WHO accused of being a Beijing puppet

The Chinese coronavirus outbreak shows WHO kowtowing to China's despots

By FRANK CHEN

Questions have been raised over the World Health Organization’s handling of the Chinese coronavirus in China, with one dissident calling the WHO an ‘affiliated organization’ of the Chinese Communist Party.
The comment came from Yu Jie, a scholar-turned-dissident who lives in exile in the US. 

Yu was a close associate of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and compared the WHO to an ‘affiliated organization’ of the Chinese Communist Party.
Yu noted the WHO’s flawed risk assessment of the spread of the Chinese coronavirus as well as its foot-dragging before declaring the public health emergency as an incident posing global risks.
Another critic was famed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, a thorn in Beijing’s side for his politically iconoclastic artwork. 

He also relayed a petition letter demanding WHO Director-General and famous Beijing puppet Tedros Adhanom’s resignation.
“On January 23rd, 2020, Adhanom declined to declare China virus outbreak as a global health emergency. The number of infected and deaths has risen more than tenfold within only five days since then. Part of it is related to Adhanom’s underestimation of the situation in China.
“We believe the WHO is supposed to be politically neutral … On the other hand, Taiwan should not be excluded from the WHO for any political reasons. Their technologies are far more advanced than some of the countries on the ‘selected WHO list’ and can contribute to the global fight against the virus given its well-rounded medical and public health expertise and geographical proximity to mainland China,” read the petition.
When Chinese dictator Xi Jinping met Adhanom in Beijing at the end of last month, there were three tables separating Xi and Adhanom when the two were seated inside the Great Hall of the People, with no interpreters working behind them.
This unusual arrangement for when Xi receives a foreign dignitary has been interpreted by some observers as Xi’s unease about being infected with the coronavirus.
It was thought Xi wanted to keep a safe distance and take no risks, even though Adhanom was coming from Geneva, which had not been hit by the outbreak that started in Wuhan in the central Chinese province of Hubei.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping with his puppet Tedros Adhanom in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

In a long-winded speech during the sit-down, Xi talked up how he had personally orchestrated the response to the pandemic and overseen the deployment of resources, stressing China’s confidence and capabilities to triumph over the virus under the strong and robust leadership of himself and the mighty Communist Party.
It was surely too much to expect Xi to make a personal appearance in the epidemic epicenter of Wuhan, where the acute respiratory disease has, regardless of the rampant under-reporting, struck down 35,991 people and killed more than 1,000, according to the latest official figure as of Friday afternoon.
The WHO, nonetheless, praised China’s “aggressive response” to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets.
Adhanom, who hails from Ethiopia, a country that is a recipient of a large amount of Chinese foreign aid for Africa, was addressed by Xi and the Chinese state media as an “old friend” of China.However, he is now accused of fawning to Xi and putting the WHO under Beijing’s spell, especially after his indecision to announce a global health emergency early on, as well as his “gullible” acceptance of China’s tally of those infected, statistics from a country that are usually met with incredulity internationally.
In a remedial move, the WHO also held a press conference to update the public on the ongoing contagion, but the tone was as optimistic as the theme of many press conferences held by the Chinese government and attended by the deferential state media outlets.

The Beijing stooges: World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme head Michael Ryan, left, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO Chair of Emergency Committee on Ebola Robert Steffen attend a combined news conference after a two-day international conference on Chinese coronavirus vaccine research. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang flew into Wuhan at the end of last month, but it appears Xi Jinping has no plans to inspect the epicenter of the contagion. 

The WHO cited Chinese health officials as noting that the number of new infections of the Chinese coronavirus appeared to be stabilizing outside Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province this week, despite a change in China’s methodology for determining who had the disease, which led to a spike in confirmed cases in Hubei.
Cadres in the Chinese virus-stricken province said on Thursday that “clinically diagnosed” cases would be counted as “confirmed cases” and that the change was made so a broader set of patients could receive the same treatment as those confirmed with the infection.

Obsequious Acquiescence
Sylvie Briand, WHO’s director of infectious hazards, endorsed the changes to diagnosis and treatment, saying it would be "normal" for a government to alter the case definition during the course of an outbreak as the situation would be constantly evolving.

Masked doctors wave a Communist Party flag at a hospital in Wuhan in a ceremony to muster ranks. 

Doctors in protective gear prepare before entering wards for the infected. 

Also, the WHO’s acquiescence when Beijing moved to lock down Wuhan and put its remaining residents – almost 10 million people – into mandatory quarantine regardless of their physical condition contradicts its calls not to curtail the flow of people from China.
It was only after its belated emergency categorization of the disease – seen as being too pliant in the face of Beijing’s concerns over the economy and the country’s image – did the United Nations agency start to mobilize financial and political support to contain the spread.
The WHO has long been seen as under Beijing’s sway.
Adhanom’s predecessor -- also a Beijing puppet -- Margaret Chan, was thrust into her position as the WHO chief with Beijing’s stumping efforts for her during the selection process back in 2007.
Chan, whose catastrophic handling of the SARS crisis once drew hefty flak when she was Hong Kong’s health minister in 2003, in turn did Beijing’s bidding to bar Taiwan’s participation and diverted substantial resources into the WHO’s programs in China, among other things.

‘I am a Hongkonger’

Artist Ai Weiwei on why he supports the city’s protest movement
By Tom Grundy

Ai Weiwei. 

Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei made his name in visual arts, film, and architecture before his critical commentary against the Chinese government led to his persecution and trial on allegations of tax evasion.
Ai moved to Berlin in 2015 and has become an outspoken advocate for migrants’ rights.
During the height of the anti-extradition law protests in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Free Press spoke to the influential artist about his work, human rights, and China under Xi Jinping.

HKFP: Chinese dissidents often say that China is becoming more totalitarian under Xi Jinping. What do you think of Xi’s rule? Is it delicate, or will it continue until he dies?
Ai: China’s policy has not changed since the Chinese Communist Party established the nation in 1949. 

Sometimes it becomes more extreme, while at other times there may be some space for tolerance. Whether Chinese policy is extreme or tolerant is a reflection of the Party’s own condition. 

If the condition is one of fragility or urgency, policy and methods of control will become more extreme.
China is like an overgrown baby which has not yet been equipped with knowledge or rationality. 

Its judgment is often incomprehensible. 

China is also a nation which can maintain this kind of condition for a hundred years. 

The only possibility that China’s competitors have to stop it from becoming a threat is to recognize it as such and to safeguard a future for a civilized society.
The way in which China has achieved its rapid growth is clearly in conflict with Western values—the human rights that have been established over the past 100 years which have brought us to the present moment, and from which China has also benefited greatly. 

However, China does not recognize the established norms, preferring instead to maintain barbaric methods of governing and control, presenting a danger to the whole world.

HKFP: Moving on to Hong Kong – you’ve hosted several exhibitions here (in 2015 and 2018). In your opinion, how has the city’s art scene changed during that period, particularly in terms of freedom of expression?
Ai: I have had some art activity in Hong Kong. 

It is a society with a special, modern energy. 

At the same time, I do feel that art in Hong Kong should be much more aggressive or make a more global impact. 

Hong Kong still benefits from being the most international city in Asia. 

It has a strongly educated population. 

The city needs more art that reflects its energy, hope, and imagination.

HKFP: Would you have safety concerns about visiting Hong Kong in the future?
Ai: I would. 

Under “One [Country], two systems,” if the Hong Kong people do not fight to protect their own rights, then they could easily slip into the same bleak conditions faced by Shenzhen or any other Chinese city. 

Human rights violations would be pervasive and uncontrollable. 

It would come under the same flawed Chinese judicial system that is subject to the Party’s interests. Once a judicial system loses its independence, anything can happen and no one is safe.

HKFP: You called Hong Kong’s anti-extradition demonstrations “the most beautiful protest in the world.” Why do you think so? And do you foresee a greater crackdown from Beijing on the horizon?
Ai: My impression of Hong Kong comes from an earlier time. 

After I was released from secret detention in 2011, I realised that the Hong Kong people had made a great effort in support of my release. 

There were many demonstrations and young artists who placed posters with my picture and name all over the city. 

There was even a projection of my portrait and name on the facade of the People’s Liberation Army Garrison building. 

Those were acts by individuals. 

I never knew who they were and they never tried to get in contact with me. 

I was deeply touched by these actions.
Just knowing that my values were shared by another person reminded me that humanity still existed even in the most extreme conditions. 

That is one of the reasons why I fully support those young people who are expressing themselves now. 

They have nothing to hide. 

Why should they hide their voices? 

If they did not have their voice, how could they survive? 

I think everyone can make their own judgment, especially young people in Hong Kong. 

They are clever and brave. 

Some have said that Hong Kong people are very practical. 

Yes, and human rights are very practical. 

It is about everything we care about. 

Every night, we have the same dream: to live as free human beings, rather than to live under a dictatorship or the violence of authoritarianism.
This is why I believe the Hong Kong demonstrations are the most beautiful. 

They are so peaceful, rational, and those taking part are so young. 

It is very different from most demonstrations elsewhere. 

Those are usually oriented around a shared political agenda. 

But the people marching in the streets of Hong Kong are there for freedom. 

It is abstract, but at the same time it relates to everyone and it definitely relates to the values I treasure most.
I have said in the past that I am a Hongkonger. 

Today, I reiterate that. 

I am a Hongkonger. 

I admire them and feel deeply sad when I see four young people have already lost their lives in this fight. 

They clearly stated what the fight in Hong Kong is about, that freedom is as valuable as life itself and they were willing to sacrifice their own lives to prove it. 

Nothing could be more beautiful.

Lennon Wall in Hong Kong. 

China faces a massive problem if the youth of Hong Kong continues to protest. 

It is a challenge that alarms the rest of the world as to what kind of society China is. 

If they don’t stop the protests, the democratic voice will get louder and there will be better conditions for freedom. 

But how can they stop them? 

Hong Kong is not just another Chinese city. 

If that were the case, the military would have moved in and crushed it immediately. 

There would not be any media coverage or international attention. 

This already happens all the time in China. 

Hong Kong is different.

It still has its recent history as a British colony, reflected in its adherence to the rule of law, its independent judiciary, and relatively wide range of political freedoms.
Meanwhile, the UK has shown no vision or will to uphold its most important values and we see the deterioration of those values globally. 

The UK’s failure gives us stronger reasons for supporting democracy and human rights in Hong Kong.

HKFP: Hong Kong’s extradition protests have given artists a space to create art: protesters decorating walls using post-it notes, painters working on-site, protesters drawing umbrellas by wiping dirt off tunnel walls. Why do you think people are drawn to creating art during times of crisis?
Ai: Freedom of expression is the most important weapon to combat authoritarianism. 

Authoritarians simply have no imagination, and without that, they have no future. 

Often, we see protesters also lacking in imagination, but Hong Kong’s protests have demonstrated a capacity for adaptation. 

They are learning from the fight. 

There is no other way to attain this education than to be in the thick of it.
There will be bloodshed, as we witnessed last week with the organised attack by the mob in white. The enemy is vicious and will take any means necessary to crush the movement. 

So demonstrators need to have not only mental clarity but also a defined strategy. 

They must explicitly announce their ideas and mobilize people, but also have clear tactics to unmask their opponent’s vulnerabilities. 

That is the art of the dissident and a whole generation of young people will learn from this because they have a formidable opponent.

Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Accuses ‘I Love You, Berlin’ Producers of Censorship

By PATRICK FRATER and ED MEZA

The executive producer of anthology film “Berlin, I Love You” is engaged in a war of words with Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, whose contribution to the movie was left on the cutting-room floor.
The segment Ai shot for “Berlin, I Love You” was axed by the producers for political reasons, out of fear of upsetting Chinese officials. 

But Emmanuel Benbihy, the film’s Shanghai-based executive producer, says that Ai’s segment did not meet the Chinese requirements for inclusion.
“Berlin, I Love You,” whose short takes feature such stars as Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley, was submitted to the Berlin Film Festival but failed to land a slot, even out of competition or in one of the fest’s sidebars. 

Instead, it began its commercial career with a Feb. 8 theatrical release, handled by Saban Films, in the U.S.
To Ai’s surprise, the finished picture left out the segment he shot in 2015, long before contributions from Peter Chelsom, Til Schweiger and nine others went before the cameras. 

Ai directed his piece remotely, issuing instructions by video-call, while under house arrest in China, to Claus Clausen, the Germany-based producer of the film, who co-directed. (Ai later relocated permanently to Berlin.) 

The segment focuses on a boy, played by Ai’s son, who discovers a new city and uses unreliable technology to keep in touch with his distant father.
Clausen cited pressure from distributors uncomfortable with Ai’s inclusion as the reason for the segment’s omission. 

“It was because some of the distributors told us, ‘No,’” Clausen said Wednesday, declining to name the companies.
The decision to pull Ai’s segment was made in order “to show the movie,” Clausen added. 

“That’s what made my heart really bleed. I had an obligation to the other directors and to the other actors. We would have had problems getting the movie out there worldwide….It was a no-win situation for me no matter which way we went. I fought for it till the last moment.”

The rules of the “Cities of Love” franchise give directors final cut of their own segment, but the final say over the film’s lineup rests with the producers.

Benbihy confirmed that the decision to leave out Ai’s offering was made only recently – years after Ai submitted his work. 

In a stream of criticism on Twitter, Ai makes clear his belief that political censorship, or self-censorship, was at work. 

“Chinese movie censorship: Ai Weiwei, Zhang Yimou withdrawals suggest it reaches beyond borders,” he said in one tweet, referring to the last-minute cancellation of the premiere of Zhang’s “One Second” at the Berlinale.
“If someone like Zhang Yimou is facing this problem, if someone like me faces this kind of dramatic situation. Think about the young artist…[China] would lose a whole generation’s imagination, courage, and their passion for art,” Ai said in another tweet.
He retweeted other commentators’ suggestions that his omission from “Berlin, I Love You” was motivated by Benbihy’s desire to remain in the Chinese government’s good graces and to make a “Cities of Love” installment about Shanghai. 

According to IMDb, Benbihy previously tried to launch “Shanghai, I Love You” as far back as 2007, but the project has largely lain dormant since 2009.
Benbihy acknowledged plans to revive plans for “Shanghai, I Love You” this year. 

“Nothing [is] happening on the Shanghai movie yet,” he said. 

“We are working on the strategy and the budget. Not on the financing.”

China's State Gangsterism

Barging into your home, threatening your family, or making you disappear: Here's what China does to people who speak out against them

By Alexandra Ma
The Chinese Communist Party has long sought to suppress ideas that could undermine the sweeping authority it has over its 1.4 billion citizens — and the state can go to extreme lengths to maintain its grip.
In just the past few years, the government has attempted to muzzle critics by making them disappear without a trace, ordering people to physically barge into their houses, or locking up those close to critics as a kind of blackmail.
Even leaving China isn't always enough. 

The state has continued to clamp down on dissent by harassing and threatening family members who remain in the country.
Scroll down to see what China can do to people who criticize it.

1. Make you disappear.Li Wenzu holds a photo of her husband, detained human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, while protesting in front of the Supreme People's Protectorate in Beijing in July 2017.
Wang Quanzhang, a human rights lawyer who defended political activists in the past, has not been seen since he was taken into detention three years ago.
He was taken away in August 2015 alongside more than 200 lawyers, legal assistants, and activists for government questioning. 

Three years later, he remains the only person in that cohort who still isn't free.
Nobody has heard from him since. 

His lawyers, friends, and family have all tried contacting him, but have consistently been denied access, Radio Free Asia reported.
The lawyer's friends and family, and other lawyers, have tried visiting him, but to no avail. 

His wife, Li Wenzu, has been routinely harassed by Chinese police for protesting Wang's detention, according to the BBC.
His wife recently received a message from a friend saying that Wang was alive and "in reasonable mental and physical health," but was denied further information when she contacted authorities.

2. Physically drag you away so you can't speak to the media.

A woman being taken away by police after she tried sharing footage of an explosion outside the US embassy in Beijing on July 26.
A woman was dragged away by men in plainclothes after she tried to share footage of an explosion outside the US embassy in Beijing with journalists on the ground in July.
As the woman was trying to share images of the scene with journalists, a group of men took her across, claiming it was a "family matter," according to Agence France-Presse reporter Becky Davis who witnessed it.
The woman claimed she didn't know any of the men. 

You can watch the whole scene unfold in this video.
China was trying to cover up news of the explosion. 

Weibo, a popular microblogging platform, reportedly wiped all posts about it in the hours following the incident, before allowing some media coverage of it later on.
While it remains unclear who the men were and why they took the woman, Davis said it is common for plainclothes police to act as "family members" and take people away.
Read more: 'I do not know that man. I didn't do anything!': A woman who tried to share footage of the explosion near Beijing's US Embassy was forced into a car and driven away

3. Put your family under house arrest, even if they haven't been accused of a crime.Portraits of Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia displayed at a protest in Hong Kong in June 2017.
China has kept family members of prominent activists under house arrest to prevent them from traveling abroad and publicly protesting the regime.
In 2010 Liu Xia tried to travel to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of her husband, Liu Xiaobo, a human rights activist who at the time was imprisoned for "inciting subversion" with his protests.
She wasn't allowed to go and was placed under house arrest with 24-hour surveillance. 

She had no access to a cell phone or computer, even though she hadn't been charged with a crime.
She was allowed to leave the house in 2017 to attend the sea burial of her husband after his death from liver cancer, before being sent to the other side of the country by authorities so she wouldn't see memorials held by supporters in Beijing.
Liu Xia was detained in her house for eight years in total. 

She was released to Berlin in July after a sustained lobbying effort from the German government for Liu's release.
Still, she is not completely free: Xia is effectively prevented from appearing in public or speaking to media for fear of reprisal from Beijing. 

She fears that if she does, the government will punish her brother, who remains in Beijing, her friend Tienchi Martin-Liao told The Guardian.

4. Threaten to kill your family and forbid them from leaving China.Anastasia Lin, whose family in China is being punished for her activism against China.

Even when dissidents leave China, they are not safe. 

Chinese expats and exiles have seen family members who remained in China pay the price for their protest.
One example is Chinese-Canadian actress Anastasia Lin, who repeatedly speaks out to criticise China's human rights record.
She told Business Insider earlier this year that her uncles and elderly grandparents had their visas to Hong Kong — a Chinese region that operates under a separate and independent rule of law — revoked in 2016.
Security agents also contacted Lin's father saying that if she continued to speak up, the family "would be persecuted like in the Cultural Revolution" — a bloody ten-year period under Mao Zedong when millions of Chinese people were persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured.
Shawn Zhang, a student in Vancouver who has criticized Xi Jinping online, told Business Insider earlier this year that police incessantly called his parents asking them to take down his posts.
The family members of five journalists with Radio Free Asia — a US-funded media outlet — were also recently detained to stop their reporting on human rights abuses against the Uighur minority in China's East Turkestan colony.
Read more: China uses threats about relatives at home to control and silence expats and exiles abroad

5. Take down your social media posts.

A woman surrounded by Chinese paramilitary police on a smoggy day in Beijing in December 2015.

Chinese tech companies routinely delete social media posts and forbid users from posting keywords used to criticize the government.
Censorship in China has soared under Xi Jinping's presidency, with thousands of censorship directives issued every year.
Posts and keywords are usually only banned for a few hours or a few days until an event or news cycle is over.
In February, popular chat and microblogging platforms WeChat and Weibo banned users from writing posts with the letter N when it was used to criticize a plan allowing Xi to rule without term limits.
Read more: Planting spies, paying people to post on social media, and pretending the news doesn't exist: This is how China tries to distract people from human rights abuses

6. Remove your posts from the internet — and throw you in a psychiatric ward.Dong Yaoqiong live-streaming herself defacing a poster of Xi Jinping in Shanghai, China, on July 4.

In July, Dong Yaoqiong live-streamed herself pouring black ink over a poster of Xi Jinping in Shanghai, while criticizing the Communist Party's "oppressive brain control" over the country.
Hours later, she reported seeing police officers at her door and the video — which can still be seen here— was removed from her social media account.
She has not been seen in public since, although Voice of America and Radio Free Asia reported that she was being held at a psychiatric hospital in her home province of Hunan, citing local activists.

7. Barge into your house to force you off the airwaves.Sun Wenguang in his home in Jinan in August 2013.
Sun Wenguang, a prominent critic of the Chinese government, was forced off air during a live phone interview with Voice of America in early August.
The 83-year-old former economics professor had been arguing that Xi Jinping had his economic priorities wrong, when up to eight policemen barged into his home, and forced him off the line.
His last words before he got cut off were: "Let me tell you, it's illegal for you to come to my home. I have my freedom of speech!" 

You can listen to the audio (in Chinese, but subtitled in English) here.
The father of Dong Yaoqiong, the woman who defaced the poster of Xi, was also interrupted while live-streaming a video calling for his daughter's release.
In the recording, which can be seen here, a man purporting to be a plain-clothed police officer can seen entering the premises, demanding to take Dong's father and his friend away, and ignoring their questions about whether the man had a search warrant.

8. Trap you in your house, and detain people who come to see you.

About 11 days after Sun Wenguang, the dissident Chinese professor, was interrupted on his call, he was found locked inside his own home.
Police had detained him in his house and Sun told two journalists who went to interview him that police forced his wife to tell people he had gone traveling to avoid suspicion.
He added: "We were taken out of our residence for 10 days and stayed at four hotels. Some of the rooms had sealed windows. It was a dark jail. After we were back, they sent four security guys to sleep in our home."
The journalists, from the US government-funded Voice of America, were detained immediately after the interview. 

Their whereabouts are not clear at this point.
Read more: A renegade Chinese professor who was forced off-air while criticizing the government was locked in his apartment and told to make up a story that he left town

9. Forbid you from leaving the country.Ai Weiwei in London in September 2015, two months after his release from China.
Ai Weiwei, the prolific Chinese artist and avid critic of the Chinese government, was blocked from leaving China for four years.
Authorities claimed he was being investigated for various crimes, including pornography, bigamy, and the illicit exchange of foreign currency.
He was detained for 81 days and charged with tax evasion, for which his company was ordered to pay 15 million yuan ($2.4 million). 

His supporters claimed the tax evasion charges were fabricated.
The government took away his passport in 2011 and refused to give it back until 2015. 

He then immediately flew to Berlin, where he now lives.

10. Intercept your protests before they even begin.Police surrounding a group of people preparing to protest in Beijing on August 6.
A group of protesters had been planning a demonstration in Beijing's financial district over lost investments with the country's peer-to-peer lending platforms.
Many of those platforms had shut down due to a recent government crackdown on financial firms, causing investors to lose some tens of thousands of dollars in savings.
But the demonstration, scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on a Monday in front of China's banking regulatory commission, never materialized — because police had already rounded up the protesters and sent them home.
Many demonstrators who arrived in Beijing earlier that day found police waiting for them at their bus and train stations, before sending them away.
Peter Wang, who planned to take part in the protest, told Reuters: "Once the police checked your ID cards and saw your petition materials, they knew you are here looking to protect your [financial] rights. Then they put you on a bus directly."
Becky Davis, AFP's reporter in Beijing, described seeing more than 120 buses parked nearby to take the protesters away.
Other protesters seen traveling from their home towns to Beijing to take part in the demonstration were forced to give their fingerprints and blood samples, and prevented from traveling to the capital, Reuters said.
Activists told The Globe and Mail that the police found out about the protest by monitoring their conversations on WeChat.

Activists say we are now seeing 'human rights violations not seen in decades' in ChinaSurveillance cameras in front of a giant portrait of Mao Zedong in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 2009.

China has a long history of suppressing dissenting views and actions. 

But Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, said the number of people being targeted and the extent of their punishment has worsened under Xi's rule.
"While life for peaceful critics in modern China has never been easy, there have been times of relative latitude," she told Business Insider.
"Eleven's tenure is most certainly not one of those times — not just in the numbers of people being targeted, but in the use of harsh charges and long sentences, and in the state's adoption of rights-gutting laws.
"Add to that the alarming expansion of high-tech surveillance and mass arbitrary detentions across East Turkestan, and you've got a scale of human rights violations we have not seen in decades."
The United Nations recently accused China of holding one million Uighurs in internment camps in the western colony of East Turkestan. 


Does the Chinese Communist Party care that people know what's going on?
Probably not.

Richardson said: "The Chinese communists will keep treating people however badly they want unless the price for doing so is made too high for them — clearly this calculus finally changed recently for them with respect to Liu Xia," referring to the activist's wife who was released to Beijing after eight years of house arrest.
"That's why relentless public and private interventions on behalf of those unjustly treated is critical — to keep driving up the cost of abuses many people inside and outside China find unacceptable," Richardson added.
But there's a catch, says Frances Eve, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders. 

While the Party has released political activists due to public pressure in the past, it has kept family members in China to make sure the activists don't speak out.
Eve told The Guardian in July: "The Chinese Communist Party has become more immune to international pressure to release activists and let them go overseas, coinciding with its growing economic clout.
"Nowadays, on the rare occasion it does allow an activist to go abroad, it's with the sinister knowledge that their immediate or extended family remains in China and can be used as an effective hostage to stifle their free speech."

Beijing Is Holding Sino-Americans Hostage in China

Exit bans are a new tool in China’s global coercion campaign.

By BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN

In its ongoing campaign to extend its reach beyond its borders, the Chinese government has found a new form of leverage: Sino-Americans in China.
Last year, Beijing prevented several Sino-Americans from leaving China, including a pregnant woman, according to email correspondence obtained by The Daily Beast. 

The total number of so-called exit bans placed on Sino-Americans in China is unknown, but at least two dozen cases have occurred within the past two years, according to one analyst’s estimate.
Chinese authorities typically target U.S. citizens of Chinese heritage for exit bans, usually in connection with an investigation. 

Sometimes, Beijing uses Sino-Americans to try to coerce family members residing in the United States to return to China or to cooperate with Chinese authorities in investigations.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has championed a sweeping anti-corruption campaign with an international element, known as “Operation Fox Hunt,” aimed at pursuing Chinese citizens who have fled abroad after allegedly committing economic crimes. 

The United States does not have an extradition treaty with China and in the past has rarely cooperated with Chinese demands to repatriate Chinese citizens whom Beijing considers to be fugitives. 

Beijing has previously deployed undercover agents to the United States to coerce targets into returning to China, violating U.S. visa laws and prompting U.S. government indignation.
Now the People’s Republic seems to have found another lever of pressure. 

If one of Beijing’s targets living in the United States has relatives in China, Chinese authorities aren’t shy about applying pressure to those relatives, even if they are U.S. citizens. 

Exit bans are a “pretty new tool in the Chinese toolbox” for exerting such pressure, said John Kamm, founder of the U.S. nonprofit Dui Hua Foundation, which works on sensitive human rights cases in China.
“That individual might be treated as a material witness,” said Kamm. 

“Or that individual might be in effect being held as a hostage in an effort to get the people back.”
The Trump administration has pushed back quietly but firmly against exit bans. 

For example, in the lead-up to the first U.S.-China Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Dialogue, held in Washington, D.C., in October 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions pushed for China to allow the free travel of three Sino-Americans who had been prevented from leaving China, including a pregnant woman, according to emails reviewed by The Daily Beast.
“Both sides will continue to cooperate to prevent each country from becoming a safe haven for fugitives and will identify viable fugitive cases for cooperation,” reads the U.S.-China joint statement released on Oct. 6, after the dialogue concluded. 

“Both sides commit to take actions involving fugitives only on the basis of respect for each other’s sovereignty and laws.”
It’s a delicate balancing act for an administration that also wishes to deport Chinese citizens who are in the United States illegally. 

In the past, China has often refused to accept deportations, leaving the United States with a large number of Chinese asylum seekers with final deportation orders. 

In 2015, Beijing’s refusal to accept deportees began to coincide with its push to repatriate fugitives it claimed were guilty of corruption. 

The Obama administration signed a memorandum of understanding with China to help expedite the deportation process, but remained reluctant to agree to Chinese demands to extradite fugitives.
Human rights groups have warned that fugitives may face torture or death back in China, also expressing concerns that Beijing might use trumped-up corruption charges to get their hands on troublesome political dissidents abroad.
The Department of Justice did not respond to emailed questions. 

The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.
The State Department declined to comment regarding the fate of those three U.S. citizens, citing privacy concerns, but a State Department spokesperson said that the U.S. government had not agreed to repatriate any Chinese citizen due to pressure from exit bans.
However, in January, the State Department warned Sino-Americans that going to China could be risky.

“Exit bans have been imposed to compel Sino-Americans to resolve business disputes, force settlement of court orders, or facilitate government investigations,” states the travel advisory for U.S. citizens traveling to China, particularly U.S.-China dual nationals. 

“Individuals not involved in legal proceedings or suspected of wrongdoing have also be subjected to lengthy exit bans in order to compel their family members or colleagues to cooperate with Chinese courts or investigators.”
It’s difficult to know exactly how many Sino-Americans have been affected. 

The State Department declined to confirm the number of cases, citing privacy concerns, but Kamm said he knows of about two dozen cases over the past year and half alone.
“One of the problems with exit bans is that you don’t know that there is an exit ban on you until you actually get to the airport,” said Kamm. 

“There may be people in the country who have exit bans on them and they don’t know it.”
Exit bans have also been applied to ethnic Chinese of other nationalities. 

Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai was subject to an exit ban after he was kidnapped from Thailand and taken into custody in mainland China. 

The Swedish government has objected to his treatment there. 

Australian academic Feng Chongyi was interrogated by security officials while visiting China in 2017 then prevented from leaving the country. 

He was permitted to return to Australia a week later amid international media attention.
China has frequently used exit bans on its own citizens, most notably in 2010, when it prevented Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and others from traveling to Norway for Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. 

Chinese authorities have also revoked the passports of many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority in China’s northwest, as part of a massive repression campaign.
Exit bans violate United Nations human rights precepts. 

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” 

The State Department declined to say whether or not China’s actions violated U.S. or international law; the Justice Department did not respond to request for comment.
“A lot of people simply don’t know that they can be stopped for leaving China,” said Kamm.
It’s well-known that China blacklists people from entering, denying visas to academics and journalists who are critical of Beijing.
But, Kamm said, “even worse is if you get into the country and they won’t let you out.”

How a lone Ghanaian cartoonist stood up to China

By Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
Ghanaian artist Bright Tetteh Ackwerh

In April, Ghanaian artist Bright Tetteh Ackwerh published a cartoon on his Facebook page titled, “We Dey Beg,” or “We are begging,” in honor of a recent campaign against illegal gold mining supported by Chinese companies, which has polluted local rivers.

In the image, Xi Jinping is pouring a sludge of brown water from a Ming dynasty vase into bowls held by Ghana’s president and the minister of natural resource. 

Next to Xi, China’s ambassador to Ghana happily clutches a gold bar.
The Chinese embassy was reportedly infuriated by the cartoon and issued a complaint to the Ghanaian government on media coverage of the arrests of several Chinese miners involved in illegal mining, which is known locally as “galamsey”. 

While Ghanaian miners were also arrested, much of the public’s focus has been on the Chinese. Ghana is the second largest gold producer in Africa after South Africa.

In the letter, the Chinese embassy said it was concerned about “a number of distorted or biased reports and stories on Chinese people, especially some reports and cartoons that are defaming Chinese leaders and senior officials,” according to Citi FM, a local station that saw a copy of the note. 

“We hope that the Ghanaian government will pay due attention to this situation, take the necessary action to stop such things from happening again and guide the media to give an objective coverage on the illegal mining issue so as to create a good environment for further development of our bilateral exchanges and cooperation.”
Days later, Ackwerh published another cartoon, “Them Threaten,” mocking the embassy’s letter. 

In the image, Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo hides a placard with the words “Stop Galamsey Now” behind his back.

But within a few months, the row seemed to have blown over. 

In July, Ackwerh was featured in an exhibition in Accra and invited the Chinese ambassador Sun Baohong. 

She attended and posed for photos in front of Ackwerh’s cartoons.
But Ackwerh, who cites Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei as one of his inspirations, wasn’t done. 

In August, he published another cartoon titled “Occupation,” where the presidents of Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal are arguing over a plate of jollof rice. 

It’s reference to the so-called jollof wars, a mostly fun debate between West African countries over who makes the best version of the dish.
In the background, Xi Jinping is sneaking away with the continent of Africa. 

Ackwerh says of the jollof wars, “It was embarrassingly becoming a distraction at a time when Africa was being taken over by China. The ingredients used for making jollof such as the rice are imported, most often from China.”
“I hope my example has given other artists the courage to also contribute to this and things like this. There are things we have the power to do that even governments can’t,” he said.

The death of Liu Xiaobo marks dark times for dissent in China

By Ishaan Tharoor 

It has been a week since the death of Liu Xiaobo, the famed Chinese dissident who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Peace while imprisoned.
Late last month, Chinese officials announced that the prominent writer, who had been detained since 2009, was being moved to a hospital to receive treatment for late-stage liver cancer. 

Despite the entreaties of his family, friends and foreign governments, Beijing refused to release him to seek care overseas. 

He died July 13, becoming only the second Nobel laureate to perish in custody (Carl von Ossietzky, an anti-Nazi pacifist, died in 1938).
In a move that sparked the ire of Chinese activists, authorities apparently ensured that his ashes were buried at sea and not on Chinese soil. 

Acclaimed artist Ai Weiwei, who lives in Germany, said the move was aimed at denying Liu’s supporters “a physical memorial site” and that it “showed brutal society can be.”
“It is a play,” said Ai. 

“Sad but real.”

Liu Xiaobo’s wife, Liu Xia, prays as his ashes are buried at sea off the coast of Dalian, China, on July 15.

Indeed, for China’s authoritarian leadership, what Liu represents is all too real. 

The poet and essayist was admired by many among the Chinese diaspora and the international community. 

“He fought for freedom and democracy for more than 30 years, becoming a monument to morality and justice and a source of inspiration,” Wen Kejian, a fellow writer, told my colleague Emily Rauhala.
“Liu Xiaobo was a representative of ideas that resonate with millions of people all over the world, even in China. These ideas cannot be imprisoned and will never die,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in a statement.
Ironically Liu’s legacy and oeuvre are more visible abroad than at home, where even Internet searches of his name are censored and tributes to his life were hurriedly erased from social media.
But what further underscores the tragedy of his life was the nature of his politics. 

Liu was not calling for radical change or an overthrow of the regime. 

The putative reason for his 2009 imprisonment was his co-authorship of “Charter 08,” a manifesto calling for reform and greater freedom of expression within the Chinese system.
“Inevitably, some in the West will think that honoring Liu Xiaobo is an act of offense against China (or, more practically, a potential risk to relationships with the government). That’s a mistake,” wrote Evan Osnos, author of the National Book Award-winning “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.” 

“Honoring Liu is an act of dedication to China at its best. He was, to the end, unwilling to renounce his principled commitment to China’s constitution — to the freedoms enshrined in law but unprotected in practice.”
Osnos also offered an anecdote from when he met Liu: “If you never had a chance to meet him, it was easy to misread him as a cynic. On the contrary, in person, Liu could be unnervingly optimistic. On that day when I met him, in 2007, at a teahouse near his apartment, he told me that as China became stronger and more connected to the world, he imagined that the ‘current regime might become more confident.’ He went on, ‘It might become milder, more flexible, more open.’ In that prediction, he was, for now, wrong, and he paid with his life.”

People sign their names at a memorial event for late Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo in Hong Kong on July 19. 

“Although the regime of the post-Mao era is still a dictatorship, it is no longer fanatical but rather a rational dictatorship that has become increasingly adept at calculating its interests,” Liu once said in 2006, in another illustration of his optimism about the capacity for change.
“In calculating those interests, the regime has decided that it was safer to turn Liu into a dead martyr than to allow his ideas to spread unchallenged,” wrote Jamil Anderlini of the Financial Times. 

“This conclusion is probably correct in the short term. Thanks to the party’s efforts, the vast majority of Chinese people have never heard of Liu and most of those who have heard of him think he was a hopeless troublemaker. His death will not spark a revolution.”

Under Xi Jinping, the invasive, authoritarian control of the ruling government has expanded, while the space for civil society has contracted. 

Dissent and critical expression have been chilled, and it seems increasingly clear that Chinese officials aren’t bothered by censure from abroad.
“What is really important isn’t so much that the party is tightening its control — that is happening anyway,” noted Steve Tsang of the Chatham House think tank in London. 

“What is more important is that the party is not that worried about how the Liu Xiaobo case affects international opinion.” 

A budding global hegemon, China can withstand the clucking of outside powers over its human rights record.
It also doesn’t help that there is an American president who has explicitly argued against fighting for universal values and rights elsewhere. 

On the day of Liu’s death, Trump happened to hail Xi as a “terrific” and “talented” leader.
“It is especially shameful that Donald Trump praised Xi Jinping at the moment when Liu Xiaobo was dying,” said Teng Biao, a Chinese human rights lawyer living in exile in the United States. 

“Xi Jinping is not a respectable leader. He is a brutal dictator.”
“Western countries have adopted a policy of appeasement,” said Hu Jia, a prominent dissident who served more than three years in prison, to the New York Times. 

“The Communist Party has the resources to whip whomever they want.”
Hu, who still faces regular surveillance from police, offered an ominous warning: “Some have turned to believe in violent revolution. It makes people feel the door to a peaceful transition has closed.”

Beijing’s Nobel Shame

Dying dissident Liu Xiaobo must be allowed to travel, UK and EU urge China
By Tom Phillips in Beijing

Britain and the European Union have joined a growing chorus of voices calling for China to completely free its most famous political prisoner, the dying Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo.
A spokesperson for the British embassy in Beijing said Britain had “repeatedly expressed serious concern at the treatment of Liu Xiaobo by the Chinese authorities”.
“We continue to urge the Chinese authorities to ensure Liu Xiaobo has access to his choice of medical treatment, in a location of his choice, and to lift all restrictions on him and his wife Liu Xia,” the spokesperson added.
A spokesperson for the EU delegation in Beijing said it had discussed the activist’s case with the authorities and asked “that China immediately grant Mr Liu parole on humanitarian grounds and allow him to receive medical assistance at a place of his choosing in China or overseas.”
In an earlier statement the EU had said it also expected China “to remove all limitations on the movements of Mr Liu’s wife and family members”.
A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, Geng Shuang, rejected the appeals. 

The calls came one day after two foreign doctors who were allowed to visit the dissident in hospital announced they believed he was well enough to be moved overseas, despite Chinese claims to the contrary.
In the light of that announcement, Jared Genser, a US lawyer who represents Liu and is lobbying for his evacuation, called on Xi Jinping to immediately free his client. 

He said Liu had expressed a desire to receive treatment in Germany or the United States, with hospitals in both countries ready and willing to take him in.
“Xi Jinping should honour a dying man’s wishes to be able to leave China and to obtain better treatment that is available abroad,” and could extend Liu’s life by several weeks, Genser said.
“My view is that not only should this happen, but that this must happen and I also believe that there will be enormous pressure placed on Xi from the international community to relent,” he added.
The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is also among those calling Liu’s release. 

“This is a historic mistake ... this is going to be remembered the whole world,” he said.

In a statement, the executive director of Pen America, Suzanne Nossel, said “the Chinese government’s morality and humanity” would be tested by its decision to allow Liu to leave China or not. 

“There can be no more powerful indicator of Beijing’s respect for human dignity than their treatment of Liu Xiaobo in this time of need.”
Liu, a veteran democracy activist and writer who became a lifelong campaigner after witnessing the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer in May while serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion. 

He is being held, reportedly under police guard, in a hospital in north-east China where authorities insist he is receiving “meticulous treatment”.
Liu was detained in late 2008 for his involvement in a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08 and was found guilty of incitement to subvert state power – effectively working to topple China’s one-party state – on Christmas Day the following year.
In 2010 he received the Nobel peace prize for his “unflinching and peaceful advocacy for reform”. 

Unable to attend the award ceremony in Oslo because he was in jail, Liu was represented by an empty chair.

China’s congress meeting brings crackdown on critics

By Louise Watt and Isolda Morillo

In this Monday, Feb. 27, 2017 photo, Ye Haiyan paints a watercolor painting in her studio on the outskirts of Beijing. Ye has resorted to advocating for the rights of sex workers and people with HIV/AIDS through painting after her blogs have been closed down, she has moved from city to city following harassment from authorities, and police told her to leave her latest home ahead of the annual meeting of China’s ceremonial parliament that opened Sunday.

BEIJING — Chinese authorities have shut down activist Ye Haiyan’s blogs and forced her to move from one city to another. 

Left with few options, she now produces socially conscious paintings to make a living and advocate for the rights of sex workers and people with HIV or AIDS.
Using calligraphy brushes, Ye creates images of naked women and sex workers alongside symbols such as the Chinese characters for equality, or paints roosters, a Chinese homonym for prostitute.
“I’ve started to understand that painting is also a form of expression and the natural reflection of my thoughts,” said Ye. 

She was recently evicted from her last home in an artists’ enclave on Beijing’s outskirts ahead of the annual meeting of China’s ceremonial parliament that opened Sunday.
Far from the pomp of the 10-day gathering at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Ye is among those caught up in an annual roundup of people the ruling Communist Party consider threats to the state, all to ensure the session passes without incident. 

Known critics are placed under tightened restrictions and ordinary people coming to Beijing with grievances are prevented from traveling or snatched off the streets of the capital.
This year’s meetings also come amid China’s broadest and most intense assault on civil society since nongovernmental groups were grudgingly allowed more freedom to operate more than a decade ago.
Since coming to power almost five years ago, Xi Jinping has shown little tolerance for dissent, and a sustained crackdown launched in July 2015 has seen hundreds of activists and independent legal professionals detained. 

More than a year and a half later, eight are still in detention or prison.
“It has been worsening every year since Xi Jinping came to power and this past year has been no different,” said Frances Eve, researcher at the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
Activists estimate that police arrested more than 100 people last year for exercising their right to freedom of expression, including Huang Qi and Liu Feiyue, who ran websites reporting on human rights abuses and critiquing government policies. 

A series of trials saw some activists convicted under vague laws against subversion and leaking state secrets, with prosecutors blaming unidentified troublemakers abroad for inciting anti-government activity.
China last year also passed a law tightening controls over foreign nongovernmental organizations by subjecting them to close police supervision.
“Promoting and protecting human rights is now considered a crime,” said Eve. 

Many of those convicted confess under duress, including torture by police, she said. 

While China’s high court forbids such practices, they are believed to remain common within a police force with broad powers to arrest, question and detain.
China routinely rejects accusations of human rights abuses, pointing to vast improvements in quality of life wrought by three decades of economic development.
The authorities rarely comment on activists such as Ye, who used to have thousands of followers online and her own nongovernmental organization advocating for legalized prostitution and offering advice on sexual health.
Her efforts, including protests against light sentences given to the abusers of schoolgirls, got her noticed by the public and, more ominously, the police, who she says pressured her to close her NGO and move several times. 

Worried about the impact on her 17-year-old daughter, she sent her to the U.S. last month to study with help from a U.S.-based filmmaker.
Ye says she’s gotten a boost from internationally famous artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who bought one of her paintings “depicting a fat woman, a sex worker wishing to earn a lot of money and go home to build a house.” 

Ai previously bought up her belongings when she was evicted from an apartment in 2014 and exhibited the household items — an old refrigerator, a washing machine, cardboard boxes — at one of his shows at the Brooklyn Museum.
Ye reluctantly left her studio on the orders of police last week. 

An officer reached at the Songzhuang Public Security Bureau on Monday declined to comment on the case. 

Ye said she went to stay with friends in the countryside and within days again ran into pressure to leave.
“The Communist Party secretary of the village told local residents not to rent to me because I’ve long been on the blacklist,” Ye said.
“They think that a person like me should be the target for ‘social stabilization,’” she added, using the government’s term for suppressing dissent.

Hong Kong bookseller case shows weak international community: report

• International community not doing enough to pressure China on human rights, report says
• Actions by UK and Swedish governments regarding citizens detained by China rebuked

By James Griffiths
Hong Kong bookseller goes public 

Hong Kong -- The case of five Hong Kong booksellers abducted by Chinese government agents shows how the international community has failed to pressure Beijing on human rights, a new report claims.
In June, bookseller Lam Wing-kee told CNN how he was blindfolded and seized by "special forces" as he crossed the border from Hong Kong to China.
He spent five months in solitary confinement and a time under house arrest before being returned to Hong Kong on bail, where he defied his captors to tell the world what had happened.
"The booksellers' disappearances were a vivid indication that the long arm of the Chinese security state could and would reach into Hong Kong and beyond," PEN America, which lobbies for free speech rights worldwide, said in a statement.

Hong Kong after the umbrellas







Photos: Hong Kong after the umbrellas



Angry response
Beijing has always reacted vociferously to international criticism, especially on what it considers "sensitive" topics like Hong Kong, Tibet or Taiwan.
Last month, Foreign Ministry officials angrily slapped down a British report into the situation in Hong Kong.
The UK -- which has a treaty obligation to Hong Kong as a signatory to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration -- said the booksellers case was a "serious breach" of the declaration and raised concerns over the city's constitutional protections.
"Given this hostile response to public expressions of alarm or outrage, foreign governments have often preferred private diplomacy in China over public condemnation of even egregious human rights violations," according to the PEN report.
Human Rights Watch warned last year that "even as China has taken major steps backwards on human rights under Xi Jinping, most foreign governments have muted their criticisms of its record."
Speaking at an event in New York this week, dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei asked whether "human rights (is) still an issue can be talked about?"
He called on foreign governments to do more to pressure Beijing:
"There's no excuse to sacrifice any values, to not mention human rights, not to defend those values. This is a very bad move."

'Bizarre view of citizenship'
Angela Gui, whose father Gui Minhai is still in detention in China, told PEN that "if the international community stays quiet, it's just going to be forgotten about and the Chinese will keep him as long as they like."
Gui Minhai is a Swedish citizen, and the country's representatives have called for him to be released. He was born in China but does not hold a Chinese passport.
Beijing however has largely refused to acknowledge Gui's Swedish citizenship, and regards him as Chinese.
British diplomats have also complained of being denied access to detained bookseller Lee Bo, who holds a UK passport.
Lee is "first and foremost a Chinese citizen," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in January.
"It's a bizarre view of citizenship," Angela Gui told CNN recently.
"China is a country that doesn't really respect the rule of law."
China has repeatedly asserted that it views Gui and Lee's cases as an internal affair, and warned against "unwarranted accusations" from outside parties.
The booksellers case, warns PEN, "indicates China's determination to unilaterally define issues of narrative and even identity, in the expectation that it will not be challenged."

A protester displays a photo of Xi Jinping during a rally to support the Hong Kong booksellers.

Wives of detained Chinese human rights lawyers refuse to be silenced

Ai Weiwei to west: tackle China on human rights whatever the cost

‘It doesn’t matter it will hurt me or not – do what you think is right’: celebrated artist says Beijing has axed rule of law for anyone with contrary political views.

By Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong

Ai Weiwei speaks at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. 
Western governments should challenge China on human rights and stand up for their principles, dissident artist Ai Weiwei has said – lamenting the repression faced by Chinese activists but declaring that Beijing’s “business partners” in the rest of the world should not fear making it worse.
One of the world’s most famous living artists, Ai has long run foul of Chinese authorities, culminating in 81 days of detention in 2011 amid a wider crackdown on political dissent. 

He was subsequently banned from travelling overseas for more than four years and his passport was confiscated.
“It doesn’t matter it will hurt me or not, you have to do what you think is right,” Ai said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. 

“You have to believe they have to listen. You know, they have to care about their business partner … or they have to respect.”
He encouraged western governments to maintain pressure on China, even with the potential that it may lead to harsh treatment for activists. 

In recent years more and more foreign politicians have been willing to forgo discussions of human rights issues in order to forge closer economic ties with Beijing.
Since Xi Jinping took power in 2012 China has launched a wide-ranging crackdown on civil society, with hundreds of lawyers and activists arrested or jailed as the authorities have become less tolerant of any speech challenging the Communist party line.
“If you touch any political issues there’s no such thing as rule of law,” Ai said. 

“It’s getting really very bad, I should say, the situation. It’s almost no space.”
He lamented the fact that even the lawyers who defended the “basic rights of their clients” had become targets of the authorities.
“You just defend some people being wrongly accused, you can be put in jail,” Ai said. 

“And many of them are being falsely accused without trial, they’re still in jail.”
Xia Lin, a lawyer who previously defended Ai and other activists, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in September on fraud charges. 

Many saw the conviction as revenge for defending high-profile political clients.
More than 200 lawyers and activists were detained in a nationwide sweep last summer, with certain law firms apparently targeted because of their client lists.