#China’s Coverup of #CCPVirus ‘Crime of the Century,’ Says Former US Ambassador…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) talks with then-US Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty as he arrives in Osaka on June 27, 2019. (Jacquelyn Martin/AFP via Getty Images)

A former U.S. ambassador to Japan has criticized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its coverup of the CCP virus in the early stages of the deadly outbreak, calling the regime’s mishandling of the virus “the crime of the century.”

Bill Hagerty, who is now a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee, told “The Jeff Poor Show” on Friday that he believes the Chinese regime’s efforts to suppress information and conceal the virus before it became a pandemic makes it “the greatest cover-up in human history.”

“I’ve worked with China and seen how they operate for years. And I can tell you, what they’re trying to do right now with this Wuhan virus is the crime of the century in my view,” Hagerty told the radio host, Jeff Poor.

Full Story: https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijings-coverup-of-ccp-virus-crime-of-the-century-says-former-us-ambassador-to-japan_3298450.html

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 – How Communist Party Officials are Applying Lessons from Prior “Transformation” Campaigns for Repression…

A 45-year-old seamstress is arbitrarily taken away by police for detention at a “transformation through education” session held at an old munitions factory guesthouse, where she is pressured to renounce her religious beliefs. Nine days later, her husband is informed that she has died in custody and see signs of abuse on her body, but is pressured by local officials to permit rapid cremation.

For those following the current campaign of detentions, indoctrination, and torture in Xinjiang, such a scenario may sound familiar. But this incident did not occur in Xinjiang in 2019, and the victim was not Uighur—this happened in Hebei province in 2010 to Yuan Pingjun, a Han Chinese and an adherent of the Falun Gong spiritual practice (Human Rights in China, September 2011). However, there is a link to current events in Xinjiang: Hebei’s deputy party secretary at the time was a rising star in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) named Chen Quanguo (陈全国), now party secretary in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

Much analysis to date has noted Chen’s previous experience in Tibet, and the similarities between securitization policies implemented there and those expanding under his tenure in Xinjiang (China Brief, September 21 2017; International Campaign for Tibet, December 10 2018). Less serious attention has been given to the Xinjiang campaign’s commonalities with the party’s long-standing struggle to eliminate Falun Gong—another massive CCP effort at “transformation” targeting millions of spiritual believers. But as is outlined below, Chen’s own career path is not an isolated example: rather, it would appear that the CCP’s nearly 20-year experience implementing the anti-Falun Gong campaign has shaped policies and tactics in Xinjiang, a dynamic that yields insights into how events may unfold in that region and beyond.

“Transformation Through Education” in the Repression of Falun Gong

Full Story: https://jamestown.org/program/the-learning-curve-how-communist-party-officials-are-applying-lessons-from-prior-transformation-campaigns-to-repression-in-xinjiang/