Hong Kong is trying to impose Tiananmen by stealth – Carrie Lam herself is now the enemy of the people

This isn't a confrontation between the government and rebellious youths. It is a clash between a lame-duck government imposing the iron will of Beijing and millions of citizens
By Stuart Heaver

The regular weekend street protests in Hong Kong have spilled over into pitch battles in the middle of the working day in the city's busy financial district, as Carrie Lam's beleaguered government gives the police a free hand to impose a Beijing style crackdown on all forms of dissent.
There may be no tanks, but the People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops are already here, disguised as Hong Kong riot police as part of a concerted policy to impose Tiananmen by stealth and create a climate of fear.
It can’t be verified but riot police in full body amour looking like stormtroopers from a science fiction movie, wear masks, show no official ID and are heard speaking in Putonghua dialect. 

They could be anyone. 

The average height of Hong Kong police officers appears to have increased by about 10cm since July and photos circulated online by the Demosisto party, appear to show Hong Kong police mustered inside a PLA barracks. 

Their primary job is to intimidate.
The tragic death last Friday, of student demonstrator, Alex Chow Tsz-lok, who fell from a multi-storey car park while fleeing police tear gas the previous weekend, presented an opportunity for Lam to call for reason and dialogue; to offer concessions and seek political solutions.




Instead of leadership, broken Hong Kong was offered only more lame condemnation and the promise of more crackdowns on the protesters she has described as “enemies of the people.”
Unfortunately for Lam, there is still widespread mainstream support for these so-called enemies, and Hongkongers are typically defiant.
During a peaceful unauthorized rally in Victoria Park earlier this month, which was subsequently broken up by police tear gas, I asked one attendee (not wearing black or a face mask) whether he felt intimidated or in fear for their safety.
“Of course, that is why we are here, once we stop coming, they have won,” he told me.
Lam’s uncompromising stance has only triggered new levels of anger and tension as the government provokes violence and then condemns it in a futile cycle which is destroying this once great city.
The resultant tense and febrile atmosphere has already led to a man being set on fire and an unarmed young protester being shot at close range by a police officer on Monday morning and left critically ill in hospital.
Carrie Lam announces anti-face mask law for Hong Kong protesters
There are widespread rumours and accusations of rapes, beatings and brutality in police custody which are impossible to verify. 

I have witnessed old folks collapsed in doorways receiving first aid for the effects of tear gas inhalation and parents holding wet towels to their children’s faces, rushing for shelter from the new brand of tear gas, manufactured in China. 

It penetrates most gas masks and burns the lungs, causing some to cough up blood.
Bankers and office workers were tear-gassed during their lunch hour in Central’s affluent business district for two days running this week, and students are being attacked by police with baton rounds on campus. 

Legitimate election candidates have been arrested or attacked, or both, and peaceful assemblies and rallies attended by families and children are broken up by armed riot police dispensing tear gas.
It is misleading to portray this crisis as a confrontation between the government and rebellious youths. 

It is a confrontation between a lame-duck government imposing the iron will of Beijing and millions of people in Hong Kong. 

If anyone is the enemy of the people, it is Lam, Beijing’s stooge.
Anyone wanting to experience the sudden imposition of a police state and white terror, try a short break in Hong Kong.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL WARNS CHINA IS 'PLAYING WITH FIRE' IN HONG KONG

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL WANTS PRESIDENT TRUMP TO TAKE 'FORCEFUL ACTION' IF BEIJING CONDUCTS TIANANMEN-STYLE MASSACRE
BY SHANE CROUCHER 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) answers questions following the weekly Republican policy luncheon on July 30, 2019 in Washington, D.C. McConnell said he would urge President Donald Trump to take "forceful action" if China cracks down violently on the protests in Hong Kong.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned China that it is "playing with fire" in Hong Kong and said he would push President Donald Trump to take "more forceful action" if Beijing uses violence to put down the protests.
Hong Kong, a self-governing Chinese territory, is rocked by waves of demonstrations against the government that started with a controversial extradition bill that would allow suspects to be whisked away to the communist-controlled mainland where human rights groups say there are regular abuses.
Police are meeting the escalating protests with increasing brutality. 

The Chinese military is massing around Hong Kong, sparking international concern that Beijing is preparing to move in and put down the protests by means similar to 1989's infamous Tiananmen Square massacre.
Sen. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, appeared on Hugh Hewitt's radio show Tuesday. 

Hewitt referred to previous remarks by GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas that if China moved militarily against the demonstrators in Hong Kong it would be a "grievous mistake of historic proportion," and asked if Sen. McConnell agreed.
"I do. In fact, I passed the Hong Kong Policy Act way back in 1992, which requires an annual report from the State Department on whether or not the Chinese are keeping the agreement they made with the British prior to the handover," Sen. McConnell said.
"And in the last few years, those reports have been very critical. I'm going to be supporting legislation to enhance those requirements. And I think this is a pivotal moment for the Chinese… This is a seminal moment, and it'll be interesting to see how the Chinese manage it."
Hewitt asked Sen. McConnell what he would recommend to the president if China responds in a similar way to the student protests in Tiananmen Square, which is still surrounded by mystery. 

Western estimates put the death toll as high as the thousands.
"Well, I think it requires a significant response from us, in my opinion," Sen. McConnell said. 

"I think that if the Chinese do crush this what I would call peaceful attempt to maintain their rights, it requires, it seems to me, America, which is known internationally for standing up for human rights, to speak up and to take more forceful action. That's what I would recommend to the president. Obviously, that's his decision in the end."
The senator said he would "look at all the options," including the expulsion of Chinese students from the United States: "You know, we have 75,000 Americans who live and work in Hong Kong as well. That's truly an international city that has enjoyed a Western-style freedom for a very long time. I think the Chinese are playing with fire here, and hopefully they will not go too far."
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond immediately to Newsweek's request for comment.

'This Is a Fight.'

Meet Badiucao, the Dissident Cartoonist Taking on the Chinese Government

BY AMY GUNIA / HONG KONG

Chinese cartoonist Badiucao standing behind his artwork titled 'Light' in his studio in Melbourne on May 28, 2019.

A giant tattoo of tiny man standing in front of an oncoming tank covers the entirety of one of artist Badiucao’s upper arms. 

It’s an inspired choice of ink for the Chinese artist who has earned both the fury of the Chinese Communist Party and excited comparisons to Banksy.
Images of the individual known to history as Tank Man flashed around the world on June 5, 1989, when the anonymous Beijing resident, clutching a shopping bag, faced down a column of advancing tanks. 

The night before, troops had rolled into Tiananmen Square and brutally suppressed a weeks-long, peaceful occupation by students and workers calling for political reform. 

Thousands are thought to have died.
“I wanted [the Tank Man tattoo] on my right arm, the arm that I use to draw,” Badiucao (pronounced ba-doo-chow) tells TIME. 

“It’s a personal reminder to keep having courage with my arm, with my hand, and with my pen.”
Born in China in 1986, Badiucao grew up in a society where all mention of the Tiananmen massacre is fanatically censored. 

He was in university in 2007, studying law, when he gathered with friends in his dormitory to watch what they thought was a Taiwanese rom com. 

In turned out that their copy had been doctored by activists intent on spreading awareness of the events of 1989—a few minutes into the film, the movie suddenly cut to a documentary about the massacre.
“It shocked me deeply,” he says. 

For Badiucao, it was the moment that started his politicization. 

He tried to find out information about Tiananmen, but was quickly stymied. 

“If I can’t see the truth about the country, how can I have hope for the country?”
Out of frustration, he started using his artistic talents to create satirical doodles. 

He had loved painting, drawing and photography as a child: now he used those skills to comment on the political situation in China, and dropped his plans to become a lawyer.
Badiucao comes from a family of artists — his grandfather and his great uncle were filmmakers in China during the 1930s and 1940s. 

As the political situation deteriorated in China in the 1950s, they both considered moving to Hong Kong or Taiwan, but ultimately decided to stay in their homeland. 

It’s a decision they paid for with their lives; both were persecuted and killed in an anti-intellectual crackdown, leaving Badiucao’s father orphaned as a young child.
“In my family, there’s a very clear message that to be an artist in China is dangerous,” he says.
So, in 2009, Badiucao packed his bags for Australia, where he got a masters degree and later naturalized. 

Today, the artist’s work encompasses all mediums, from fine to installation to performance to street art, but he says that everything he creates has a common theme.
“The message from me is always about promoting freedom of speech, advocating for human rights.”
He is best known for the cartoons he posts online, which often take aim at the Chinese government, like a drawing of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping hunting for Winnie the Pooh (the fictional creature was banned on the Chinese internet after a meme comparing Xi to Pooh went viral).
“Why are they censoring such an adorable animal?” the artist asks.

A cartoon drawn by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao

The artist, who now lives in Melbourne, shares much of his work on Twitter, which he started using after censors shut down his account on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo more than 30 times. Twitter is banned in China, but despite China’s Great Firewall, he’s sure that his artwork still reaches people at home who access the website via virtual private networks (VPNs).
“More and more websites, terms and photos are becoming ‘sensitive’ each year and have been added to censorship lists maintained by social media companies,” Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells TIME. 

But she says that creative work like Badiucao’s might be able to slip by the censorship apparatus.
“Netizens can still post about political sensitive topics through creative means,” Wang explains, “such as altering the images or replacing critical characters with characters that look alike or with characters that have the same pronunciations.”
For years, and even though he was no longer living in China, Badiucao attempted to conceal his identity, appearing at events in a ski mask. 

He had good reason to be fearful; others critical of the regime have faced severe punishments. 

Ai Wei Wei, who Badiucao worked for as an assistant at one point, has been imprisoned and hit with hefty tax evasion fines that were politically motivated. 

The political cartoonist Jiang Yefei was sentenced to six and a half years in prison last year for “subversion of state power.”
Badiucao finally unmasked himself on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in June, when a documentary about him called China’s Artful Dissident came out. 

It had become terrifyingly clear to him that Beijing already knew his identity. 

Ahead of a planned exhibition in Hong Kong late last year, he began receiving threats. 

When several of his family members in China were detained by the police, he decided to cancel his trip to Hong Kong and call off his show, which was going to feature artwork like an installation made from neon lights depicting the late Nobel Prize winning Chinese political prisoner Liu Xiaobo.
Despite the danger he faces, Badiucao refuses to stand down, and although he wasn’t able to have his exhibition in Hong Kong, his work is now being featured across the city in another way. 

Since early June — when Hong Kong’s anti-government protests began — the artist has spent much of his time creating artwork to comment on the unrest and the government’s response to it. 

When Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, wept on television as she spoke about the sacrifices she had made for the city, the artist released a cartoon of the leader with a reptilian arm wiping away what many Hongkongers said were crocodile tears.

A Badicao cartoon depicting Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's Chief Executive
Demonstrations have now become a near daily occurrence in the city, and Badiucao’s art can often be seen at rallies, printed out and turned into posters, or taped onto one of the colorful “Lennon Walls” of protest messages and artwork that have popped up across the city. 

It inspires the protesters to keep fighting.
“Protest art serves the function of not only spreading the necessary political messages but also connecting movement participants’ emotions, which are pivotal in sustaining a movement,” Vivienne Chow, a journalist and cultural critic based in Hong Kong, tells TIME.
Although Badiucao can’t be in Hong Kong alongside the protesters, he is happy that his artwork has finally reached the city, even if it’s via the Internet instead of a gallery. 

As the Hong Kong protests enter their third month, he hopes that his work will continue motivating the protesters to carry on their resistance against what is perceived as Beijing’s tightening grip.
“What’s happening in Hong Kong is not just about Hong Kong, it’s also about every country that values freedom and democracy,” Badiucao says. 

“This is a fight, and it’s a meaningful fight.”

30th Anniversary

The Tiananmen Massacre Is One of China's Most Censored Topics. Here's a Look at What Gets Banned

BY AMY GUNIA / HONG KONG

More than 1,000 posts related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre that were removed from the Internet by Chinese censors were made public on Monday.
The database contains images of 1,056 posts that were deleted from Sina Weibo, a popular micro-blogging site with more than 400 million users, between 2012 and 2018. 

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong collected the posts as part of a project called Weiboscope, which tracks censorship on several Chinese social media networks.
“Over the years we found Chinese netizens consistently continued to post about the Tiananmen Square crackdown in early June,” Dr. King-wa Fu, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, who leads the project, told TIME.
Nearly thirty years after the crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, it remains one of the most censored topics on the Chinese Internet. 

China’s censorship apparatus, dubbed the Great Firewall, and a army of censors thought to be in the millions, block all mentions of the event. 

Related words and topics are also banned, and authorities have even blocked references to the date — June 4, 1989 — that Chinese tanks rolled into Beijing’s Tiananmen Squares and left what is believed to be thousands of protesters dead.
But Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese enclave, lies outside the Firewall, and researchers here were able to archive many posts before they were deleted.
Here’s a look at the photos the Chinese government does not want its people to see or share.

Re-enactments of the iconic ‘tank man’ photo
A photo of an anonymous man facing off to a row of tanks entering Tiananmen Square is one of the most well-known photos of event. 

Authorities block any posts that look similar to that photo — even of a swan facing a semi-truck.

Hu Yaobang tributes
Protests in Tiananmen Square started in April 1989 when students gathered to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang — a former Communist Party General Secretary, who was popular with students for his ideas about political and economic reform but was forced to resign by the government. 

Tributes to Hu, who protesters called “The Soul of China” have been widely censored.

Mentions of commemoration ceremonies
Each year in Hong Kong, tens of thousands of people gather to hold a candlelight vigil in remembrance of the event. 

Photos of the ceremony have been widely censored, and even simple photos of candles posted around the date of the event are removed.


Any references to the date on which the massacre occurred
An image of a set of playing cards displaying what could be seen as the year, month and date of the event, and a screenshot of a calendar, attracted the attention of censors.

Other images can be seen on the project’s Instagram account, Pinterest and website. 

“I want the public to understand the extent [to which] people are trying to post, about what kind of message they want to send out,” said Fu.

30th Anniversary

30 years after Tiananmen massacre, Taiwan shows another way for China
By Margaret Lewis and Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Thirty years ago Monday, the most important Chinese mass movement of the last half-century began when Beijing students gathered to mourn Hu Yaobang, a reformist official.
Soon, massive crowds calling for change were converging on the central plazas of dozens of Chinese cities. 

On May 20, the government imposed martial law in Beijing, whose Tiananmen Square was the site of the largest rallies. 

Two weeks later, on June 4, the movement ended after soldiers fired on unarmed civilians on the streets of the capital.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has ruled the People's Republic of China (PRC) since its founding in 1949, has never allowed an official investigation into the killing. 

The massacre's death toll remains unknown, but at least several hundred civilians and perhaps ten times that were slain.
Thanks in part to the iconic photo of the "Tank Man" standing up to the armed might of the CCP, June 4 is famous around the world, but discussion of what happened on 6/4 -- known as liusi in Chinese -- remains heavily censored in China and public mourning of the victims is forbidden.
This concerted effort to blot out memory of a 30-year-old event is not unprecedented, and there are parallels in the handling of an earlier massacre across the Taiwan strait. 

This one, known as 2/28, took place in 1947 in Taipei, the largest city and capital of Taiwan, which is officially known as the Republic of China (ROC).
For decades, the Nationalist Party (KMT) whose soldiers carried out the 2/28 massacre prevented official investigation of the bloodshed. 

The size of the death toll thus remains uncertain, though it is believed to be between several thousand and 25,000.
In 1977, 30 years after 2/28, the KMT continued to ban all discussion of the event.

Two governments, two massacres
In 1977, Taiwan was still, like today's PRC, under one-party authoritarian rule.
A key reason the memories of the 1947 massacre threatened the KMT in 1977 and memories of the 1989 massacre threaten the CCP now is that, in each killing, soldiers touted as benevolent defenders of the people behaved like brutal invaders.
Today however, Taiwan is a democracy, and 2/28 is marked nationwide as Peace Memorial Day. What can we learn from the similarities between the massacres -- and that the KMT eventually apologized for 2/28?
After Japan's 1945 surrender in World War II, Chiang Kai-shek's forces seized Taiwan and claimed it for the ROC, which then included much of the territory of today's PRC. 

Heavy-handed efforts to subdue the island by Chiang's KMT were, not surprisingly, met with resistance. 

Tensions flared on February 27, 1947, when police struck a widow who was selling cigarettes illegally. 

Big protests broke out. 

The next day KMT soldiers fired on crowds.
Chiang's government denied that a massacre had occurred and stuck to this position long after Mao Zedong's forces drove the KMT from the Chinese mainland.
On the 30th anniversary of the massacre, a public reckoning with the event seemed no more likely than a full investigation into Tiananmen does today. 

But that changed.

Taiwan's past, China's future
Even though only one of the massacres can be openly discussed in the place in which it occurred, there are three ways in which thinking about 2/28's legacy helps put that of 6/4 into perspective.
First, by showing that the histories of authoritarian systems often take unexpected turns.
Hopes for a long-term relaxation of repression in the PRC have proved chimerical. 

The CCP has been remarkably resilient. 

But Taiwan's case reminds us that even resilient objects break.
The ROC was under martial law for decades. 

As late as 1979, the KMT used force to crush pro-democracy protesters in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city. 

In the 1980s, however, democracy activists asserted themselves with a vigor that took many observers by surprise, and, in 1986, Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor, unexpectedly reversed his father's policies and allowed for formal establishment of an opposition party. 

Martial law eventually ended in 1987.
Second, multiple forces can drive change.
Political activists, long-time officials, and other actors played important roles in Taiwan's democratization. 

This suggests the need to avoid letting PRC dictator Xi Jinping's current emphasis on control engender myopia. 

Even when a confident strongman is on top, it is worth keeping an eye out for forces bubbling under the surface.
Third, change is a long slog.
It's worth remembering that the ROC did not have its first direct presidential election until 1996. 

And its first non-KMT President was not elected until 2000.
Taiwan's history does not tell us what will happen in the PRC in the near future, but it does give us reason to hope that policies -- including how 6/4 is remembered and discussed -- can eventually change.
The question that remains is how, and when?

Academic prostitution: Cambridge University Press sells its soul over Chinese censorship

Academics decry publisher’s decision to comply with a Chinese request to block more than 300 articles from leading China studies journal

By Tom Phillips in Beijing

A list of the blocked articles, published by CUP, shows they focus overwhelmingly on topics China’s one-party state regards as taboo.

The world’s oldest publishing house, Cambridge University Press, has been accused of being an accomplice to the Communist party’s bid to whitewash Chinese history after it agreed to purge hundreds of politically-sensitive articles from its Chinese website at the behest of Beijing’s censors.
The publisher confirmed on Friday that it had complied with a Chinese request to block more than 300 articles from the China Quarterly, a leading China studies journal, in order “to ensure that other academic and educational materials we publish remain available to researchers and educators” in China.
A list of the blocked articles, published by CUP, shows they focus overwhelmingly on topics China’s one-party state regards as taboo, including the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, Mao Zedong’s catastrophic Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong’s fight for democracy and ethnic tensions in East Turkestan and Tibet.
They include articles by some of the world’s top China specialists including Columbia University’s Andrew Nathan, George Washington University’s David Shambaugh, and Harvard University scholars Roderick MacFarquhar and Ezra Vogel.
A piece by Dutch historian Frank Dikötter and a book review by the Guardian’s former China correspondent, John Gittings, about the Cultural Revolution were also censored.
In its statement, CUP insisted it was committed to freedom of thought and expression and had been “troubled by the recent increase in requests of this nature” from China. 

The publisher vowed to raise the issue with the “revelant agencies” in Beijing at an upcoming book fair.
But on Saturday, as reports of the publisher’s move spread, it faced a growing outcry from academics and activists who called for the decision to be reversed.
“Pragmatic is one word, pathetic more apt,” tweeted Rory Medcalf, the head of the national security college at the Australian National University.
John Garnaut, a longtime China correspondent and former adviser to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, described it as “an extraordinary capitulation” to China.
Renee Xia, the international director of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders network, accused the publisher of having “sold its soul for millions of Chinese govt dollars”.
Andrew Nathan, whose name appears three times in the list of censored articles, told the Guardian: “If the Press acceded to a Chinese request to block access to selected articles, as I gather is the case, it violated the trust that authors placed in it and has compromised its integrity as an academic publisher.”
Nathan, the editor of a seminal work on the Tiananmen crackdown, added: “I imagine [CUP] might argue that it was serving a higher purpose, by compromising in order to maintain the access by Chinese scholars to most of the material it has published. This is similar to the argument by authors who allow Chinese translations of their work to be censored so that the work can reach the Chinese audience. [But] that’s an argument I have never agreed with.”
“Of course, there may also be a financial motive, similar to Bloomberg, Facebook, and others who have censored their product to maintain access to the Chinese market. This is a dilemma, but if the West doesn’t stand up for its values, then the Chinese authorities will impose their values on us. It’s not worth it.”
In an open letter two US scholars, Greg Distelhorst and Jessica Chen Weiss, complained that CUP’s move meant Chinese academics and scholars would now only have access to a “sanitized” version of their country’s history.
“To me the problem is pretty straightforward: the problem is publishing a politically-curated version of Chinese history and doing so in the name of Cambridge University,” Distelhorst, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Guardian.
“This makes Cambridge University Press an active participant in rewriting history … When a government asks you to censor a piece of scholarship, that request is fundamentally opposed to a principle of academic freedom that I believe to be important to Cambridge and to many universities.”
In a statement the editor of China Quarterly, Tim Pringle, voiced “deep concern and disappointment” at the tightening controls in China. 

“This restriction of academic freedom is not an isolated move but an extension of policies that have narrowed the space for public engagement and discussion across Chinese society.”
Distelhorst said he sympathised with CUP and particularly the editors of China Quarterly: “Receiving censorship requests puts them in a really difficult position and forces a lot of hard trade-offs ... [But] I hope they will reconsider their decision to selectively censor articles and then present the censored version of the journal to the Chinese public.”
Since Xi Jinping took power nearly five years ago Beijing has dramatically stepped up its efforts to control Chinese academia, with the president last year calling for universities to be transformed into Communist party “strongholds”.
A growing number of intellectuals – the majority political scientists or international relations and law experts – have sought refuge in the US. 

“It is not as dramatic as the refugees from Hitler; not as dramatic as the enormous number who turned up [after Tiananmen] and we had to deal with. But it is growing and I am seeing them,” the veteran China expert Jerry Cohen, who has been helping some of the refugee scholars, said in an interview last year.
Foreign academics have also been targeted, with Chinese authorities denying visas to academics deemed to be focusing on unwelcome topics. 

Until now, however, foreign academic journals appeared to have largely avoid scrutiny.
Nathan said China’s list of censorship demands to the CUP appeared to have been generated “by a naive machine search of article and review titles” which had targeted key words and names deemed sensitive. 

He called the move “a useless overreach” by Beijing.
“What can it accomplish? I’m sorry to say that information control often works. But if you have so much money, staff, and time, that you can burrow down to the level of censoring academic publications in a foreign language that could only be used by your own academic community, then I think your censorship organs are over funded and you would do well to cut their budgets. As the saying goes, this is lifting up a stone only to drop it on one’s own foot.”
One of the censored China Quarterly articles captures the kind of material China’s authoritarian leaders would prefer to see buried.
In his 2016 contribution, The Once and Future Tragedy of the Cultural Revolution, Harvard’s MacFarquhar writes about the burgeoning Mao-esque personality cult around Xi and ponders “the vigorous attempt by the regime to consign the Cultural Revolution to the dustbin of history by discouraging research and teaching on the subject”.
MacFarquhar writes: “The dangers of inducing national amnesia is encapsulated in George Santayana’s famous dictum: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’”