General News Regarding China & Hong Kong

[amadeus]

The lost art of reading comprehension.

China can be both heavy-handed and itself view its policies as “too lenient.”

 

[Ferocitus]

You whined that sites don't (or rarely) mention ETIM. I found a major article that's barely a year old.

I didn't say all sites.
I said the BBC and others. The BBC is hopelessly glued onto BoJo's government line on Hong Kong.
How often have you seen them use the words "looter", or "arson" in any of their reports on Hong Kong?

Martin Jacques, a former reader in Politics at Cambridge, and now at Tsinghua University made that observation quite a while ago...
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hong-kong.648689/page-48#post-15858964

Adrian Zenz hails from Columbia International University.
CIU specializes in Bible-centered professional development that prepares students to impact the nations with the message of Christ in ministry, missions and the marketplace.
He is a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China.
Yes, Jesus wants him.

His previous claim to fame was for the book: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation
"...Jews will be sent to a "fiery furnace" if they don't convert before the Rapture?"

Adrian Zenz puts out his reports in Jamestown (same place pushing Iraqi WMDs in 2002). In one he claims the use of the word 指挥部 in Tibetan jobs programs means military-style command structure means COERCION means SLAVE LABOR.

He does that a lot, sliding from one meaning to another until it reaches the most menacing that he can get away with.

So, glom onto him and his creepy anti-Semitic Sinophobes, but don't expect everyone to give him any more credence than Trump and Pompeo.

Or get those accusing the CCP of genocide before an independent tribunal, e.g. at The Hague, and have their evidence heard, tested and judged.
(So far, the ones that have bobbed up before informal panels have been caught out lying or changing their stories up to three times before withdrawing.)

But I suspect that you don't want to have a trial in say, The Hague or some other formal Court, but would prefer to rely on throwing around loopy accusations, Trump-like.
LOL @ Zenz and his baloney.

 

[amadeus]

指挥部

I can read that. Would you care to tell what you think it means?

 

[Ferocitus]

OMG, at first I LOLed at the funny headline, but now I recant because China evil!

Italy Fights Back Against Chinese Tomatoes
https://www.wanderingitaly.com/blog/article/186/italy-fights-back-against-chinese-tomatoes

 

[amadeus]

That's a 2007 article, and boy howdy were the Italians quick to recognize that their markets were unsanitary breeding grounds for disease (the CCP's official position since December 2019)

 

[Gorbles]

I didn't say all sites.
I said the BBC and others.

You said the BBC and "many others". I managed to find a major site (with some history) reporting on the ETIM, pretty quickly. Don't be sad just because I was able to.

And like I said, you're suspicious of Zenz, fine. That wasn't the only source I provided, and you're completely ignoring the second one

 

[aelf]

Reading comprehension can get hard when dementia sets in. Good reminder for us young'uns to keep our minds active to avoid that fate.

 

[H4run]

You said the BBC and "many others". I managed to find a major site (with some history) reporting on the ETIM, pretty quickly. Don't be sad just because I was able to.

And like I said, you're suspicious of Zenz, fine. That wasn't the only source I provided, and you're completely ignoring the second one

He's on that pompous zenk again right? that's the only thing he got, he just want to make a big strawman out of everyone who criticizes CCP and knock them off. Very lazy.

 

[Ferocitus]

The BBC is really struggling to find ways to keep the Trump/Pompeo BS about Uyghurs going.
It seems that opening two restaurants in London is now the way to keep Uyghur culture "alive".
The Uyghur woman fighting to keep her culture alive
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-59268974

Maybe Londoners could find far more Uyghur (halal) food and Uyghur culture in Xinjiang itself.

 

[Gorbles]

Tankies gonna tank. Just don't mention Tiananmen Square. Those tanks are off-limits

 

[Samson]

Two sides of Chinese reaction to WTA pulling the events over Peng Shuai

China's government controlled-media lashed out at the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on Twitter -- a platform blocked in China -- accusing the organization of "putting on an exaggerated show," and "supporting the West's attack on Chinese system."

But within China, there is no news about the decision, no public discussion as to why, nor any response from Chinese tennis fans.

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the government-owned nationalist tabloid Global Times, became the first state employee to challenge the WTA's decision Thursday -- but only on Twitter.
"WTA is coercing Peng Shuai to support the West's attack on Chinese system. They are depriving Peng Shuai's freedom of expression, demanding that her description of her current situation must meet their expectation," Hu tweeted.
That was followed by a Global Times "editorial" posted on Twitter in English, accusing the WTA of "expanding its influence in a speculative way, bringing politics into women's tennis deeply, setting a bad example for the entire sporting world." It did not mention what triggered the WTA's decision to pull out of China in the first place.

The "editorial" wasn't posted on the newspaper's Chinese-language social media accounts, and only appeared on its English-language website late on Thursday night. But even then, it was hidden from the homepage, a far cry from how editorials are usually displayed.
In another English-language article, the Global Times said the Chinese Tennis Association (CTA) had expressed "indignation and firm opposition" to the WTA's decision. The CTA's response was not reported by Chinese language media, nor was it posted on the association's own website (The CTA did not respond to CNN's requests for comment).

And at a news conference on Thursday, responding to a question about the WTA's withdrawal, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said "China has always been firmly opposed to any act that politicizes sports." But even that exchange was deleted from the official transcript of the Q&A on the ministry's website.

The Chinese government's main concern is laid in plain view in Hu's tweet, which accused the WTA of attacking on the "Chinese system."
"Fundamentally, this is about protecting the political system in China -- this is the only body that's of concern. It's not about the personal safety of Peng Shuai, or her rights as an individual, as a woman, as a citizen." Bandurski said.​

 

[Samson]

‘Frantic race backwards’ for China media freedoms

At least 127 journalists – from major international news outlets to bloggers – are currently detained in China as the Chinese Communist Party continues a major crackdown on media initiated by President Xi Jinping, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said in a new report.

China now ranks 177 out of 180 in the media watchdog’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index, two slots above North Korea, thanks to a sweeping campaign to limit free expression across every sector of society.

Chinese journalists and writers have become a target of the campaign and face charges such as espionage, subversion and “picking quarrels”. They include whistleblowers like Zhang Zhan, a Chinese lawyer who last year was sentenced to four years in prison for documenting the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, and Cheng Lei, an Australian Chinese anchor at Chinese state media outlet CGTN who was formally arrested in February and accused of supplying state secrets overseas.

Prior to their formal arrest, many detained journalists may spend up to six months under “residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL),” according to the media group. Institutionalised in China in 2012, the practice allows authorities to hold an individual in solitary confinement and constant supervision at a designated facility. The practice is frequently described as “torture” by those who have experienced it.

Nearly two-thirds of journalists detained in China are Uighurs, according to RSF, many of whom helped to raise the alarm about China’s campaign of repression against the Muslim ethnic minority and other groups in the far western region of Xinjiang. Uighur journalists and bloggers appear to face harsher sentences than their Han Chinese counterparts, like Ilham Tohti, an economist and founder of the website Uyghur Online who was sentenced to life in prison for “separatism” in 2014.

In a bid to control Chinese journalists in the future, the report noted, Chinese journalists are required to download an app “Study Xi, Strengthen the Country,” which can download their personal data, while they will soon have to undergo 90 hours of ideological training each year to renew their press card.​

 

[amadeus]

Western imperialist lies. Look, here is an article: Xi Jinping, Greatest Secretary Since Mao. On the other side, a rebuttal: Xi Jinping Excels Deng, Hu in Perfectness.

 

[E.man]

Mao warned against "Han chauvanism" in the 1950s.

 

[Ferocitus]

Tankies gonna tank. Just don't mention Tiananmen Square. Those tanks are off-limits

Why?
Some misguided people tried to start a counter-revolution but made a slight error of about one billion in their estimate of the support they could muster.

 

[E.man]

Always find it amusing that 'the revolution' is a long time autocratic government.

 

[Ferocitus]

Always find it amusing that 'the revolution' is a long time autocratic government.

If Chinese citizens really didn't want it, they would throw out the current lot.
As it is though, the national government has about 95% support, while local governments have < 20%.
That level of support, and particularly the huge disparity between national and local, came as a real surprise to Harvard researchers in their 15 year study of recent Chinese politics.

 

[E.man]

If Chinese citizens really didn't want it, they would throw out the current lot.
As it is though, the national government has about 95% support, while local governments have < 20%.
That level of support, and particularly the huge disparity between national and local, came as a real surprise to Harvard researchers in their 15 year study of recent Chinese politics.

Yeah fine,

...it still sounds odd that 'counter-revolutionary' actually means 'counter- government'.
How long and well established can it exist for and still be a 'revolution' ?

 

[Verbose]

If Chinese citizens really didn't want it, they would throw out the current lot.
As it is though, the national government has about 95% support, while local governments have < 20%.
That level of support, and particularly the huge disparity between national and local, came as a real surprise to Harvard researchers in their 15 year study of recent Chinese politics.

Just a variation of the "Good Czar – Bad Boyars" trope that authoritarian systems display – "Oh, if only Little Father/Stalin/Putin" knew!" etc. – we've seen it for ages.

Chinese citizens generally think well of the national government, because they are being fed a constant stream of positive news, that is being put out centrally. Everything going right in China credited to the CCP and the central government, anything not – is not talked about. There is never any negative news, because that is neither allowed or possible anymore.

Ordinary people do however know their local government – and on that level no amount of propaganda can fix the problem that things mostly work badly, when they work.

What's being made opaque in the Chinese system, to the Chinese first of all, is how central and local government is interconnected, and how the ground-rules established centrally mean local government becomes crud (poor legislation, badly written laws essentially – because China doesn't actually have to have working legislation, since the CCP decides what anything means anyway – and handed down central directives that often just impossible to deliver on).

It used to be a big thing in China, how ordinary Chinese we had been wronged by local government went to Beijing to try to petition the central government. Not that it helped them, but there was a theoretical route of address. This has now been closed, since complaining against government action is now deemed anti-social behavior in China, and citizens who engage in it are directly penalized.

And if you think ordinary Chinese have any way of challenging this system – much less change it – or even just replace leaders – then you are delusional. That is all the prerogative of the CCP, specifically the CCP leadership.

 

[amadeus]

It’s also easier to blame-shift to local governments and “corrupt city officials” when there’s poisoned baby milk or something.

Gosh, I guess they just must be really good at finding incorruptible people only at the upper echelons!