Saving Brave Hong Kong

U.S. senators seek quick passage of Hong Kong rights bill
Reuters

A protester walks at the occupied campus of the Chinese University in Hong Kong, China, November 13, 2019. 

WASHINGTON -- Two senior U.S. senators began a process on Thursday for the U.S. Senate to quickly pass legislation that would place Hong Kong’s special treatment by the United States under extra scrutiny, a sign of support for pro-democracy protesters in the Chinese-ruled city.
U.S. Senators Jim Risch, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Marco Rubio, a senior member of the panel, want to pass the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” by unanimous voice vote.
The legislation would require the secretary of state to certify at least once a year that Hong Kong still retains enough autonomy to warrant the special U.S. trading consideration that bolsters its status as a world financial center.It also would provide sanctions against officials responsible for human rights violations in Hong Kong.
The lawmakes’ announcement came amid a surge in violence surrounding months of protests in Hong Kong. 

On Thursday, pro-democracy protesters paralyzed parts of the city for a fourth successive day.
If it does pass the Senate, the measure would not be sent immediately to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign into law or veto. 

Lawmakers would first have to iron out differences between the Senate’s legislation and a bill that passed the House of Representatives last month.

A Fierce Slap to Chinese tyrants

U.S. Senators Press Ahead With Hong Kong Bill

After House passage, legislation awaits action in Senate
By Daniel Flatley and Dandan Li

Hong Kong Bill Will Pass in the Senate, Says Rep. Chris Smith

Republican senators said Wednesday they want to move quickly on legislation to support pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong despite a "threat" of retaliation from China.
“Hong Kong is a high priority for me,” said GOP Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. 

“We’re going to move on it as rapidly as we can.”

Senator Jim Risch

Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the Senate GOP leadership, said there haven’t been any discussions about the timing for a vote on Hong Kong legislation similar to a measure that passed the House Tuesday. 

That bill would subject the city’s special U.S. trading status to annual reviews and provides for sanctions against officials deemed responsible for undermining its “fundamental freedoms and autonomy.”
There is broad backing in both parties in Congress to show support for the protesters and punish China for any crackdown. 

The White House declined to comment on whether Trump would sign the Hong Kong legislation, but there are enough votes in the House to override a veto and no significant opposition in the Senate.
The next step will be up to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who’ll set the schedule for a vote, and he’s being pressed by his Republican colleagues.

“I think we’re going to get it up on the floor here fairly soon,” Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a China critic, told reporters.
South Dakota Senator John Thune, another member of Republican leadership, said that while he hasn’t looked closely at the four bills the House passed Tuesday, there are a number of senators “interested in making a strong statement on Hong Kong.”
Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said the main House bill, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, has deep bipartisan support, but there might be some Republicans who object to the bill being passed by unanimous consent without a floor vote.
Cardin said the fact that the House passed their four bills separately, rather than bundling them together, means the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act has a better chance of getting a vote in the Senate.

Demonstrators wave U.S. flags during a rally in support of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, Oct. 14.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang warned American lawmakers to stop "meddling" in China’s internal affairs.

Both Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping have so far prevented the international uproar over Hong Kong from scuttling their trade talks. 

The two sides went ahead with negotiations and reached some broad agreements last week, even though the House vote was widely expected at the time.

A spokesman for the Hong Kong government “expressed regret” over the House action, which came hours before Chief Executive Carrie Lam addressed a raucous session of the Legislative Council. 

She barely managed a few words before pro-democracy lawmakers forced her to stop talking. 

She ended up delivering her annual policy address via video instead.
While the pro-democracy bloc only comprises about a third of lawmakers, Wednesday’s display showed they have the ability to shut down debate on major economic initiatives. 

That spells even more trouble ahead for an economy sliding into recession as protests against Beijing’s grip over the city grow increasingly violent.
China’s retaliation threat against the U.S. roiled markets during Asian trading, at one point wiping out a 0.8% rally in the regional equity benchmark.
U.S. lawmakers have embraced the Hong Kong protesters’ cause as the yearlong trade war fuels American support for pushing back against China, and they have hosted Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists on Capitol Hill in recent weeks. 

The National Basketball Association’s struggle to manage Chinese backlash against a Houston Rockets executive’s support for the movement has only focused wider attention on the debate.
On Tuesday, the House passed H.Res. 543, a resolution reaffirming the relationship between the U.S. and Hong Kong, condemning Chinese interference in the region and voicing support for protesters. 

Lawmakers also passed the Protect Hong Kong Act, H.R. 4270, which would halt the export to Hong Kong of crowd-control devices such as tear gas and rubber bullets.

Joshua Wong arrives to speak on Capitol Hill on Sept. 17.

Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and a sponsor of the main Hong Kong bill, dismissed the threats from Beijing.
“Retaliation, that’s all they ever talk,” Smith told Bloomberg TV. 

“They try to browbeat and cower people, countries, presidents, prime ministers and the like all over in order to get them to back off. We believe that human rights are so elemental, and so in need of protection. And that’s why the students and the young people are out in the streets in Hong Kong virtually every day.”
The House also adopted a resolution by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel of New York and the panel’s top Republican, Michael McCaul of Texas, urging Canada to start U.S. extradition proceedings against Huawei Technologies Co. executive Meng Wanzhou. 

The resolution, H.Res. 521, also calls for the release of two Canadians detained in China and due process for a third sentenced to death for drug smuggling.

Ted Cruz

Chinese Fifth Column

China-funded Confucius Institutes trying to influence US public opinion should be constrained
By Rich Edson

WASHINGTON -- Senators are considering legislation to constrain Chinese government-funded institutes they say are spreading propaganda and limiting criticism of China at hundreds of elementary, middle and high schools and colleges across the United States.
Confucius Institutes “depict China as approachable and compassionate; rarely are events critical or controversial,” according to a bipartisan report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. 

“The Chinese government approves all teachers, events, and speakers. Some U.S. schools contractually agree that both Chinese and U.S. laws will apply.”
In the last 15 years, the Chinese government has opened more than 100 Confucius Institutes on college and university campuses in the U.S. and are also in more than 500 primary schools, according to the report. 

Since 2006, according to the subcommittee, China has directly provided more than $158 million to U.S. schools for Confucius Institutes. 

Investigators said they found no evidence of espionage at the institutes as their investigation, they said, focused on propaganda and influence.
“That level of access stifles academic freedom and provides students and others exposed to Confucius Institute programming with an incomplete picture of Chinese government actions and policies that run counter to U.S. interests at home and abroad,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the subcommittee’s chairman.
“Given what our country experienced during the 2016 election and what we’re preparing to grapple with in 2020, it is critical that we be vigilant in combatting Chinese efforts to influence American public opinion,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the subcommittee’s senior Democrat.

The subcommittee report cites Chinese government statements acknowledging their propaganda value to address criticism over human rights, Taiwan and individual freedom.

“We’re not against cultural exchange or language learning outright. We do view and recognize the value in this globalized world of cultural exchange, of foreign exchange, of language learning,” said a subcommittee investigator. 

“There are concerns schools need to be aware about how these things operate. And the public, faculty and students also need to be aware.”
The institutes, the schools they contract with and the Chinese government should reveal the details of their agreements, said the investigator. 

Without achieving that transparency, the investigator said senators are exploring legislation to address those concerns or would even pursue ways to shut them down.
In its study, the GAO found, “While 42 of 90 agreements include language indicating that the document was confidential, some agreements were available online or are shared upon request. Some officials at schools that did not post agreements online said this was consistent with handling of other agreements.” 

The report also read, “Nonetheless, school officials, researchers, and others suggested ways schools could improve institute management, such as by renegotiating agreements to clarify U.S. schools' authority and making agreements publicly available.”
Last year, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sponsored a provision included in the National Defense Authorization Act that prohibits Pentagon funding of Confucius Institutes. 

He’s also pushed a bill that would lower the threshold for universities reporting foreign contributions from $250,000 to $50,000.
The subcommittee investigation found that nearly 70 percent of U.S. schools that received more than $250,000 from the Chinese government for Confucius Institutes failed to properly report those contributions to the federal government.
In 2010, the State Department granted more than $5 million to create American cultural events on Chinese campuses.
The department’s inspector general determined the U.S. effort was “'largely ineffective' in its mission due to Chinese interference” and closed the program late last year, according to the report.
“As China has expanded Confucius Institutes here in the U.S., it has systematically shut down key U.S. State Department public diplomacy efforts on Chinese college campuses,” said Senator Portman.
While there are more Confucius Institutes in the U.S. than any other country, the Chinese government has spent more than $2 billion expanding them across the world, according to the subcommittee.
“They show no signs of slowing,” said an investigator.

Tech Quisling

Senators Demand Answers from Mark Zuckerberg over Huawei Data Sharing Scandal
By Allum Bokhari 

Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, have sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg demanding answers on Facebook’s latest data scandal.
Earlier this week it was revealed that Facebook shared user data with “at least 60” phone manufacturers including Huawei, a company linked to the Chinese government and flagged as a national security threat by the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
A Democrat lawmaker has since accused Zuckerberg of lying to Congress when he told them that users had “complete control” over who sees their data on the platform.
Among the questions asked by Sens. Thune and Nelson, which can be read in full here, is whether Zuckerberg would like to amend his statement on this, given that the New York Times reported that phone manufacturers had access to data from Facebook users’ friends even when those friends denied them the permission to share their data with third parties.
The Senators also asked Zuckerberg if Facebook verified whether the phone companies complied with the social network’s rules on data-sharing, and if there was even any method to check.
The Senators also demanded transparency: a full list of the device manufacturers that Facebook granted data access to, including manufacturers with whom it has since ended partnerships with.
The letter requests a response from Zuckerberg by no later than 5:00 p.m. on June 18, 2018.

Why 12 Senators Want This Chinese Deal Rejected

The senators asked a review panel to “ultimately reject” the deal.

Reuters 

Twelve U.S. senators urged on Wednesday that a national security review panel reject Chinese aluminum giant Zhongwang International Group proposed $2.3 billion purchase of U.S. aluminum products maker Aleris.
The senators asked Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in a letter to launch a review of the deal by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States and “ultimately reject it” on grounds that it would damage the U.S. defense industrial base.
“Zhongwang’s purchase of Aleris would directly undermine our national security, including by jeopardizing the U.S. manufacturing base for sensitive technologies in an industry already devastated by the effects of China’s market distorting policies, and creating serious risk that sensitive technologies and knowhow will be transferred to China, further imperiling U.S. defense interests,” the senators wrote.
The deal, announced just over two months ago, would give one of the world’s largest makers of extruded aluminum products access to U.S. technology and customers, which include Boeing Co and U.S. and European automakers that are increasingly turning to aluminum.
It comes as another Zhongwang subsidiary is embroiled in a dispute over U.S. import duties amid broader trade tensions between the U.S. aluminum industry and China.
The U.S. Commerce Department is currently investigating China Zhongwang Holdings over allegations that it has been evading U.S. import duties on extruded products by shipping them through third countries.
The letter to Lew was signed by Republican Rob Portman of Ohio, where Aleris is based, and Democrats Ron Wyden, Charles Schumer, Bob Casey, Joe Manchin, Kirsten Gillibrand, Joe Donnelly, Debbie Stabenow, Jeff Merkley, Amy Klobuchar, Tammy Baldwin and Al Franken.
They said the review committee needed to be cautious about the potential for sensitive research data to be transferred to China, including data with military applications such as advanced modeling techniques, high-strength alloys and the design of light armor material.
“Despite the national security importance of our nation’s aluminum sector, the industry continues to be decimated by China’s market distorting policies that contribute to vast overcapacity,” the senators wrote.
“China’s overcapacity in aluminum has directly contributed to severe reductions in U.S. domestic production as smelters unable to compete have been forced to close. Each such closure further imperils our nation’s ability to ensure a reliable supply of strategic materials in times of crisis,” they wrote.
A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the letter, adding that information filed with CFIUS by law cannot be disclosed to the public and that Treasury does not comment on specific CFIUS cases.