely; therefore there's no point in reducing my sugar intake."
 
But there needs to be intent to go with it. What I'm seeing is indiscriminate killings by soldiers.

I've seen individual Ukrainians standing in front of Russian soldiers giving them an earful without being harmed, I've also seen hundreds of Ukrainians protesting in Russian-held cities with no attempt at killing them, neither of those scenarios are really compatible with genocide.
Putin has clearly said Ukraine is not a nation and its just a part of Russia that needs cleansing.
 
I have already ruled out a few products. My next pair of speakers won't be made in China, my next car won't be one of those chinese owned brands, my next phone won't be a Chinese brand and Ill try to buy wherever possible products not made in china.
 
I will happily carry on buying whatever I want from wherever I want.

The amount of virtue signalling on forums is laughable..
 

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