Chinese State Terrorism

This is not just a fight between students and police – the people of Hong Kong are now living in terror
More than 1,100 people have been arrested in recent days. If the majority of those arrested during these five months of protests are given custodial sentences, Hong Kong will need to start building more prisons
By Stuart Heaver

The dead birds littering the streets of Hong Kong are an apposite symbol for the broken state of the city.
The tear gas used by police is being blamed for the deaths, with the birds not the only ones being overwhelmed. 

Everything has deteriorated still further in the last week, as the city is gripped by anxiety as Beijing’s Tiananmen-style crackdown seeks to snuff out dissent.
On Wednesday, as schools re-opened for the first time in a week, several children were arrested by armed riot police and driven away to unknown locations in vans with darkened windows.
One local news outlet published guidance for parents from a specialist security consultancy which detailed safety precautions for sending children to school. 

It included what not to pack in your child’s bag for a police search and advice on how to cope with tear gas. 

Hospitals have warned non-emergency cases to stay away from A&E departments as they are overloaded with seriously injured protesters. 

No one thinks this is exceptional anymore.
The police siege at Polytechnic University, which kicked off on Sunday evening, has dominated media reports – but the coverage implies events in Hong Kong are a duel between police and a radical section of violent youths. 

This is both misleading and dangerous.





The crisis affects everyone in every corner of Hong Kong. 

“We are all losing” were the words of one finance worker in Central district last week, just before armed riot police used tear gas and pepper spray, to break up another peaceful lunchtime protest staged by office workers.
Everyone is nervous. 

Most citizens I speak to are not scared of the protesters, but rather the police and armed pro-Beijing gangs. 

They fear their kids being shot or arrested, or just disappearing without trace. 

They fear being pepper-sprayed, beaten or tear gassed. 

They are anxious about how to get to work and how to get home. 

They worry about losing their jobs for posting political views on social media or disagreeing with their boss.
More than 1,100 people have been arrested over the last few days and if the majority of those arrested over the last five months of protests are given custodial sentences, Hong Kong will need to start building more prisons.

Chief executive Carrie Lam’s cardboard cut-out government is making no attempt to seek any solution or de-escalation. 

Instead, it is content to allow Beijing a free hand to terrify citizens using the brutal police as the principal weapon. 

It’s what locals call ‘baahk sik hung bou’ or white terror.

Part of the strategy is to create the myth that the violence and civil disorder is only being perpetuated by nihilistic and violent extremists and that law and order must be restored.
During the siege at Polytechnic University, a long human chain could be seen snaking along the main thoroughfare in Kowloon formed by ordinary Hongkongers of all ages. 

It passed supplies hand to hand to the university frontline. 

This struggle is not waged by people who are ‘rioters’ or’ angry violent mobs’, yet these pejorative terms have contaminated mainstream media. 

It’s an insidious trend because, once the authorities can establish the narrative, Beijing would be free to exterminate these young activists with impunity. 
Of course, that doesn’t mean that everyone supports those on the front lines and their confrontational approach, or appreciates their disruption of the transport system. 

Yet millions of citizens still admire them for defying Beijing’s bullying. 

I have witnessed angry elderly citizens from modest neighbourhoods hurl vitriol at the police lines, as tear gas and rubber bullets are fired indiscriminately. 

I have also heard the ripple of spontaneous applause from bystanders when a platoon of front liners passes by. 

Even those that don’t approve of their tactics, don’t hold them responsible for the problem.
Few relish the prospect of these political activists lying inert on the streets of Hong Kong like the little dead birds.

Chinese State Terrorism

Chinese-Australian Writer Yang Hengjun Disappears in China

By Damien Cave and Chris Buckley

Yang Hengjun in San Diego in 2012.

SYDNEY, Australia — A well-known writer and former Chinese official with Australian citizenship flew from New York to China on Friday despite warnings from friends who told him it was too dangerous.
Now, he is missing and appears to have been detained by the Chinese authorities.
The writer, Yang Hengjun, did not answer his Chinese cellphone despite repeated attempts to reach him on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Nor did he answer messages on WeChat, the popular Chinese social media service.
Deng Yuwen, a Chinese journalist and current affairs commentator who knows Mr. Yang, said that the writer appeared to have vanished shortly after landing in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
“We don’t know what Yang Hengjun did that would prompt the Chinese government to detain him,” Mr. Deng said by telephone from New York. 

“In recent years, he’s been very low key and hasn’t published anything that could be construed as antigovernment.”
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed that the government “is seeking information about an Australian citizen who has been reported missing in China.”
A spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry said she had no information about the case. 

American officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Yang was detained in 2011, but his disappearance now carries additional risk.
China’s relationship with the United States and its democratic allies continues to deteriorate. 

A trade war between the two countries is rattling the Chinese economy. 

Xi Jinping has pushed the country toward a more muscular brand of authoritarianism. 

And the December arrest in Canada of a senior executive from Huawei, China’s most important telecommunications company, has led to tit-for-tat retaliation from China.
Last month, the Chinese police detained two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, as officials in Beijing pressed Canada to free Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who was held for extradition to the United States on fraud charges.
If Mr. Yang’s detention is prolonged, he could become another strain in Australia’s volatile relations with China. 

Australia’s economy has been buoyed by raw material exports to China, especially iron ore. 

But in recent years relations between the two countries have been troubled by Australian complaints of political interference from Beijing.
In August, Australia rejected potential participation by Huawei in developing the country’s 5G telephone network, a step that angered the Chinese government.
Mr. Yang, 53, a novelist and commentator who worked for the Chinese foreign ministry before moving to Australia and becoming a citizen in 2000, has spent the past two years with his family in New York, where he works as a visiting scholar at Columbia University.
In his writing, he has been critical of the Chinese government. 

But in recent years he has eschewed interviews with the news media and avoided outright opposition to the Communist Party.
In December, he retweeted one of his earlier articles about rule of law in China, which said: “I have faith in the future, but without today’s endeavors and sacrifices, the future will never come. For people like me, the goal, the dream is for the future to arrive earlier.”
Friends of his said they had told him that none of his calibrated caution mattered, and that his Australian citizenship would not act as a deterrent because the Chinese government sees anyone of Chinese descent as under the jurisdiction of the country’s Communist Party.
“The intention of his writing is clear — he wanted to educate people about democracy and universal values, and has influenced many young people,” said Weican Meng, a friend of Mr. Yang’s and the founder of Boxun News, a Chinese-language website in the United States.
“Before he went back to China, we had a meal together and a number of friends told him it’s not a good time to go,” added Mr. Meng, whose pen name is Wei Shi. 

“The situation in China right now is like during the Cultural Revolution: People are being punished for talking about very minor things.”
On Thursday, China’s minister of public security, Zhao Kezhi, told a meeting of police commanders in Beijing to guard against political subversion and attempts to foment “color revolution” against the government.
Mr. Yang’s family and friends believe Mr. Yang is being held in Beijing.
Feng Chongyi, a friend of the writer’s and an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney who was himself detained by the Chinese authorities in 2017, said he had spoken to Mr. Yang’s relatives. 

They told him that Mr. Yang had landed in Guangzhou early Friday morning, but that he did not make his planned connection to Shanghai, Mr. Feng said.
According to Mr. Feng, Mr. Yang went to China in part because his United States visa was to expire in a few months and he was waiting for a residence visa in Australia for his wife and stepdaughter. They had traveled with him to China on this trip.
According to Mr. Feng’s conversations with the writer’s relatives, Mr. Yang and his wife were interrogated for over 12 hours — probably at the airport in Guangzhou — before Mr. Yang’s wife was then allowed to go to Shanghai to drop off her daughter.
“At home in Shanghai,” Mr. Feng added, “she was in tears and asked relatives to not contact them again, but said she would post their whereabouts.”
The writer’s wife, Yuan Rui Juan, posted a picture on her Weibo page on Saturday from Beijing’s main airport, with the caption “It’s been a long time, my eyes are filled with tears.”
Mr. Feng said that family members were fearful and appeared to have been silenced about Mr. Yang’s status. 

“When asked about Yang’s situation, they say that they’re not in a position to discuss the matter,” he said. 

“And they implored us not to ask.”
Mr. Feng said he had been talking to security sources in China and believes that Mr. Yang could be charged with espionage, a broad charge in China that can include simply discussing matters that the government deems sensitive.
In Mr. Yang’s last blog post on his website, he praised President Trump for trying to close “loopholes” that Mr. Yang said had allowed other governments and migrants to Western countries to take advantage of these societies’ tolerance and hospitality.
Mr. Yang developed a large following as a blogger in China in the previous decade, and then an equally avid audience on WeChat, where he also advertised lectures and classes for which he charged a fee.
One of his last announcements on WeChat invited readers to sign up for his classes on studying and living in the United States, Australia and other Western countries, lessons that would also include his “thoughts on history, economics, culture and politics.”
Since Friday, his account has been silent.

Chinese State Terrorism

Academics write in support of Anne-Marie Brady, urge PM to take action on China

By Anusha Bradley 

Canterbury University politics professor Anne-Marie Brady

The prime minister is being told she must make it clear to China that attempts to intimidate and silence academics here will not be tolerated.
Twenty-nine academics, researchers and human rights advocates have written an open letter to Jacinda Ardern in support of China critic and Canterbury University politics professor Anne-Marie Brady.
"We have been shocked and disturbed by the reports of intimidation and harassment suffered by Professor Anne-Marie Brady," the letter said.
"Attempts to intimidate and harass one academic in New Zealand have implications for freedoms of all the others -- and indeed, for the freedoms of all who live here."
The group also urged the prime minister to "make a clear statement in defence of academic freedom" in light of the case and to be "very clear that any intimidation and threats aimed at silencing academic voices in this country will not be tolerated".
It was revealed that Prof Brady had been burgled in February and the police, Interpol and the Security Intelligence Service were investigating the involvement of Chinese spies.
The investigation widened two weeks ago when, in a new twist, Prof Brady's mechanic discovered during a WOF examination, that two of her tyres had also been tampered with.
One of the 29 signatories to the letter, published today, was sociologist and commentator Tze Ming Mok, who said the prime minister was not doing enough to send a clear message to the Chinese government.
"The silence is very conspicuous."
"There is never a bad time to signal really clearly to all our trading partners that we are a particular kind of country, we have particular kinds of standards, and there are some things we will not stand for."
Prof Brady's experiences have already had a chilling effect amongst China-focused experts in this country with many unwilling to comment on the saga publicly, she said.
Margaret Taylor, a spokesperson for Amnesty International, which also signed the letter, said it was not only academics but the Chinese community in New Zealand who feared being targeted by their former government.
"People who have spoken to us, and they are very brave for doing so, are terrified that if they do speak out they will come under the attention of the Chinese authorities.
"Many of them don't speak to their family members, they're too scared to contact anybody at home."
Prof Brady said she felt "humbled" by the support, not only from her peers who signed the letter but from the wider public since the story about the burglaries broke.
But she was just doing her job, she said.
"The Education Act requires all political leaders and government agencies to protect and defend our academic freedom and uphold the critic and conscience role of the academic.
"So I do my job, and I expect the government to do their job."
A spokesperson for the prime minister said she supported and defended the legal right to academic freedom, as set out in law.
"The matters contained in this letter are under investigation by the police and it is not appropriate to comment on them before the investigation is finished."
But Prof Brady said the investigation was over, and the issue was now in the government's hands.
"The police have done a really great job and a thorough investigation has been completed. The next step now is the political will that needs to have the guts to face up to the situation."

Chinese State Terrorism

Sweden will press China to release publisher despite video criticism
REUTERS

Gui Minhai's forced confession

STOCKHOLM/HONG KONG--Sweden said on Saturday it would keep pressing China to release Swedish citizen and publisher Gui Minhai, even after he was shown in a filmed interview criticizing Stockholm for "sensationalizing" his case.
Gui was shown in an interview with journalists posted online overnight, making a statement that Amnesty International and other campaign groups said could have been staged. 

There was no immediate reaction to the rights groups from Chinese authorities.
The former Hong Kong-based publisher of books critical of China's leaders, was abducted in Thailand in 2015. 

He was one of five people in the Hong Kong book trade who went missing that year and later appeared in mainland Chinese custody.
After being partially released from Chinese custody late last year, he was seized last month by 10 plainclothes Chinese agents onboard a Beijing-bound train while in the presence of two Swedish diplomats.
In the latest twist of the saga, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post posted clips of Gui speaking to journalists about his case.
Gui, who has a Swedish passport, appeared relaxed at times in the footage. 

But Amnesty International said the comments given to largely pro-establishment media outlets appeared to have been staged.
"It's certainly a forced confession," William Nee, a China researcher with Amnesty International, told Hong Kong's public broadcaster RTHK. 

"The fact that he's kind of repeating talking points that the (Chinese) government wants to put out ... and as far as we know he's in incommunicado detention. He doesn't have lawyers of his choice or consular access right now."
In the video Gui said that Sweden had tried to get him out of China to Sweden, under the pretext of seeking medical treatment.
"During the journey, they (the Swedish officials) asked me not to get off the train, for fear it would catch other people's attention," Gui said in the online footage.
"I regret this very much now.
"Looking back, I might have become Sweden's chess piece. I broke the law again under their instigation. My wonderful life has been ruined and I would never trust the Swedish ever again."
Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman Katarina Byrenius Roslund, defended Stockholm's position.
"This video changes nothing. We continue to demand that our citizen be given the opportunity to meet with Swedish diplomatic staff and medical staff," she said in an email to Reuters.
Gui added he was still involved in an unspecified court case involving an "illegal business" and wasn't able to leave China. 

Other details of Gui's charges and detention weren't specified in the video clips.
Gui's daughter, Angela, who is now studying in England and has been highly critical of the Chinese government's handling of her father's case, wasn't immediately available for comment.
Amid reports that Gui's health has worsened, Gui said in the interview that he had spinal and muscle problems, but that this wasn't Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, as some had suggested.
China's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the interview and whether Gui had been forced into giving it.