China launches propaganda blitz to discredit Uyghurs, [VIDEO]

Aydidar Kahar tucks her long hair behind her ear and smiles at the camera.

Key points:

  • Uyghurs are using #StillNoInfo to demand news about their missing loved ones
  • Chinese state media releases a slew of testimonies from relatives to say they’re “safe and sound”
  • Experts say the family members are coerced or intimidated for propaganda purposes

She takes the viewer on a tour of a mall in Xinjiang — decked out with luxury brands like Versace, Gucci and Dior — before the video abruptly cuts to her sitting at a desk, staring straight into the camera lens.

“Isn’t the department store and the subway you just saw an epitome of the dramatic changes in Xinjiang?” she said, in a video broadcast by Chinese state-owned Global Times.

“Grandma, you have been defaming Xinjiang … people in Xinjiang are living a decent life.”

Full Story here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-18/safe-and-sound-china-propaganda-undercuts-xinjiang-uyghur/11865648

China remains the world’s worst polluter…but…

A composite image of a smoggy Shanghai and wind turbines.

Shanghai, one of the world’s most populous cities, will today enact strict green policies limiting disposable takeaway utensils and hotel room essentials, as it officially rolls out a major recycling overhaul.

Key points:

  • China contributed to almost a third of the global renewables investment in 2018
  • But the Asian power remains the world’s largest producer of carbon emissions
  • China provides billions of dollars in support for overseas coal plants per year

The ban on the provision of a slew of single-use items such as chopsticks, forks, shower caps and toothbrushes unless requested by customers comes amid Beijing’s green push to tackle pollution and their ambition to become a global leader in clean technology.

While China remains the world’s largest producer of carbon emissions — where air pollution is still responsible for more than 1 million premature deaths a year — the Asian power is also the biggest investor in renewable energy.

The latest report by the UN’s renewable energy advisory body, REN21, shows China led renewable energy investment worldwide for the seventh successive year, contributing to almost a third of the global renewables investment in 2018 at $US91.2 billion ($130.2 billion).

Full story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-01/china-leader-in-renewable-energy-wages-war-on-pollution/11249162

China is harassing Uyghur minority people living in Australia and ‘fake police cars’

A car with what appears to be Chinese police markings parked at night.

A diplomatic war of words has emerged between the American and Chinese embassies in Canberra, amid claims Beijing is harassing Uyghur minority people living in Australia.

Key points:

  • The US ambassador said Uyghurs were being “harassed by agents of a foreign power”
  • He said fake Chinese police cars were being parked outside their homes
  • China’s foreign affairs ministry said the allegation was “laughable”

Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been subject to a wide-ranging security crackdown in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, where it is believed more than a million people have been rounded up and put in detention camps.

In an interview with ABC News Breakfast last Thursday, US ambassador Arthur B Culvahouse Jr said China was monitoring and intimidating Uyghurs living in Australia, and that this involved the use of fake Chinese police cars.

“Uyghurs who are lawfully in Australia, who are raised in Australia, working, paying taxes in Australia, are being harassed by agents of a foreign power,” he said.

Full story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-18/us-and-china-clash-over-uyghur-harassment-and-fake-police-cars/11802578

Why International Rules are Only ‘Soft Constraints’ for the Chinese Communist Party

A worker cuts an oil pipe at a factory in Qingdao in China’s eastern Shandong Province on Feb. 28, 2019. China's manufacturing activity shrunk for a third straight month in February, sinking to its worst performance in three years as the economy slows and the U.S. trade war bites, official data showed on Feb. 28. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
A worker cuts an oil pipe at a factory in Qingdao in China’s eastern Shandong Province on Feb. 28, 2019. China’s manufacturing activity shrunk for a third straight month in February, sinking to its worst performance in three years as the economy slows and the U.S. trade war bites, official data showed on Feb. 28. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has surprised the international community by playing fast and loose in U.S.-China trade talks over the past two years.

Its flouting and willful violation of international laws and customs not only caused the economic and trade conflict between China and the United States, but also much of the global vigilance against it. In the current world structure, the CCP generally disregards international norms and regulations. Regulations based on the institutional framework of democracy and the rule of law seem difficult to effectively restrain the CCP’s actions.

Conclusions Drawn From Trade Negotiations

The U.S.-China trade talks reached a preliminary first phase agreement on Oct.11, but there has been much international skepticism about its validity. This is because China’s conduct in the negotiations over the past two years has left many in the international community worried about the CCP’s credibility.

Full Story: https://www.theepochtimes.com/cheng-xiaonong

China’s newest weapon against Hong Kong?

Two basketball players pose for a photograph

Even by China’s heavily nationalistic standards, the reaction to a tweet this week has been extreme.

Basketball authorities and sponsors cutting ties.

State TV cancelling broadcasts.

A ‘meet the fans’ night with visiting NBA stars scuttled at short notice, much to the disappointment of fans.

Even a young social media user being forced by his employer to write a public apology letter for a post about a cartoon called the Rocket Squad.

The uproar over a tweet supporting the Hong Kong protestors from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is the sharpest sign yet that in China’s ‘New Era’ — as President Xi Jinping calls it — foreigners are expected to submit to its censorship rules if they want to do business.

In recent years, grovelling apologies have become the norm.

Full Story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-10/beijing-uses-outrage-culture-online-against-nba/11587534

Huawei Linked to Suspected Front Companies in Iran, Syria

The Huawei logo is seen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on Feb. 26, 2018. (Yves Herman/Reuters)

LONDON/HONG KONG—The U.S. case against the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies, who was arrested in Canada last month, centers on the company’s suspected ties to two obscure companies. One is a telecom equipment seller that operated in Tehran; the other is that firm’s owner, a holding company registered in Mauritius.

U.S. authorities allege Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou deceived international banks into clearing transactions with Iran by claiming the two companies were independent of Huawei, when in fact Huawei controlled them. Huawei has maintained the two are independent: equipment seller Skycom Tech Co Ltd and shell company Canicula Holdings Ltd.

Full Story: https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-documents-link-huawei-

How China Routed the U.S. in a U.N. Agency…

Qu Dongyu, the new director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In mid-January, Kevin Moley, the senior State Department official responsible for overseeing U.S. relations with the United Nations and other international organizations, issued a stern command to a gathering of visiting U.S. diplomats in Washington: China was on the rise, and America’s diplomatic corps needed to do everything in its power to thwart Beijing’s ambitions.

China’s bid to place one of its own top officials at the head of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which helps direct agricultural and food security policies worldwide, offered an early test, Moley noted. The election was still some five months away. But Moley, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, made clear that defeating China would become a key U.S. foreign-policy goal.

“It was all China, China, China,” recalled a source familiar with the exchange. “‘We have to do anything to beat the Chinese,’” the source recalled Moley as saying.

Full Story: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/23/china-united-states-fao-kevin-moley/