Wednesday 30 June 2021

Photo: Maintaining cleanliness, by Gauthier DELECROIX

Maintaining cleanliness, by Gauthier DELECROIX (CC BY 2.0)



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/photo-maintaining-cleanliness-by-gauthier-delecroix/
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Tuesday 29 June 2021

Hong Kong’s Free Media Forced To Self-Censor; First National Security Trail Held

Hong Kong’s National Security Law has been used to cudgel the city’s free media within an inch of its life. What began with a slow effort to pare Hong Kong’s premier broadcast television network RTHK of its investigative teeth escalated into this past month’s blitzkrieg against pro-democracy paper Apple Daily. Five of the paper’s executives were arrested on National Security charges (owner Jimmy Lai is in prison awaiting trail on similar charges). A week later, the paper shut down. On Sunday, June 27, Hong Kong police arrested one of Apple Daily’s top editors at the airport as he was attempting to fly out of Hong Kong. At Reuters, Jessie Pang and James Pomfret:

Hong Kong police arrested a former senior journalist with the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper on Sunday night on a suspected national security offence as he was trying to catch a flight out of the city, media reported.

Police, who typically do not identify arrested people, said in a statement that a 57-year-old man had been arrested at the airport for “conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security”. The man had been detained and investigations were continuing, police said.

Hong Kong media identified the man as Fung Wai-kong, an editor and columnist at the now-closed newspaper. If confirmed, he would be the seventh staffer at the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper to be arrested on national security grounds in recent weeks. [Source]

Fung was released on bail after having his passport confiscated, and is to report to police in July. In a preface to part two of his translations of essayist Lee Yee’s reflections on Apple Daily’s demise, Geremie R. Barmé wrote: “With the forced closure of Apple Daily, Hong Kong has finally caught up with the fate of Mainland Chinese journalism from the early 1950s. It has taken just over seventy years for the Mainland’s past and present to become the future of the foundering metropole.”

The NSL has been used to smother Hong Kong’s civil society. Organizers for the annual July 1 Handover Day protest did not apply for a license this year—police banned last year’s march but demonstrators took to the streets nonetheless. Watsons, a popular brand of mineral water, pulled bottles off the shelves in fear that labels reading “Hong Kong is really beautiful” and featuring images of Lion Rock might fall afoul of the NSL. Other newspapers have not been spared. At The Guardian, Helen Davidson reported on Stand News’ attempt to insulate itself from Hong Kong’s “literary inquisition”:

The measures were taken to protect the website’s supporters, writers and editorial staffers in the “literary inquisition” of Hong Kong, Stand News said in a statement. Stand News is a popular online news outlet that formed in the wake of the 2014 Umbrella movement.

Six of the company’s directors also stepped down, including the former legislator Margaret Ng and the celebrity Denise Ho, both prominent pro-democracy figures. Stand News also terminated contracts of staff who had served more than six months to protect them and pay them more, Hong Kong Free Press reported. Most were re-employed under a new contract, the report said.

Stand News also said it would stop accepting new subscriptions, and would no longer take money from donors or subscribers, in case the money went to waste – the national security law allows accounts and assets to be frozen if authorities believe the funds are related to crime, as which occurred with Apple Daily.

“We have enough money to run for another nine to 12 months. If necessary, we will seek help again from Hongkongers in future,” the outlet said. [Source]

At The Hong Kong Free Press, Selina Cheng reported that Stand’s decisions might have been motivated by anonymous threats, some containing privileged information about personnel, that have been sent to Hong Kong’s remaining free media:

Apple Daily and some other independent news outlets had received threatening anonymous messages in the past few days, veteran independent journalist Oiwan Lam said on her Patreon page. One she saw contained a full list of directors and staffers of the company concerned, including those working part-time.

“While it is comparatively easy to dig up the list of a company’s board of directors through the company registry, to obtain the list of a company’s staff members, one needs to get access to either the tax authorities or the Mandatory Provident Fund,” Lam wrote, referring to Hong Kong’s employees’ pension scheme.

“I believe Stand News took the risk control measures against such threats – to minimize the collateral damage to individuals and the financial loss once the security police takes action against it,” Lam added. [Source]

A number of shows at RTHK were also axed. From Kelly Ho of The Hong Kong Free Press:

Speaking on Commercial Radio on Tuesday morning, [Allan Au, the host of Open Line Open View] said he was told by the department head 30 minutes before the radio programme began that it would be his last day owing to “staffing changes.”

[…] It is the second time in two weeks that RTHK has removed a radio host. On June 18, popular pro-democracy presenter Tsang Chi-ho was told he was sacked from a radio talk show after he came off air. Tsang’s co-host Jackie Chan was also dismissed.

[…] On Monday, RTHK Talk Show – an evening television programme covering topics such as philosophy, history and literature – was axed, according one of its hosts Leung Kai-chi.

[…] Another RTHK programme – RTHK31 This Week appeared to have disappeared from the station’s timetable. The scheduled timeslot was replaced by an episode of Hall of Wisdom, which featured an interview with local cyclist Sarah Lee and boxer Rex Tso that was first aired in 2016. [Source]

A prominent Hong Kong journalist put it plainly to Bloomberg’s Natalie Lung, Iain Marlow, and Chloe Lo:

“The future looks grim,” said Ronson Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association and a deputy assignment editor at Stand News. “The government is placing restrictions everywhere. As a journalist, you can’t write freely, or you lose your job or you get prosecuted as a criminal.” [Source]

Hong Kong’s first National Security Law trial took place amidst the backdrop of media closures. Although dozens upon dozens of people have been arrested under the law, Tong Ying-kit’s trial on terrorism charges will be the first test of Hong Kong’s legal independence under the NSL. In 2020, Tong, a 23-year-old ramen cook, drove a motorcycle flying a “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times” flag into a group of policeman. He has been charged with terrorism. The authors of a briefing by Georgetown Law’s Center for Asian Law wrote that Tong’s trial will have serious implications for Hong Kong’s rule of law: “How can the charge, which seeks to criminally punish Tong merely for carrying an allegedly pro-independence banner, be reconciled with the Basic Law’s guarantee of the right to free speech?” From Austin Ramzy at The New York Times, a report on Tong Ying-kit’s terrorism trail and the future of Hong Kong’s judicial independence:

Mr. Tong stood trial on Wednesday, the first among the more than 100 people in Hong Kong who have been arrested under the sweeping new rules. His case is a test of how the city’s vaunted judicial system, based on British common law principles of fairness and independence, will interpret and enforce Beijing’s far-reaching security law, in which political crimes are vaguely defined. China says the law is necessary to root out threats to Beijing’s sovereignty, but human rights activists, opposition leaders and scholars have said the law puts the city’s judicial independence in peril.

[…] One significant change under the new law is that defendants like Mr. Tong have been denied bail and held in police custody for months. The law requires defendants to convince judges that they will not endanger national security, a vague standard that is hard to meet. Only around a dozen out of the more than 50 people charged under the law have been released on bail.

Mr. Tong is also being denied a trial by jury, which has been standard practice when defendants face serious punishments. Teresa Cheng, Hong Kong’s justice secretary, ordered a bench trial for Mr. Tong, citing a clause in the security law that allows her to do so if she thinks jurors’ safety is at risk. The three judges hearing his case are among a group chosen by Hong Kong’s chief executive, whose power to do so under the new law has been seen by critics as eroding the autonomy of the courts. [Source]

At The AFP, Xinqi Su interviewed four Hong Kong defense counsels, who told her that Hong Kong’s legal system is under attack from an “unstoppable sandstorm sweeping from the north”:

“When (the court) gives up a fundamental right without any rigorous scrutiny, it is also providing an intellectual rationalisation for a draconian regime,” Johannes Chan, the University of Hong Kong’s chair professor of public law, wrote in a journal article in May

[…] “Our judicial independence and rule of law are now like a piece of glass with a crack,” the first defence lawyer said.

“The crack will continue to grow and eventually break the glass.” [Source]

The law is likely working precisely as Beijing intended. The Chinese scholars who provided the intellectual undermining for Beijing’s assault on Hong Kong were China’s authoritarian turn in Hong Kong were inspired by the legal theorist Carl Schmitt, famed for his conservative views and membership in the Nazi Party. Chen Duanhong, a Peking University professor who long advocated for a National Security Law for Hong Kong, argued in 2018: “The survival of the state comes first, and constitutional law must serve this fundamental objective.” At The New York Times, Chris Buckley, Vivian Wang, and Austin Ramzy reported on Beijing’s hiding-in-plain-sight designs on Hong Kong’s freedom:

Threats to “national sovereignty and security,” or challenges to the central government’s authority in Hong Kong, “would cross a red line and will never be permitted,” Mr. Xi said [in 2017].

In China’s top-down system, Mr. Xi’s words galvanized policymakers to look for new ways to defend that “red line.”

[…] The clearest sign of how Beijing would respond came in October 2019. State television showed hundreds of top officials at a closed-door meeting, raising their hands to endorse a move to tighten law and order across China. The plan, published days later, proposed a “legal system and enforcement mechanism for national security” in Hong Kong.

[…] But China’s leaders had already reached beyond the offices that usually dealt with Hong Kong — their credibility wounded by the months of protest — and quietly recruited experts to prepare for the security intervention, said two people who were told about the deliberations by participants. Top Communist Party agencies steered the preparations, said both people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter. [Source]

Human Rights Watch published a detailed report on Hong Kong’s changing freedoms ahead of the one year anniversary of the NSL’s passage on June 30, 2020. The report found speech muzzled, websites blocked, films pulled, books censored, newspapers shuttered, businesses harassed, protests banned, education politicized, and activists arrested—among a litany of other violations of Hong Kong citizens’ rights under the Basic Law.



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/hong-kongs-free-media-forced-to-self-censor-first-national-security-trail-held/
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Translation: Timeline of Court Rulings Removed from the Internet

A vast online database of Chinese court rulings has just shrunk by over 9%. Though China Judgments Online (中国裁判文书网), launched in 2014 by the Supreme People’s Court, has always been translucent at best—it is supposed to exclude death penalty and divorce cases, for example—it has provided the public with access to over 119 million court cases as of this April. Echo Xie at the South China Morning Post reports that 11 million of those records are now inaccessible, which China Judgements Online claims is because the files are “being migrated” for “technical reasons”:

“I am very concerned about this,” said Wang Fei, a Beijing-based lawyer. “Making the judgments available online was the best reform achievement of the Chinese judiciary in recent years and this is very important for safeguarding justice.”

In addition, Wang said some video recordings of trial proceedings which had previously been published on China Trials Online – a separate website also run by the Supreme People’s Court – were no longer available as of the beginning of this month.

“It will have a big impact on our work if these judgments aren’t available any more. The database is an important source for our research – the information it provided is comprehensive and authoritative,” Wang said. “I hope the ‘migration’ is just a technical issue,” he added.

The Supreme People’s Court did not respond to phone calls and faxed requests for comment on Friday. [Source]

At the Los Angeles Times, Alice Su reports that the missing documents have come to light thanks to the work of a digital activist on Twitter:

The deletions were first noticed by a Chinese activist with the Twitter handle @SpeechFreedomCN, who has been keeping an archive of speech crime cases. He has tracked more than 2,040 cases, dating to 2013, based on official documentation in China Judgments Online or public security bureaus’ reports on the social media apps Weibo and WeChat.

There are more than 600 cases of punishment related to speech about COVID-19. Most are fines, “education and warning,” or detention for up to two weeks for posting online messages about the coronavirus or the government response.

They include the case of Li Wenliang, the young doctor who died of the virus after authorities reprimanded him for warning others about the outbreak, but also hundreds of lesser-known ones: a Qinghai man given 10 months of jail for tweets criticizing China’s COVID response; a Beijinger jailed six months for warning classmates in a WeChat group about a COVID case; a popular Weibo blogger in Hebei province given six months of prison for compiling stories of Wuhan residents’ suffering during lockdown. [Source]

On Monday, @SpeechFreedomCN tweeted a timeline of their sleuthing on China Judgements Online, noticing that cases seem to disappear after they have brought them to light. CDT has translated the full text of this tweet, which was posted as an image:

On January 4, 2020, I posted the case of Wang Qiang, an internet user in Wuhan who received a prison sentence for criticizing the CCP on Twitter. The verdict was published on China Judgements Online. Perhaps because the media picked up the story, many people visited the site to look up the original court opinion, which led to it being taken offline shortly afterwards.

On January 16, I posted the case of someone surnamed Li, an internet user in Jincheng, Shanxi Province, who received a prison sentence for posting “negative speech implicating Xi [Jingping]” on Twitter and WeChat. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards.

On January 22, I posted the case of Luo Daiqing, a Chinese student who criticized Xi Jinping while studying in America and received a prison sentence upon returning to China. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards for the same reason [as mentioned above];

On February 13, I posted the case of Yang Tihe, a democracy activist from Sichuan Province who was detained for dissident speech. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

That was when I realized that China Judgements Online was deleting entries. Since then, whenever I have come across a case that should be made public, I download it first. So for anything I publish, I have a copy of the judgement sitting on my hard drive.

On May 25, I posted the case of Li Hao, an internet user in Fushun, Liaoning Province, who received a prison sentence for criticizing the CCP on Twitter. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On July 4, I posted the case of Jin Shoukui, a cab driver in Tianjin who received a prison sentence for criticizing the CCP on NetEase News. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On July 9, I posted the case of Wu Yong, an internet user in Wuhan who received a prison sentence for criticizing the CCP on QQ and WeChat groups. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On July 13, I posted the case of Wang Hongquan, Tang Yunli, and Li Hede. The trio received prison sentences for starting a media outlet in Hong Kong to report negative news. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On July 31, I posted the case of an internet user in Dongzhi County, Anhui Province, who was detained for using the term “Gongfei” [共匪, Communist bandits]. He subsequently argued in court that he was actually referring to the American “Gonghedang” [共和党, the Republican Party]. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On August 16, I posted the case of Fu Lishu, a citizen of Wuhan who received a prison sentence for posting “Daddy Xi visits Wuhan.” The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On August 18, I posted the case of Huang Shihai, an internet user in Guangdong Province who received a prison sentence for posting a photoshopped image of Xi. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On September 1, China Judgements Online announced new requirements for cellphone registration. But that didn’t stop me. I registered with a fake number and continued to use the site. They continued to delete entries. Whenever something I posted garnered attention and drove up visits to the original post, the website would delete the judgement. But because I’d always downloaded the judgements before publishing them, it was no big deal.

On October 30, I posted the case of Chen Yingjun and other members of a QQ group who received prison sentences for reposting information from Guo Wengui. The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On February 22, 2021, I posted the case and sentencing of Zhang Wenfang (“Marilyn Monroe”). The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On April 1, I posted the case and sentencing of Chen Shaotian (Brother Tian). The judgement was taken offline shortly afterwards;

On May 4, I posted the case of Cai Zucheng, a lawyer in Zhejiang Province who was detained for calling on the CCP to disband in a Weibo post that was almost a year old. I looked it up before publishing the case and took a screenshot as evidence; a day after my post went up, not only was the judgement taken offline, all of Cai’s Weibo posts had been deleted.

There are many similar cases. I have trouble naming them all. And I can’t look them up anymore (because they have been deleted).

Finally, in mid-May, China Judgements Online deleted all cases containing certain keywords, such as “Twitter,” “Weibo,” “false information,” “national leaders,” and other terms combined with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” I search these keywords almost every day.

They didn’t specifically target sensitive judgements, because many non-sensitive judgements were also taken offline. So it was actually the keywords they targeted.

However, their job was not complete. Many administrative cases slipped through the cracks. I don’t search for administrative cases very frequently, so they ignored some of those judgments. Since then, I’ve been focusing on administrative cases.

In mid-June, sensitive administrative cases were also taken offline. Any administrative case that involves bringing suit against the Public Security Bureau and includes the keyword “speech” has been taken offline.

In addition to China Judgements Online, WeChat has done similar things to public accounts on their platform. Previously, the cyberspace policing units of Public Security bureaus all over China used their WeChat public accounts to post cases involving freedom of speech. They referred to these cases as “picking quarrels and provoking trouble on the internet.” But sometime between March and May 2020, these units stopped publishing these types of cases, and the task fell to the PSBs. So among all the cases you see now that involve freedom of speech, the cyberspace policing units are generally not responsible for publicizing them anymore.

Note: “shortly afterwards” means within three days. [Chinese]

@SpeechFreedomCN’s archive of verdicts is available on MEGA, and a summary of verdicts may be viewed on this Google spreadsheet.

Translation by Yakexi.

 



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/translation-timeline-of-court-rulings-removed-from-the-internet/
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Monday 28 June 2021

The Party Works to Ensure Nothing, Especially Not History, Will Spoil 100th Anniversary

On July 1, the Chinese Communist Party will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding. The Party was actually founded on July 23 but the mixup, although acknowledged, has never been rectified—perhaps because the date has a certain numerical symmetry with other important anniversaries: August 1, the founding of the People’s Liberation Army, and October 1, the founding of the People’s Republic of China. At Reuters, Cate Cadell reported on Party officials’ attempt to “securitize” Beijing ahead of the event:

People on a citywide list of residents suffering from mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, received house calls and phone checks from authorities, a common practice ahead of major political events, according to two people who received the calls and a doctor who said many of their patients had been contacted.

[…] Four merchants on China’s top e-commerce site, Taobao.com, told Reuters they had been banned from shipping items including gas bottles and other flammable products to Beijing residents beginning in June. Taobao’s owner, Alibaba, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

[…] Two people working at the Tianjin-based censorship unit of social media firm Bytedance Ltd and one Beijing-based censor for Chinese search engine Baidu.com said they had received new directives in recent months on removing negative commentary about the anniversary. Neither company immediately replied to requests for comment.

“There’s no room for error,” said one Bytedance staffer, who declined to be named because they are not permitted to speak to foreign media. [Source]

Details on how the centenary will be celebrated have been kept under close-wraps but observers expect a live performance in Tiananmen Square. The centenary will not be marked by a military parade, a staple of earlier important anniversaries. Instead, according to Bloomberg News, Xi Jinping will make a speech in the Great Hall of the People:

Xi will make the speech as part of an event Tuesday in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, where he will also hand out red, gold and white medals adorned with the party’s hammer-and-sickle emblem to “outstanding” individuals and groups, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The address is one of several events this week planned to mark the party’s founding in 1921 in Shanghai by a handful of revolutionaries.

[…] Xi will make an important speech at an event Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense said last week. Warplanes and helicopters have been seen flying in formations above Beijing spelling out “100” and “71” for July 1, the state-run Global Times reported, citing an aerospace publication.

[…] The award Xi will hand out is called the July 1 Medal, the official China Daily reported. It was created this year to honor distinguished members and organizations, the English-language newspaper said, becoming the party’s highest honor. [Source]

But the occasion has been as much an exercise in the Party’s control over its own history as it has a celebration. The Party jealously defends its claimed monopoly on historical truth. In recent months, it has launched a campaign against “historical nihilism” and targeted academics who deviate from official history with, in the words of one scholar, “White Terror.” At The Financial Times, Sun Yu and Tom Mitchell used an imperious lecture delivered by an official from China’s education ministry as a launching point to reflect on the Party on the eve of its 100th anniversary:

Last month a senior official from China’s education ministry addressed more than 100 government colleagues and scholars at a closed-door event to discuss the centenary of the establishment of the Chinese Communist party, which will be officially marked with great fanfare in Beijing on Thursday.

Wang Binglin lectured his audience on controversial subjects, such as the party’s iron grip on history ever since Mao Zedong seized power 72 years ago. In particular, he warned the scholars in attendance to be careful when speaking and writing about the party’s violent land redistribution campaign in the early 1950s that claimed the lives of as many as 2m people.

“Playing up [the attack on landlords] is historical nihilism,” Wang said, referring to the term used by President Xi Jinping to criticise anyone who deviates from the party’s official historical narrative. He also noted that certain information in China’s national archives was likely to be marked as classified and off-limits forever: “Making such information public is of little help for you historians and will also be bad for the party.”

[…] The mixture of condescension and confidence implicit in Wang’s remarks — that what is good for the party is good for China — provides a perfect encapsulation of the country under Xi. [Source]

The run-up to the centenary has featured an intense nation-wide propaganda campaign designed to inculcate love for the Party and an orthodox view of history in China’s population. The drive has been accompanied by government-choreographed “flash mobs,” group songs professing love for the Party (including a 15-minute rap featuring verses from 100 rappers), film and opera screenings, and, in Beijing, the inauguration of a new Party history museum.

“Red Tourism,” the practice of visiting important sites from the CCP’s past, has attracted renewed attention. Visitors to Yan’an—once the CCP’s wartime base and today a “Red Holy Land”—reached 73 million by 2019, tripling since Xi’s ascension to power in 2012. At The New York Times, Sui-Lee Wee and Elsie Chen reported on Red Tourism’s new found popularity and the commercialization of communist heritage:

Mass swearing-in ceremonies aren’t typical group tour activities, but this is “red tourism” in China, where thousands of people flock to places like Yan’an to absorb the official version of the party’s history. At these sites, schoolchildren are told how the Red Army, later renamed the People’s Liberation Army, was created. Tourists gaze at an ensemble of chairs used by Xi Jinping, China’s leader, and other guests when they visited Mao’s home. Retirees take selfies with flower-adorned statues of Mao and Zhu De, the Red Army commander.

[…] The thing about China is that there’s only one origin story, and it’s not up for debate,” said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Australia and an expert in Chinese politics. “History is at the core of propaganda in China. It’s vital for the party that people feel an emotional connection to that history, and you’re only going to get that on the ground.”

[…] Beyond fueling party devotion and lore, “red tourism” has been good for business. In 2023, the industry’s revenues are expected to reach $153 billion, according to the Qianzhan Research Institute, a data consultancy. That represents an average annual compound growth rate of 14.1 percent from 2019 to 2023. Wanda said it was planning a second “red” attraction. [Source]

Efforts to pass down “red genes” to the next generation have accompanied the push to propagate Party history. From China Media Project:

One key focus of the Party’s campaign to secure its position at the center of Chinese life and identity has been the nation’s youth. One of the most commonly seen phrases in Chinese schools in recent months has been “transmitting red genes, telling China’s story well (传承红色基因, 讲好中国故事).

[…] Back in February, the Ministry of Education issued its “Guide to Introducing Teaching Materials on the Revolutionary Tradition Into the Primary and Secondary School Curriculum” (革命传统进中小学课程教材指南), which called for the nationwide implementation of Xi Jinping’s directive to “begin education in revolutionary traditions from childhood” (革命传统教育从娃娃抓起). The next month, the ministry announced a campaign of education in Party history for primary schools at every level across the country. The campaign, “Studying Party history from primary, forever walking with the Party” (从小学党史, 永远跟党走), was designed specifically for the commemoration of the CCP’s centennial. It outlined teaching priorities for local governments and schools, and pointed them to resources like this website, which offers short historical videos produced by the People’s Daily on such topics as “peaceful co-existence” and the “peaceful liberation of Tibet.”

While campaigns of education on CCP history have dominated the headlines this year, the push to double down on history to consolidate the Party’s central position in fact goes back to the second half of the Hu Jintao era. In the Xi era, the phrase “education in the revolutionary tradition must start at childhood” (革命传统教育要从娃娃抓起), which made it into a headline in the People’s Daily yesterday, dates back to a speech Xi Jinping gave in April 2016 on a visit to a revolutionary museum Anhui province’s Jinzhai County. Speaking almost graphically about the need to pass on “red genes” to the next generation, Xi said in that speech: “Education in the revolutionary tradition must begin with children, focusing not just on inculcation with knowledge but also the strengthening of emotional cultivation, so that red genes seep into the blood, and soak into the heart.” [Source]

The Party’s effort to forge uniform historical memory has not wholly succeeded. At The Los Angeles Times, Alice Su reported on youth dedicated to preserving historical memory at the cost of their freedom:

He stood in Tiananmen Square, wearing sneakers, track pants and a black T-shirt printed with the date of a massacre.

It was June 4, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the killing of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing. Dong Zehua, then 28, hadn’t even been born when tanks clattered over the square and the world watched. The events on that bloody day in 1989 weren’t taught in school or ever mentioned in Chinese media. But Dong knew what had happened.

[…] To Dong’s surprise, two other young people were in the square the morning he arrived: Yuan Shuai, 24, a recent college graduate from Inner Mongolia working at an advertising company in Beijing, and Gao Tianqi, 21, a Beijinger attending university abroad who’d come back for the summer. Gao carried a yellow umbrella — a symbol of Hong Kong’s youth-led democracy movement — with the number “30” written on it in black marker.

[…] The three were arrested within hours. Yuan and Dong were convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” and sentenced, respectively, to six and seven months in jail. Gao was let go after 38 days of detention without trial. [Source]

It just such such events that caused Andrew Nathan to term July 1 China’s “anxious” anniversary in The Wall Street Journal:

Still, the CCP is worried—and for good reason. There is an obvious tension between its self-interest as a ruling party and its stated long-term goals for China. By 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, the CCP has declared that it intends to make China a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious and modern socialist country.” The great dilemma for the party is that the citizens of such a highly developed country are unlikely to accept the infantilizing control that its increasingly authoritarian regime imposes on them. A generational shift is under way in China, with traditional values giving way to more liberal attitudes, and it does not favor the long-term prospects of the CCP.

[…] Although the regime is not democratic in any Western sense, it interacts with its citizens more than most outsiders understand. Local governments maintain digital comment boxes where citizens can report service problems or anonymously accuse officials of corruption or abuse. When small-scale demonstrations occur over issues like unpaid wages and land seizures, officials often respond with what scholars Yanhua Deng and Kevin O’Brien call “relational, ‘soft’ repression.” They mobilize people respected by the demonstrators to persuade the crowd to back off. In rural areas, officials often lean on members of respected families or leaders of local temple associations to get villagers to give up land for development, comply with unpopular regulations or stay silent in the face of official abuse.

[…] In the most recent Asian Barometer Survey for which data are available, carried out in China in 2014-16, 21% of respondents identified themselves as city dwellers with at least some secondary education and enough household income to cover their needs and put away some savings. Compared with non-middle-class respondents, these Chinese citizens are almost twice as likely to express dissatisfaction with the way the political system works (32.5% versus 17.2%) and more than twice as likely to endorse liberal-democratic values such as independence of the judiciary and separation of powers (47.4% versus 20.4%). And these attitudes are even more pronounced among the younger members of the middle class. [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/the-party-works-to-ensure-nothing-especially-not-history-will-spoil-100th-anniversary/
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Saturday 26 June 2021

Photo: Untitled, by Conder Kong



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/photo-untitled-by-conder-kong/
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Friday 25 June 2021

Translations: One Apple Falls, And A Thousand Apples Grow

In a year of wretched milestones for Hong Kong’s civil liberties, this weeks stands apart, with the closure of Hong Kong’s only pro-democracy legacy newspaper, Apple Daily. From the arrest of five Apple Daily executives last Friday to the shuttering of the newspaper on Wednesday night, it took less than one week for the Hong Kong government to bury one of the city’s most popular newspapers.

On Friday, more news: less than one week after freezing Apple Daily’s assets, Secretary for Security John Lee will become the number two official in the Hong Kong government. It is the first time in post-colonial history that an ex-police and security official will assume the role of Chief Secretary. The police commissioner, Chris Tang, will replace him as head of the expansive Security Bureau.

CDT Chinese has published its own tribute to Apple Daily, recalling its history and significance to Hong Kong, and describing mainland Chinese citizens’ responses to news of its closure. Their special issue, titled “Goodbye, Apple (再见，苹果), also includes preserved links to some of Apple Daily’s most influential investigations and writing over the years. CDT’s English editors have translated the article in full:

One Apple Falls, And A Thousand Apples Grow

June 23, 2021

Apple Daily was a newspaper published in traditional Chinese, owned by Hong Kong-listed company Next Digital, which was founded by Jimmy Lai on June 20, 1995. On the occasion of the 26th anniversary of its publication, it was forced to suspend its operations due to repression imposed by the government of Hong Kong. The affair is widely regarded as spelling the end to Hong Kong’s press freedom and “one country, two systems.”

Apple Daily was a popular newspaper in Hong Kong. It was also the last newspaper in Hong Kong that was unabashedly politically critical after the implementation of the National Security Law (NSL). On August 10, 2020, Jimmy Lai was arrested on suspicion of violating the NSL. On June 17, 2021, five executives of Next Digital and Apple Daily were arrested on suspicion of “collaborating with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security.” The five arrested were editor-in-chief Ryan Law, Chief Executive Editor Cheung Chi-wai, Deputy Chief Editor Chan Pui-man, CEO Cheung Kim-hung, and COO/CFO Chow Tat-kuen. At the same time, an estimated 18 million Hong Kong dollars of Next Digital’s assets were frozen. On June 23, national security police also arrested lead opinion writer Yeung Ching-kei. The police said that they would not rule out the possibility of arresting more people.

Management of Apply Daily then decided to suspend operations after midnight on June 23, publishing the last paper copy of the newspaper on the 24th and suspending updates to its website at midnight on the 24th. Most controversial about this incident is that the case has not yet even been heard in court, but the freezing of Next Digital’s assets means it has nonetheless been forced to rapidly shut down. The ambiguity of the red lines in Hong Kong has left much of the press at a loss.

Eva Chan, a senior lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication, told BBC Chinese that the loss of Next Digital will be felt greatest of all by Hong Kong society: “With the Legislative Council bereft of an opposition, the media itself should take on an accountability role, but now it has been affected by the specter of possibly violating the NSL. If the media loses its accountability function, what will happen to Hong Kong?”

Apple Daily was launched in 1995 on the eve of Hong Kong’s handover. The editorial page of its inaugural issue read: “What we want to run is a newspaper for Hong Kong people… Are you not afraid of what may change after 1997? But we don’t want to be intimidated by fear. We don’t want to be blinded by pessimism. We have to face the future positively and optimistically, because we are Hong Kong people!” Those prophetic words revealed the foresight of its founder, Jimmy Lai.

From the start, the publication of Apple Daily forced the “Appleization” of its peers. Its early commercial success relied on entertainment and erotic content, and its credibility in Hong Kong has often lagged, but Apple Daily was also a pioneer in investigative reporting. Its stance of “defying power, daring to criticize social problems, and exposing impropriety by officials and enterprises” was welcomed by the public, and the newspaper came to rank as the third most credible in Hong Kong. In recent years, many legacy media outlets in Hong Kong have been acquired with funds from mainland China, spurring increasing self-censorship. Among legacy outlets, Apple Daily stood alone in preserving its independence and credibility.

In a letter to its readers published on June 17, Apple Daily’s editors wrote: “In response to the allegations, history will judge us. In an era when the regime arbitrarily draws red lines, Apple Daily has stood its ground, acting legally, sensibly, and rationally to report the truth to Hong Kongers. The responses of other countries and bodies on the situation in Hong Kong and mainland China are public facts that are visible to the world. Reporting the situation truthfully to the people of Hong Kong fulfils a promise made by Apple Daily at its time of publication: “We are confident in the power of information technology to create transparency, because we are convinced that darkness cannot cover the light… Whether in Hong Kong or any corner of the world, the transparency of the media is the greatest guarantee of freedom and prosperity.”

The last paper copy of Apple Daily, published on the 24th of June, included a farewell note on its front page, headlined: “Hong Kong People Bid Farewell in the Rain, We Stand with Apple Daily.” The farewell note stated that Apple Daily had no choice but to say goodbye to Hong Kongers. Due to employee safety and manpower considerations, management decided to halt publication and stop the operation of the newspaper’s website. Apple Daily paid tribute to its editors and colleagues, who under the “White Terror” lasted until the very end, completing the final copy of the newspaper and web edition. The farewell letter also acknowledged the readers and residents who cheered on Apple Daily over the last week, and apologized for failing to live up to people’s expectations. It wished for everyone to cherish this moment, and to look forward to the early release of colleagues who had lost their freedom, in order for them to reunite with their families.

Hundreds of citizens ignored public gathering restrictions and stood outside the headquarters of Next Digital, waiting for the release of the final edition of Apple Daily. After midnight on the 24th, Apple Daily employees walked out of the Next Digital building to thank residents who had come to bid farewell, and handed out newly published paper copies to waiting supporters.

According to Ming Pao, Apple Daily’s last set of newspapers was delivered to a Mongkok newsstand at around 1 am on 24th, where a large number of people were lining up to buy the last copy as a momento. Because so many people showed up, the vendor had to limit the sales to three copies per person. Among the first group of people who made the purchase, some said that they lined up to buy Apple Daily not only to commemorate the paper and to show support, but also to make a statement that they didn’t want the paper to disappear. First in line was Ms. Zhang who came at 10pm the night before. She thanked Apple Daily’s reporters who worked hard over the years to be competitive and innovative, and corrected their own mistakes to make improvements. She said that the paper went through ups and downs, reflecting the vitality of the private sector in a capitalist society. Ms. Zhang encouraged the Apple Daily reporters to stay true to their beliefs. The second person in line was Mr. Chen. He urged citizens not to forget the newspapers that had their voices muffled for telling the truth. He said he was disappointed with the government but wanted the Apple Daily staff to cheer up, believing that Apple Daily “may return in the future.”

Regarding the suspension of Apple Daily, Initium Media published an article pointing out that the government, in an attempt to portray Apple as the “black sheep” of the press, has essentially hijacked the right to define freedom of the press and freedom of expression. The government attempts to punish journalists for doing their jobs — publishing articles, commenting on current affairs, and making proposals. By fabricating charges and disseminating misinformation, the government shrouds its true intention, which is to put a muzzle on the press.

As Apple Daily comes to an end, other mainstream media have suddenly become more cautious in their reporting. Political dissent is kept out of the public sphere. At the moment, on the internet in Mainland China, phrases like “Apple Daily,” “Li Zhiying [Jimmy Lai],” “Luo Weiguang [Ryan Law]” have all become high-level sensitive words. A search for “Apple Daily” on Weibo mostly generates content by users who have “Gold V” and “Blue V” statuses. The number of comments and reposts shown under trending Weibo posts about Apple Daily are different from the actual number of comments and reposts visible to all users. Apparently, posts about “Apple Daily” have been subjected to “review before posting,” a censorship technique which requires manual approval before a post can be made public.

A search for the aforementioned sensitive words on Douyin generated more results. However, contents posted within the last week are highly uniform, which is unusual given the scale of discussion about Apple Daily’s suspension. A search for “Apple Daily” on Baidu generates about 37,900,000 results. However, only 25 pages are being displayed, with roughly 200 results in total, all of which came from China’s official media. None of the results are from BBS, social media or self media.

Nonetheless, many internet users took to platforms outside the Great Firewall to express their dismay, grief and respect for the Apple Daily. Some people said that “the death of Apple Daily is the death of Hong Kong.” They believed that “Hong Kong had become another Mainland” ever since the National Security Law was implemented. “Apple Daily falls, so does Hong Kong. The Pearl of the Orient is dimmed.” Others are more hopeful, believing that “one Apple may have fallen, but millions of apples will emerge.”

Some internet users chided that the crackdown on press freedom in Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party would be “a dark spot in history.” Others hailed Apple Daily for having stood their ground for the past 26 years, saying: “Apple Daily may have fallen, but its spirit lives on.” “Even if there is no more protest on the street, no more candlelit vigil in Victoria Park, no more Apple Daily on newsstands, Hong Kongers will continue to safeguard Hong Kong with their conscience.” [Chinese]

Translation by John Chan and Yakexi.

Over the course of this week, several more translated tributes to Apple Daily have stood out. China Heritage’s Geremie Barmé translated an essay by Lee Yee, an acclaimed Hong Kong journalist and essayist who regularly wrote for Apple Daily. This essay was one of his last for the newspaper, published on June 23, 2021:

The Successes and Failure of Apple Daily

Lee Yee

I started publishing this final series of essays during the twilight of Apple Daily. Being able to write about my sense of being a ‘loser’ has, at most, allowed me to steal a march on what has been inexorably unfolding. As an editor at Apple Daily for a quarter of a century, and as a reader for twenty-six years, I must admit that it too has, from the perspective of the kind of ‘loser’ I defined above, a failure. However, we should not forget, that among the plethora of Hong Kong’s newspapers, from its very inception, Apple Daily has been the most successful. Its trek from that ongoing success to this final failure has covered an era during which print media around the world has experienced precipitous decline, while online news sources have burgeoned. That’s simply the objective reality of the situation; then, of course, various subjective factors have also been at play. In the end, Apple Daily had no choice but to cease publication but, as everyone knows, that’s because the totalitarians are now in command; Hong Kong’s values and virtues put to the sword; basic human rights are no longer being upheld; and, the rule of law is but a fiction.

Liu Binyan, who was a celebrated author and former People’s Daily journalist, once remarked that a newspaper presents the face of its editor-in-chief to the world. But, in a free society in which there is real competition, it is more accurate to say that a newspaper reflects the features of its actual owner. Most media owners in Hong Kong interfere in the editorial direction and tenor of their papers. Their papers, in turn, reflect the experiences, views and latitude of those owners.

Before his foray into the newspaper business, Jimmy Lai made a name for himself in the clothing industry. Then, when founding Apple Daily, he paid top dollar for the best editorial team he could assemble. Even then, he wasn’t entirely confident and that’s why he personally chaired a brainstorming session every day involving not only editorial executives but also a select number of everyday readers. Together they would mull over and critique every report that had appeared in the previous day’s paper, as well as every headline and every article. As Jimmy often remarked: we’re publishing a paper for all of our readers and there’s only one boss who is truly in charge of the show — the advertisers aren’t the real boss, nor are the managers the actually bosses; the real bosses are our readers. [Source]

Finally, an anonymous translation of Apple Daily’s final editorial has been circulating on social media. Titled “After 26 years, we have finished fighting the good fight – a final Apple Daily editorial, written together with its readers,” the original Chinese version was published on its since-deleted website [PDF] and in the final edition of the newspaper:

After 26 Years, We Have Finished Fighting the Good Fight – A Final Apple Daily Editorial, Written Together with its Readers

June 23, 2021

After 26 years, we have finished fighting the good fight. Today, Apple Daily writes its last articles and bids farewell to Hong Kong. “In ten years, will there still be a 30th anniversary special edition? The wind has risen; we must try to live.” In the preface to the 20th anniversary special edition, we had asked this question; after six years, we finally have an answer. Though the ending is not as intended, though it is with great reluctance that we part, the resolution and perseverance of Hongkongers has not changed in 26 years. We thank every reader who supports and upholds Apple Daily’s slogan, every friend who waits late at newsstands for our paper to arrive. This final chapter we write with our readers — both with regret and gratitude.

Two years before the handover, foreign media predicted “the death of Hong Kong.” Apple Daily was born in those times. Our first editorial made our stance clear: “What we need to be is a newspaper for Hongkongers.” From the first issue on June 20, 1995, Apple Daily was printed in full color, priced at $2HKD, and came with free apples to seize the market, a successful though imperfect ploy for attention. While Hongkongers have simultaneously criticized Apple Daily for its sensationalism and praised it for its fearlessness, founder Jimmy Lai once said: “Apple Daily has committed many mistakes, and has not been able to fulfil its readers’ wishes in many areas and for that we are deeply sorry. But reflecting on the past quarter of a century, we have a clear conscience.”

[…] We bid farewell to the front pages that have commemorated June 4th and called for Hongkongers to gather at Victoria Park on July 1st. Apple Daily is not perfect, but what will a Hong Kong that cannot permit Apple Daily’s existence look like? It is hard to be hopeful or optimistic as we look at the seemingly insurmountable mountain before us, but please trust that darkness comes before dawn. Being able to walk with you for 26 years has been priceless. Although our steps have faltered, in fighting this good fight, there is beauty still — even in its cessation. We thank every reader of Apple Daily; this last chapter was written in conjunction with all of you. From this vantage point, we can perhaps say we have no regrets. Let’s keep fighting — together. [Source]



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/translations-one-apple-falls-and-a-thousand-apples-grow/
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China Uses Global Influence Campaign To Deny Forced Labor, Mass Incarceration in Xinjiang

A landmark investigation from The Washington Post has added further evidence to allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang’s solar industry. The systemic use of forced labor in Xinjiang is part of a sweeping government campaign targeted at Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities that has also used mass incarceration and forced sterilization to both “Sinicize” and “proletarianize” the region’s Muslim population. At The Washington Post, Lily Kuo, Pei Lin Wu, and Jeanne Whalen conducted an investigation into Hoshine Silicon, a major solar energy manufacturer that allegedly uses forced Uyghur labor:

According to company reports, local propaganda and other public documents, Hoshine Silicon, also known as Hesheng, recruits and employs Uyghurs and other minorities via state labor programs that aim to place them in factories. Researchers say these programs are a form of forced labor for residents who, faced with the threat of detention or other punishment, cannot refuse.

[…] In April 2020, Hoshine hired workers in Makit county, a Uyghur-majority district, who would be given “patriotism training” and “political assessments.” Recruits received copies of the essential points of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era,” according to an article by an XPCC-run development zone in Shihezi in northern Xinjiang, where Hoshine operates one of its plants.

[…] In another report from September 2019, officials were described as “relieving” a couple in Dikan of their seven acres of grape fields. The couple were given jobs at Hoshine, about 30 miles away, as a mechanic and product inspector, according to the state-run Xinjiang Broadcasting Station.

Former residents said refusing these jobs was not an option, given the threat of detention. “You don’t have a choice. You must go,” said Abdulla Yunus, a Uyghur from Piqan who now lives overseas. [Source]

In response to the above investigation and others, the United States government has moved to ban imports sourced from Hoshine Silicon, as well as a number of other Xinjiang solar product manufacturers. At The New York Times, Thomas Kaplan, Chris Buckley and Brad Plumer detailed the measures the United States government has taken against Hoshine, and other solar companies in Xinjiang:

In one of the newly announced actions, U.S. Customs and Border Protection banned imports of silica-based products made by Hoshine Silicon Industry Company as well as goods made using those products. The agency “has information reasonably indicating that Hoshine uses forced labor to produce its silica-based products,” Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said at a news conference.

[…] China is the dominant global producer of polysilicon, a raw material that most solar panels use to absorb energy from sunlight, and Xinjiang has over the past decade risen as the country’s main production base for the material. Xinjiang makes about 45 percent of the world’s polysilicon, according to InfoLink, a renewable energy research company.

The import ban focuses on one company and not all polysilicon products from Xinjiang, but it could roil the market for solar panels in the United States. Hoshine and its subsidiaries supply at least some metallurgical-grade silicon to the world’s eight largest polysilicon producers, which together account for 90 percent of the global market, according to Johannes Bernreuter, a polysilicon market analyst at Bernreuter Research. [Source]

A White House statement said, “These actions demonstrate our commitment to imposing additional costs on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for engaging in cruel and inhumane forced labor practices.” Xinjiang’s cotton and tomato industries have also been tainted by credible accusations of forced labor. Many international businesses use labor auditors to check working conditions within their supply chains, but that practice is nearly impossible in Xinjiang, where auditors are subject to arrest for merely doing their jobs. A new report from Axios alleges that “In April, at least seven people in China who work in partnership with Verité [a global supply-chain audit company] were interrogated by Chinese authorities for several days.”

Businesses that have stopped using Xinjiang cotton over forced labor concerns have been mobbed by nationalists online—H&M, Nike, Adidas, Burberry, and Uniqlo were all targeted this March. At The Wall Street Journal, Stu Woo, Suzanne Kapner and Brian Whitton reported on a major apparel maker’s decision to take a stand against forced labor in Xinjiang… and then abandon it, until reaffirming the original decision 24 hours later:

In late March, the maker of North Face jackets and Vans sneakers quietly took down a statement raising concern about allegations of forced labor in China’s cotton-rich Xinjiang region. Rival fashion company H&M had just been erased from China’s internet for a similar statement.

Three other big apparel companies also pulled or altered statements critical of Xinjiang from their websites in the days that followed the boycott of H&M, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. At Denver-based VF Corp., though, executives quickly convened to deliberate over what they felt was the right thing to do, according to a person familiar with the matter. Twenty-four hours after pulling its statement, the company posted a new, shorter statement reaffirming its stance.

[…] A week later, Sean Cady, a VF executive overseeing the company’s responsibility initiatives, sent an email to a nonprofit labor-rights monitoring group called the Worker Rights Consortium. In the email, Mr. Cady said VF “temporarily” removed its Xinjiang statement “out of an abundance of caution” but publicly reaffirmed its position within 24 hours. The email, which was circulated among advocacy groups and shared online by one of them, said VF is maintaining its nearly two-year-old position of not sourcing any products or materials from Xinjiang. [Source]

Nationalist outbursts are, at least in part, an effort to shape global discourse around Xinjiang by browbeating companies into silence. But the Chinese government’s efforts to shape global public opinion do not stop at economic coercion. A detailed visual investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times has revealed an elaborate global campaign to enlist Uyghurs to make propaganda videos “dispelling” rumors of forced labor in Xinjiang. From Jeff Kao, Raymond Zhong, Paul Mozur, Aliza Aufrichtig, Nailah Morgan, and Aaron Krolik of ProPublica and The New York Times:

The operation has produced and spread thousands of videos in which Chinese citizens deny abuses against their own communities and scold foreign officials and multinational corporations who dare question the Chinese government’s human rights record in Xinjiang.

[…] Many of these videos of people in Xinjiang first appeared on a regional Communist Party news app. Then they showed up on YouTube and other global sites, with English subtitles added. (The excerpts of dialogue in this article are translated from the original spoken Chinese or Uyghur by The Times and ProPublica. They are not taken from the English subtitles in the original videos.)

[…] The warehouse accounts on YouTube have attracted more than 480,000 views in total. People on YouTube, TikTok and other platforms — users with no apparent connection to the influence campaign — have cited the testimonials to argue that all is well in Xinjiang. Their videos have received hundreds of thousands of additional views.

[…] “Some people will believe these videos and believe Uyghurs are living a happy life,” [Rebiya Kadeer, 74,] said. “We can’t say they have locked up everyone. But what they’re saying in these videos — it’s not true. They know they’re not speaking the truth. But they have to say what the Chinese government wants them to say.” [Source]

Tweet threads by two of the report’s primary authors provide striking visual evidence of the level of coordination behind the campaign:

Massive Twitter bot networks boost the message:

Forced labor is just one aspect of repression in Xinjiang. At CNN, Rebecca Wright, Ivan Watson, and Ben Westcott reported on the region’s extremely high rate of long-term sentences, which experts believe is indicative of an ethnicity-based crackdown:

According to Xinjiang’s statistical yearbooks, 87% of all sentences in 2017 were for more than five years, up from 27% in 2016. Rights groups say that sharp rise in the length of prison terms suggests the Chinese government’s crackdown in the region is becoming more extreme.

[…] Information from the Xinjiang Victims Database, a nongovernmental organization that has documented more than 8,000 Uyghur cases, suggests the pattern of high sentencing rates continued until at least 2020, HRW said.

[…] “When it comes to people who are ethnic minorities, I think it is highly likely that many of the people there shouldn’t be imprisoned,” said [Human Rights Watch China researcher Maya Wang]. “If you look at the verdicts that are available it does show that … they are being punished for behavior that does not constitute crimes.” [Source]

A population “optimization” drive in Xinjiang has subjected Uyghur women to harsh, at times nonconsensual, birth-control measures. The Economist’s Chaguan column provided further detail on the campaign:

Three places were visited. Bachu, a county of cotton fields and fruit farms, is almost wholly Uyghur. Like many majority-Muslim areas in southern Xinjiang, it saw high birth rates not long ago. The county government reported a natural population growth rate in 2014 of almost 13 per thousand people. Using mortality rates for the surrounding prefecture, Kashgar, that figure equates to a birth rate of nearly 19 per thousand people. That is compatible with the average woman having perhaps three or four children during her reproductive years. Rural Uyghurs were allowed three children back then, and officials tolerated extra births to buy social peace.

[…] Those same cheerful crowds alarm Chinese scholars. They write of young Uyghur populations exhausting southern Xinjiang’s water supplies, straining job markets and threatening stability in a border region. In 2017 Communist Party leaders ordered a campaign against illegal births, including cash rewards for locals who reported over-quota children. But legal births were also targeted. In January 2018 Bachu’s government boasted of controlling the population’s “excessive growth”. By 2017 the county’s birth rate had fallen from 19 to 13 per thousand, a highly unusual drop in just three years. Astonishingly, in 2019 Bachu reported a birth rate of 4.15 per thousand people. That is one of the lowest birth rates anywhere in the world, and a decline rarely seen even in wartime.

Li Xiaoxia, a government sociologist in Xinjiang, has called reports of forced sterilisations “slander”. In an essay for state media in January she conceded that between 2017 and 2018, after the strict enforcement of rules, Xinjiang-wide births had fallen by 120,000 in a year. But Ms Li insisted that rural women from ethnic groups had “spontaneously” agreed to be sterilised. Some had taken rewards of 3,000 yuan ($460) or more for women willing to undergo tubal ligation before using their legal quota of children, she wrote. Others’ minds had been freed by officials “from the shackles of religious extremism”. She said Uyghurs and Han Chinese now followed the same rules, promoting “fewer and better” births. [Source]

Uyghurs who leave Xinjiang are often still in danger of being deported back to China. An extradition bill between China and Turkey, which has not yet come into effect, threatens to subject Turkey’s large Uyghur diaspora to deportation. A new report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project has revealed the lengths the Chinese government has gone to target Uyghurs beyond its borders. From Lizzy Davies at The Guardian, a dispatch on the UHRP report, detailing China’s use of its economic might to force Uyghurs abroad back into Xinjiang:

An estimated 1 to 1.6 million Uyghurs live outside China, according to the World Uyghur Congress, with the largest populations in central Asia and Turkey. However, the new database reveals the scale of Beijing’s targeting, with countries around the world playing a role in a range of practices including harassment, surveillance, detention and rendition.

Since 2017, it says, at least 695 Uyghurs have been detained or deported to China from 15 countries.

[…] Of the 10 countries where they found China to have most frequently used transnational repression against the Uyghurs, Beijing was among the largest creditors in four: Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia and Myanmar. [Source]

In an interview with Axios’ Jonathan Swan, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan denied the existence of repression in Xinjiang, even as he castigated Western countries for demonizing Islam:



source https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/china-uses-global-influence-campaign-to-deny-forced-labor-mass-incarceration-in-xinjiang/
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