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Friday, March 19, 2021

Links - 19th March 2021 (2) (China's 'peaceful' rise)

TikTok apologises after being accused of censoring black users - "TikTok has been accused of censorship before, including allegations that it suppressed posts related to anti-government protests in Hong Kong, as well as videos by disabled, queer and overweight creators."

First Covid-19 lawsuit filed against Chinese government in latest sign of bubbling unrest - "When Zhang Hai checked his father into a hospital in Wuhan mid-January, he had no idea a novel coronavirus was sweeping through the city... The unprecedented lawsuit poses immense risk for Mr Zhang as it challenges the ruling Communist Party’s official narrative, which denies a cover-up, glosses over missteps, and instead focuses on containment success.China has used a selective timeline to defend against growing criticism over its lack of transparency in the pandemic, even as lawsuits seeking punitive damages from Beijing pile up across the globe, including in the US, India and Nigeria. “The case is very sensitive, so the court will probably give us a cold shoulder,” Yang Zhanqing, Mr Zhang’s lawyer, said from the US where he sought refuge after being detained in China for his work. “At the same time, the court will notify the local government, and the authorities will coerce him to withdraw the lawsuit.”... One state-owned company employee was pressured by her manager to stop complaining to journalists that a hospital refused to issue a coronavirus diagnosis, even though she tested positive and needed a positive diagnosis to file an insurance claim. Her boss warned doing so was a “political mistake”... Others have been compelled by police and local party officials to abandon their pursuits for reparations. Lawyers in China have also been told to cease providing assistance... Most people acquiesced out of fear, but Mr Zhang continues to defy threats. His social media posts have been censored and police have made clear they’re watching him.Police waved a printout of his comments in a group chat – since shut down by the authorities – with more than a hundred people hoping to seek reparations for relatives’ deaths, chiding him for “meddling with ‘anti-China’ forces”... “If we say anything, they accuse us of handing a knife to ‘anti-China’ agents,” said Mr Zhang. But “they’re the ones wielding the knife, hurting me, so why am I not allowed to speak up?”... Despite the risks, Mr Zhang refuses to give up.“Many families have fallen silent under pressure, which I understand,” he said. “But I won’t be gagged. If I am, my father will have died in vain, and that wouldn’t do him justice.”"

Zoom admits cutting off activists' accounts in obedience to China - "Zoom has admitted it suspended the accounts of human rights activists at the behest of the Chinese government and suggested it will block any further meetings that Beijing complains are illegal.On Thursday the video conferencing platform was accused of disrupting or shutting down the accounts of three activists who held online events relating to the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary or discussing the crisis in Hong Kong. None were given an explanation by Zoom... The statement raises questions about Zoom bowing to Chinese pressure. Unlike many Western social media platforms, it is not blocked in China... Zoom said it had no ability to block participants from particular countries and so it ended three of the meetings and suspended or terminated the associated host accounts... It is unclear why the company would shut down the accounts of Zoom users based in the US and in Hong Kong. The account of Zhou Fengsuo, a Chinese activist based in the US, was shut down days after he hosted a memorial for the Tiananmen crackdown."

Uighur model sends rare video from Chinese detention - "Merdan Ghappar was used to posing for the camera.As a model for the massive Chinese online retailer Taobao, the 31-year-old was well paid to flaunt his good looks in slick promotional videos for clothing brands.But one video of Mr Ghappar is different. Instead of a glitzy studio or fashionable city street, the backdrop is a bare room with grubby walls and steel mesh on the window. And in place of the posing, Mr Ghappar sits silently with an anxious expression on his face.Holding the camera with his right hand, he reveals his dirty clothes, his swollen ankles, and a set of handcuffs fixing his left wrist to the metal frame of the bed - the only piece of furniture in the room.The video of Mr Ghappar, along with a number of accompanying text messages also passed to the BBC, together provide a chilling and extremely rare first-hand account of China's highly secure and secretive detention system - sent directly from the inside... Mr Ghappar's account appears to provide evidence that, despite China's insistence that most re-education camps have been closed, Uighurs are still being detained in significant numbers and held without charge.It also contains new details about the huge psychological pressure placed on Uighur communities, including a document he photographed which calls on children as young as 13 to "repent and surrender"... Mr Ghappar's relatives say that Mr Ghappar was told it would be best for his modelling career to downplay his Uighur identity and refer to his facial features as "half-European".And although he had earned enough money to buy a sizeable apartment, they say he was unable to register it in his own name, instead having to use the name of a Han Chinese friend... Mr Ghappar's account suggests the enforcement of quarantine rules were much stricter in Xinjiang than elsewhere. At one point, four young men were brought into the cell aged between 16 and 20."During the epidemic period they were found outside playing a kind of game like baseball," he writes."They were brought to the police station and beaten until they screamed like babies, the skin on their buttocks split open and they couldn't sit down."... the sounds of torture were much clearer."One time I heard a man screaming from morning until evening"... It is impossible to independently verify the authenticity of the text messages. But experts say that the video footage appears to be genuine, in particular because of the propaganda messages that can be heard in the background."Xinjiang has never been an 'East Turkistan'", says an announcement in both Uighur and Chinese from a loudspeaker outside his window."Separatist forces at home and abroad have politicised this geographical term and called for those who speak Turkic languages and believe in Islam to unite," the announcement says.James Millward, a professor of history at Georgetown University and an expert on China's policies in Xinjiang, translated and analysed Mr Ghappar's text messages for the BBC.He says they are consistent with other well documented cases, from his transportation back to Xinjiang and the initial processing in crowded, unsanitary conditions... Whether his earlier conviction for a drugs offence was just or not, his current detention is proof that even well-educated and relatively successful Uighurs can become a target of the internment system."This young man, as a fashion model, has a successful career already," said Professor Millward. "He speaks wonderful Chinese, writes very well and uses fancy phrases, so clearly this is not someone who needs education for a vocational purpose."Dr Adrian Zenz argues that this is the point of the system. "It doesn't actually matter so much what the background of the person is," he says."What matters is that their loyalty has been tested by the system. At some point almost everybody is going to experience some form of internment or re-education, everybody is going to going to be subjected to this system." The Chinese government denies that it is persecuting the Uighur population. After heavy criticism over the issue recently from the US, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, invoked the death of George Floyd, saying that Uighurs in Xinjiang were free in comparison to African Americans in the US."

State Dept. Confirms China Potentially Carrying Out Worst Genocide Since the Holocaust - "“Natural population growth in Xinjiang has declined dramatically; growth rates fell by 84 percent in the two largest Uyghur prefectures between 2015 and 2018, and declined further in 2019.”
“Government documents bluntly mandate that birth control violations are punishable by extrajudicial internment in ‘training’ camps. This confirms evidence from the leaked ‘Karakax List’ document, wherein such violations were the most common reason for internment.”
“Documents from 2019 reveal plans for a campaign of mass female sterilization in rural Uyghur regions targeting 14 and 34 percent of all married women of childbearing age in two Uyghur counties that year.”
“By 2019, Xinjiang planned to subject at least 80 percent of women of childbearing age in the rural southern four minority prefectures to intrusive birth prevention surgeries (IUDs or sterilizations), with actual shares likely being much higher.”
“Shares of women aged 18 to 49 who were either widowed or in menopause have more than doubled since the onset of the internment campaign in one particular Uyghur region. These are potential proxy indicators for unnatural deaths (possibly of interned husbands), and/or of injections given in internment that can cause temporary or permanent loss of menstrual cycles.”
“Between 2015 and 2018, about 860,000 ethnic Han residents left Xinjiang, while up to 2 million new residents were added to Xinjiang’s Han majority regions.”...
Despite the ever growing evidence of Nazi-like targeting of the Uyghur people in China, American corporations and even sports teams continue to placate the evil Chine regime.At one point, the NBA’s official store even banned customers from emblazoning the slogan “FreeHongKong” on custom T-shirts. However, they did allow messages like “KILLCOPS.”... During a campaign rally in May 2019, Biden mocked President Donald Trump’s tough stance on China."
Some of this is basically what the Han used to be subjected to under the one child policy (and perhaps still are under the two child policy)

There's Jim Crow in China, but no one seems to care - Los Angeles Times - "In China, there is systemic discrimination against non-Han Chinese. Ethnic minorities — about 10% of the Chinese population — are routinely denied access to elite universities and urban job markets in the name of Han supremacy. Under China’s internal passport system, many non-Han aren’t permitted to even look for work outside of their rural provinces. Tibetan and Uighur citizens are often barred from using Chinese hotels... The Han are simultaneously erasing minority cultures and reducing them to kitsch for Chinese tourists. Mongols now make up less than 20% of Inner Mongolia’s population. Minority languages aren’t taught in many schools in places like Tibet. In America, we increasingly hear that enforcing immigration laws is a kind of hate crime. But we mint about 700,000 new citizens each year. Meanwhile, in China, it is almost impossible to become a Chinese citizen if you weren’t born there to Chinese parents. The 2010 census found just 1,448 naturalized citizens. (Yes, total, not just for the year 2010.)... the United Nations reported that China is holding millions of Muslim Uighurs in a sprawling gulag of “counter-extremism centers” and “reeducation camps for political and cultural indoctrination.” Prisoners are forced to swear loyalty to the Chinese leader Xi Jingping. Bans on Muslim garb and long beards are becoming more common. Much of this has gone unnoticed in America, no doubt in part because many refuse to be distracted from their constant watch for Islamophobia here in America... it does seem as though we’re most reluctant to invoke our moral lodestars precisely when they most apply."

Sri Lankan journalist sacked by Chinese media after COVID-19 story - "A Sri Lankan journalist has been sacked by a leading Chinese media institution after his name appeared on a news item accusing the Chinese Government over the COVID-19 pandemic... Aravinda had sent a letter to the Chinese media institution explaining that he had only reported what the consumer rights group had said but there has been no response to his explanation.Colombo Gazette learns there was also pressure on Daily Mirror to retract the story, which the newspaper refused to do."

Weaponising the Baizuo. - "Targeting social media is not beyond China’s remit, indeed China has recently begun a campaign of flooding the site with targeted ads blaming Trump for the pandemic, even going as far as to insinuate the virus was created and spread by the United States... the use of anti-Trump hysteria and the Western Left’s deep-rooted anti-Americanism (itself a remnant of Cold War-era Soviet propaganda the modern left-wing remains beholden to) in this context is a clever ploy for the Chinese state to again deflect criticism from, and subsequently political action against, itself. It is easily observable that early into the pandemic, China’s preferred approach was to downplay the virus to protect its own economic interests. This started with a wave of articles from state/party outlets insinuating a connection between proposed travel restrictions and anti-Chinese racism... While originating in the Chinese press, a variety of left-leaning outlets immediately jumped on the opportunity to create yet another racism scandal revolving around the Trump administration and Western society. This led to a series of articles equating concern around the virus’ potential with being racist. This can be seen in headlines like The coronavirus exposes the history of racism and “cleanliness” from Vox, published early February 2020, THE NEW CORONAVIRUS IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO BE RACIST from The Verge or even this op-ed, Who Says It’s Not Safe to Travel to China? The coronavirus travel ban is unjust and doesn’t work anyway from the New York Times; a small sample of outlets issuing such content. The egregious, uncritical and immediate regurgitation of the Chinese government “racism” narrative raises serious questions about our media’s irresponsibility, and role in contributing to hampering preemptive government responses. It should be noted that travel bans on outbreak centres are a standard accepted measure in dealing with a pandemic spread... such measures have gone on to be taken by a huge swathe of world governments across the political spectrum in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The WHO’s differing responses are particularly suspect, as its early action around COVID-19 was to immediately pedal the Chinese government line and claim travel bans were unnecessary, while restrictions were an immediately recommended measure to deal with Ebola. Tedros Adhanom, the current chief of the WHO, has gone on to engage in accusations of racism against China’s traditional enemy, Taiwan, for its own government’s public dispute with the CCP regime’s numbers, as well as scepticism of the WHO’s independence, something that is being widely called into question as of late. In early March, Twitter lit up with the hashtag #ChinaLiedPeopleDied, which despite trending to number one in the UK at one point, mysteriously vanished within the hour. Such disappearances are common behaviour by Twitter administrators, who appear to engage in damage control regularly over political mobilisations they dislike, despite claims to the contrary from the company itself. However, of significant interest was the sudden and rapid appearance of #TrumpLiedPeopleDied while the original hashtag was trending, in exact tandem... of anecdotal note is occurrences on university Facebook confession pages, an anonymous submission format for an institution’s student body to post comments and musings to their respective community. Several universities, mostly in London and with large Chinese student bodies, have had their pages subjected to a spate of posts parroting Chinese government propaganda, mostly in the vein of equating criticism of the CCP regime to anti-Chinese ethnic discrimination, or praising the Chinese government for supposedly heroic assistance to afflicted countries. This manifests as newly created, suspect accounts in the comments sections often randomly interjecting about the Trump administration or making claims of rampant racism towards themselves on campus when discussion of China’s dodgy COV-19 statistics occurs... The picture that emerges from this coterie of media statements and internet subversion is that of a carefully researched and ingenious Chinese propaganda project. Observing the prevalence of concern around racism and pop culture anti-Trump sentiment in the “baizuo”, China has manufactured its campaign of psychological warfare to tailor specifically to these cultural sensibilities. In the age of Twitter cancel culture, “wokeness” and political correctness, peddled by everyone from universities to highly influential celebrities, no better route presents itself than to invoke the high crime of “racism” against any and all of the Chinese government’s critics. By carefully manipulating these prominent narrative threads that have snowballed in Western discourse over the past decade, China has created an army of unwitting journalists, spads and activists ready and willing to push its disinformation, and by consequence, damage any attempt by national governments to hold the CCP regime accountable in both the short and long term.These methods will not simply be here for the duration of COVID-19, they are likely to continue long into the aftermath... enter the baizuo, the future vehicle for Chinese interests in “Cold War 2”. It can be expected in the coming years that we shall see vignettes such as a government renationalising a Chinese-owned utility being met with accusations of “Sinophobia”, a term that I imagine will become common parlance in the years to come. We can also expect claims of a deep, institutional anti-Chinese racism if serious action is taken to curb the growing problem of Chinese espionage in academia. We can additionally expect a drift of some Western left-wing parties and factions into explicit pro-Chinese foreign policy and cheerleading for the Chinese Communist Party regime, as well as the proliferation of covert Chinese front groups into mainstream Western politics, as the Soviet Union once did. We may even see a philosophical shift in Western leftist politics in totality, the potential for which is already laid in the wake of the collapse of the middle-class, libertine socialism of Jeremy Corbyn’s disastrously failed 2019 election bid, and the recent implosion of Bernie Sanders second presidential campaign. This drift, if it occurs, will be towards an explicit embrace of Chinese state ideology, aping a more authoritarian, explicitly neo-Confucian worldview"

Why China is losing the coronavirus narrative | Financial Times - "When Roger Roth received an email from the Chinese government asking him to sponsor a bill in the Wisconsin state legislature praising China’s response to coronavirus, he thought it must be a hoax. The sender had even appended a pre-written resolution full of Communist party talking points and dubious claims for the Wisconsin senate president to put to a vote.“I’ve never heard of a foreign government approaching a state legislature and asking them to pass a piece of legislation,” Mr Roth told me last week. “I thought this couldn’t be real.” Then he discovered it was indeed sent by China’s consul-general in Chicago. “I was astonished . . .[and] wrote a letter back: ‘dear consul general, NUTS’.”It is impossible to see this episode as anything but another disastrous own goal in Beijing’s attempts to boost its global standing in the time of coronavirus.From the deplorable treatment of African citizens in southern China to the export of faulty medical equipment, or the official endorsement of conspiracy theories blaming the US military for the outbreak, most of the Communist party’s efforts to control the international narrative have backfired... Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour.https://www.ft.com/content/8d7842fa-8082-11ea-82f6-150830b3b99aWang Jisi, a legendary scholar at Peking University, says the virus fallout has pushed Sino-US relations to their worst level since formal ties were established in the 1970s. He describes bilateral economic and technological decoupling as “already irreversible”.The shift has been striking in the UK too, where influential Conservatives have called on the prime minister to be tougher on China, the British press has become more critical, and intelligence agencies have promised to focus on the threat from Beijing. In Europe and Australia, governments have rushed to block Chinese companies from buying assets cheaply amid economic carnage. And Tokyo has set aside $2.2bn explicitly to help Japanese companies move their supply chains out of China.But it is not just the US and its allies that have soured on Beijing. North Korea, China’s only treaty ally, was the first country to close its northern border at the start of the outbreak, despite Beijing’s objections to international travel bans. Russia quickly followed. Even Iranian officials have criticised China for hiding the extent of the outbreak... Many multinational companies have been badly burnt since Beijing effectively sealed its borders and cancelled visas last month. The expulsion of much of the US press corps from Beijing will also harden international attitudes. China’s main government mouthpiece has even threatened to withhold medical supplies and block medical exports to the US so it can “cast America into a novel coronavirus hell”."

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