Chinese Peril

Chinese attack on Hong Kong would pose grave danger to America’s Asian allies
By Amb. Nikki Haley 

Police in Hong Kong use live fire for the first time in the pro-democracy demonstrations.

Hong Kong is a very big deal.
The images of protesters tearing down towers equipped with Chinese face recognition technology tell the world some of what’s at stake in their clash with China’s dictatorship. 

But there’s much more.
More than anything else, the Chinese Communist government seeks control of its own people, Hong Kong, and a widening region of Asia and beyond. 

That puts major American interests at risk.
Hong Kong, which is about the size of New York City, is one of the world’s leading financial centers. For many years it was a British colony, but in 1997 Britain transferred authority to China on condition that China would preserve key democratic institutions for 50 years.
Less than halfway through that period, China is on the verge of crushing Hong Kong’s freedoms. 

If China succeeds in doing that without paying a heavy price, the results will make all of Asia far more dangerous.
The United States absolutely does not want war with China. 

That means we don’t want to encourage Chinese officials to take actions that make the world less stable and less safe. 

Americans should understand that the fate of Hong Kong is part of a larger strategic picture in which we have a lot at risk.
The Hong Kong crisis arises from the increasingly aggressive authoritarianism of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. 

He is driving the Chinese Communist Party to tighten control over Chinese society, commerce and information.
Xi has made the Chinese government far more oppressive domestically and far more aggressive abroad. 

As a result, political instability inside China is increasing; public protests are increasingly large and numerous.
Meanwhile, China has been boldly pushing its neighbors around, sinking their fishing vessels, destroying their infrastructure, and conducting subversive political operations within their countries.
Hong Kong is now the site of the largest protests in modern Chinese history. 

If they continue, the Chinese government has two choices.
China can back down and allow the people of Hong Kong to retain their freedoms, as it promised to do for at least another 28 years. 

Or it can crush the Hong Kongers. 

Given Xi Jinping’s shameful record, there is reason to fear the worst.
China has the power to use force to end the Hong Kong protests. 

No outside power will prevent that, and America will not go to war over Hong Kong.
But what if the world does nothing? 

What will Asian security look like if Chinese leaders think they can take such violent action without any penalty?
China’s political, diplomatic, economic, and military moves all suggest it is becoming more expansionist. 

If it pays no price for crushing Hong Kong, China might decide it can afford to use force to also take control of Taiwan.
With 24 million people, Taiwan is bigger than Florida. 

Since 1949, its government has been free from the Chinese Communist government in Beijing.
Taiwan has remained free because China has been deterred from using military power against it. 

The key ingredient to the deterrent has been the U.S. commitment to help Taiwan defend itself.
A weak response to Chinese aggression against Hong Kong could make Chinese officials think they could move against Taiwan without facing serious consequences. 

This would be explosive.
The U.S. is committed in law to the policy of aiding Taiwan’s defense. 

We supply arms to Taiwan and U.S. officials have warned for decades that China must not try to change Taiwan’s status by force.
If China attacked Taiwan, all of Asia would worry about where Chinese military power would strike next.
Our allies in South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand would question the integrity of U.S. security pledges and rightly fear for their safety. 

Few scenarios would be more dangerous to world peace.
Beyond the issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan, China is now conducting a vast “debt-trap” foreign policy designed to increase its control of countries throughout the developing world.
China is providing trillions of dollars in loans to countries that are unlikely to be able to repay them. The resulting defaults will increase China’s control of vital infrastructure in Asia, Africa, and even Latin America.

China’s leaders are committed to an ideology that cares a whole lot more about preserving and expanding their own Communist regime than about trade terms or North Korean nuclear weapons.

China might be willing to make concessions in the trade talks in return for some kind of U.S. “green light” to crush Hong Kong. 

But giving such a green light would be a dangerous mistake.
Though the U.S. cannot prevent China from suppressing the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement by force, it would be crucial that we impose substantial costs on China for doing so. 

That is what’s needed to preserve deterrence for Taiwan, and to preserve peace with China.
Trump invoked the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre recently when talking about the impact that a Chinese attack on Hong Kong would have on U.S.-Chinese relations.
If China attacks Hong Kong, then business as usual with China must come to an end. 

The surer the Chinese are of that result, the less likely they are to attack, and the less risk there will be of military confrontation down the road.
A Chinese attack on the Hong Kong protesters would show the world what China is really all about. It would show the developing countries that China is an unsafe partner. 

It would show China’s trade partners it cannot be trusted.
In addition, such a Chinese attack would show the world once again the stark difference between how free counties and dictatorships operate. 

And that’s why Hong Kong matters.

Die Endlösung der Uigurischfrage

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley says China's concentration camps are straight out of George Orwell
By Lucas Tomlinson, Samuel Chamberlain

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said China has persecuted minorities on a massive scale. 

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley accused China of persecuting religious and ethnic minorities on a massive scale Monday in her first public remarks since announcing she would leave office last week.
"It is the largest internment of civilians in the world today," Haley said in keynote remarks at the Chiefs of Defense Conference Dinner in Washington. 

"It may be the largest since World War II."
The former South Carolina governor was particularly critical of Beijing's crackdown on Uighur and other Muslim minorities in China's northwest, which she described as being "straight out of George Orwell."
"At least a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have been imprisoned in so-called 're-education camps' in western China," Haley said, noting that detainees are "tortured ... forced to renounce their religion and to pledge allegiance to the Communist Party."
Haley announced last week that she planned to leave her post as envoy to the U.N. at the end of this year. 

Her announcement surprised many observers, who saw her as one of the Trump administration's most effective members. 

Her Monday comments followed recent tough talk from President Trump and his top aides about China.

Beijing recently canceled a planned visit by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis amid rising tensions over trade and defense issues. 

China has described recent U.S. B-52 bomber flights and warship patrols near contested man-made islands in the South China Sea as "provocative."
China recently rejected a request for a Hong Kong port visit by an American warship, and last summer Mattis disinvited China from a major maritime exercise in the Pacific. 

In response, China scrapped a scheduled Pentagon visit by its navy chief last month.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has slapped new sanctions on more than $200 billion in Chinese goods and plans to send hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Taiwan.

Don't listen to what the Chinese say, but look at what they do

US wants China to take action to stop North Korea nuke tests
Associated Press

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is introduced at the Women's Empowerment Panel, Wednesday, March 29, 2017, at the White House in Washington.

UNITED NATIONS – The United States wants China to prove that it is really seeking to stop North Korea's nuclear testing with actions — and that's what President Donald Trump will be pressing Xi Jinping to do when they meet in Florida next week, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said Thursday.
Haley said the Trump administration has "no patience" for the "cat and mouse situation" where North Korea provocations including banned nuclear and ballistic missile tests are met with U.N. Security Council resolutions that Pyongyang ignores.
She said the U.S. can't change the way North Korea thinks but "China can." 

And that will be the focus of the president's April 6-7 meeting with Xi at his Florida resort.
In a wide-ranging interview with four news agencies, Haley also talked about the new U.S. priorities in Syria, American efforts "to create balance" at the U.N. on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and her focus on U.N. peacekeeping and human rights when the U.S. takes over the Security Council presidency in April. 

She also spoke about her hatred for bureaucracy, which she says she's avoided so far at the U.N.
Haley's comments on North Korea reflect growing frustration in the Security Council and internationally at the failure of six U.N. sanctions resolutions to stop Pyongyang's nuclear and missile testing and the expansion of its nuclear program.
Tensions have escalated over North Korean moves to accelerate its weapons development. 

The North conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests last year, deepening concern in Washington that it could soon develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
"I know China wants to see North Korea stop with the testing," the U.S. ambassador said.
"Prove it! Prove it! They need to prove with their actions that they want to see that stopped ... and proving it can't just be stopping the coal intake but allowing it to go through other ways," Haley said.
"Proving it really is showing them through pressure that you are going to cut them off, and that you take this as seriously as the rest of the world does," Haley said.
China is North Korea's most important source of diplomatic support and economic assistance and has long urged a resumption of six-nation denuclearization talks on hold since North Korea withdrew from them in 2009.
Beijing says its leverage over Pyongyang is limited. 

Despite that, China last month suspended imports of North Korean coal for the rest of the year, depriving Kim Jong Un's regime of a crucial source of foreign currency though Haley's comments indicate that Beijing is allowing imports in other ways.
Haley said she expects Trump and Xi to "talk very much about the responsibility that we believe China has — the fact that we don't have the patience to sit here and see it go round and round anymore and the fact that that we want action."
She said she expects them to discuss "how that action can come about, and discuss what level of action president Trump thinks it should be."
Haley said she has also told Chinese and Russian diplomats at the U.N. that "they are the answer to some solutions and ... we want to see action."
She warned that if North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile, which could reach the U.S., or conducts another test, "we are not just going to sit down and say, 'Oh, that they did it again.'"
"This is something this administration is making a priority and this is something that we absolutely expect China and Russia to respond to," Haley said.
On Syria, she said the Trump administration is changing U.S. priorities, "and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting (Syrian President Bashar) Assad out."
"What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria," she said. 

"We want to get the Iranian influence out because that is really a problem. We want to see how we're going to be dealing with Turkey on this, how we're going to be dealing with the different players on this, and at the end of the day try and work with everyone to bring peace and stability back to the area."