China’s Canadian Hostages

Chinese abuse human pawns in trade and diplomatic disputes
The New York Times

Chinese police officers patrolled in front of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing this month after a Canadian was detained on suspicion of “engaging in activities that harm China’s national security.”
Three Canadian citizens being detained by China appear to have become pawns in a political impasse between the two countries and, by extension, the United States. 

They should be released immediately.
China, already an aggressive rising power known to flout the rule of law and disregard human rights, now seems to be using hostage-taking to resolve economic and diplomatic disputes.human rights
Making matters worse, Trump has chosen to get involved, seemingly playing his own games to gain leverage in bitter trade talks with China.
Trump suggested that he might intervene to secure the release of a Chinese businesswoman arrested in Canada at the request of American authorities on Dec. 1 if it would lead to a favorable trade deal with Beijing.
That reinforced the suspicions of many in China who think that the United States is using the businesswoman, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the giant Chinese technology company Huawei, as a hostage, too.
As acknowledged by the Chinese government on Thursday, Beijing is now holding a “female Canadian citizen,” identified as Sarah McIver, in addition to Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were detained earlier this month.
Although Mr. Kovrig is understood to have been seen once by a Canadian consular office, few details about the three Canadians, their conditions and the charges against them have been released. 

It is not unusual for prisoners detained by China to be held in solitary confinement with the lights on 24 hours a day and be subject to prolonged interrogation, even torture.
China’s legal system is opaque and weighted overwhelmingly in favor of the government and against the ordinary people who get caught up in it.
The Foreign Ministry said Ms. McIver had been working illegally, and it’s not clear that her case is related to that of the two others. Mr. Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat working for the International Crisis Group, a Washington nongovernmental research group, and Mr. Spavor, an entrepreneur specializing in business with North Korea, were reportedly being investigated over “activities that endanger China’s national security.”
Such moves are likely to chill the atmosphere in China for other diplomats and foreign businesspeople trying to work there.
But the detentions are less a function of the personal activities of the three Canadians than retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Meng. 

She was picked up in Vancouver at the request of the United States while she was traveling to Mexico from Hong Kong.
At a bail hearing, Canadian prosecutors said Meng was suspected of helping banks violate United States sanctions against Iran. 

She is now out on bail while awaiting extradition to the United States, a process that could take weeks or even months.
The arrests have drawn a sharp protest from the Chinese government, rattled financial markets and raised suspicions among Chinese officials that at least some Trump administration officials were trying to sabotage a trade deal.

Huawei and Meng, the daughter of the company’s founder, are part of China’s corporate elite, and her detention has brought huge domestic political pressure on Xi Jinping.
Global Times, a newspaper aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, said that the impasse could be resolved quickly by Canada’s dropping all charges against Meng. 

“It is quite simple to end the crisis between China and Canada by giving back Meng’s complete freedom,” the newspaper wrote, most likely echoing the views of top officials.
There is so far no evidence that Meng’s arrest is anything more than a part of the Trump administration’s enforcement of the sanctions regime against Iran.
But Trump recently gave doubters an opening when he suggested he would intervene with the Justice Department in the Huawei case if it would help secure a trade deal with Beijing. 

The implication was that he might trade her for the two Canadians held at the time he made that statement.
“If I think it’s good for the country, if I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made — which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security — I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Trump told Reuters in an interview.
Such interference in a judicial process would undermine the rule of law and encourage countries to detain each other’s citizens as a weapon of economic and political warfare.

Tibetan Filmmaker Flees to U.S. After ‘Arduous’ Escape from China

By SUI-LEE WEE

Protesters demanding the release of the Tibetan movie director Dhondup Wangchen protest outside the Chinese embassy in Tokyo in 2009. 

A prominent Tibetan filmmaker, who was jailed for making a documentary about Tibetans living under Chinese rule and had been under police surveillance since his release three years ago, has fled to the United States after an “arduous and risky escape” from China, according to his supporters.
Dhondup Wangchen, 43, arrived in San Francisco on Dec. 25 and was reunited with his wife and children, who were granted political asylum in the United States in 2012, according to Filming for Tibet, a group set up by Mr. Wangchen’s cousin to push for his release.
“After many years, this is the first time I’m enjoying the feeling of safety and freedom,” Mr. Wangchen said in the statement issued by the group. 

“I would like to thank everyone who made it possible for me to hold my wife and children in my arms again. However, I also feel the pain of having left behind my country, Tibet.”
Mr. Wangchen was a self-taught filmmaker from China’s western province of Qinghai who had spent five months in 2007 interviewing Tibetans about their hopes and frustrations living under Chinese rule. 

In his documentary, “Leaving Fear Behind,” many Tibetans talked about their love for the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and how they thought the 2008 Beijing Olympics would do little to improve their lives.
Mr. Wangchen was detained in 2008 after his footage was smuggled out and shown at film festivals around the world and shown in secret to a group of foreign reporters ahead of the Olympics. 

He was later sentenced to six years in prison for “inciting subversion.”

During Mr. Wangchen’s time in prison, many rights groups, including Amnesty International, campaigned for his release, saying that he was denied medical care after contracting hepatitis B in jail, was forced to do manual labor and was kept in solitary confinement for six months. 

The United States raised Mr. Wangchen’s case with Beijing “at the highest level,” according to the International Campaign for Tibet, a Tibetan rights group.
Mr. Wangchen’s flight from China comes at a time of growing authoritarianism in the country under Xi Jinping. 

Two rights activists have been tried and one more is expected to go on trial on subversion charges this week. 

Since Xi came to power in 2013, his administration has imprisoned human rights lawyers and cracked down on civil society.
Mr. Wangchen’s supporters did not provide details of his escape and he could not be reached for comment. 

Police officials from Xining, the capital of Qinghai, and the Qinghai government did not answer multiple telephone calls seeking comment.

After his release from prison, Mr. Wangchen remained under heavy surveillance and his communications were monitored, according to Filming for Tibet. 

Mr. Wangchen’s fellow filmmaker, Golog Jigme, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, fled China to India in 2014 and was granted political asylum in Switzerland a year later.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, whose district covers San Francisco, said on Twitter on Wednesday that it was an honor to welcome Mr. Wangchen to “our San Francisco community.”
Many Tibetans have complained about repressive conditions under China, which has ruled Tibet since 1950. 

Among their list of complaints: They are barred from publicly worshiping the Dalai Lama, who Beijing reviles as “a wolf in monk’s clothing”, and say that their language and culture have been suppressed. 

After widespread protests by Tibetans in 2008, China imposed a security clampdown.
More than 150 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since 2009 in protest against Chinese rule, according to the International Campaign for Tibet. 

On Wednesday, a young Tibetan man set himself on fire in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the group said. 

China has called the self-immolators “terrorists” and blamed exiled Tibetan rights groups and the Dalai Lama for inciting them.
“The six years Dhondup Wangchen had to spend in jail are a stark reminder of the human costs that China’s policies continue to have on the Tibetan people,” Matteo Mecacci, president of International Campaign for Tibet, said in a statement. 

“Dhondup Wangchen should have never had to pay such a high personal price for exercising his freedom of expression.”

I went to jail for handing out feminist stickers in China

The backlash is painful, as women activists manage – slowly – to bring about a change in attitudes
By Li Maizi

Li Maizi, right, with her fellow women’s rights advocate Zheng Churan. 

I often think of the day I was detained in Beijing. 

On the night of 6 March 2015, the police knocked on my door and took me to the station, where I was questioned nonstop for 24 hours. 

Later I was sent to a detention centre, where I was held for 37 days.
I was not alone. 

Four other female activists were also arrested. 

Though we had planned to hand out stickers on the Beijing subway to raise awareness about sexual harassment, we hadn’t expected our actions to attract the attention of the Public Security Bureau.
Fellow Chinese feminists quickly responded to our detention: they bravely took to the streets with our pictures in the hope of showing the public that we were in danger. 

Thanks to their efforts, Free the Five became an international campaign. 

While communist China has officially always promoted gender equality, this incident reveals a different story.
Two years later, is there any hope for the Chinese feminist movement? 

Definitely, yes. 

Since my arrest, there has been both progress and a backlash against women’s rights. 

On the one hand, the first legislation against domestic violence was passed in December 2015, an event of huge significance. 

Women who have been beaten by their husbands or partners now have the law on their side.
On the other hand, state surveillance of NGOs and feminist activists is increasing, and those who have tried to hold the government to account on human rights abuses have faced crackdowns.
An example of how progress and backlash can coexist is what happened after a well-publicised allegation of sexual abuse. 

When a young girl called Xiao Zhu in Jiangxi province revealed on Xinlang Weibo – a social media platform often compared to Twitter – that she had been sexually assaulted by her father for four years there was an outpouring of sympathy and outrage. 

Two women’s rights groups, Women Awakening Network and Yuanzhong Gender Development Centre, gave her legal support.
Local government officials found the attention from activists intolerable and, in less than a week, control of the case was taken over by the local branch of the Communist Youth League. 

The father faces up to three years in prison if found guilty, but the priority of the authorities is not justice for victims but social stability.
However, despite the pushback against grassroots organisations, and thanks to women’s issues becoming more prominent on social media, women are becoming more active in the fight against gender discrimination. 

When I was released from detention, I faced a tough decision: should I continue my activism, or give up? 

I chose to continue. 

Because of China’s two-child policy, abortions are readily available. 

If you get pregnant with a third child, abortion is compulsory. 

But I don’t see our free access to abortion as a sign of progress, as reproductive rights only apply to married women. 

If you are unmarried, it is illegal to give birth and you will face heavy fines. 

Some NGOs are calling on the government to grant single women their reproductive rights.
In the era of the one-child policy, the reproductive rights of single women were denied as a means of controlling population growth. 

But now, even as propaganda encourages straight couples to reproduce, the state continues to discriminate against single women.
Until recently, single Chinese women over 27 were described as “leftover women”. 

In 2007, the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), the government body dealing with women’s issues, called on women to marry as soon as possible. 

This year, however, the ACWF’s newspaper China Women’s News urged the media to stop referring to women as the leftover, a remarkable shift that I believe can be credited to feminist activism.
For activists such as me, it is difficult to work out where the boundaries are. 

Last month the Weibo account Feminist Voices was suspended for 30 days.

Our first reaction was to make a big noise so the authorities would feel our rage about this censorship.
The Beijing government continues to push back the boundaries of acceptable resistance to the point where there is little room left, but at least women’s issues are being discussed. 

That’s why there is hope for feminism in China.

The Goebbelsian Confucius

How China Is Invading Western Universities With Communist Propaganda
By Benedict Rogers 

Fifteen years ago, I travelled to Qufu, the birthplace of China’s most famous philosopher, Confucius, who lived from 551-479 BC. 

I had lived in and travelled around China, including Hong Kong, for much of the previous decade and wanted to learn more about the source of so much of Chinese culture’s ancient wisdom before returning to Britain.
I had been given a copy of The Analects of Confucius, a collection of his thoughts, by a Chinese friend. 

I smiled when I read that “while his parents are alive, the son should not go abroad to a great distance. If he does go on a long journey, he must tell his parents the definite place he is going to.” 

I was 18 when I first went to China, to spend six months teaching English in Qingdao before going to university. 

Confucius would be relieved to know that at least my parents knew.
“Neglect of moral culture, disregard for learning, reluctance to stand forward before a just cause, and failure in correcting what is wrong -- these are the things which are troubling me,” Confucius said. And today, they are troubling me too. 

In particular, in China and among those in the West who kowtow to China’s rulers.
China today is a bully, severely violating the human rights of its own people but also increasingly spreading its corrupt net around the world to silence dissent and extend its influence. 

It has done this through business, internet trolling, diplomacy and, at its most extreme, by kidnapping critics from other countries. 

But one of the most sophisticated and dangerous tools it has is the misuse of Confucius’ name.
According to an official Chinese government website, there are now 500 “Confucius Institutes” around the world - with the aim of 1,000 by 2020. 

In 2015, their budget was $310 million, and from 2006-2015 China spent $1.85 billion on Confucius Institutes. 

On the surface, these institutes exist to teach Chinese language and promote Chinese culture -- a Chinese equivalent of the British Council, American Centres or the Alliance Francaise. 

Unlike their western counterparts, however, Confucius Institutes are directly funded and controlled by the Chinese government, but embedded within universities around the world, giving China influence over the curriculum. 

Moreover, while the western equivalents, to varying degrees, exist to promote democratic values, concepts of an open society, critical thinking, the rule of law and to strengthen the capacity of civil society, Confucius Institutes are the antithesis, working to spread the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda and silence any dissenting voices.

This has now been exposed in a new documentary film, In the Name of Confucius, written and directed by Chinese-born Canadian film maker Doris Liu. 

The 52-minute film features a Chinese teacher called Sonia Zhao, who left China to take up a post with a Confucius Institute in Canada. 

“I thought the Confucius Institute was a cultural organisation,” she says. 

She quickly discovered, however, that as an employee, even in a western democratic country, she felt nervous “all the time”, worrying about whether what she might say would cause trouble. 

“I had to think twice before I said anything.”
At the heart of Sonia Zhao’s story was the fact that she is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a Buddha-school spiritual belief that emphasises truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. 

Since 1999 Falun Gong has been very severely persecuted by the Chinese regime, because it became so popular that it was practised by an estimated 70 million people -- and for a regime nervous about any large gathering of people, this felt threatening. 

Even though Falun Gong is a peaceful spiritual movement, it was met with brutal repression, resulting in hundreds of thousands of practitioners jailed and many dying as a result of torture or as victims of China’s barbaric practice of forced organ harvesting.
“I had been hiding my belief for many years,” says Zhao on camera. 

“But I didn’t expect that going abroad, a place I thought would be free, that I’d still be restricted”. 

In a reconstruction of the moment she went through her employment contract, Zhao -- played by Chinese-born Canadian actress and prominent campaigner for human rights, Miss World Canada Anastasia Lin - discovers that the Confucius Institute prohibits teachers from being Falun Gong practitioners -- or from associating with them. 

Topics such as Tibet and Taiwan must also be avoided. 

“The Confucius Institutes have exported China’s persecution against Falun Gong to foreign countries in a hidden way,” argues Zhao.
The documentary then exposes the blatant Communist propaganda that exists in Confucius Institute literature used in schools and universities in western democracies. 

Texts promoting the teachings of Chairman Mao are being taught to children in Toronto, for example. As one parent put it, “something like this should not exist in a democratic country, pretty plain and simple”.
Yet the list continues. 

An American singer studying at the University of Michigan happily performs a Chinese song at a Confucius Institute function, with these words: “They sing about their new life, they sing about the great party. Ah, Chairman Mao! Ah, the Party! You nurture the people on this land”.
Officials in Beijing don’t make much attempt to hide the real purpose of Confucius Institutes. 

Largely independent from their host universities, these institutes are controlled from Beijing, with a constitution and bylaws drawn up by the Chinese regime with little transparency. 

Xu Lin, the Director-General of the Confucius Institute headquarters, known as ‘Hanban’, says on camera that their work is “an important part of our soft power. We want to expand China’s influence”. 

In a crude exertion of power, she adds: “The foreign universities work for us.”
The most shocking part of Doris Liu’s film is the naivity, and outright, unashamed complicity, of some western academics. 

In a shocking interview, Patricia Gartland, chair of the Coquitlam Confucius Institute, and Melissa Hyndes, chair of the local school district, extol the success of their work and are dismissive of any risks. 

“We never had any concerns of any kind,” Gartland tells Liu. 

Any controversy, she adds, is simply the result of “xenophobia”.
When Liu asks whether western academic organisations should accept funds from governments that disrespect human rights, Gartland simply disagrees with the question’s premise. 

And when a question about religious persecution in China is raised, the two Canadian education officials terminate the interview. 

The then chair of the Toronto District School Board Chris Bolton is similarly dismissive of concerns about human rights -- and when the questioning becomes a bit too uncomfortable, he asks the film maker to leave. 

If I had closed my eyes and tuned out the accents, I would of thought these three were Chinese government representatives.
The Toronto District School Board, however, was not entirely filled with pro-Beijing stooges. Confronted with the evidence, the board ultimately voted to terminate the district’s relationship with the Confucius Institute. 

Others, such as McMaster University, have done the same. 

In the United States, the American Association of University Professors have called for a re-think, citing “unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China“, and two universities, Chicago and Pennsylvania State, cut ties with Confucius Institutes -- as have at least three in Europe.
In the Name of Confucius focuses on Canada, but the problem is worldwide. 

In Britain, there are at least 29 Confucius Institutes, attached to major universities such as Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Cardiff and University College London. 

There are also 127 Confucius ‘classrooms’ in schools around the United Kingdom -- teaching from texts that promote the Chinese Communist Party.
And yet in an op-ed for the Times Higher Education supplement in 2015, the President of Imperial College, Alice Gast, expressed her wish for the UK’s universities to be “China’s best partners in the West”. 

The UK ranks first among European countries in welcoming this Chinese influence -- a point celebrated in China’s state media as marking a “Confucius revolution”.
Except it is not a ‘Confucius’ revolution, but the exporting of the values of a brutal, corrupt, cruel dictatorship. 

“An oppressive government,” said Confucius, “is to be feared more than a tiger”. 

We need to wake up and stop this collusion, before it is too late. 

In the Name of Confucius is a film everyone involved in China policy and education policy should watch. 

Confucius must be turning in his grave.