Pages

Thursday, April 01, 2021

Outraged by Uighur genocide, Europe picks a fight with China. And loses

Guardian (Aus Ed):

Outraged by Uighur genocide, Europe picks a fight with China. And loses




A desire for business as normal with Beijing is coming up hard against the ugly reality of Xi’s swaggering authoritarianism


Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a Uighur ‘vocational skills education centre’ in Dabancheng, Xinjiang, China.
Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

Mention the Boxer Rebellion nowadays, and most people in the west would look baffled. Not so the Chinese, who have longer memories.

They have not forgotten the invasion launched in 1900 by the US, Britain, Germany, France and other members of the so-called Eight-Nation Alliance to suppress the anti-foreigner, anti-missionary uprising. Mass atrocities against Chinese people ensued, in the name of upholding “civilised” Christian values.

That bitter legacy was recalled last week by Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, after a not dissimilar western coalition, including Britain, imposed limited sanctions on China over human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

“Their actions have reminded people of the history of the Eight-Nation Alliance,” Hua said. “But China is no longer what it was 120 years ago. No one should dare to offend the Chinese people.”

Yet many do dare – and now the boot is on the other foot. It is Beijing that stands accused of atrocities, with the US and others alleging a genocide of Xinjiang’s Uighurs. And it is mostly the same western countries, plus Canada and minus Tsarist Russia, that are on the receiving end of Chinese aggression.

For the new sanctions provoked an unexpectedly sharp, escalatory response. Beijing targeted members of the European parliament, diplomats, academics, and non-governmental institutions critical of China – and added some British MPs to the list on Friday.

The EU, which had limited its measures to officials only, was shocked. It had expected a reciprocal slap on the wrist. Instead it received a hard kick right up its boxer shorts.

Nor was this the worst of it. Outraged by tweets from Lu Shaye, China’s “wolf warrior” ambassador in Paris, in which he described a respected French academic as a “crazed hyena” and “small-time hoodlum”, Clément Beaune, France’s Europe minister, summoned the wayward diplomat for a customary dressing-down.

Imagine his horror when Lu, ignoring protocol, said he was too busy to come. The French were aghast. “This is not how things are done,” Beaune spluttered. “Neither France nor Europe is a doormat.”

Yet this increasingly appears to be how Xi Jinping, China’s bullish president, and the Communist party view the EU. Or if not exactly a doormat, then a decidedly second-rate, fractious power bloc whose business and goodwill are dispensable.

The way they see it, Europe needs China more than China needs Europe. So when livid MEPs threatened last week to tear up a new investment deal, the reaction was a contemptuous shrug.

Like the old imperial powers that tormented it, China plays divide and rule. It is an influential investor in southern EU countries, notably Italy, Greece and Portugal, that are poor relations to the wealthier north. It has cultivated recalcitrant EU members, such as Hungary, and EU wannabes such as Serbia.

It dangles trade and investment carrots in return for a blind eye. This appeals to the self-described “fervent Sinophile” Boris Johnson who, as always, wants to have his cake and eat it. Johnson seeks the freedom to increase trade with China and simultaneously strike a noble pose on human rights.

As a result, he achieves neither. Johnson, the man who gave up Hong Kong without a fight, risks becoming Beijing’s useful idiot. By adding British MPs and organisations to its sanctions list, China shows how unimpressed it is by his feeble, Brexit-warped balancing act.

While last week’s chastening events reminded Europe that it lives in a reborn age of unequal treaties, it also seems clear Xi seriously overplayed his hand. Antony Blinken, Joe Biden’s secretary of state, making a first visit to Nato and the EU, took full advantage.

Fresh from a bruising encounter with his Chinese counterpart in Alaska, Blinken sought to refortify the transatlantic alliance vis-a-vis China and Russia, following the corrosive Donald Trump years – and it appears he succeeded.

His call to close ranks against China’s threat to “the international system and the values we share” was lapped up. A chummy, grinning Biden reinforced it by video link from Washington.

Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, paid routine obeisance to “European sovereignty”. Yet despite the best efforts of France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, the EU still lacks an agreed vision for an independent global strategic role.

European leaders seem only too happy to scuttle back under the American security umbrella. Weakened by the ongoing pandemic, facing a power vacuum in Berlin, and handicapped by inept leadership in Brussels, it’s unsurprising the EU, shoved hard by China, has again flopped into America’s outstretched arms.

But pause right there. The Biden-Blinken approach to China looks remarkably similar to Trump-style confrontation. There have been no conciliatory gestures, no olive branches, since the new guys took charge in Washington.

Trump’s tech and tariff wars persist today. The Taiwan and South China Sea timebombs are still ticking away. China has not given an inch, either. In truth, relations are steadily deteriorating – with polarising effect.

Both Washington and Beijing are busily strengthening rival global alliances – the US with Europe, Japan and South Korea, China with Russia and in the Middle East. Significantly, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, is currently visiting Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, all three at odds with Biden.

It would be nice to be wrong, but this looks like a geopolitical warm-up for Cold War #2. Has Europe signed up for this? Not really. But its desire for business as normal with Beijing is coming up hard against the ugly reality of Xi’s swaggering authoritarianism. There is diminishing wiggle room for leaders who don’t say where they stand.

Which brings us back to Britain’s “fervent Sinophile”, who dares not utter the word “genocide”. Whose side is Johnson actually on? Poor fool. It’s entirely possible he does not know.


31 comments:

  1. So it’s official then, vocational schools in Xinjiang have electrified high fences, pokey spikes, barbed wire, CCTVs and watch-towers. To keep students in or foreign reporters out? Probably both....ha ha ha...

    I think Uighurs prefer pickin’ cotton than being locked up in this school.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes everyone got to make clear his stance, i support fully democracy taiwan n hker. i will do what the 1900 pekingman did, open the city wall gate n lets democracy in.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. U, as a nonchinese resides in a ketuanan infested land, dare to set foot on China to open the city wall gate & let demoNcracy in!

      Have u taken yr sleeping pill yet, 犬养 mfer?

      Delete
    2. its every chinese duty to chase out the foreigner like communist that invaded n occupied our motherland. revo 1911 still in progress, all chiness hv to work harder.

      Delete
    3. U, Chinese?

      Go & fight yr "revo 1911" in yr beloved Formosa.

      & see how yr 蔡妹妹 cleans up yr toad end!

      Delete
  3. 5000 yo Bully now throwing Bully-tantrum. Making silly demands that others will laugh at and ignore.

    QUOTE
    Hong Kong tells foreign countries to stop accepting a British travel document that many of its young people use to apply for working holiday visas in Europe, North America and parts of Asia.

    Hong Kong wants countries to accept only the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China passport (HKSAR) over the British National Overseas passports (BNO).(AP: Kin Cheung)

    The Hong Kong government has confirmed it told 14 countries to stop accepting a British travel document that many of its young people use to apply for working holiday visas in Europe, North America and parts of Asia.

    In a move seen by some envoys as a diplomatic affront, the government informed the foreign consulates in a letter that it no longer considered the British National Overseas (BNO) passport a valid travel document as of January 31.

    The letter, seen by Reuters and confirmed by the Hong Kong government after the story was published, demanded that its Hong Kong passport should be used instead.

    Most countries are going to ignore this," said one senior Western diplomat who had seen the letter.

    "It is the Hong Kong government just trying it on… They have no right to tell any state what foreign passports it can recognise."
    UNQUOTE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. BNO is not issued by HK. It has a sets of conditions binded with The Sino-British Joint Declaration.

      Thus, every sovereign country in the world has the SOLE right to refuse any travelling document that is not recognized by that country.

      So, blurred mfer, u 吹 ke?

      Wakakakakaka…

      "…They have no right to tell any state what foreign passports it can recognise."

      HK SAR only issues Chinese HK SAR passport. The legality of BNO passport stops right at 1stJan2021. So what right HK SAR govt doesn't have?

      One hp6 senior Western diplomat? Or just adulterated roadside fart?

      Delete
  4. angela merkel shd come up n tell there is no genocide in xinjiang, germen know well how genocide work, first u need a gas chamber, wonder y she stay silence, thats the best chance for her to sell more merc bm volkswagen audi n adidas to zombie.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course auntie Merkel knows what genocide is.

      But genocide in Xinjiang is definitely hot fart from demoNcratic hive.

      So why should she need to explain such an clear cut case.

      Delete
    2. most probably she rather sell less merc bm volkswagen audi n adidas to zombie bec she know the truth how genocide with communist characteristic work, she use to live in one.

      Delete
    3. Simply bcoz she has gone through the drill that she knows how demoNcratic dickheads twist blacken white as facts!

      Eat yr heart out, 犬养 mfer.

      Delete
  5. I think they teach modern cotton farming techniques in this vocational training school behind those pokey spikes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wakakakakaka…

    What a trashy piece of shit!

    1) why these newsprint photos always show building picture along the perimeter fence?

    Why not the main gate of the said "uighur ‘vocational skills education centre’ in Dabancheng, Xinjiang, China."

    Furthermore why always have a minimized views when there r people in the photos? Wakakakaka… those 4 'workers' walking along the road can be from anywhere else in the world!

    How about along the perimeter fence of ADX Florence Facility, Colorado?

    Oooop… where r those constantly present motivational slogans that r so common in these Chinese places of interests?

    Such an ingenious photos with an intentionally worded caption!

    2) diplomatic protocol!

    "Nor was this the worst of it. Outraged by tweets from Lu Shaye, China’s “wolf warrior” ambassador in Paris, in which he described a respected French academic as a “crazed hyena” and “small-time hoodlum”, Clément Beaune, France’s Europe minister, summoned the wayward diplomat for a customary dressing-down.

    Imagine his horror when Lu, ignoring protocol, said he was too busy to come. The French were aghast. “This is not how things are done,” Beaune spluttered. “Neither France nor Europe is a doormat.”"

    Tell that to bliken when he so arrogantly chase the reporters out from the conference room after his 2nd dressing up speech!

    Yell that to the Whitehouse staffs when they arranged for the Serbian president to sit in an illfitting chair in front of trump!

    These mfering whites r still living in that last 庚子年.

    3) "Johnson, the man who gave up Hong Kong without a fight, risks becoming Beijing’s useful idiot."

    He gave up HK? Based on what? That HK was returned to China in 97 when Boris was just a Westminster roommate.

    4) "European leaders seem only too happy to scuttle back under the American security umbrella. Weakened by the ongoing pandemic, facing a power vacuum in Berlin, and handicapped by inept leadership in Brussels, it’s unsurprising the EU, shoved hard by China, has again flopped into America’s outstretched arms."

    The only country that actually loudly proclaimed to be the frontline supporter of US maga(make America great again) is boris whom this 'writer' shows such contempt!

    Where r all those EU member nations in voicing against China's 'Uyghur genocide' fart?

    Ooooop… that EU Parliament whom the writer tagged as 'the EU still lacks an agreed vision for an independent global strategic role'!

    What a Parliament of a union of nations!

    Mmmmm… no fun in digging into this piece of shit. After all there will be morons, katak & democratic asslickers buying into it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 5000 yo Bullyland threatens and intimidates overseas Uighurs, like Gestapo or KGB used to do.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-china-56563449

    QUOTE
    The cost of speaking up against China
    By Joel Gunter BBC News
    30 March 2021

    Women who made allegations last month of rape and sexual abuse in Chinese detention camps have been harassed and smeared in the weeks since. Rights groups say the attacks are typical of an aggressive campaign by China to silence those who speak up.

    Qelbinur Sedik was making breakfast when the video call came, and the sight of her sister's name made her nervous. Many months had passed since the two had spoken. In fact, many months had passed since Sedik had spoken to any of her family in China.

    Sedik was in the kitchen of her temporary home in the Netherlands, where she shared a room with several other refugees, mostly from Africa. Two weeks earlier, she and three other women had spoken to the BBC for a story about alleged rape and torture in China's secretive detention camps in the Xinjiang region, where Sedik worked as a camp teacher.

    Now her sister was calling. She hit answer, but when the picture appeared it wasn't her sister on the screen, it was a policeman from her hometown in Xinjiang.

    "What are you up to Qelbinur?" he said, smiling. "Who are you with?"

    This was not the first time the officer had called from her sister's phone. This time, Sedik took a screenshot. When he heard the sound it made, the officer removed his numbered police jacket, Sedik said. She took another screenshot.

    When Qelbinur Sedik recounted the call from the policeman that morning, via her sister's phone, she buried her head in her hands and wept.

    "He said, 'You must bear in mind that all your family and relatives are with us. You must think very carefully about that fact.'

    "He stressed that several times, then he said, 'You have been living abroad for some time now, you must have a lot of friends. Can you give us their names?'

    When she refused, the officer put Sedik's sister on the call, she said, and her sister shouted at her, 'Shut up! You should shut up from now on!', followed by a string of insults.

    "At that point I couldn't control my emotions," Sedik said. "My tears flowed."

    Before the officer hung up, Sedik said, he told her several times to go to the Chinese embassy so the staff there could arrange her safe passage back to China - a common instruction in these kinds of calls.

    "This country opens its arms to you," he said.
    UNQUOTE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blurred mfer, keeps to yr c&p from that bullshit broadcasting camp lah.

      Its mastermind of Xinjiang 'atrocities' has cabut to katak infested island to save his skin!

      Delete
    2. Re the BBC ( Bullshitting Broadcasting Craps ) article : The Cost of Speaking Up Against China : watch this video below

      TipuTS as usual has opened up his mouth widely to swallow yet again another piece of POOP from the pommie Bullshitting Broadcasting Craps.

      The Liar "reporter" Joel Gunter to date have yet to rebut Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin :

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GndGDGZ_Njs&t=1s

      In the above video, Mr Wang held up a picture of Tursunay Ziyawudun which Joel Gunter of BBC had also featured in his essay of fabrications.

      Mr Wang : " In early February, in her interview with BBC, Tursunay Ziyawudun claimed there were systematic sexual abuses in vocational centres and training centres. She said " police knocked me to the floor, kicked me in the abdomen. I almost passed out".

      Mr Wang further said : " However, a year ago, in an interview with Buzzfeed, she said ' I wasn't beaten or abused' "

      Now watch another video from CGTN...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV2nXyt5gMs&t=4s

      Here, anchor Liu Xin interviewed vlogger/commentator Daniel Dumbrill, who did some further check on this same "victim" Tursunay Ziawudun. According to her testimony, she was under house arrest between January and June 2019. She later left China to tell her story but it turned out that her Chinese passport was issued on March 2019. Would the Chinese government issue her a passport while still under house arrest ?

      Mr Dumbrill also recounted that CNN interviewed this woman Tursunay Ziawudun when she 'fled' to the US with a passport issued by the Chinese government. And Dumbrill pointed out the deception of CNN ( Con News Network, hehe ) when their anchor held up Tursunay Ziawudun's passport but deliberately blurred out the date of passport issuance.

      Another Uyghur woman by the name of Mihrigul Tursun and her false claims on CNN :

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsQxjFCh5zU

      [Mihrigul Tursun claimed one of her three children was killed by the Chinese government. She said she was separated from her triplets at the Urumqi airport in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and held in custody in 2015. Mihrigul said she was told after her release that her son died following an operation. But according to a CGTN investigation, what Mihrigul Tursun said about her child's death is a lie. ]

      Here, another video recounting how CNN reporters posing as 'friends of the little Uyghur girl's father, came knocking at her door..."

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpF3tF1hokk

      You want more TipuTS ? for every fake one you dug up, there's a whole archive which debunked those fake testimonies.....

      Delete
  8. After Genocide Cina masuk islam macam Nicky Liow + Umrah = BERSIH!!.....No problem...Malaysia Islam Kata INI TAULADAN BAIK...PN BN Semua Sokong SILAP MATA UMRAH MAGIC!!...Muhyiddin Kata....Maybe Also Join EU TO SANCTION CHINA....Maybe....not Seditious...or Fake News...ASK HIM TO CONFIRM!...BABI BANGSAT!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wakakaka...perhaps the 10 m high Razor Wire around the Xinjiang Happy Vocational Training Centres are meant to keep out foreigners ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. U meant those 10 m high Razor Wire around the ADX Florence, Colorado are meant to keep out foreigners ?

      Mfer, so u actually haven't been to any of those United States Penitentiary!

      Ooop… all prisons of the world have high razor wire perimeter fence. Maybe in that fart filled well things r a bit different.

      Delete
    2. American prisons are tough.
      They imprison people who have lost their court cases in the most litigated society in the world.

      Xinjiang Happy Vocational Training Centres allegedly offering singing and dancing and carpentry lessons.

      CCP Zombies of course, believe everything the CCP farts.

      Delete
    3. Wakakakakaka…

      Let me repeat yr mindless fart to u.

      DemoNcratic zombies, of course, believe everything the drmoNcracy farts!

      Sound very familiar, no?

      Delete
    4. BTW, go talk to one John Sudworth, who 'escaped' to a katak infested island just before his 'creative' handiworks of Xinjiang astrocities been compiled & exposed!

      Mfers, like u, r his captured audiences.

      Delete
  10. Bullyland Efficiency, Honkongers will be crushed. From arrest to trial to conviction in 7 months. In Malaysia Jibby still free after 3 years.

    We must learn their version of democracy, called Bully(mock)racy...ha ha ha.

    QUOTE
    Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee convicted over 2019 democracy protests
    By Zen Soo and Kari Lindberg

    Hong Kong: Seven pro-democracy advocates were convicted on Thursday for organising and participating in an unlawful assembly during massive anti-government protests in 2019 as Hong Kong continues its crackdown on dissent.

    The seven activists include media tycoon and Apple Daily chief Jimmy Lai, as well as 82-year-old Martin Lee, a veteran of the city’s democracy movement. Lai had already been held without bail on other charges.

    Lee, who helped lead the pro-democracy camp during the former British colony’s transition to Chinese rule, was convicted in a court in the West Kowloon area along with Lai and fellow activists Albert Ho, Leung “Long Hair” Kwok-hung, Lee Cheuk-yan, Cyd Ho and Margaret Ng. It was unclear when they would be sentenced.

    The activists were convicted for their involvement in a protest held on August 18, 2019. Organisers of the protest say that 1.7 million people marched that day in protest of a proposed bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial.
    UNQUOTE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hooray, well deserved rewards to their masters!

      Delete
    2. "Outraged by Uighur genocide, Europe picks a fight with China."

      Sigh! This Simon is no Simple Simon... he is just a jaded hack with the typical Anglophone prejudice and withering contempt of those less white than him and his ilk, for which he doesn't even attempt to hide. His article's very heading itself is shamelessly, dishonestly hyperbolic..." Outraged by Uyghur genocide, Europe picks a fight with China...."

      Where's the outrage of Europe over the so-called genocide in Xinjiang ? What fight ?

      All this brouhaha is basically a LOYALTY TEST, nothing more, nothing less. It laid bare that EU is NOT as independent as they believed themselves to be. When your master says " 2 + 2 = 5 " and then breathing down on you, daring  you to think otherwise, what do you do ? One could hardly count a limb gesture of symbolic sanctions on 5 Chinese officials as a sign of "outrage"  and " picks a fight with China ! Chinese tit-for-tat sanction is to double the European number, and not restricted to just mere European officials either ! EU was appalled by this and in its shock, just gape and dare do nothing more. China apparently had had enough with these whiteface highhanded hypocrisy and outrageous lies, and for this deserved spanking of the EU, Mr Simon Tisdall lashed out on President Xi calling it  " Xi's swaggering authoritarianism " and Chinese "aggression". LOL

      (continue...)


      Delete
  11. If this is what a Bullyland vocational skills educational centre looks like I wonder what their high security prison looks like.....?

    Or maybe they don't need prisons, just execute them all...?

    ReplyDelete
  12. The China Europe trade deal is now a guaranteed failure.
    No way the EU Parliament will ratify it now.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Europe has its own satellites. There are plenty of European citizens living in/visiting Xinjiang, with their own cell phones. Satellite nowadays can see your car license plate. Drones can live-stream anything with incredible resolution. Cell phones videos are all over the web.

    US and the EU have satellite photos everyday, tracking China's daily build of their 003 aircraft carrier.

    As soon as New York started burying Covid-19 bodies in that abandoned island, the drone photos were everywhere. Cell phone videos got posted in a matter of minutes when Texas started using prison inmates to move bodies.

    A freight getting stuck in Suez and suddenly we get inundated with like a million satellite photos and cell phone images.

    There are many videos from all sorts of angles, taken by many different people. Anything huge or new happenings anywhere, you have 200 people posting their own videos about it. But the so-called "Xinjiang genocide", or the "Xinjiang forced labour"....there's absolutely nothing !

    Every where in the world, people run away from atrocities. Xinjiang has longer borders than France, so it is easy to just walk across. Sixty years ago, in 1962, for example, over 60,000 Xinjiang border residents fled to Russia to escape famine. In the same year, more than 55,000 Korean Chinese ran across the China-North Korea border to go to North Korea, also fleeing from famine. China's border is so long, basically if something bad is happening, you'll get the refugees in neighbouring countries right away. This is true with ALL COUNTRIES - Venezuela, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc.  Recently Myanmar has something like a couple hundred of fatalities and you see thousands of videos taken by thousands of people, of refugees already spilling over its neighbours.

    So where are the satellite photos for the mass exodus from Xinjiang ? Bodies being carried away ? Shooting incidents ? What good are your satellite if it can't capture hundreds of thousands up to a million people running away from a horrendous 'genocide' ?

    The point is, EU knows it's all Bullshit ! It is a Loyalty Test with the master hovers over you threateningly. The same thing with the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" when the EU was part of the weapons inspection team and knew equally well it was all BS.

    EU is now wedged between the proverbial hard rock and deep sea. It knows that if it says " China Bad", it will most likely lose an important trading partner.

    EU actually has a way out of this if it has some balls and integrity. If they simply insisted on scientific evidence, actual tangible irrefutable proof which are verifiable. EU has the means and the tools to do all the checking and investigation on their own without the say so from Master US of A.

    Unfortunately and regrettably, EU ended in this farcical state of affairs. EU won't sanction the US even though they are paying prison inmates $1 per day to fight fire and move Covid dead bodies, won't sanction Saudi even though they are starving millions of Yemenese, won't sanction fellow Europeans even though they participated in illegal wars and hosted CIA torture and kidnapping sites, won't sanction those European companies for a century of child labour in cocoa farming. But of course, EU would sanction China for something that doesn't exist...this so-called genocide. 

    Decadence and moral decline is eating up the USA of today. EU too is also displaying the same sign.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kerbau... fail geography... go back to Primary School,

      Or more likely reciting too much CCP propaganda has fried your brain.

      Xinjiang's borders are some of the most inhospitable places on earth.
      Start walking, and you will never bee seen alive again.
      Takla Makan desert, Tarim Basin,

      Delete
    2. So, u know Xinjiang?

      Where's Takla Makan desert? Tarim Basin?

      Where's Urumqi & where r most of the Uyghurs reside?

      Mfer, u only read western propagandas, w/o knowing how to comprehend, right?

      Delete
    3. Is that all you can bleat out ? not surprising though....cherry picking is your MO in almost every thread, typical of one without any substance to offer to argue reasonably or rebut with vigor. Lame nitpicking but mostly sly, sneaky, snarky comeback is more your style, all sans substantive content.

      Delete