Sunday, November 13, 2022

We Don't Have to Trade With China

Yet people STILL feed the paper dragon.

Pourquoi?:

Hong Kong authorities are forcing young inmates arrested during the 2019 pro-democracy protests to attend “patriotic education” sessions to cleanse them of “extreme ideological views,” reports a Catholic watchdog group.

The re-education programs being applied by Hong Kong authorities mimic those of the “brainwashing” techniques employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and underground Chinese Catholics who refuse to enlist in the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, reveals AsiaNews, the official press agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, in a report Wednesday.

In 2019, the Hong Kong democratic movement staged mass protests against the application of a law that would have allowed judicial extradition to China. The demonstrations then grew to include calls for universal suffrage and greater popular participation in government.

According to data provided by the Hong Kong city government, of the tens of thousands of people arrested, more than 1,000 were under the age of 18. Security Secretary Chris Tang told Legco (the city Parliament) that the prosecutor had criminally prosecuted 517 minors arrested in connection with the 2019 protests.

In addition to the forced military marches and exercises, young people in custody are forced to attend lessons in “civic and moral education” and national security, AsiaNews reported. These re-education programs are also imposed on primary and secondary school students, as well as university students, after a draconian Beijing-sponsored national security law was adopted in the summer of 2020 to crack down on the pro-democracy movement.

The former Catholic bishop of Hong Kong, the 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, is currently being tried for allegedly failing to properly register the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which provided legal and medical assistance to jailed protesters of the democracy movement.




China expects the world to bow to it.

The installed leader of the US doesn't seem to mind:

Talk? Dialogue, unfortunately, has great costs. First, as evident during decades of fruitless conversations with China, American presidents regularly postpone taking needed action while talking with Chinese counterparts. Talking sounds as if it should work but in fact has produced horrible results, for more than three decades. In short, dialogue enables China to buy time and often run out the clock.

Second, talks just feed the already inflated sense of self-importance of Chinese officials.

Americans, since the early 1970s, have believed it was in their interest, as well as in the interest of the international community, to establish and maintain regular dialogue with the Communist Party. Therefore, U.S. diplomats have figuratively — and literally — chased after their Chinese counterparts to begin conversations.

American neediness has not escaped the attention of Chinese policymakers. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian publicly noted on November 10 that the Bali discussions are being held at the request of the American side. Beijing always announces that Washington initiates dialogue, to put American negotiators in inferior bargaining positions.

"There is a negative impact of the president signaling weakness by running after dictator Xi, something that significantly erodes America's alliance system," said James Fanell of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy to Gatestone in connection with the G20 meeting.

Third, the Chinese are not real believers in the importance of dialogue; they break it off whenever they feel it is to their advantage. They did so in September, for instance, after Michelle Bachelet, then the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued her August 31 report on Beijing's inhuman treatment of Uighurs and other Turkic minorities.

The ending of the human rights dialogue followed China's August 5 announcement of the cancellation of phone and in-person meetings with American military leaders and of annual naval meetings conducted under the U.S.-China military maritime consultation mechanism. At the same time, Beijing suspended cooperation on repatriation of illegal immigrants, legal assistance on criminal matters, assistance on transnational criminal matters, cooperation on drug enforcement, and climate change talks.

Steve Yates, the chair of the China Policy Initiative of the America First Policy Institute, tells Gatestone that during summits presidents often convey warnings, seek understanding, or propose joint action. "There is no reason to think Xi Jinping is prepared to seek understanding or would take constructive joint action," he said. "It also is extremely unlikely that he believes or respects words of warning from the Biden administration. Given that, a side meeting on the margins of the G20 is pointless or counterproductive."


Also:

The New York Post last month reported that the IRS-blacklisted ChangLe Association NY Inc., which had failed to file required reports for three consecutive years and thereby lost tax-exempt status in May, still owns and operates a "service station" at 107 East Broadway.

The location houses the Fuzhou Police Overseas Chinese Affairs bureau. The bureau's stated purpose is to help China's nationals with Chinese-government identification cards and drivers' licenses.

Beijing reportedly has also used the station to track Chinese individuals of interest to the regime and, short-circuiting legal procedures, to persuade those Chinese to voluntarily return to China.

Whether handling routine services or hunting down individuals, the bureau has been engaged in activities violating American sovereignty. The U.S. and China do not have an extradition treaty.

"This is a disgrace," said Beau Dietl, the celebrity retired NYPD detective, to the Daily Caller News Foundation. "How in God's name could they openly have these communist police stations in our country?"

Unfortunately, there is no mystery as to why the Chinese regime felt it could get away with this on American soil.

China's boldness is the result of Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden — and perhaps those before them — knowing about improper and illegal activities in America of Chinese consular officials and Ministry of State Security agents but choosing not to expel or punish the perpetrators.

America's highest elected leaders, in short, have failed to enforce American law against China.




While leaders eat well in Cambodia, China still prepares to invade Taiwan:

China's military flew 36 fighter jets and bombers near Taiwan, the Taiwanese defense ministry announced, part of a long-running campaign of intimidation against the self-ruled island democracy that Beijing claims as part of its territory.

Ten of the aircraft on Saturday flew across the median line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland, the ministry said. It said they included six Shenyang J-11 and four J-16 aircraft.



It's one thing to train Chinese soldiers on Canadian soil. It's quite another for the US to get a clue and not let Chinese companies extract minerals from Canada:

The United States military has been quietly soliciting applications for Canadian mining projects that want American public funding through a major national security initiative.

It's part of an increasingly urgent priority of the U.S. government: lessening dependence on China for critical minerals that are vital in everything from civilian goods such as electronics, cars and batteries, to weapons.

It illustrates how Canadian mining is becoming the nexus of a colossal geopolitical struggle. Ottawa just pushed Chinese state-owned companies out of the sector, and the U.S. is now considering moving public funding in.



She's, like, serious about, like, issues and stuff:

Melanie Joly says she is open to the idea of working with China on certain issues, but says Russia must be treated like a pariah.



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