China thuggish regime

Swedish media calls for action against attacks from Chinese officials
Journalists are denied visas and editors receive threatening emails
By Richard Orange in Malmö

Swedish media was moved to make the statement after a cartoon in the Danish magazine Jyllands-Posten came under similar pressure from Chinese officials. 

Sweden’s leading newspapers and broadcasters have together called on their government to take stronger action against China for its “unacceptable” repeated attacks on the country’s media, which have included visa bans and threats.
In a strongly worded statement, Utgivarna, which represents Sweden’s private and public sector media, complained that journalists had been put under intense pressure by Chinese government representatives.
“Time and again, China’s ambassador Gui Congyou has tried to undermine the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression under the Swedish constitution with false statements and threats,” the statement read.
It said journalists had been denied visas, while editors received a near-constant stream of threatening and critical emails and phone calls.
“It is unacceptable that the world’s largest dictatorship is trying to prevent free and independent journalism in a democracy like Sweden. These repeated attacks must cease immediately,” the statement said.
It said the government should raise the issue at EU level and together with other member states “strongly protest” over the attacks on press freedom.
Tensions between Sweden and China have been rising since 2015, when Chinese agents seized the dissident Chinese publisher Gui Minhai while he was on holiday in Thailand. 

Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen, is still being held by Chinese authorities and his case has been heavily covered by the Swedish media.
The friction has increased since Gui Congyou (no relation) was appointed China’s ambassador in November 2017.
In November last year he threatened that China would “surely take counter-measures” after Sweden’s culture minister, Amanda Lind, attended a ceremony to award Gui Minhai the Tucholsky prize for writers facing persecution.
This month he was summoned to see Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, after he described the relationship between the Swedish media and the Chinese state using an analogy that many interpreted as threatening.
“It is like when a lightweight boxer is trying to provoke a fight with a heavyweight boxer, and said heavyweight boxer is kindly encouraging the lightweight to mind his own business, out of goodwill,” he told Sweden’s state broadcaster SVT.
On Tuesday the Chinese embassy to Denmark demanded an apology for a cartoon published in Jyllands-Posten.
The latest cartoon, which altered the Chinese flag to stars with viruses, was “an insult to China” and “hurts the feelings of the sick Chinese people”, the embassy said.
Patrik Hadenius, the chief executive of Utgivarna, said his members had felt moved to act after they saw Danish media coming under similar pressure.
“It’s not just a problem for Sweden but a problem for all democratic countries. Just the other day it happened in Denmark,” he said. 

“We felt we needed to lift this to higher levels.”

The Chinese Threat to American Speech

American companies have an obligation to defend the freedom of expression, even at the risk of angering China.
The New York Times

China’s assertive campaign to police discourse about its policies, even outside of its borders, and the acquiescence of American companies eager to make money in China, pose a dangerous and growing threat to one of this nation’s core values: the freedom of expression.
The Communist state is becoming more and more aggressive in pressuring foreign companies to choose between self-censorship and the loss of access to what will soon be the world’s largest market. 

An old list of taboo topics, sometimes described as the “three Ts” — Tibet, Tiananmen and Taiwan — has been joined by newer subjects that must not be mentioned, including protests in Hong Kong and China’s mistreatment of its Muslim minority.
This month, China responded to a tweet by Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, in support of the Hong Kong protesters — a message he posted while in Japan, on a website that is not even accessible in mainland China — by demanding Mr. Morey’s firing and by canceling broadcasts of N.B.A. games, a histrionic display intended not just to punish the N.B.A. but also to intimidate other foreign firms into censoring themselves.
The Constitutions of China and the United States both enshrine freedom of speech, but China’s totalitarian regime has long taken a narrow view of that freedom — and American companies have long accepted those restrictions while doing business in China. 

Now, however, China is seeking to control not just what is said in China but what is said about China, too. 

If China has its way, any topic it deems off limits will be scrubbed from global discourse.
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the United States finds itself in a contest of ideas and principles with a country in its own weight class. 

But this time is different. 

The United States and China are economically intertwined.

But China is engaged in the kind of cultural imperialism it often decries.
China insists that its national interest is at stake. 

So is the national interest of the United States and other free nations. 

China has taken a hard line, and it’s time for the United States to respond in kind. 

The United States and American businesses have a duty to not appease the censors in Beijing — even if the price of insisting on free expression is a loss of access to the Chinese market.
The N.B.A., to its credit, is standing firm. 

After an initial round of obsequious apologies prompted widespread criticism in the United States, the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, said that the league was committed to free expression and that players and other league personnel remained free to speak their minds despite what he described as “fairly dramatic” financial repercussions from lost business in China.
“We wanted to make an absolutely clear statement that the values of the N.B.A., these American values — we are an American business — travel with us wherever we go,” Mr. Silver said on Thursday in New York. 

“And one of those values is free expression.”
But far too many American companies have shown that their values are for sale. 

They don’t even haggle much over the price. 

Last year, the Chinese government demanded that foreign airlines remove references to Taiwan from their websites, because China views Taiwan as a renegade province. 

The four American airlines affected by the order — American, Delta, Hawaiian and United — present themselves to the world as representatives of the United States. 

The American flag is painted on the outside of their planes; the interiors are American territory. 

But instead of standing up for American values, the airlines complied with China’s orders. 

Other recent examples of capitulation include the fashion retailer Coach destroying T-shirts that read “Hong Kong,” rather than “Hong Kong, China,” and Marriott firing a social media manager in Omaha for “liking” a tweet posted by a group that backs Tibetan independence.
Increasingly, China doesn’t even need to raise an eyebrow for global businesses to blink: American companies are engaged in proactive appeasement. 

In the new animated movie “Abominable,” released by DreamWorks, a subsidiary of Comcast, one scene includes a map of China with a boundary line encompassing most of the South China Sea. 

The United States does not recognize that line; neither do the other nations that border the sea, including Vietnam, which pulled the film from theaters. 

ESPN, a Disney subsidiary, displayed a similar map of China — showing what is known as the “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea — on a recent broadcast.
Comcast and Disney are, of course, free to advocate for the Chinese Communist Party’s position, and against the American and global consensus, in the continuing dispute over China’s international boundaries. 

But by all appearances, the decisions were both less principled and more pernicious: The companies acquiesced in China’s view of the world simply because that was the path of least resistance.
Some companies have tried to evade the issue by insisting they want to avoid politics altogether. Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of the California video game maker Activision Blizzard, banned a user for shouting “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” during an online tournament earlier this month, and confiscated $10,000 in winnings. 

The company, which later returned the money and commuted the ban to a six-month suspension, said it would have taken the same action if a player had shouted in opposition to the Hong Kong protesters. 

A rival company, the Los Angeles-based Riot Games, announced its own ban on political speech, warning players to “refrain from discussing” political issues, including the Hong Kong protests. (Tencent, a Chinese conglomerate, holds a 5 percent stake in Activision and owns the entirety of Riot.)
Companies face particular pressure on the internet because deference to physical geography is no longer a viable standard. 

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” has lost its meaning. 

On the internet, one is always at home and always in Rome, too. 

But there is, or should be, a critical point of difference between American and Chinese internet businesses. 

Corporations are the creatures of a particular state, however much their executives prefer to think of their operations as multinational. 

American companies choose to operate under the laws of the United States and to reap the benefits of life in the United States — and they ought to be held accountable for upholding the values of the United States. 

American companies should feel a responsibility for maintaining the right to free expression in the internet spaces they create and operate. 

Otherwise, they risk becoming the enforcers of a corporate regime of global censorship that takes its marching orders from Xi Jinping.
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, which is banned in China, said this week that the character of the internet must not be taken for granted. 

“Today, the state of the global internet around the world is primarily defined by American companies and platforms with strong free expression values. There’s just no guarantee that will win out over time.”
Facebook’s role as the private manager of the nation’s public square generates constant controversy, most recently over its refusal to prevent politicians from disseminating clear falsehoods. 

And the debate over its policies highlights the challenges and contradictions of America’s commitment to free expression. 

Yet Mr. Zuckerberg is undoubtedly correct that his imperfect company, along with other American tech giants, are the guardians of free expression on the internet. 

The responsibility of American companies is to maintain that commitment to free expression even if the price is not doing business in China.
It is a price The New York Times, and several other media companies, already pay.
Donald Trump has weakened the ability of American companies to stand up for American values, including free expression, by making clear he does not share those values and by failing to firmly oppose China’s demands. 

A White House spokeswoman last year described China’s order to airlines as “Orwellian nonsense,” but the administration, which has been so quick to threaten China with harsh consequences for its trade policies, did not defend the airlines by warning of similar consequences for China’s efforts to suppress free speech. 

If American companies are to stand up for American values, their own government should be in their corner.
Back in 2009, North Carolina State University canceled an appearance by the Dalai Lama, whom China regards as an enemy of the state. 

The explanation offered by the school’s provost, Warwick Arden, was memorably frank: “China is a major trading partner for North Carolina.” 

What Arden and the many Americans in positions of authority who have since followed him down that disgraceful path seem to forget is that North Carolina is also a major trading partner for China. 

Those fearing the loss of what the United States gets from China would do well to consider that China fears the loss of what it gets from the United States. 

And the government can buttress American companies by making clear that penalties for free speech will be met in kind. 

The proper response to a Chinese threat to prevent American planes from landing in China is to make clear that Chinese planes would not be allowed to land in the United States.
America also can strengthen its hand by making common cause with other nations that value free expression. 

China has placed similar pressure on the Italian company Versace; German companies, including Mercedes-Benz; and airlines from around the world.
America’s commitment to human rights, including the freedom of expression, has always required careful tending and firm resolve. 

It now faces an especially stern test. 

The world is watching — and talking.

China's Final Solution

UN religious freedom expert requests visit to East Turkestan
Reuters
Men pray at a mosque at the East Turkestan Islamic Institute during a government organised trip in Urumqi 

The United Nations investigator for religious freedom has asked China to let him visit its East Turkestan colony where some one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims are being kept in concentration camps.
Facing growing international opprobrium for what it calls "re-education and training centres", China has stepped up diplomatic efforts to fend off censure.
Defending its programme in the remote western region, China told diplomats recently that "absurd preachings" from "Islamist extremists" there had turned some people into "murderous devils".
"I have requested for a visit to go there because this a priority for me in terms of looking at what is happening there. There is reason to be seriously concerned about reports coming out of the East Turkestan colony," UN special rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed told a news briefing on Tuesday.
China has not yet replied to his February request, he said.
Shaheed, a former Maldives foreign minister, disclosed he was among several UN rights experts to write to China last November voicing anxiety at its programme targeting "extremism".
The letter is also signed by UN investigators on arbitrary detention, disappearances, freedom of expression, minority issues, and protecting rights while countering "terrorism".
"I wrote to China along with a couple of other rapporteurs on the 'de-extremification' law that they are implementing which has resulted in millions being interned," Shaheed said.
"The concerns we raised were first of all that the laws were overly broadly worded and were targeting essentially protected activities of communities, in terms of their right to thought, conscience and belief. So a whole range of violations occurring in these communities," he said.

Deaths in custody
The UN letter voices concern that China's regulation "targets Turkic Muslim ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities as well as Kazakh nationals" within a context of a "crackdown on the exercise of fundamental rights in East Turkestan".
It calls on Beijing to repeal the measure.
"There have been allegations of deaths in custody, physical and psychological abuse and torture, as well as lack of access to medical care," it said.
The Chinese regulation defines extremification as the "spreading of religious fanaticism through irregular beards or name selection", the letter said.
The law's stated aim to make "religion more Chinese" was unlawful, it added.
A bipartisan group of US legislators on Monday complained to the administration of Donald Trump that its response to abuses against China's Muslim minority was inadequate months after it said it was looking into imposing sanctions.

Tech Quisling

Google employees go public to protest China search engine Dragonfly

By Hamza Shaban

More than 90 Google employees have joined a petition protesting the company’s plans to build a search engine that complies with China’s online censorship regime. 

An employee-led backlash against the project has been churning for months at the company, but Tuesday’s petition marks the first time workers at Google have used their names in a public document objecting to the plans.
The existence of the project, code-named Dragonfly, was confirmed by chief executive Sundar Pichai last month. 

While China has long blocked search queries for what it has deemed politically sensitive material, Pichai said Google could still help Chinese Internet users steer away from scams.
But the project has drawn critics, who question Google’s corporate values and have raised concerns about the consequences of tech companies cooperating with authoritarian governments.
“Our opposition to Dragonfly is not about China: we object to technologies that aid the powerful in oppressing the vulnerable, wherever they may be,” stated the petition, published on Medium. 

“The Chinese government certainly isn’t alone in its readiness to stifle freedom of expression, and to use surveillance to repress dissent. Dragonfly in China would establish a dangerous precedent at a volatile political moment, one that would make it harder for Google to deny other countries similar concessions.”
Amnesty International, which launched a “day of action” Tuesday protesting Dragonfly, has pushed Pichai to drop the program and issued an open call for people to sign a petition.
“This is a watershed moment for Google,” Joe Westby, Amnesty International’s researcher on technology and human rights, said in a news release. 

“As the world’s number one search engine, it should be fighting for an Internet where information is freely accessible to everyone, not backing the Chinese government’s dystopian alternative.”
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this year, more than 1,400 Google employees signed an internal letter demanding more transparency and accountability on the ethics of company projects, citing Dragonfly as an initiative that was developed without employee input. 

“Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment,” the letter read.
Pichai has said that Google’s China-compliant search engine is not a done deal. “I take a long-term view of this,” he said during an event hosted by Wired in October. 

“And I think it’s important for us — given how important the market is, and how many users there are — we feel obliged to think hard about this problem and take a long-term view.”
If Google moves forward with Dragonfly, it could allow the company to reenter China’s online search market after nearly a decade.
But Google’s plans in China have drawn the scrutiny of U.S. lawmakers who have accused the company of being evasive about the prototype search engine. 

More broadly, the tech industry is facing an intense backlash over its data privacy practices, with some members of Congress proposing legislation that would place new restrictions on how tech companies collect and use customer data.

Oriental Despotism

Coming soon to a Hong Kong near you: creeping totalitarianism Chinese style

By Hemlock

Ten years ago in Hong Kong, any citizen could run for legislative elections with minimum fuss. 

It didn’t matter if new lawmakers added radical slogans to their oath of office. 

Activists and protesters generally accepted that law enforcement was impartial. 

Immigration officers allowed overseas human-rights activists into the city with no problem.
While some self-censorship was apparent in media and entertainment, the press was free, and no-one seriously claimed that expression of a mere opinion might be illegal.
Today in 2018, this is all changing. 

Hong Kong people are gradually losing rights they once took for granted. 

Another way of looking at it is that the sovereign power – the People’s Republic of China under the Chinese Communist Party – is reasserting and resuming its rights.

2014 – a turn for the worse
In retrospect, the rights situation for the first 15 years after the 1997 handover was fairly stable: Hong Kong made no meaningful progress towards democracy, but nor did it see its freedoms seriously deteriorate.
This changed in June 2014 when Beijing issued a ‘white paper’ on Hong Kong concerning the concepts of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and ‘high degree of autonomy’. 

Ever since the 1980s, Hong Kong officials had encouraged the notion that these phrases meant free and pluralistic Hong Kong would be insulated from the tightly controlled mainland system of government.
The white paper explained the correct understanding: that they were not fixed, absolute guarantees of Hong Kong’s constitutional status, but optional add-ons that China could adjust or remove at will. 

This was a restrictive new definition of their meaning (and local officials modified their use of the slogans accordingly).
This was followed up a few months later by an edict that Hong Kong could elect its chief executive only if Beijing chose who was on the ballot.
Pro-democracy opposition figures bitterly complained that Beijing was breaking past promises enshrined in the Basic Law. 

They missed the whole point of these imperial proclamations: that Hong Kong ultimately comes under and within the mainland system.
Indeed, when “interpreting” the Basic Law on several occasions since 1997, the Chinese government had established the principle that it could change the meaning of the law on a whim. 

Hong Kong had been under Communist-style “rule by law” all along, though Beijing had applied it sparingly.

A woman protests Beijing’s White Paper on Hong Kong at the July 1st pro-democracy march, 2014. 

Since 2014, the trend of “mainlandisation” has been unmistakable, though incremental. 

While the local administration implements the process (and insists nothing is really changing), it is obviously following directions from Beijing officials.
Some moves, like promoting patriotism in schools or banning disrespect for the national anthem, have been controversial but are arguably compatible with Hong Kong’s freedoms. 

The weakening of lawmakers’ powers (which were being “abused by troublemakers”), has even been popular.
But other measures clearly point to creeping authoritarianism. 

The once-impartial police and prosecutions services have started to arrest and prosecute opposition activists on protest-related charges that would not have been brought in earlier years. 

Radicals are disqualified from the legislative council and the ballot on political-test grounds.
By picking on radicals in ones or twos for apparently isolated transgressions, Beijing has chipped away at rights without creating much stir among the general public.
The Andy Chan/Hong Kong National Party affair is another step on this road, using the same tactic – attacking rights and freedoms by demonising and suppressing a “public menace” that uses them. 

But this specific case looks likely to represent a milestone.

The ‘Hong Kong independence’ scare
No-one doubts Chinese leaders’ phobia about separatism, but the HKNP issue is so contrived as to be visibly embarrassing to local officials.

By picking this particular target, Beijing’s Liaison Office and other officials are in the awkward position of trying to convince us that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is genuinely petrified of this geeky not-very-inspiring Hong Kong kid.
Assuming we don’t buy that, we must conclude that the whole exercise (extensive police surveillance, faux outrage from top officials) is a pretext for measures to curtail freedom of expression for everyone – an unprecedented step.
Most local media blandly echo the official rationale about “red lines” and national security threats. But by attacking the Foreign Correspondents Club for hosting Chan, Beijing’s people have made it an international story.
For the first time, the wider world perceives a threat to Hong Kong as a free society with rule of law – an image the local administration tries hard to protect.
The decision to create a panic out of the HKNP looks misjudged and potentially humiliating for the Hong Kong authorities. 

However, if we look at the wider context, we can see why Beijing is prepared to use the Andy Chan independence issue to tighten control over Hong Kong.

It’s not about Hong Kong
The year 2014 is associated with Hong Kong’s Occupy/Umbrella protest movement, and many observers see Beijing’s subsequent clampdown in the city as a response to that. 

This confuses – or at least oversimplifies – cause and effect
The prime mover here is Xi Jinping, who became general secretary of the CCP in 2012 and head of state and of the military in 2013. 

Foreign analysts initially welcomed the new leader as a likely moderniser and reformer (glamorous wife, and family suffered Cultural Revolution purging).
But as a son of a senior revolutionary and Mao-era figure, Xi is self-consciously of the CCP aristocracy. 

His policies since assuming power suggest that he sees himself as the saviour of a party that had become stagnant and lax and must now reassert far tighter control across an unruly society or fall from power. 

He can be seen as a counter-reformist.
Xi grew up in an era when there was essentially one newspaper, one radio station, and the whole Chinese population stayed put and were assigned jobs, homes and rations.
He seems to believe that he can restore that ideologically purer and regimented order and take China forward in terms of economic and technological progress and emergence as an Asian – if not global – superpower.
Xi has purged political rivals and tamed China’s murky uber-tycoons. 

The country is now several years into an ongoing clampdown on religion, the media, academia, civil society, independent lawyers, and other centres of power and incorrect thought and identity.
Hong Kong is a relatively small item on the list of Things to Rectify. 

But judging from policies like the East Turkestan re-education camps and hubristic propaganda efforts, Xi and his underlings are comfortable erring on the side of overkill. 

We can assume that the campaign against Hong Kong dissidents and the legal and constitutional rights that protect them will continue.

What next for Hong Kong?
The main player in Hong Kong is the Chinese government’s Liaison Office, which manages local United Front activities and guides the local administration of Carrie Lam. 

Its current priority is to use the ‘independence’ scare to restrict freedom of expression.

The China Liaison Office. 

The local administration, which must do the dirty work, comprises bureaucrats hand-picked by Beijing for their lack of ideas. 

While smugly indifferent to the city’s social problems, they take on the air of frightened hostages when reciting the Beijing line on sensitive issues. 

It may be that behind the scenes they urge their mainland overseers to go easy, but to no end.
The structure does not accommodate meaningful opposition. 

Interestingly, a few business and other pro-establishment figures are voicing concerns about overseas “misconceptions” that Hong Kong’s freedoms and rule of law are in decline – a coded warning that CCP heavy-handedness could harm business confidence.
Local representative politics is increasingly just ceremonial – Beijing obviously aims to make the legislative council a mainland-style rubber-stamp body. 

Older pro-democracy figures who work within this system are powerless. 

Radicals who are outside it face increasingly harsh treatment.
Some “moderates” are hinting that Hong Kong can have universal suffrage if it also finally passes the overdue national security laws required under Article 23 of the Basic Law. 

This linkage is absurd: Beijing has left no doubt that it cannot allow anything other than a phony election in Hong Kong.
The government could float the idea to entertain the mainstream pan-democrats, who can’t resist bickering over constitutional small-print, and to distract media attention.
But given Beijing’s apparent impatience, it is more likely that the government will just move ahead within a year or so to ban pro-independence talk and other thought-crimes. 

It could be via an Article 23 national security law, though this branding is toxic.
In practice, Beijing can impose whatever it wants by fiat – through Basic Law ‘interpretation’ or the sort of National People’s Congress edict used to legitimise the extension of mainland jurisdiction at the West Kowloon rail terminus. 

It makes little difference.

The idea that the courts can be a bulwark of local freedoms is sadly mistaken. 

If necessary, Beijing can use the interpretation loophole to override the judiciary. 

From Xi Jinping’s point of view, there is no reason why CCP-style “rule by law” should stop at the Shenzhen border. 

There is only one source of power in the PRC.
So this points to the banning of organisations for their views and formal curbs on freedom of expression in Hong Kong. 

The initial targets will no doubt be young radicals like Andy Chan. 

But once Beijing’s officials start declaring dangerous ideas off-limits, they will surely see redefining “red lines” as a necessary tool of control over the city.

There’s more to come
An obvious example would be to criminalise calls for the downfall of the CCP. 

Patriotic “grassroots” groups will loudly demand more such action against national "traitors". 

To ease the slide into censorship, we expect local telecoms companies to ‘voluntarily’ censor undesirable online content.
Institutions that are already bending with the wind in various ways – like the media, academia, professional associations, faith groups, even financial analysts – will continue to adapt through pre-emptive self-discipline.
How far does this go? 

Will Hong Kong media outlets be punished or closed for endangering national security? 

Will troublesome lawyers be arrested for subverting state power? 

Will we see outspoken student leaders making televised confessions? 

Will we be monitored by a “panopticon” internal security apparatus online and through facial recognition systems in public places (no doubt already installed in parts of the West Kowloon rail station)?
All we can say is that what sounded unthinkable 10 years ago is happening now.

Establishment optimists trust that mainlandisation will stop at damaging the business environment. Certainly, local bureaucrats cling to the city’s image as a global business hub.
But this is one area where the local administration and Beijing are not on the same wavelength. 

The Chinese leadership puts its own control before the reputation of an ex-colony’s courts and bureaucracy – or foreign companies’ confidence.
That said, corporate interests that Beijing wants to co-opt or reward (probably owned by ethnic Chinese) may find new opportunities arising from Hong Kong’s ‘integration’ with the mainland. 

The Chinese elites do value Hong Kong as a zone under PRC sovereignty that has no capital controls, but the CCP has no special affection or need for many of the city’s clusters of international professional skills.
Indeed, all the international, Cantonese and pre-1949 Chinese characteristics that make Hong Kong distinct from the mainland must ultimately give way to CCP-approved quasi-Confucian Han culture. Mandarin in schools or goose-step marching by uniformed groups are just a start.
Beijing’s long-term intention should be clear from the ongoing influx of mainland immigrants, the opening of new cross-border transport links, the pushing of a ‘Greater Bay Area’ conurbation and the growing campaign to encourage young Hongkongers to move north.
This is about symbolic, psychological and actual merging of Hong Kong and the mainland. 

If it sounds grandiose, it is just a small-scale version of the top-down demographic, cultural and infrastructural strategies that the CCP has used for decades to “Sinicise” the mainland’s Muslim, Tibetan and ethnic Korean regions.

A brief optimistic conclusion
The end point, in theory, is Hong Kong as another secure CCP-controlled part of the PRC. 

This implies that Xi Jinping’s vision for China as a whole becomes reality. 

And that assumes that tighter centralised control in such a vast nation is a sustainable model that will succeed – that you can have a modern and innovative and thriving society in which the state controls the allocation of capital, decides what news and opinions everyone hears, and tells the population how many children to have.

Whether China’s economy is fundamentally sound or frail right now is a state secret known only to a perhaps-tellingly paranoid leadership. 

But history strongly suggests that a dictatorship, Leninist/state-capitalist/strongman or otherwise, is not durable.
Hong Kong’s younger people – and their counterparts throughout China – will surely see a freer future one day. 

As the venerable Jerome Cohen recently said: “I’ve been studying China for almost 60 years. This too shall pass.”

Google Does Evil

WORLD’S HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS TELL GOOGLE TO CANCEL ITS CHINA CENSORSHIP PLAN
By Ryan Gallagher

LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS groups are calling on Google to cancel its plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, which they said would violate the freedom of expression and privacy rights of millions of internet users in the country.
A coalition of 14 organizations — including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, Access Now, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, PEN International, and Human Rights in China — issued the demand Tuesday in an open letter addressed to the internet giant’s CEO, Sundar Pichai. 

The groups said the censored search engine represents “an alarming capitulation by Google on human rights” and could result in the company “directly contributing to, or [becoming] complicit in, human rights violations.”
The letter is the latest major development in an ongoing backlash over the censored search platform, code-named Dragonfly, which was first revealed by The Intercept earlier this month. 

The censored search engine would remove content that China’s ruling Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. 

It would “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases, according to confidential Google documents.
Google launched a censored search engine in China in 2006, but ceased operating the service in the country in 2010, citing Chinese government efforts to limit free speech, block websites, and hack Google’s computer systems. 

The open letter released Tuesday asks Google to reaffirm the commitment it made in 2010 to no longer provide censored search in China.
“It is difficult not to conclude that Google is now willing to compromise its principles.”
The letter states: “If Google’s position has indeed changed, then this must be stated publicly, together with a clear explanation of how Google considers it can square such a decision with its responsibilities under international human rights standards and its own corporate values. Without these clarifications, it is difficult not to conclude that Google is now willing to compromise its principles to gain access to the Chinese market.”
The letter calls on Google to explain the steps it has taken to safeguard against human rights violations that could occur as a result of Dragonfly and raises concerns that the company will be “enlisted in surveillance abuses” because “users’ data would be much more vulnerable to [Chinese] government access.” 

Moreover, the letter said Google should guarantee protections for whistleblowers who speak out when they believe the company is not living up to its commitments on human rights. 

The whistleblowers “have been crucial in bringing ethical concerns over Google’s operations to public attention,” the letter states. 

“The protection of whistleblowers who disclose information that is clearly in the public interest is grounded in the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.”
GOOGLE HAS NOT yet issued any public statement about the China censorship, saying only that it will not address “speculation about future plans.” 

After four weeks of sustained reporting on Dragonfly, Google has not issued a single response to The Intercept and it has refused to answer dozens of questions from reporters on the issue. 

The company’s press office did not reply to a request for comment on this story.
It is not only journalists, however, who Google has ignored in the wake of the revelations. 

Amnesty International researchers told The Intercept they set up a phone call with the company to discuss concerns about Dragonfly, but they were stonewalled by members of Google’s human rights policy team, who said they would not talk about “leaks” of information related to the Chinese censorship. 

The open letter slams Google’s lack of public engagement on the matter, stating that the company’s “refusal to respond substantively to concerns over its reported plans for a Chinese search service falls short of the company’s purported commitment to accountability and transparency.”
Google is a member of the Global Network Initiative, or GNI, a digital rights organization that works with a coalition of companies, human rights groups, and academics. 

All members of the GNI agree to implement a set of principles on freedom of expression and privacy, which appear to prohibit complicity in the sort of broad censorship that is widespread in China. 

The principles state that member companies must “respect and work to protect the freedom of expression rights of users” when they are confronted with government demands to “remove content or otherwise limit access to communications, ideas and information in a manner inconsistent with internationally recognized laws and standards.”
Following the revelations about Dragonfly, sources said, members of the GNI’s board of directors – which includes representatives from Human Rights Watch, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Committee to Protect Journalists – confronted Google representatives in a conference call about its censorship plans. 

But the Google officials were not responsive to the board’s concerns or forthcoming with information about Dragonfly, which caused frustration and anger within the GNI.
Every two years, members of the GNI are assessed for compliance with the group’s principles. 

One source said that Google’s conduct is due to be reviewed this year, and it is likely that its Chinese censorship plans will be closely scrutinized through that process. 

If the company is found to have violated the GNI’s principles its status as a member of the organization could potentially be revoked.
Inside Google, the company’s intense secrecy on Dragonfly has exacerbated tensions between employees and managers. 

Rank-and-file staff have circulated a letter saying that the project represents a moral and ethical crisis, and they have told bosses that they “urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table, and a commitment to clear and open processes.”
Pichai, Google’s CEO, told employees during a meeting on August 16 that he would “be transparent as we get closer to actually having a plan of record” and portrayed Dragonfly as an “exploratory” project. 

However, documents seen by The Intercept show that the project has been in development since early 2017, and the infrastructure to launch it has already been built. 

Last month, Google’s search engine chief Ben Gomes told employees working on Dragonfly that they should have the censored search engine ready to be “brought off the shelf and quickly deployed.”
Gomes informed the employees working on Dragonfly that the company was aiming to release the censored search platform within six to nine months, but that the schedule could change suddenly due to an ongoing U.S. trade war with China, which had slowed down Google’s negotiations with officials in Beijing, whose approval Google needs to launch the search engine. 

Sources said Gomes joked about the unpredictability of President Donald Trump while discussing the potential date the company would be able to roll out the censored search.
“This is a world none of us have ever lived in before,” Gomes said, according to the sources. 

“We need to be focused on what we want to enable, and then when the opening happens, we are ready for it.”

The Chinese Ogre

Australian Furor Over Chinese Influence Follows Book’s Delay

By JACQUELINE WILLIAMS

An uproar followed an Australian publisher’s decision to postpone the release of a book by Clive Hamilton, who says Beijing is actively working to silence China’s critics.

SYDNEY, Australia — The book was already being promoted as an explosive exposé of Chinese influence infiltrating the highest levels of Australian politics and media. 

But then, months before it was set to hit bookstore shelves, its publisher postponed the release, saying it was worried about lawsuits.
The decision this month to delay the book, “Silent Invasion: How China Is Turning Australia into a Puppet State,” has set off a national uproar, highlighting the tensions between Australia’s growing economic dependence on China and its fears of falling under the political control of the rising Asian superpower.
Critics have drawn parallels to decisions this year by high-profile academic publishers in Europe to withhold articles from readers in China that might anger the Communist Party.
But the case has struck a particularly sensitive nerve in Australia, where the book’s delay is the latest in a series of incidents that have raised concerns about what many here see as the threat from China to freedom of expression.

“The decision by Allen & Unwin to stall publication of this book almost proves the point that there’s an undue level of Chinese influence in Australia,” said Prof. Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University. Allen & Unwin is one of Australia’s largest publishers.
In the yet-unpublished book, the author, Clive Hamilton, a well-known intellectual and professor at Charles Sturt University in Australia, describes what he calls an orchestrated campaign by Beijing to influence Australia and silence China’s critics.
In one chapter, according to Mr. Hamilton, the book asserts that senior Australian journalists were taken on junkets to China in order to “shift their opinions” so they would present China in a more positive light.

Mr. Hamilton says the company that was set to publish his book expressed concerns about possible lawsuits by Beijing.

In another chapter, he said the book details what he calls links between Australian scientists and researchers at Chinese military universities, which he said had led to a transfer of scientific know-how to the People’s Liberation Army.
The book had been scheduled to be published in April, and Mr. Hamilton had already turned in a manuscript. 

But Allen & Unwin, based in Sydney, suddenly informed him on Nov. 2 that it wanted to postpone publishing because of legal concerns.
Mr. Hamilton responded by demanding the return of the publication rights, effectively canceling the book’s publication by Allen & Unwin. 

Mr. Hamilton says he will seek another publisher.
Mr. Hamilton said the decision had been made for fear of angering Beijing, and shows China’s ability to limit what information Australians can see — exactly the sort of influence that he said he warned about in his book.
“This is the first case, I believe, where a major Western publisher has decided to censor material critical of China in its home country,” Mr. Hamilton said in an interview. 

“Many people are deeply offended by this attack on free speech, and people see a basic value that defines Australia being undermined.”
In a statement, the publisher said it decided to hold off publishing the book, which would have been Mr. Hamilton’s ninth with the company, until “certain matters currently before the courts have been decided.”
It did not specify what those matters were.
“Clive was unwilling to delay publication and requested the return of his rights,” the statement said.
However, Mr. Hamilton has disclosed an email that he said was sent to him on Nov. 8 by Allen & Unwin’s chief executive, Robert Gorman. 

The email explained the decision to delay the book’s release: “April 2018 was too soon to publish the book and allow us to adequately guard against potential threats to the book and the company from possible action by Beijing.”
“Our lawyer pointed to recent legal attacks by Beijing’s agents of influence against mainstream Australian media organizations,” the email said.
The contents of the email have been widely reported by the local news media. 

When asked for comment, Allen & Unwin declined to confirm or deny its authenticity. 

Mr. Gorman has not gone public to deny the email’s authenticity.
Mr. Hamilton said the publisher was probably referring to two defamation cases that are currently in the courts aimed at two Australian media companies: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a major television company, and Fairfax Media, a newspaper publisher.
One of the suits was filed by Chau Chak Wing, a Chinese-Australian businessman who has been a major donor in Australian politics. 

Chinese fifth column: Chinese agent Chau Chak Wing.

Chau is seeking damages from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for a TV news report that the suit says damaged his personal and professional reputation.

That report, which was shown on a popular current affairs program, said the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the domestic spy agency, had warned political parties against accepting contributions from two ethnic Chinese, of whom one was Chau, because of ties to the Chinese government.
Chau has long said his campaign contributions are entirely "legal" and "unrelated" to the Chinese government.
The news report prompted a heated debate in Australia over how vulnerable its democratic political system is to foreign influence, especially from China.
The question of Chinese interference is a delicate one for Australia, an American ally that has embraced Beijing as its largest trade partner and welcomed Chinese investors, immigrants and students in large numbers.
“The book shows in great detail the problem of Chinese influence in Australia is much deeper than we thought,” said Mr. Hamilton, a prolific author who in 2009 received the Order of Australia, one of the country’s highest honors, for “service to public debate and policy development.” 

“I think some of the material I’ve uncovered have been a shock even to our intelligence agencies,” he said.
James Leibold, a professor of politics and Asian studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, said the decision to withhold such a book, especially one written by a noted author like Mr. Hamilton, underscored China’s growing ability to pressure publishers and other media companies.
Last month, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, came under criticism for self-censorship after it bowed to Chinese government requests to block hundreds of articles on its Chinese website that touched on delicate topics like Taiwan, Tibet and Chinese politics.
In August, another publisher, Cambridge University Press, admitted to removing some 300 articles from the Chinese website of China Quarterly, an academic journal, that mentioned issues like the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
Experts say Allen & Unwin, the Australian publisher, has gone a step further by delaying access to a book to readers outside of China.
“Australia is a bellwether,” said Professor Medcalf of National Security College. 

“If dissent can be stifled here, then it can be stifled anywhere.”

Amnesty International launches campaign to stop censorship of publications in China

By Lucy Bourton

Last week Amnesty International in partnership with Brand Union and Oglivy & Mather Hong Kong launched Every freedom needs a fighter, a multi-tiered anti-censorship initiative. 

The initiative includes a pop-up bookstore, supporting collateral and time-lapse films to be screened on Hong Kong’s buses.
The reasoning for the initiative looks back to 2016 when five booksellers were abducted from Hong Kong’s border. 

Blindfolded and imprisoned, they spent time in solitary confinement for selling publications that were critical of the Beijing establishment.
Their imprisonment was against Article 27 a basic law which allows Hong Kong residents to “have freedom of speech, of the press and of publication; freedom of association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration; and the right and freedom to form and join trade unions, and to strike”. 

The initiative by Amnesty International shines a light back on this law through a bookstore which took place 16-17 February, which featured over 1000 redacted books, free to browse or to buy for a donation of HK$27.
This campaign is part of Amnesty Carnival from 16-26 February involving 53 prominent global artists focusing on freedom of expression.

Salman Rushdie leads World Human Rights Day protest for Chinese writers

Author joins 120 others including JM Coetzee, Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman denouncing ‘the enforced silence of these friends and colleagues’
By Sian Cain

A protester with tape on his mouth stands in front of a noose that reads: ‘Kidnapping’ during a protest on 10 January over the Causeway Bay booksellers’ disappearances.

Salman Rushdie, JM Coetzee, Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman are among more than 120 authors and activists calling on Xi Jinping to reverse his government’s fierce crackdown on writers and dissidents.
The number of detained and imprisoned writers in China is among the highest in the world. 

In an open letter released by freedom of speech group PEN International, and published in the Guardian on World Human Rights Day, the signatories condemn the constriction of freedom of expression by Chinese authorities and say they “cannot stand by as more and more of our friends and colleagues are silenced”.
The letter, which is also signed by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Yann Martel, singles out the cases of several individuals, including Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who is serving 11 years in prison; Liu’s wife, the poet Liu Xia, who has lived under house arrest in Beijing since 2010 despite never being accused of a crime; Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti, who is currently serving a life sentence in prison; journalist Gao Yu, who is currently under house arrest after serving almost two years in prison; and Gui Minhai, one of the five booksellers and publishers who disappeared in late 2015 after the Causeway Bay Bookstore in Hong Kong was raided for selling sensitive titles about Chinese politicians.
While the other four men have since been released on bail, Gui, a Swedish citizen, has not been seen publicly since January when he made a brief, tearful “confession” on state television about a hit-and-run accident in 2003. 

Gui’s daughter, Angela Gui told the Guardian that the Swedish embassy had told her they had seen her father in Beijing in March.
The letter also calls for the release of imprisoned members of the Independent Chinese PEN centre. Three ICPC members were detained for praying to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, while seven other members are currently in prison, including former president of the ICPC Liu Xiaobo.
“The enforced silence of these friends and colleagues is deafening, and the disappearance of their voices has left a world worse off for this egregious injustice and loss,” the letter reads.
In June, ICPC members Lü Gengsong and Chen Shuqing were sentenced to more than 10 years each in prison, on charges of subversion for publishing pro-democracy essays on foreign websites, as well as promoting the banned Chinese Democratic Party. 

The two members were sentenced in Hangzhou, the eastern Chinese city that hosted the G20 in September. 

The harshness of their sentencing was attributed to a wider crackdown on writers and intellectuals in the lead-up to the global event. 

Since he came to power, Xi has overseen Operation Fox Hunt, repatriating Chinese fugitives abroad and bringing them to the mainland to face charges, usually of corruption.
“Today we call for their words to reverberate across the globe as we commit to fighting for their freedom until China heeds our call. On days like today, we have to reaffirm our refusal not to be complicit in their silence. We have to use our own words to give power to theirs,” the letter states. 

“China and the rest of the world can only be enriched by these opinions and voices. We therefore urge the Chinese authorities to release the writers, journalists, and activists who are languishing in jail or kept under house arrest for the crime of speaking freely and expressing their opinions.”

Salman Rushdie

Time for China to release writers, journalists and activists

Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti during his trial on separatism charges in Urumqi, Xinjiang region, in September 2014. He is currently serving a life sentence. 

Today, on World Human Rights Day, our Pen International community of writers, readers, activists and publishers condemn the Chinese authorities’ sustained and increasing attack on free expression and call for an immediate end to China’s worsening crackdown on fundamental human rights.
We cannot stand by as more and more of our friends and colleagues are silenced. 

Where is the voice of Ilham Tohti, the Uighur scholar and Pen member currently serving a life sentence, when his life’s work has been about creating peace and dialogue in China? 

Where is the voice of veteran journalist Gao Yu, who spent close to two years in prison and is now under house arrest? 

Where is the voice of publisher Gui Minhai, who disappeared from his holiday home in Thailand and is now being held incommunicado? 

Where is the voice of Nobel peace laureate and former president of the Independent Chinese Pen Centre, Liu Xiaobo, serving an 11-year prison sentence and the voice of his wife, the poet Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest for over six years without even having been accused of a crime?
These writers represent the many critical voices across China currently being silenced, including the imprisoned and persecuted members of the Independent Chinese Pen Centre: Yang Tongyan, Zhu Yufu, Lü Gengsong, Chen Shuqing, Hu Shigen, Qin Yongmin, Liu Yanli and Liu Feiyue; and honorary members Zhang Haitao, Sun Feng, Lu Yuyu, Li Tingyu, Huang Qi and Su Changlan. 

The enforced silence of these friends and colleagues is deafening, and the disappearance of their voices has left a world worse off for this egregious injustice and loss.
Today we call for their words to reverberate across the globe as we commit to fighting for their freedom until China heeds our call. 

On days like today we have to reaffirm our refusal not to be complicit in their silence. 

We have to use our own words to give power to theirs.
China and the rest of the world can only be enriched by these opinions and voices. 

We therefore urge the Chinese authorities to release the writers, journalists and activists who are languishing in jail or kept under house arrest for the crime of speaking freely and expressing their opinions.
We urge them to uphold freedom of expression and all human rights.

Abraham Zere          Pen Eritrea
William Nygaard     Pen Norway
Adriaan van Dis
Ah Phyu Yaung Shwe
Aleid Truijens
Alejandro Sánchez-Aizcorbe       Peruvian Pen
Alexander McCall Smith             Pen Writers Circle
Anders Heger                               Pen International
Andrew Solomon                         Pen America
Anna Nasiłowska                         Polish Pen
Annika Thor                                 Swedish Pen
Anotnio Della Rocca                   Pen Trieste
Baoqiang Sun
Burhan Sönmez                           Pen Writers Circle
Carles Torner                               Pen International
Carme Arenas                              Pen Catala
Catherine Vuylsteke
Chaw Ei Mahn
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chit Kyi Aye
Christine Otten
Chu Cai
Colm Toibin                                Pen Writers Circle
De Novo
Depu He
Dr Mirror (Taung-gyi)
Elif Shafak                                  Pen Writers Circle
Eugene Schoulgin                       Pen International
Feng Hu
Fiona Graham                             Scottish Pen
Frank Mackay Anim-Appiah      Pen Ghana
Ghareeb Asqalani
Gloria Guardia                            Pen International
Go Go Mawlamyaing
Guozhen Xiao
Hakan Günday                           Pen Writers Circle
Han Zaw
Hanan Al Shaykh                       Pen Writers Circle
Hanan Awwad                            Pen Palestine
Htar Oak Thon
Iman Humaydan                         Pen Lebanon
Isabel Allende                             Pen Writers Circle
Jennifer Clement                         Pen International
Jianguo Zha
Jianhong Li
Jianhua Li
Jianzhen Qi
Jiro Asada                                    Japan Pen
JM Coetzee
Joanne Leedom-Ackermon          Pen International
Judyth Hill                                    Pen San Miguel
July Moe
Juraj Šebesta                                Slovak Pen
Khin Aung Aye
Khin Mg Oo
Khin Moe Shwe
Khin Mya Zin
Kyar Phyu New
Kyaw Zin Ko Ko
Kyawt Darli Lin
Lebao Wu
Let Yar Tun
Liyong Sun
Lucina Kathmann                              Pen International
Ma Thida                                           Pen International
Magali Tercero                                  Pen Mexico
Magda Carneci                                  Pen Romania
Manon Uphoff
Margaret Atwood                              Pen Writers Circle
Margie Orford                                   Pen South Africa
May Zun Aye
Mi Chan Wai
Michelle Franke                               Pen Centre USA
Mingmin Lin
Mircea Cartarescu
Mohamed Sheriff                            Pen International
Moris Farhi                                     Pen International
Mya Thway Ni
Myat Lwin Lwin Aung
Myat Su Lwin
Myay Hmone Lwin
Myo Myint Nyein                           Pen Myanmar
Nan Kyar Phyu
Nedzad Ibrahimovic                       Pen Bosnia-Herzegovina
Neil Gaiman
Nguyên Hoàng Bao                       Viêt Pen Suisse Romand
Ngwe Kyel Sin
Nyi Pu Lay
Pandora
Per Øhrgaard                                Danish Pen
Per Wästberg                                Pen International
Ping Hu
Randy Boyagoda                          Pen Canada
Regula Venske                              Pen Germany
Renate Dorrestein
Salil Tripathi                                Pen International
Salman Rushdie                           Pen Writers Circle
Samay Hamed                             Afghan Pen
Saw Wai
Shiying Zhao
Shwe Eain Si May
Shwe Naung Yoe
Sirpa Kähkönen                          Finnish Pen
Sjón                                            Icelandic Pen
Sofi Oksanen                              Pen Writers Circle
Suu Mie Aung
Suzanne Nossel                         Pen America
Syeda Aireen Jaman                 Pen Bangladesh
Thet Wai Hnin (Aung Lan)
Tienchi Liao                             Independent Chinese Pen Centre
Tung Van Vu                            Vietnamese Abroad Pen Centre
Vida Ognjenovic                      Pen Serbia
Vonne van der Meer                 Pen Netherlands
Waheed Warasta                       Pen Afghanistan
Wenxiu Lin
Willem Jan Otten
Yann Martel                             Pen International
Ye Shan
Yeliang Xia
Yongmei Cai
Yrsa Sigurdardóttir
Yu Zhang
Zeynep Oral                             Pen Turkey
Zhao Chen
Zwel

Human Rights Day: US and EU call on China to release political prisoners

‘I remain extremely concerned about the ongoing detention of Chinese lawyers,’ the US ambassador to China says

By Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong

More than half a dozen political prisoners in China should freed, the United States and European Union have said, citing a deteriorating human rights situation that has seen hundreds lawyers and activists detained in the past year.
Since coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping has presided over a wide-ranging crackdown on freedom of expression, rights lawyers, feminists, activists and religion. 

About 250 lawyers and activists were detained by police starting in July last year in what some have called a “war on law”.
“I remain extremely concerned about the ongoing detention of Chinese lawyers,” Max Baucus, the US ambassador to China, said in a statement. 

“China’s treatment of these lawyers and advocates calls into question its commitment to the rule of law.”
Crusading attorneys Li Heping, Wang Quanzhang, Xie Yang and Xie Yanyi all remain remain behind bars, and Baucus singled out their cases and called for their release. 

The EU echoed many of the same sentiments and highlighted the same jailed lawyers.
“We urge China to immediately release any individual who has been detained … for seeking to exercise, protect or promote their own rights or the rights of others,” the EU statement said.
The US and EU made the calls to mark Human Rights Day, a United Nations holiday commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which China signed.
“During the past year, we have been extremely troubled about the deterioration of the situation with respect to freedom of expression and association,” the EU statement said.
“We are equally concerned about all human rights defenders and their family members who have been harassed and punished because of their work in promoting rights which are protected in China’s Constitution and international law.”
Both the US and EU called for Nobel Peace prize laureate and democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, who has been in prison since 2008, to be freed.
Tashi Wangchuk, a jailed Tibetan language advocate, was also mentioned by both governments. 

His case is emblematic of the hardline stance China has taken towards ethnic minorities who do not toe the Communist party line. 

Another victim of those policies is Ilham Tohti, a Muslim Uighur academic sentenced to life in prison, who the EU said should be released.
“I can tell you that China’s approach to human rights directly impacts our overall bilateral relationship,” Baucus said. 

“While other countries celebrate when their citizens win the Nobel Peace prize, Chinese Peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo remains jailed.”
The strongly-worded statement on human rights from the US may be its last for a while, Chinese activists worry. 

They fear president-elect Donald Trump will pull back from defending right around the world.
Curiously absent from the EU statement was Gui Minhai, a Swedish national and publisher of books critical of China’s leaders, who was abducted from Thailand a year ago. 

He later appeared in China, giving a televised “confession”.
More than 120 authors also took the opportunity of Human Rights Day to call on Xi to his end his government’s fierce crackdown on writers and dissidents, with the authors saying they “cannot stand by as more and more of our friends and colleagues are silenced”.

An Exiled Editor Traces the Roots of Democratic Thought in China

Xi Jinping wants to revive the personality cult and dictatorship of that era, so he’s particularly unwilling for people to reflect on the Cultural Revolution.

By LUO SILING

Hu Ping, seated, speaking at Peking University in 1980. He rejects the idea that democracy is a foreign concept in China and therefore inappropriate.

Hu Ping is the editor of the pro-democracy journal Beijing Spring, based in New York. 

But in 1975, he was 28 and living in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, a recently returned “educated youth” who had been sent down to labor in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution.
While waiting to be assigned to a new workplace, he wrote an essay that would become a classic of modern Chinese liberalism. 

The essay, “On Freedom of Speech,” could at first be circulated only through handwritten posters on the city’s streets. 

In 1979 it appeared in the underground magazine Fertile Soil, and it went on to influence a generation of democracy advocates.
Mr. Hu was admitted to Peking University in 1978 and in 1980 was elected as a delegate to the local people’s congress. 

In 1987, he began doctoral studies at Harvard, then moved to New York a year later to serve as chairman of an organization supporting China’s burgeoning democracy movement. 

The Chinese government canceled his passport, consigning him to exile.
In his new book — “Why Did Mao Zedong Launch the Cultural Revolution?,” published in Taiwan by Asian Culture — Mr. Hu argues that contemporary Chinese concepts of democracy and freedom are not imports from the West, but a response to political oppression at home and a growing appreciation of the need for restraints on state power. 

In an interview, Mr. Hu discussed how the Cultural Revolution shaped his thinking, the unexpected course of Xi Jinping’s career and why he rejects assertions that democracy is a foreign concept and therefore inappropriate for China.

How did the Cultural Revolution shape your political thinking?
My generation was imbued with official ideology from childhood. 

As a supporter of communist theory and the communist system, I enthusiastically participated in the Cultural Revolution at first. 

But I became very disillusioned by the extreme brutality that emerged during the movement, especially because the vast majority of victims were targeted merely for expressing alternative views. I myself was denounced more than once because I had different views stemming from my disgust at the persecution of people for speech crimes. 

This led me to gradually form a concept of freedom of expression.
Later I went to the United States and read Harvard Prof. Judith N. Shklar’s essay “The Liberalism of Fear.” 

Professor Sklar pointed out that modern Western liberalism arose from a revulsion against religious and political persecution and led to an insistence on protecting human rights and limiting political power.

“Why Did Mao Zedong Launch the Cultural Revolution?”

The Chinese rediscovery of liberalism was based on a very similar experience. 

The Cultural Revolution gave rise to a widespread and deep-seated horror that led a few people to formulate an explicit concept of freedom and gave the majority the desire and basis to accept this concept. 

Even quite a few Communist leaders developed an appreciation for freedom because of their personal suffering.

For example?
One example is Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun, who was purged in a literary inquisition in the 1960s but re-emerged after Mao died [in 1976]. 

While serving as vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Xi Zhongxun proposed drafting a “law protecting alternative views.” 

He said the history of the Chinese Communist Party demonstrated the disastrous consequences of suppressing dissident opinions.
The prevailing view at that time was that it was wrong to treat “opposing the party and opposing socialism” as a crime because there was no clear standard for what constituted opposition, and any alternative political viewpoint should be tolerated. 

Xi Zhongxun probably had never read John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Isaiah Berlin or Friedrich Hayek. 

His concept of tolerance and freedom arose mainly from personal experience, especially the horrors of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and his reflections on that experience.

How would you compare the liberalism of the 1980s with political thought after the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen movement?
The failure of the 1989 democracy movement made ordinary people negative or indifferent toward politics, and cynicism ran wild. 

This created a strange phenomenon: The concept of liberalism spread much wider than before 1989 but carried far less power. 

In the years since 1989, although there have been quite a few liberal scholars, dissidents and rights defense lawyers making heroic efforts to practice and promote the concept of freedom — beginning with the concept of freedom of speech — harsh political suppression and an indifferent social climate have prevented a breakthrough and made it very difficult to build up the kind of social mobilization that existed in the 1980s.

Hu Ping, the editor of Beijing Spring, in New York in 2013. “I enthusiastically participated in the Cultural Revolution at first,” he said. “But I became very disillusioned by the extreme brutality that emerged during the movement.” 

With political reform now stalled or even in retreat, some people in China are worried about a recurrence of the Cultural Revolution. Why has Xi Jingping declined to follow the example of his father in promoting democratic change and instead concentrated power even further?
The Cultural Revolution in its strictest sense can never occur again. 

The fact that people are worried about its recurrence reflects how Xi Jinping has strengthened dictatorial rule, suppressed civil society and tightened controls over expression. 

In the past, many people thought that Xi Jinping might have inherited his father’s open-mindedness, little imagining that once he took power, his manner and actions would make him more like Mao’s grandson than Xi Zhongxun’s son. 

Xi Zhongxun proposed drafting a “law to protect alternative views,” whereas Xi Jinping has banned “improper discussion” [of central party policies].
Many people once believed that economic development and the growth of a middle class in China would be accompanied by progress in human rights. 

But by the logic of the Chinese government, economic development was built on the suppression of human rights, so how can it now abandon this suppression?
In other words, the Chinese government thinks: “We’ve only done so well because we’ve been so bad. If we hadn’t been so bad, things wouldn’t be so good.”

Your generation’s experience of the Cultural Revolution fostered the emergence of politically liberal ideas in China. Could remembrance of the Cultural Revolution contribute to the development of liberalism and political change today?
A sensitive topic such as the Cultural Revolution should become less sensitive with the passage of time, and the authorities should be expected to gradually relax restrictions on discussion of the Cultural Revolution. 

But the reality is just the opposite: The authorities are controlling discussion of the Cultural Revolution even more harshly than they did 10 or 20 years ago. 
Xi Jinping wants to revive the personality cult and dictatorship of that era, so he’s particularly unwilling for people to reflect on the Cultural Revolution.

Half a century has passed since the Cultural Revolution was set in motion, and the “young militants” of that time are entering their twilight years. 

As the authorities continue to suppress discussion of the Cultural Revolution, the average person, especially the young, has only the vaguest impression of that time. 

Throw in the events and changes China has experienced in recent decades, and the collective experience of the Cultural Revolution has become less of a force for promoting China’s liberalization. 

Even so, we have to keep at it.
It is a lack of freedom that allows us to understand what freedom is. 

It is in ourselves that we discover why people have been willing to risk so much for freedom. 

Taking a further step toward joint action, we discover that we are not alone and that our voices can resonate far and wide. 

We don’t start out believing that an unseen force guarantees freedom’s victory, but we fight for it all the same.