U.S. House Approves Uighur Bill Demanding Sanctions On Senior Chinese Officials

The bill requires the U.S. president to condemn abuses against Muslims and call for the closure of concentration camps in the northwestern colony of East Turkestan.

Reuters


WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would require the Trump administration to toughen its response to China’s crackdown on its Muslim minority, demanding sanctions on senior Chinese officials and export bans.
The Uighur Act of 2019 is a stronger version of a bill that angered Beijing when it passed the Senate in September.

It calls on President Donald Trump to impose sanctions for the first time on a member of China’s powerful politburo, even as he seeks a trade deal with Beijing.

The bill, passed 407 to 1 in the House, requires the U.S. president to condemn abuses against Muslims and call for the closure of concentration camps in the northwestern colony of East Turkestan.
It calls for sanctions against senior Chinese officials who are responsible and specifically names East Turkestan Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, who, as a politburo member, is in the upper echelons of China’s leadership.

The revised bill still has to be approved by the Senate before being sent to President Trump. 

The White House has yet to say whether Trump would sign or veto the bill, which contains a provision allowing the president to waive sanctions if he determines this to be in the national interest.
The White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The bill comes days after President Trump signed into law congressional legislation supporting anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
China responded to that on Monday by saying U.S. military ships and aircraft would not be allowed to visit Hong Kong, and announced sanctions against several U.S. non-government organizations.
Analysts say China’s reaction to passage of the Uighur bill could be stronger, though some doubted it would go so far as imposing visa bans on the likes of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has called China’s treatment of Uighurs “the stain of the century”.

“MODERN-DAY CONCENTRATION CAMPS”
Republican Congressman Chris Smith called China’s actions in “modern-day concentration camps” in East Turkestan “audaciously repressive,” involving “mass internment of millions on a scale not seen since the Holocaust.”

“We cannot be silent. We must demand an end to these barbaric practices,” Smith said, adding that Chinese officials must be held accountable for “crimes against humanity.”

Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called China’s treatment of the Uighurs “an outrage to the collective conscience of the world.”
“America is watching,” she said.
Chris Johnson, a China expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said passage of the bill could lead to a further blurring of lines between the trade issue and the broader deteriorating Sino-U.S. relationship, which China in the past has tended to keep separate.
“I think there’s a sort of piling on factor here that the Chinese are concerned about,” he said.
President Trump said on Monday the Hong Kong legislation did not make trade negotiations with China easier, but he still believed Beijing wanted a deal.
However, on Tuesday, he said an agreement might have to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2020.
The House bill requires the president to submit to Congress within 120 days a list of officials responsible for the abuses and to impose sanctions on them under the Global Magnitsky Act, which provides for visa bans and asset freezes.
Democratic lawmaker Brad Sherman said it was “long past the point when this should have been done,” adding: “It should not be linked to ongoing negotiations on trade or any other issues.”
The bill also requires the secretary of state to submit a report on abuses in East Turkestan, to include assessments of the numbers held in re-education and forced labor camps. 

United Nations experts and activists say at least 1 million Uighurs and members of other largely Muslim minority groups have been detained in the camps.
It also effectively bans the export to China of items that can be used for surveillance of individuals, including facial and voice-recognition technology.

Duty of Interference to Support Democracy and Human Rights

President Trump signs bill supporting Hong Kong protesters 
By Andrew O'Reilly

President Trump signs Hong Kong bill.

President Trump on Wednesday signed two bills meant to support human rights and pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, drawing a furious response from Beijing's foreign ministry.

The bills were signed as Hong Kong continues to be gripped by turmoil amid widespread discontent over Chinese rule in the special administrative region. 

Chinese officials had hoped President Trump would veto the bill and the president had expressed some concerns about complicating the effort to work out a trade deal with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.
"Look, we have to stand with Hong Kong," Trump said in an interview on "Fox & Friends" last week, later adding: "But I'm also standing with President Xi. He's a friend of mine. He's an incredible guy."
The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act mandates sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials who carry out human rights abuses and requires an annual review of the favorable trade status that Washington grants Hong Kong. 

The second bill prohibits export to Hong Kong police of certain nonlethal munitions, including tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, water cannons, stun guns and tasers.
"The act reaffirms and amends the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, specifies United States policy towards Hong Kong, and directs assessment of the political developments in Hong Kong,” Trump said in a statement.
He added: “Certain provisions of the Act would interfere with the exercise of the President's constitutional authority to state the foreign policy of the United States. My administration will treat each of the provisions of the Act consistently with the president's constitutional authorities with respect to foreign relations.”
The munitions bill was passed unanimously, while Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was the sole House member to oppose the human rights bill. 

Before Wednesday's signing announcement, Trump would only commit to giving the measures a "hard look."

Hong Kong kept its advantageous trading status with the U.S. upon its 1997 handover to China by the U.K., in recognition of Beijing’s pledge to allow it to retain its own laws, independent judiciary and civil and economic freedoms.
That independent status has come into question amid moves by Beijing to gradually strengthen its political control over the territory, helping spark months of increasingly violent protests.
Earlier in November, China’s legislature argued it had the sole right to interpret the validity of Hong Kong’s laws after the territory’s court struck down an order banning the wearing of masks at protests. 

Legal scholars described that as a power grab violating the governing framework known as “one country, two systems.”
With Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed government refusing to enter into dialogue or make concessions, the territory’s police force has been given broad powers to quell the protests. 

That has brought excessive use of force and the abuse of detainees, along with a complete lack of accountability for officers.
In a September report, Amnesty International documented numerous cases where protesters had to be hospitalized for treatment of injuries inflicted while being arrested.
The signing of the act was widely praised by both Democrat and Republican lawmakers.
"If America does not speak out for human rights in China because of commercial interests, we lose all moral authority to speak out elsewhere," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. 

“This bicameral, bipartisan law reaffirms our nation’s commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the face of Beijing’s crackdown. America is proud to stand with the people of Hong Kong on the side of freedom and justice.
“I am pleased that the President signed this legislation and look forward to its prompt enforcement.”
“The signing of this legislation into law ensures the United States finally sends a clear and unequivocal message to the people of Hong Kong: We are with you,” Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. 

“With the world standing witness to history as the people of Hong Kong risk it all in pursuit of their legitimate aspirations for autonomy and against the erosion of democracy, I am incredibly proud to support the people of Hong Kong with the tools in this powerful new law.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., added: I applaud President Trump for signing this critical legislation into law. The U.S. now has new and meaningful tools to deter further influence and interference from Beijing into Hong Kong’s internal affairs.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho said the bills are "an important step forward in holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy and its repression of fundamental human rights." 

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., warned Xi: "Americans despise tyrants and stand in solidarity with Hong Kong. The whole world has seen both the courage of Hong Kongers and the brutality of your Chinese Communist Party. As long as freedom-seekers fill the streets of Hong Kong, the American people will take their side."
President Trump’s signing of the act comes just days after pro-democracy candidates in Hong Kong won 388 out of 452 seats in 18 district council races, while pro-Beijing forces, who previously held 73 percent of the seats, won only 62. 

Voters came out in droves with a 71 percent turnout -- up from 47 percent four years ago in the same elections, according to the Electoral Affairs Commission.

International Duty of Interference to Save Hong Kong

Trump expected to sign Hong Kong bill after it clears House, Senate

By Danielle Wallace

President Trump is expected to sign a bill aimed at protecting human rights in Hong Kong amid an escalating pro-democracy movement in the semiautonomous city after the legislation cleared both chambers of Congress this week, with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle.
The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed in the House Wednesday by a 417-1 vote. 

The proposed legislation was unanimously approved in the Senate on Tuesday. 

The bill gained support in recent days as police tightened their siege of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where hundreds of young protesters remained holed up trying to evade arrest.
“Today, the Congress is sending an unmistakable message to the world that the United States stands in solidarity with freedom-loving people of Hong Kong, and we fully support their fight for freedom,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during the bill’s consideration, according to Politico.
Florida’s GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who first introduced the Senate’s version of the bill in June, asked President Trump on Wednesday to sign the proposed legislation after the House vote.
“The U.S. House has just passed our #HongKongHumanRightsandDemocracyAct. It’s now headed just an @Potus signature away from becoming law. A powerful moment in which a united, bipartisan coalition made it clear that we #StandWithHongKong,” Rubio said on Twitter.


Marco Rubio
✔@marcorubio
The U.S. House has just passed our #HongKongHumanRightsandDemocracyAct.
It’s now headed just an @Potus signature away from becoming law. A powerful moment in which a united, bipartisan coalition made it clear that we #StandWithHongKong13.8K
11:18 PM - Nov 20, 2019

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act would require the secretary of state to certify at least once a year that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy in order to retain special trade status under U.S. law, something which allows the city to thrive as a world financial hub. 

Under the proposed legislation, President Trump would be responsible for imposing sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials who commit human rights violations against protesters in the city.
The White House has not commented on the bill. 

Its passage comes as Trump tries to negotiate a trade deal with China amid his bid for reelection in 2020. 

Trump told reporters on Wednesday he would be content continuing to accept the tariffs on $350 billion worth of Chinese goods if a deal couldn’t be reached, according to Politico.
“We continue to talk to China. China wants to make a deal. The question is: Do I want to make a deal? Because I like what’s happening right now. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang slammed the U.S. for challenging its sovereignty over Hong Kong after the bill first cleared the Senate on Tuesday.

The legislation passed in the House despite China’s warning. 

China assumed control of the former British colony in 1997 but promised to let Hong Kong retain a high-level of autonomy.

“Today, it is beyond question that China has utterly broken that promise,” Pelosi said. 

“America has been watching for years as the people of Hong Kong have been increasingly denied their full autonomy and faced with a cruel crackdown on their freedoms and an escalation of violence.”
She added that recent escalations in violence in Hong Kong – which saw protesters use gasoline bombs and bows and arrows to fend off police backed by armored cars and water cannons -- “have shocked the world as unconscionable and unacceptable.”
The House and Senate this week both unanimously passed a second bill that aims to ban American companies from exporting crowd control munitions to Hong Kong police, Politico reported

China's Final Solution

The stunning new evidence of China's crimes against humanity, 

By Ishaan Tharoor

We have known for some time now that China is carrying out something deeply unsettling in East Turkestan. 

The restive, far west region of the country is home to a number of Turkic Muslim minorities, including the Uighurs, who in the last half-decade have been swept up in large numbers by the dragnet of the central state. 

We know that roughly a million or more people have been subjected to a vast system of concentration camps, where they are cajoled to “Sinicize” and abandon their native Islamic traditions. 

There’s already been a great deal of international criticism: In Washington, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have condemned China’s project of de facto cultural genocide. 

A report by a United Nations panel of experts warned this month that China’s methods could “deeply erode the foundations” of Chinese society.
But Chinese officials still hide behind the Potemkin villages of their own making. 

They insist that the camps are actually "job-training centers" where amenable East Turkestan residents are working to better assimilate into mainstream society through vocational schooling and language instruction. 

They point to the necessity of such measures to counter the reach of radical Islamist groups in the region. 

We know now, though, that Chinese authorities don’t actually believe their own party line.That’s because of the new details surfaced by an astonishing set of leaked documents obtained by the New York Times. 

The cache includes 403 pages of Communist Party directives, reports, notes from internal investigations and internal speeches given by party officials, including Xi Jinping. 

The Times’s story by Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, published this weekend, offers a rarely seen window into the deliberations of one of the world’s most opaque governments. 

And what we see is chilling.



Elizabeth Warren
✔@ewarren
The Chinese government’s cruel, bigoted treatment of Muslims and ethnic minorities is a horrifying human rights violation.
We must stand up to hatred and extremism at home—and around the world. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html …
‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims
More than 400 pages of internal Chinese documents provide an unprecedented inside look at the crackdown on ethnic minorities in the  East Turkestan colony.nytimes.com
11.2K
9:44 PM - Nov 16, 2019

It relays how a flurry of ethnic violence and attacks in the early part of the decade persuaded Xi to unleash the “organs of dictatorship” — his own words, in a private speech. 

This apparently involved mass roundups, the construction of a 21st-century Orwellian apparatus of control and surveillance and a systematic assault on the ability of the region’s residents to observe their Islamic faith. 

As a justification for the draconian clampdown, a top Chinese official in East Turkestan vwarned of the risks of placing “human rights above security” in a 10-page directive from 2017. 

The tranche of documents also points to internal disagreement about the repression in the region and was delivered to the Times by a figure from “the Chinese political establishment” who “expressed hope that their disclosure would prevent party leaders, including Xi, from escaping culpability for the mass detentions.”Perhaps the most striking document is a classified directive issued to local officials in an eastern East Turkestan city on how to talk to Uighur students who return from other parts of China and discover their relatives and friends have been disappeared into detention camps.
They were instructed to tell the students that their relatives had been “infected by unhealthy thoughts,” framing the state’s distrust of Muslim minorities in terrifyingly clinical terms. 

“Freedom is only possible when this ‘virus’ in their thinking is eradicated and they are in good health,” read the directive.The Times also reported on evidence of what appears to be a “scoring system” used by officials to determine who gets released from a camp. 

It incorporates not only the behavior of the detainees, but also the cooperation of relatives outside. “Family members, including you, must abide by the state’s laws and rules, and not believe or spread rumors,” officials were told to say. 

“Only then can you add points for your family member, and after a period of assessment they can leave the "school" if they meet course completion standards.”The new revelations fit into a wider, horrifying story of repression. 

China makes independent reporting in East Turkestan virtually impossible — and every foreign reporter invested in covering the story has to weigh the risk of endangering local fixers and sources, many of whom may have already been swept into detention. 

Meanwhile, analysis of satellite imagery led one researcher to conclude that the authorities have demolished 10,000 to 15,000 religious sites in East Turkestan in recent years. 

The Washington Post’s editorial page director Fred Hiatt declared: “In China, every day is Kristallnacht.”
A Washington Post report looked at the plight of one Uighur woman, Zumrat Dawut, who spent more than two months in a cell that was so cramped that the women there had to lie down in shifts. During the day, they recited propaganda slogans that included praise for Xi.
“When she was let go, she was forced to sign documents agreeing not to practice her religion and not to tell anyone what had happened in the camps,” my colleagues Emily Rauhala and Anna Fifield wrote. 

“After her detention, she was forced to pay a fine of more than $2,500 for breaking China’s family planning rules by having three, not two, children.”
Terrified by what would happen if she resisted, she complied with a suggestion to submit herself for a sterilization. 

Dawut, unlike countless of her brethren, managed to escape the country alongside her children and Pakistani husband and made her way to the United States, where she’s hoping to receive asylum. 

Her troubles captured the attention of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who cited her as a victim of religious persecution.


isabella steger
✔@stegersaurus
This is the language now being used by Chinese officials and @hkpoliceforce to describe HK protesters. So i don’t think it’s a stretch for ppl here to keep East Turkestan in their minds when they’re putting up resistance. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1195729621519613953 …The New York Times
✔@nytimes
Replying to @nytimes
Publicly, Chinese officials say the East Turkestan camps provide job training. But privately, the documents show, they used words like "virus," "infected" and "eradicate" to justify mass detentions and plotted how they would manage and intimidate families that were torn apart.

535
5:12 PM - Nov 16, 2019

But Washington’s focus on the horrors in East Turkestan also comes at a time when the Trump administration has made it dramatically harder for refugees and asylum seekers to find sanctuary in the United States. 

Locked in a trade war with Beijing, Trump has remained conspicuously silent on pressing matters of human rights, both in East Turkestan and Hong Kong. 

And, indeed, the protesters in Hong Kong, where clashes with police are turning all the more violent, see China’s unrelenting, unflinching approach taken in East Turkestan as an omen of darker days to come under Beijing rule.
The New York Times report does point to small acts of resistance. 

In 2017, Wang Yongzhi, a local official in a prefecture in southern East Turkestan, quietly released 7,000 camp inmates of his own volition. 

As a result, he was stripped of his position, prosecuted and later pilloried as a “corrupt” official. 

“I undercut, acted selectively and made my own adjustments, believing that rounding up so many people would knowingly fan conflict and deepen resentment,” 

Wang wrote in a signed confession he may have given under duress. 

“Without approval and on my own initiative, I broke the rules.”

By Taking Aim at Chinese Tech Firms, President Trump Signals a Strategy Shift

In blacklisting surveillance companies, the United States is the first major government to punish China for its crackdown on Muslims.
By Paul Mozur and Edward Wong
Hikvision cameras in a mall in Beijing in May. The company was among those blacklisted by the Trump administration this week.

SHANGHAI — The world has largely sat by for nearly two years as China detained more than one million people, mostly Muslims and members of minority ethnic groups, in concentration camps to force them to embrace the Communist Party.
Now, the Trump administration is taking the first public steps by a major world government toward punishing Beijing. 

In doing so, it is opening up a new front in the already worsening relationship between Washington and Beijing: human rights and the dystopian world of digital surveillance.
Trump administration officials on Monday placed eight Chinese companies and a number of police departments on a blacklist that forbids them to buy American-made technology like microchips, software and other vital components. 

The companies are at the vanguard of China’s surveillance and artificial intelligence ambitions, with many of them selling increasingly sophisticated systems used by governments to track people.
The White House cited their business in East Turkestan, a colony of northwestern China that is home to a largely Muslim minority group known as the Uighurs. 

More than one million ethnic Uighurs and other minorities have been locked in concentration camps there.On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced visa restrictions on Chinese officials believed to be involved in the detention or abuse of Muslim ethnic minorities.
The announcements suggest that the Trump administration is increasingly willing to listen to the advice of American officials focused on the strategic challenges posed by China and who are concerned about its human rights abuses, even if President Trump himself never seems to pay much attention to those.
The restrictions were announced just two days before American and Chinese officials were set to begin a 13th round of trade talks, most likely putting a chill over the negotiations.
More broadly, the White House, in its blacklist announcement, signaled a willingness to take aim at China’s technological dreams. 

China has plowed billions of dollars into companies developing advanced hardware and software to catch up with the United States. 

Some of the companies added to the list on Monday are among the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence start-ups.

A showroom video promoting Megvii’s facial recognition abilities.

Much of that technology — including facial recognition and computer vision — can be used to track people. 

That includes smartphone tracking, voice-pattern identification and systems that track individuals across cities through powerful cameras. 

Washington officials have grown increasingly worried about China’s ambitions to export its systems elsewhere, including places known for human rights abuses.

“This is an important first step in making some of the companies that have benefited the most from the concentration camps system in East Turkestan feel the consequences of their actions,” said Darren Byler, an anthropologist at the University of Washington who studies the plight of the Uighurs.
He said the move signaled that abuse of minority groups in East Turkestan“is real and justifies a political and economic response.”
It is also a potentially groundbreaking use of a powerful tool that the American government typically uses against terrorists. 

The Chinese companies and police departments were placed on what is called an entity list, which forbids them to buy sensitive American exports unless Washington grants American companies specific permission to sell to them.
Use of the entity list over a human rights issue may be a first, said Julian Ku, a professor of constitutional and international law at Hofstra University.
“As far as I know, it was the first time Commerce explicitly cited human rights as a foreign policy interest of the U.S. for purposes of export controls,” he said, referring to the Department of Commerce, which manages the entity lists. 

“This is not an implausible reading of the regulations, but it is new and has potentially very broad applicability.”

The immediate effect on the Chinese companies is likely to be minimal, because many have stockpiled essential supplies, but they could feel increasing pain if they stay on the blacklist for months or years.
Perhaps more important, it can put a cloud over the companies’ reputations, limiting their sales in the United States or elsewhere and keeping them from hiring the world’s best technology talent.
“The U.S. move today puts up a big roadblock on the road to internationalization,” said Matt Sheehan, a fellow at MacroPolo, the think tank of the Paulson Institute.
“Most global technology companies are setting up labs abroad, partnering with the best universities around the world and looking to recruit top talent from everywhere,” he said. 

“That all just got a lot harder now that they’re marked with the scarlet letter of the entity list.”
The move followed more than a year of internal debate over how to punish China for its persecution of Muslims in  East Turkestan.
Senior officials on the National Security Council and in the State Department have pushed for the use of the entity list to target Chinese companies supplying surveillance technology to the security forces in  East Turkestan. 

They have also urged President Trump to approve sanctions that would penalize Chinese officials and companies involved in the abuses.
But top American trade negotiators, including the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, have cautioned against policies that would upset trade talks. 

Mr. Trump has said he wants to reach a trade deal with China.
Until now, other top officials, most notably Mr. Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence, have denounced China’s policies in East Turkestan but not enacted punitive measures. 

This month, American customs officials blocked products from a Chinese garment maker in East Turkestan, but they had held off on stronger action.
The Chinese companies on the list include Hikvision, a major maker of surveillance cameras, and the well-funded artificial intelligence start-ups SenseTime and Megvii.

A Hikvision camera in downtown Beijing. American officials worry that China will export its surveillance systems.

SenseTime said it set “high ethical standards for A.I. technologies,” while Megvii said it required “clients not to weaponize our technology or solutions or use them for illegal purposes.” 

It added that it had generated no revenue from within East Turkestan in the first half of 2019.

New York Times reporting showed that four of the companies on the list — Yitu, Hikvision, Megvii and SenseTime — helped build systems across China that sought to use facial recognition to automate the detection of Uighurs.

Government procurement documents, company marketing materials and official government releases tied all eight companies to various business operations and sales in East Turkestan. 

The many local East Turkestan police bureaus on the list buy commercial American technology like Intel microchips and Microsoft Windows software, according to procurement documents.
President Trump’s next step could be imposing sanctions on specific Chinese officials working in East Turkestan. 

Among the officials discussed is Chen Quanguo, a Politburo member who is the party chief in East Turkestan and an architect of the system of internment camps and surveillance.
The blacklist action is a sign that strategic advisors have become even more influential in the administration in recent weeks.
Matthew Pottinger, the senior director for Asia and an architect of policies aimed at countering China, was promoted to deputy national security adviser last month. 

Earlier, Robert O’Brien, the administration’s top hostage negotiator, replaced John R. Bolton as national security adviser. 

Mr. O’Brien has written that China poses an enormous challenge to the United States.
“This East Turkestan package has been in the works now for months,” said Samm Sacks, a cybersecurity policy fellow at New America, a think tank. 

“So the fact that it comes out now just ahead of the next round of trade talks sends a signal from those in the administration who want no deal.”

Cheers in Beijing Can’t Drown Out the Protesters in Hong Kong

As Xi Jinping celebrates 70 years of Communist rule, a democratic enclave resists.
The New York Times

Images of Xi Jinping on Tuesday on a Hong Kong street following a day of protests.

It was hard to imagine a greater contrast. 

While China’s rulers were celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic with an enormous parade of missiles and technological achievements meant to intimidate and impress, Hong Kong witnessed some of the most violent protests in four months of demonstrations against Beijing’s encroachment on the enclave’s autonomy.
There was no subtlety in either Xi Jinping’s celebration of his country’s raw power, or Hong Kong’s rejection of the repressive rule behind that power. 

Something will have to give.
Xi was central to his show. 

Clad in a Mao suit, he made no mention of his immediate predecessors as he presided over an awesome display of what he calls the “Chinese dream,” a broad vision of China’s rise as an economic, military and police force to be reckoned with. 

“No force can shake the status of our great motherland, no force can obstruct the advance of the Chinese people and Chinese nation,” he declared.

These were not idle words. 

Xi has not hesitated to use force in bringing minorities like the Tibetans or the Uighurs to heel, and the showpiece of the parade was the giant DF-41, an intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry 10 nuclear warheads and strike anywhere in the United States.
Hong Kong protesters were manifestly not impressed. 

On the contrary, they welcomed the opportunity to demonstrate their opposition to Communist rule over their theoretically autonomous district by upstaging Beijing’s show. 

The day’s demonstrations began peacefully but turned violent in various outlying districts after nightfall as protesters, many dressed in black, set fires and clashed with the police. 

For the first time since the protests began in June, a demonstrator was wounded with a live bullet by a cornered officer.
There is nothing to suggest that Xi appreciates what is really taking place in Hong Kong. 

The system that the Chinese Communist Party has shaped over seven decades of repressive rule, like the 70 years in which Soviet Communists controlled their empire, brooks no diversity of thought or challenge to authority. 

Raised in the brutal paternalism of that system, Xi equates greatness with power and dissent with treachery; to him, the 50 years of relative autonomy granted Hong Kong, which ends in 2047, is time to wipe out whatever bad foreign habits its people picked up.

Police officers in riot gear clashed with protesters in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Those habits, acquired under British colonial rule, include a Western political culture of democracy, human rights, free speech and independent thought. 

And what began in June as mass protests against legislation that would have made it possible to extradite Hong Kong people to mainland China has morphed over succeeding weeks into increasingly explicit protests against Chinese control, which is exercised in Hong Kong by an executive handpicked by Beijing and its local allies.

The message liberal democracies should send the people of Hong Kong should be that the free world stands with them in their rejection of what the Chinese Communist Party stands for. 

And the urgent message to Beijing, as tensions rise to the breaking point, must be that any attempt to crush the protests by forces from the mainland will meet with a strong response.
Unfortunately, Trump saw fit to send Beijing congratulations on the 70th anniversary, without any mention of Hong Kong. 

Trump is locked into his own strange love-hate relationship with Xi, which includes personal praise and escalating tariffs, and he probably regards Hong Kong and its aspirations as a regrettable diversion. 

But that should not preclude Congress, or America’s allies, from speaking out.

Hong Kong Geheime Staatspolizei

Amnesty calls on Hong Kong to investigate police action in protests

By Anne Marie Roantree in Hong Kong

HONG KONG, Sept 24 -- Amnesty International on Tuesday urged the Hong Kong government to investigate police use of force during nearly four months of protests, and to encourage Beijing to safeguard protesters' right to peaceful assembly.
Many peaceful protests have degenerated into running battles between black-clad protesters and police, who have responded with tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds and several live rounds fired into the air.
Police has also been seen savagely beating protesters on the ground with batons.

"Ordering an independent and effective investigation into police actions would be a vital first step," Joshua Rosenzweig, head of Amnesty's East Asia regional office, said in a report.
"Authorities need to show they are willing to protect human rights in Hong Kong, even if this means pushing back against Beijing's 'red line'."
In 2017, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping warned in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to Beijing that any attempt to undermine China's sovereignty was a "red line" that would not be tolerated.
What started as protests over a now-shelved extradition bill that would have allowed anti-China suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial have evolved into broader calls for greater democracy and an independent inquiry into police actions.
Activists are also frustrated by what they see as Beijing's tightening grip over the former British colony that was returned to China under a "one country, two systems" arrangement in 1997.
In a direct challenge to Communist Party rulers in mainland China, protesters have targeted Beijing's representative office in Hong Kong, thrown bricks outside the Chinese People's Liberation Army base and set fire to the Chinese flag.
The Asian financial centre is on edge ahead of the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China on Oct. 1, with authorities eager to avoid scenes that could embarrass the central government in Beijing.
Hong Kong also marks the fifth anniversary this weekend of the start of the "Umbrella" protests, a series of pro-democracy demonstrations in 2014 that failed to wrestle concessions from Beijing.

'This Is a Global Fight.'

Cantonese Pop Diva Denise Ho Wants the World to Stand Up With Hong Kong
BY LAIGNEE BARRON 

Geneva, Sydney, Taipei, New York—at another point in Denise Ho’s career these might have been stops on a concert tour. 

Instead, the Cantonese pop diva turned icon of Hong Kong’s protest movement has been traveling around the world drumming up support for her city’s struggle against authoritarian China.
Ho has spent the last five years hitching her stardom to Hong Kong’s democracy fight, and in response, has been banned from the lucrative mainland Chinese market and dropped from sponsorship deals and by her record label.
As a singer, Ho hit the mainstream in the 2000s. 

Then, in 2012, she was the first major female star in Hong Kong to come out, and began advocating for LGBT+ rights. 

In 2014, she was arrested for joining the “Umbrella Revolution,” a protest movement calling for free elections and an end to Beijing’s encroachment on semi-autonomous Hong Kong.
Amid the enclave’s latest political upheaval, Ho continues to be one of the most prominent celebrities on the front lines. 

When she’s not calling on the U.N. Human Rights Council to drop China from the international body, Ho can be spotted sporting the protester’s black t-shirt uniform and joining the chants of “Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our time.”
TIME caught up with Ho on the sidelines of the Oslo Freedom Forum in Taipei, Taiwan last week.

You’ve paid a price for your political activism. Do you feel more Hongkongers are now also having to choose between their careers and political views?
For sure. 

The main thing we can see is that people are restraining themselves from speaking their minds, not only public figures and celebrities, but also really anyone who might, say, travel to China, or who might be working in the corporate [sector]. 

I have close friends who are scared to even take a photo with me. 

So you see this kind of fear and self-censorship, and it is a very dangerous thing really, because that is how Communist governments always work. 

They instill fear and then people do these things on their own.

You’ve said the ‘one country, two systems’ framework Beijing uses to govern Hong Kong is doomed. What do you mean?
This is a very fundamental conflict, where two very different sets of values [clashed]. 

It actually worked quite well for some time, not even that far [back]. 

In 2012, when I came out in Hong Kong I expected to be blacklisted in China, but I wasn’t. 

At that time, it was before the Xi Jinping era. 

We even got a social media campaign going on [Chinese social media platform] Weibo, with people holding signs supporting the LGBT community. 

At the time, we were even hoping that the Communist Party was actually improving, loosening up. But then Xi Jinping took over with his very emperor-style of governing and controlling the population. 

It’s been downhill ever since.

So what’s the alternative?
I know that a lot of young people think that we should just basically go toward independence. 

But at this moment in 2019, I don’t see how we can do that right away. 

Maybe in 20 or 30 years the whole environment could be different. 

Anything could happen really with China facing external and also internal problems. 

From the way that they have been putting their propaganda machine at full speed, I do think they know that they are not in a very favorable situation and they are feeling the pressure. 

We need to keep the fight on, and just wait for something to shift.
The majority of people are not actually asking for Hong Kong independence. 

The five demands that we are voicing are very clear, and within that we are asking for political reform, real universal suffrage, where we can elect our own chief executive.

Why should people around the world care about what’s happening in Hong Kong?
This is a global fight. 

We are a front line trying to preserve universal values—freedom, justice, equality and human rights—that are common to a lot of the more progressive societies, especially Western societies. 

Chinese influences have been reaching out and infiltrating different corners of the world. 

You see them coming into different areas with their economic power and then also, at the same time, their Communist values, where they do not allow anyone to criticize them. 

Corporations and institutions are succumbing to this kind of intimidation. 

That is something that should be very worrying for anyone really. 

If you are someone who believes in universal values, then you are part of this fight that has brought Hongkongers onto the streets for three months.

So you’re worried about a domino effect, that if the influence isn’t stopped in Hong Kong it will spread?
It is actually happening already. 

You see all these institutions and brands censoring themselves, kowtowing to this kind of pressure because they want a piece of the China market. 

And it’s happening everywhere. 

In Canada, even. 

It was very shocking for me when I saw that my hometown, Montreal [Ho emigrated there with her parents at the age of 11 before returning to Hong Kong eight years later], they had Hong Kong activists banned from gay pride. 

Are we going to accept that the world will fall under mass censorship? 

Or is there something that we can do together to fight this kind of suppression?

Why are the protesters appealing directly to the U.S.?
The U.S. is the only country that has the power to confront China right now, and also the U.S. has always been a free and equal society, well at least a society that is trying to get to this place. 

So I do think that there is a sort of moral responsibility to safeguard the whole world against the erosion of these human rights and freedoms. 

Of course, it is not only limited to the U.S. 

I think that any country, and any person with the freedom to do so should be standing up against these authoritarian governments, because if you don’t, maybe some day maybe you will be the one calling for help.

What action could the U.S. be taking to support Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists?
At the moment, there is the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act that is supposed to be pushing ahead. 

It involves sanctions on Hong Kong and China officials who have taken part in the erosion of human rights in Hong Kong, those who have not respected the ‘one country, two systems’ model. 

If that bill actually passes then it will probably [have] a ripple effect [on] other countries that would start to evaluate this situation and see if they should be doing the same thing.

After three months, is there any indication the protests in Hong Kong are tapering off?
I don’t see that. 

I see Hongkongers creating new ways to sustain this fight, whether it’s to have more non-violent actions, peaceful protests with the human chain. 

There is this new anthem in Hong Kong and people are singing it on the streets. 

That is a sort of collective empowerment where people can draw energy from others. 

This movement has been able to sustain itself precisely by this sort of creativity and this sort of flexibility.

What is the possibility that the protests have a knock on effect in mainland China?
It’s probably happening already. 

I have received direct messages on Twitter from people in China or who are Chinese living overseas. They are very supportive of the Hongkongers because they do know that this is a fight that concerns their freedoms, too. 

But of course, they are in a situation where it is very difficult for them to participate. 

In this very digitized and highly surveilled generation, we do need to think of maybe somehow going back to a more organic stage where the human touch might be key, where people can see each other and they can communicate their ideas and their thoughts.

What is your outlook for these protests?
I really have total confidence in our next generations. 

Already we seeing secondary school kids joining in the fight, and some are even younger. 

They have initiated movements on their own, forming human chains in front of their schools and so on. 

This kind of momentum, it really needs to go on into the next and the next generation. 

And I do see that happening, so that might be where my optimism comes from. 

At the end of the day, I do think that all authoritarian governments are afraid of the awakening of the people, and if you have enough people joining in the fight then we might have a high chance of winning.

Right to Interference vs. China

General Jim Mattis said anti-government protests in Hong Kong were “not an internal” Chinese matter: U.S. should side with Hong Kong protesters

By Jonathan Allen

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense General Jim Mattis speaks at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York, September 9, 2019.

NEW YORK -- Former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday anti-government protests in Hong Kong were “not an internal” Chinese matter and that the United States should offer at least moral support to the demonstrators.
The retired U.S. Marine general, speaking at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York, said the United States should generally side with those standing up for human rights, which he said included the Hong Kong protesters.
“When people stand up for those (rights), I just inherently think we ought to stand with them, even if it’s just moral,” said Mattis, who abruptly resigned as Pentagon chief in December over disagreements with Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
“This is not an internal matter,” Mattis said.
Trump has previously described the protests as riots, but has also called on China to end the discord in a “humanitarian” way. 

He said a crackdown could make his efforts to end a damaging trade war with China “very hard.”
Mattis said China’s effort to pass a law to allow people in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China was in breach of the “one country, two systems” formula under which British control of Hong Kong was ended in 1997.
“They said it would be two systems, and the extradition law was a violation of that,” said Mattis, who is promoting a new memoir about his role in the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although the extradition bill was withdrawn last week after months of unrest, the mass protests in streets and public places across Hong Kong continue, having grown into a broader pro-democracy backlash against the Chinese government.
Protesters marched outside the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong over the weekend, urging Trump to help “liberate” the city. 

Hong Kong police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds.

“We don’t want to say we’re going to land the 82nd Airborne Division in Hong Kong to do this,” he said.
“But morally? Yeah, I think we have to stand with them.”

SURPRISED AT TALIBAN TALKS
Mattis resigned from Trump’s administration a day after Trump’s plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria became public. 

His resignation letter was widely seen as a sharp critique of Trump’s approach to national security, including what Mattis saw as a failure to value American allies around the world.
Although there had been speculation that Mattis might enter the political arena, he has since declined to share his views on Trump, saying it is inappropriate for military figures to pontificate on politics.
Mattis also said he was surprised by the news last weekend that Trump had invited Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders for peace talks in the United States. 

Trump said he canceled the talks after the insurgent group claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier and 11 other people.
“I salute people who try to bring wars to an end,” Mattis said. 

The Taliban, however, had repeatedly failed to break with al Qaeda, the militant group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, he said.
“The Taliban was offered: If you break with al Qaeda, we have no problem with you,” Mattis said. “President (George W.) Bush offered that, President Obama offered that, President Trump has offered that, and they’ve declined. So yes, I was very surprised that we were at that point.”
Asked on Monday whether he had confidence in Trump’s leadership, he said only that he had “great confidence” in American voters and in the U.S. Constitution.
“If we will employ our constitutional checks and balances correctly, this big experiment will continue,” Mattis said.

'This Is a Fight.'

Meet Badiucao, the Dissident Cartoonist Taking on the Chinese Government

BY AMY GUNIA / HONG KONG

Chinese cartoonist Badiucao standing behind his artwork titled 'Light' in his studio in Melbourne on May 28, 2019.

A giant tattoo of tiny man standing in front of an oncoming tank covers the entirety of one of artist Badiucao’s upper arms. 

It’s an inspired choice of ink for the Chinese artist who has earned both the fury of the Chinese Communist Party and excited comparisons to Banksy.
Images of the individual known to history as Tank Man flashed around the world on June 5, 1989, when the anonymous Beijing resident, clutching a shopping bag, faced down a column of advancing tanks. 

The night before, troops had rolled into Tiananmen Square and brutally suppressed a weeks-long, peaceful occupation by students and workers calling for political reform. 

Thousands are thought to have died.
“I wanted [the Tank Man tattoo] on my right arm, the arm that I use to draw,” Badiucao (pronounced ba-doo-chow) tells TIME. 

“It’s a personal reminder to keep having courage with my arm, with my hand, and with my pen.”
Born in China in 1986, Badiucao grew up in a society where all mention of the Tiananmen massacre is fanatically censored. 

He was in university in 2007, studying law, when he gathered with friends in his dormitory to watch what they thought was a Taiwanese rom com. 

In turned out that their copy had been doctored by activists intent on spreading awareness of the events of 1989—a few minutes into the film, the movie suddenly cut to a documentary about the massacre.
“It shocked me deeply,” he says. 

For Badiucao, it was the moment that started his politicization. 

He tried to find out information about Tiananmen, but was quickly stymied. 

“If I can’t see the truth about the country, how can I have hope for the country?”
Out of frustration, he started using his artistic talents to create satirical doodles. 

He had loved painting, drawing and photography as a child: now he used those skills to comment on the political situation in China, and dropped his plans to become a lawyer.
Badiucao comes from a family of artists — his grandfather and his great uncle were filmmakers in China during the 1930s and 1940s. 

As the political situation deteriorated in China in the 1950s, they both considered moving to Hong Kong or Taiwan, but ultimately decided to stay in their homeland. 

It’s a decision they paid for with their lives; both were persecuted and killed in an anti-intellectual crackdown, leaving Badiucao’s father orphaned as a young child.
“In my family, there’s a very clear message that to be an artist in China is dangerous,” he says.
So, in 2009, Badiucao packed his bags for Australia, where he got a masters degree and later naturalized. 

Today, the artist’s work encompasses all mediums, from fine to installation to performance to street art, but he says that everything he creates has a common theme.
“The message from me is always about promoting freedom of speech, advocating for human rights.”
He is best known for the cartoons he posts online, which often take aim at the Chinese government, like a drawing of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping hunting for Winnie the Pooh (the fictional creature was banned on the Chinese internet after a meme comparing Xi to Pooh went viral).
“Why are they censoring such an adorable animal?” the artist asks.

A cartoon drawn by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao

The artist, who now lives in Melbourne, shares much of his work on Twitter, which he started using after censors shut down his account on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo more than 30 times. Twitter is banned in China, but despite China’s Great Firewall, he’s sure that his artwork still reaches people at home who access the website via virtual private networks (VPNs).
“More and more websites, terms and photos are becoming ‘sensitive’ each year and have been added to censorship lists maintained by social media companies,” Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells TIME. 

But she says that creative work like Badiucao’s might be able to slip by the censorship apparatus.
“Netizens can still post about political sensitive topics through creative means,” Wang explains, “such as altering the images or replacing critical characters with characters that look alike or with characters that have the same pronunciations.”
For years, and even though he was no longer living in China, Badiucao attempted to conceal his identity, appearing at events in a ski mask. 

He had good reason to be fearful; others critical of the regime have faced severe punishments. 

Ai Wei Wei, who Badiucao worked for as an assistant at one point, has been imprisoned and hit with hefty tax evasion fines that were politically motivated. 

The political cartoonist Jiang Yefei was sentenced to six and a half years in prison last year for “subversion of state power.”
Badiucao finally unmasked himself on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in June, when a documentary about him called China’s Artful Dissident came out. 

It had become terrifyingly clear to him that Beijing already knew his identity. 

Ahead of a planned exhibition in Hong Kong late last year, he began receiving threats. 

When several of his family members in China were detained by the police, he decided to cancel his trip to Hong Kong and call off his show, which was going to feature artwork like an installation made from neon lights depicting the late Nobel Prize winning Chinese political prisoner Liu Xiaobo.
Despite the danger he faces, Badiucao refuses to stand down, and although he wasn’t able to have his exhibition in Hong Kong, his work is now being featured across the city in another way. 

Since early June — when Hong Kong’s anti-government protests began — the artist has spent much of his time creating artwork to comment on the unrest and the government’s response to it. 

When Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, wept on television as she spoke about the sacrifices she had made for the city, the artist released a cartoon of the leader with a reptilian arm wiping away what many Hongkongers said were crocodile tears.

A Badicao cartoon depicting Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's Chief Executive
Demonstrations have now become a near daily occurrence in the city, and Badiucao’s art can often be seen at rallies, printed out and turned into posters, or taped onto one of the colorful “Lennon Walls” of protest messages and artwork that have popped up across the city. 

It inspires the protesters to keep fighting.
“Protest art serves the function of not only spreading the necessary political messages but also connecting movement participants’ emotions, which are pivotal in sustaining a movement,” Vivienne Chow, a journalist and cultural critic based in Hong Kong, tells TIME.
Although Badiucao can’t be in Hong Kong alongside the protesters, he is happy that his artwork has finally reached the city, even if it’s via the Internet instead of a gallery. 

As the Hong Kong protests enter their third month, he hopes that his work will continue motivating the protesters to carry on their resistance against what is perceived as Beijing’s tightening grip.
“What’s happening in Hong Kong is not just about Hong Kong, it’s also about every country that values freedom and democracy,” Badiucao says. 

“This is a fight, and it’s a meaningful fight.”

Free Hong Kong

The Hong Kong protesters deserve Britain’s full support

The Spectator


When the tanks were rolling into Tiananmen Square and the Cold War hadn’t yet formally come to an end, it seemed obvious: freedom and democracy were prerequisites for economic success. 

Yet over the past three decades, China has challenged that notion by creating a model previously unknown to the world: consumer capitalism combined with autocratic government. 

Under Xi Jinping’s rule, China’s new middle class now enjoys near-western living standards. 

So long, that is, as it does not question the legitimacy of its leaders.
The success of the Chinese model has presented a conundrum for western governments: how to deal with a country that continues to have little regard for human rights and yet nevertheless offers lucrative opportunities for investors. 

So far, western leaders have followed the money while putting up only the feeblest defence of freedom and democracy. 

On some occasions, they have not even bothered to do this. 

When Theresa May visited Beijing last year to encourage what she described as a ‘golden era’ in Anglo–China relations, state media noted with approval how visiting European leaders had now given up discussing human rights.
Yes, a million Uyghurs might have been herded into concentration camps — but China had lucrative contracts to offer, so the West looked the other way. 

But the awkward compromise between economic interest and concern for human rights is suddenly under huge strain, partly on account of the trade war which Donald Trump is waging — and partly because of the growing unrest in Hong Kong. 

The protests which have taken place recently show that, unlike the British government, the citizens of Britain’s former colony are no longer prepared to ignore China’s various human rights abuses.
It was an error on the part of the John Major government not to grant Hong Kong’s industrious people the right to settle in Britain before the handover. 

Most were condemned to be handed over to China along with their city — albeit with the promise that they would enjoy special privileges. 

In theory, Hong Kong citizens — unlike their counterparts on the mainland — have the right to protest against the Chinese Communist party. 

But some who exercised this supposed freedom have found themselves spirited away and sent to mainland China for detention. 

The trigger for the current protests, which this week included an invasion of the Hong Kong legislature, was an initiative brought in by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam to create powers for felons to be extradited directly from Hong Kong to China.
Lam says this was her doing, and was not inspired by Beijing. 

But it fits a general pattern: of rising over-reach from emboldened Chinese officials who think a new chapter in history has opened. 

The Chinese believe the West will look the other way, and see notions of democracy, liberty and human rights as cultural issues relevant to the West but a lot less relevant to Asia. 

The citizens of Hong Kong, it seems, beg to differ.
For some time now, Xi has been making misjudgment after misjudgment when it comes to relations with the West. 

In particular, he has not understood that American patience has snapped. 

China’s economic model involved sucking up western industrial secrets and taking lots of foreign business while refusing access to its own markets. 

The ongoing trade war — which reached an almost certainly temporary ceasefire this week — was wrongly seen in Beijing as a Donald Trump hissy fit. 

It was thought that, if this strange president was thrown a bone, he’d go away and China could go on as before. 

But American opinion is on the turn. 

Listen to Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat leader of the House, or any of the would-be Democrat contenders, and you can hear exactly the same concerns about China.
Xi has over-reached. 

This will worry others in his politburo, some of whom will be asking if his recent decision to become emperor for life is turning out to be wise. 

His Belt and Road Initiative, a $90 billion attempt to create a high-tech equivalent of the Silk Road, is already looking like an expensive vanity project, the kind of legacy of a leader whose ego far outgrew his position. 

Various other innovations — like the app containing the thoughts of Chairman Xi — are worryingly reminiscent of an uglier era. 

But Britain has been woefully absent from this debate, as if all our would-be leaders are primarily interested in lucrative contracts and terrified of upsetting Beijing.
It need not be this way. 

There is a clear path for China’s peaceful rise, evident only a few years ago: one based on co-operation and mutual respect. 

In the rush to offer the hand of friendship, western leaders have looked supine, which has further emboldened Beijing. 

And the most eloquent rebuke has come not from the White House or No. 10, but the streets of Hong Kong.
Xi must now answer a difficult question: does he back down and risk sending a message that he caves in when under pressure? 

Or should he carry on and risk a wider conflagration? 

Managing China’s rise has always been a question of finding the right balance. 

The people of Hong Kong have shown the world that they wish to push the balance back in support of liberty. 

They deserve Britain’s full support.

Hong Kong needs a leader of the free world

Congress must take up the slack for a president who exhibits anti-democratic instincts and sickening affection for the world’s most brutal despots.

By Jennifer Rubin

Protesters continue to protest an extradition bill Sunday in Hong Kong. 

The Post reports on Sunday’s 2-million-strong protest in Hong Kong:
Organizers estimated the turnout Sunday at nearly 2 million participants, in a territory of some 7.4 million — making plain the growing rupture between Hong Kong’s government, heavily influenced by Beijing authorities, and its people.
The march capped a dramatic week of protests in varying numbers across the global financial hub. Demonstrators forced police to open six-lane roads and took over streets that were not authorized for their rally.
The huge outpouring delivered yet more embarrassment for Hong Kong’s leader, who finds herself increasingly isolated in the city despite her efforts to contain the growing anger.
This is extraordinary, not the least because the equivalent number of protesters in the United States would be nearly 90 million.

The outpouring of anger at the government and determination to resist another encroachment on Hong Kong’s local self-rule came after Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, agreed to suspend the law. 

Protesters say the law needs to be revoked entirely, not held over their heads while the government regroups and passions cool.
The fervent defense of democracy in the face of a local government fronting for the Communist, surveillance-state mainland is breathtaking:
Sunday’s crowd, no less energized than in previous demonstrations, included the elderly, people with disabilities, children with their families, business executives, social workers and students, all demanding the permanent withdrawal of the extradition bill. 

The protesters, who waited for hours under a blazing sun to begin their march, chanted for Lam to step down and for Hong Kong to “add oil” — a Cantonese cheer that means “keep going.” 

Banners called for Hong Kong’s independence.
At one point, members of the crowd started singing “Do You Hear the People Sing?” — the call to action from the musical “Les Misérables.”
In the United States, a bipartisan group of senators including Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), ranking Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; James E. Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Marco Rubio (R-Fla.); Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.); Angus King (I-Maine); Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.); and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) last week reintroduced the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, to “reaffirm U.S. commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law at a time when Hong Kong’s autonomy is under assault by interference from the Chinese government and Communist Party.” (A companion bill was introduced in the House.) 

The bill would:
Require the Secretary of State to issue an annual certification of Hong Kong’s autonomy to justify special treatment afforded to Hong Kong by the U.S. Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992.
Require the President to identify persons responsible for the abductions of Hong Kong booksellers and journalists and those complicit in suppressing basic freedoms in Hong Kong, including those complicit in the forced removal of individuals exercising internationally recognized rights to mainland China for detention or trial, and to freeze their U.S.-based assets and deny them entry to the United States.
Require the President to issue a strategy to protect U.S. citizens and businesses from the implications of a revised Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, including by determining whether to revise the U.S.-Hong Kong extradition agreement and the State Department’s travel advisory for Hong Kong.
Require the Secretary of Commerce to issue an annual report assessing whether the Government of Hong Kong is adequately enforcing both U.S. export regulations regarding sensitive dual-use items and U.S. and U.N. sanctions, particularly regarding Iran and North Korea.
Make clear that visa applicants shall not be denied visas on the basis of the applicant’s arrest, detention or other adverse government action taken as a result of their participation in the nonviolent protest activities related to pro-democracy advocacy, human rights, or the rule of law in Hong Kong.
Freedom House applauded their efforts in a written statement condemning “the unprecedented degree of police violence deployed against unarmed protesters in Hong Kong in recent days.” 

The human rights groups urged China to withdraw the extradition law. 

Freedom House’s statement concluded, “Given Hong Kong officials’ intransigence in pushing forward with the amendments, despite public opposition and concerns voiced by the business and legal communities, we urge the US Congress to swiftly pass the act. Doing so will send a clear signal that further erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy, rule of law, and human rights protections will result in concrete consequences for its economy, the territory’s relations with the United States, and Hong Kong and Chinese officials who suppress basic freedoms.”
Meanwhile, we hear virtually nothing from Donald Trump on the subject. 

All he could muster last week was a comment expressing hope the protesters would “work it out” — with their oppressors (as if this were a spat between roommates). 

He didn’t bother to defend the demands for democratic freedoms nor warn the Communist Chinese regime. 

Perhaps he sees “very fine” people — pro-democracy protesters and a pliant government bending to Beijing’s will — on both sides.
Trump’s affinity for despots and disdain for democracy even at home are by now well known. 

And so, during the largest pro-democracy protests in the world since the Iranian Green Movement and Arab Spring, the purported leader of the free world spends his time giving North Korea’s dictator reassurance about spying and trying to disabuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of the notion that we are engaged in counterintelligence operations on Russia’s power grid. 

“Do you believe that the Failing New York Times just did a story stating that the United States is substantially increasing Cyber Attacks on Russia. This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country,” Trump tweeted on Saturday. 

The impression Trump gives is of a man intimidated or fooled by strongmen and unmoved by people to protect basic civil liberties.
Plenty of his energy and time goes into ingratiating himself with oppressive leaders, none to those fighting for basic human rights. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday assured the country that Trump would bring up the protests with Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit — on June 28. 

His lack of urgency and unwillingness to speak publicly speak volumes about the utter lack of leadership and abandonment of U.S. values in this administration. 

He cannot be bothered with millions of Hong Kong democracy activists, or with holding Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the brutal murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, or with the genocide perpetrated by the Saudis in Yemen, or with Russia’s kleptocracy and brutal repression of dissent. 

Trump despicably provides aid and comfort not to free people seeking human rights and political freedom but to their oppressors who’ve figured out how to flatter the narcissistic president. 

In doing so, he looks weak and brings dishonor to the United States. 

Dissidents and oppressed people the world over have felt inspired and supported by the United States — until now. 

Congress must take up the slack for a president who exhibits anti-democratic instincts and sickening affection for the world’s most brutal despots.