It might be Justin's favourite country (so much so that he is willing to run interference for it - and himself!) but it's in a spot of bother at the moment:
People opposed to China’s stringent Covid restrictions have protested in cities across the country in the biggest wave of civil disobedience on the mainland since Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago.
Protests triggered by a deadly apartment fire in the far west of the country last week took place on Sunday in cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan and Guangzhou, according to footage shared on social media, in defiance of a series of heavy-handed arrests of demonstrators on Saturday night.
In the early hours of Monday in Beijing, two groups of protesters totalling at least 1,000 people were gathered along the Chinese capital’s 3rd Ring Road near the Liangma River, refusing to disperse.
In an unusually bold act that appeared to indicate the level of people’s desperation, a crowd in Shanghai late on Saturday night called for the removal of the Communist party and Xi during a standoff with police, chanting: “Communist party! Step down! Xi Jinping! Step down!” Chinese people usually refrain from criticising the party and its leaders in public for fear of reprisals.
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Hundreds of students at Tsinghua university in Beijing joined waves of demonstrations as unrest grows over the ruthless zero-Covid policies pursued by the authoritarian government.
The crowds carried a series of placards touting anti-regime slogans and erupted into a series of chants, calling for 'democracy' and 'freedom of expression'.
The university in the Chinese capital is the latest public location to be rocked by unprecedent civil unrest and demonstrations on a scale unseen since the infamous Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 which ended in hundreds of deaths when the army was deployed to quell the uprising.
'At 11:30 am students started holding up signs at the entrance of the canteen, then more and more people joined. Now there are 200 to 300 people,' one witness told an AFP journalist.
Participants sang the national anthem and 'the Internationale' - a standard of the international communist movement - and chanted 'freedom will prevail' and 'no to lockdowns, we want freedom', they said.
The witness also described students holding up blank pieces of paper, a symbolic protest against censorship.
Demonstrations have erupted in at least seven cities - including Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou - with violence breaking out between local cops and furious protesters.
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Police forcibly cleared the demonstrators in China’s financial capital who called for Xi Jinping’s resignation and the end of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule — but hours later people rallied again in the same spot, and social media reports indicated protests also spread to at least seven other cities, including the capital of Beijing, and dozens of university campuses.
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**It's really kicking off in #China right now. Biggest protests since the days of #Tiananmen.https://t.co/946d9cXPuQ
— Terry Glavin 格立文 (@TerryGlavin) November 27, 2022
**There are videos of the screams of the families burning in that building in Urumqi. This is the spark that lit the fuse of the protests across China
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 28, 2022
"Open the doors! Open the doors! Save us!"
Even children were killed pic.twitter.com/cTSt6F5yXc
CHINA - Government has changed all protestors Covid QR codes to RED. Effectively locking them down.
— Bernie's Tweets (@BernieSpofforth) November 23, 2022
Now you know what those thousands of camps they are building were for!
China doesn’t like dissent.. and that’s catching on in your country too!pic.twitter.com/fs6caMiyqw
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BREAKING: Protesters in China's Lanzhou city are taking to the streets and tearing down the COVID test booths now ⚠️ ⚠️⚠️
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) November 26, 2022
🔊sound ...🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/e6o5ArMj0j
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**北京天通苑北一区
— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) November 26, 2022
居民撕破隔离铁皮，走上街头 pic.twitter.com/McL6DCMMVq
Police beat workers protesting over a pay dispute at the biggest factory for Apple's iPhone, whose new model is delayed by controls imposed as China tries to contain a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Foxconn, the biggest contract assembler of smartphones and other electronics, is struggling to fill orders for the iPhone 14 after thousands of employees walked away from the factory in the central city of Zhengzhou last month following complaints about unsafe working conditions.
China’s status as an export powerhouse is based on factories such as Foxconn's that assemble the world’s consumer electronics, toys and other goods.
The ruling Communist Party is trying to contain the latest wave of outbreaks without shutting down factories and the rest of its economy as it did in early 2020. Its tactics include “closed-loop management,” under which workers live in their factories with no outside contact.
Foxconn offered higher pay to attract more workers to the Zhengzhou factory to assemble the iPhone 14, which sells starting at $799 in the United States.
On Tuesday, a protest erupted after employees who had traveled long distances to take jobs at the factory complained that the company changed terms of their pay, according to an employee, Li Sanshan.
Li said he quit a catering job when he saw an advertisement promising 25,000 yuan ($3,500) for two months of work. That would be a significant hike over average pay for this type of work in the area.
After employees arrived, the company said they had to work two additional months at lower pay to receive the 25,000 yuan, according to Li.
“Foxconn released very tempting recruiting offers, and workers from all parts of the country came, only to find they were being made fools of,” he said.
Videos online showed thousands of people in masks facing rows of police in white protective suits with plastic riot shields.
And what are you going to do about those "engagements", Justin?:
On Nov. 7, Trudeau commented on allegations that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) covertly funded at least 11 candidates during the 2019 federal election. The allegations were outlined in a Global News story published the same day, which alleged that Trudeau was briefed about the illicitly-funded candidates in January.
(Sidebar: this brief.)
Trudeau told reporters on Nov. 7 that China and other state actors “are continuing to play aggressive games with our institutions, with our democracies.”Less than two weeks later, he said he was never briefed about any candidates receiving Chinese funding.“I get briefed up regularly from our intelligence and security officials,” Trudeau told reporters in Djerba, Tunisia, on Nov. 20. “I have no information on any federal candidates receiving money from China.”Trudeau repeated a similar message today during question period.“There are a range of threats out there that Canadians and Canadian security agencies continue to be vigilant against,” he said. “We will always be there to protect Canadians.”Poilievre asked “what specific interference” Trudeau’s office was referring to when it summarized his conversation with Xi on Nov. 15.“We’ve known for many years that there are consistent engagements by representatives of the Chinese government into Canadian communities,” Trudeau responded.
Also:
The Chinese Council for Western Ontario Elections says it wants to be an “incubator” for candidates who support the community’s interests and educate newcomers about Canadian democracy.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Cuban counterpart pledged mutual support over their fellow communist states’ “core interests” Friday at a meeting further hailing a return to face-to-face diplomacy by Beijing.
In comments to Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, Xi said China hoped to “strengthen coordination and cooperation in international and regional affairs” with Cuba. The two will “go hand in hand down the road of building socialism with each's own characteristics," Xi was quoted as saying in a Chinese government news release.
China generally defines core interests as the defense of its economic and political development aims, along with control over territory it claims, especially self-governing Taiwan.
No specific issues or other countries were mentioned in the Chinese government news release.
The emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, has been deemed guilty by the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court in Hong Kong of having failed to properly register the now-defunct 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, and fined HK $4,000 ($512). He will not face further penalties for this ruling.
Local news outlets reported Friday that the 90-year-old Catholic prelate, along with four other trustees and a secretary at the 612 Fund, must pay the fine as the Fund had not bee registered within the required one-month timeline. According to local law, organizations must be registered with the police commissioner within one month of being set up. Failure to do so can lead to an initial fine of HK$10,000 (around $1,200).
Beside Zen, the four trustees are former opposition legislator Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee; singer Denise Ho Wan-sze; cultural studies professor Hui Po Keung; and activist Sze Ching-wee. A fifth trustee, Cyd Ho Sau-lan, was already in jail for “illegal assemblies.” All pleaded not guilty upon their arrest in May.
The cardinal and his four fellow trustees will now have to pay the HK$4,000 fine, while the secretary Sze Ching-wee will have to pay a fine of HK $2,500. All six had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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