Is There a Tipping Point for China and Human Rights Violations???

[China]

US, Indonesia hold joint military drills amid China’s concerns

 

More than 5,000 soldiers from Indonesia, the United States and other countries have begun joint combat exercises on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, signalling stronger ties amid growing maritime activity by China in the Indo-Pacific region.

 

The annual military training, known as Garuda Shield, has been taking place since 2009. But this year sees the participation of several other countries, including Australia and Japan, making it the largest ever.

 

The joint exercises, which began on Wednesday, are designed to strengthen interoperability, capability, trust and cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific, the US embassy in Jakarta said in a statement.

 

Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington, reporting from Baturaja, said this year’s exercises mark an important shift from previous drills.

 

“They used to be just bilateral exercises, but now we are seeing a move to multilateralism involving other countries, not just as observers but as participants as well,” Washington said, noting that this year’s iteration has been called Super Garuda Shield due to its bigger size.

 

The planned two-week drills opened after China’s defence ministry said on Tuesday night it would conduct a series of targeted military operations to “safeguard national sovereignty” in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to self-governed Taiwan, which China claims as its territory to be annexed by force if necessary.

 

China has also been increasingly assertive over its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Pelosi jabs at Xi before leaving Taiwan

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ended her visit to Taiwan on Wednesday, delivering a message of solidarity with the island republic and pushing back against China’s threats against her and the Taiwanese government over the trip.

 

“Whether it’s certain insecurities on the part of the president of China as to his own political situation that he’s ratting his saber, I don’t know,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said during a press conference in Taipei in response to a question about the bellicose response her visit to Taiwan provoked from China and its president, Xi Jinping.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Destino]

It’s amazing to me that Pelosi’s trip is even remotely controversial.  When did we get looped into China’s authoritarian restrictions?  The entire world pretends Taiwan doesn’t exist because China says so!  The WHO couldn’t even discuss what Taiwan had done to combat the Covid pandemic because they aren’t allowed to acknowledge the island nation exists.  
 

Simply deciding what subjects are off limits is perfectly in line with how authoritarian regimes run their nations, but since when does the world have to play along?  I’m glad Pelosi went, no American leader should play along with this madness.  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

5 hours ago, Destino said:

It’s amazing to me that Pelosi’s trip is even remotely controversial.  When did we get looped into China’s authoritarian restrictions?  The entire world pretend Taiwan doesn’t exist because China says so!  The WHO couldn’t even discuss what Taiwan had done to combat the Covid pandemic because they aren’t allowed to acknowledge the island nation exists.  
 

Simply deciding what subject are off limits is  perfectly in line with how authoritarian regimes run their nations, but since when does the world have to play along?  I’m glad Pelosi went, no American leader should play along with this madness.  

Yes, I did like the fact that she didn’t fold.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-official-leading-missile-production-found-dead-hotel-official-media-2022-08-06/

 

TAIPEI, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The deputy head of Taiwan defence ministry's research and development unit was found dead on Saturday morning in a hotel room, succumbing to a heart attack, according to the official Central News Agency.

Ou Yang Li-hsing, deputy head of the military-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, had died in a hotel room in southern Taiwan, CNA reported.

 

Authorities said 57-year-old Ou Yang died of a heart attack and the hotel room showed no sign of any 'intrusion', CNA said. His family said he had a history of heart disease and had a cardiac stent, according to the report.

 

 

looks like natural causes got another one though… just bad timing…

 

 

 

 

[China]

Uyghurs: China may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang - UN

 

The UN has accused China of "serious human rights violations" in a long-awaited report into allegations of abuse in Xinjiang province.

 

China had urged the UN not to release the report - with Beijing calling it a "farce" arranged by Western powers.

 

The report assesses claims of abuse against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities, which China denies.

 

But investigators said they found "credible evidence" of torture possibly amounting to "crimes against humanity".

 

Human rights groups have been sounding the alarm over what is happening in the north-western province for years, alleging that more than one million Uyghurs had been detained against their will in a large network of what the state calls "re-education camps".

 

The BBC's own reporting in recent years has uncovered documentation - including police files detailing those in detention - which appear to support the claims, as well as allegations of rape, torture and forced sterilisation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

China has opened overseas police stations in US and Canada to monitor Chinese citizens: report

 

China has opened dozens of "overseas police service stations" around the globe to monitor its citizens living abroad, including one location in New York City and three in Toronto.

 

"These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity in third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods," reads a report by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights watchdog, released earlier this month.

 

The report, titled "110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild," details China's extensive efforts to combat "fraud" by its citizens living overseas, in part by opening several police stations on five continents that have assisted Chinese authorities in "carrying out policing operations on foreign soil."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Renegade7]

Xi may find and kill all the ones inside the country, but is super rare to see this in China in the first place, so has to be far more people thinking it then admiting it...

 

 

[China]

Well, does anyone really believe Xi?

 

Questions swirl after China’s former leader Hu leaves event

 

he twice-a-decade congress of China’s ruling Communist Party is a tightly choreographed event. So when former Chinese President Hu Jintao was guided off stage without explanation Saturday — as the world’s media looked on — questions spilled forth.

 

The speculation ran from a health crisis to an attempted protest by the 79-year-old former leader, or a political purge by current President Xi Jinping. Xi has previously gone after retired officials on corruption charges, though never one as high-ranking as Hu.

 

China’s tightly controlled state media didn’t report the incident, but the official Xinhua News Agency tweeted in English several hours later — as speculation raged overseas — that Hu was in poor health and needed to rest.

 

Major party events can be trying: Former top leader Hu Yaobang died of a heart attack during a meeting at the age of 73, setting off the student-led pro-democracy movement that led to Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

 

Hu, who has reportedly been in poor health, appeared confused during the incident, although not in obvious distress. While an attendant held his arm, he shuffled off stage right, speaking briefly with Xi and patting Premier Li Keqiang on the shoulder. Throughout the process, most of the other delegates stared silently ahead.

 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

I watched the video…. It looks like the one guy was trying to tell him something but Hu was confused and then another person came over and led him away. It doesn’t look like he is being taken away by security to me.. it looks more like aids.. like if he got told his wife got hurt or something… that’s what the video looked like to me… but China has a shaky record on these things.

[China]

BBC Says Chinese Police Attacked Reporter Covering Unrest

 

The BBC has reported that police in China detained and assaulted one of its reporters covering the roiling unrest in Shanghai.

 

Ed Lawrence, a senior journalist and camera operator for the BBC’s China bureau, was arrested Sunday and beaten during a protest against the nation’s severe COVID-19 restrictions, the news outlet reported.

 

Lawrence was released several hours after his arrest. Chinese authorities told the BBC that Lawrence was detained to protect him from getting COVID-19.

 

“The BBC is extremely concerned about the treatment of our journalist Ed Lawrence, who was arrested and handcuffed while covering the protests in Shanghai,” the British public service broadcaster said in a statement.

 

“He was held for several hours before being released. During his arrest, he was beaten and kicked by the police. This happened while he was working as an accredited journalist,” the statement added.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

China sends students home, police patrol to curb protests

 

Chinese universities sent students home and police fanned out in Beijing and Shanghai to prevent more protests Tuesday after crowds angered by severe anti-virus restrictions called for leader Xi Jinping to resign in the biggest show of public dissent in decades.

 

Authorities have eased some controls after demonstrations in at least eight mainland cities and Hong Kong but maintained they would stick to a “zero-COVID” strategy that has confined millions of people to their homes for months at a time. Security forces have detained an unknown number of people and stepped up surveillance.

 

With police out in force, there was no word of protests Tuesday in Beijing, Shanghai or other major mainland cities that were the scene last weekend of the most widespread protests since the army crushed the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.

 

In Hong Kong, about a dozen people, mostly from the mainland, protested at a university.

 

Beijing’s Tsinghua University, where students protested over the weekend, and other schools in the capital and the southern province of Guangdong sent students home. The schools said they were being protected from COVID-19, but dispersing them to far-flung hometowns also reduces the likelihood of more demonstrations. Chinese leaders are wary of universities, which have been hotbeds of activism including the Tiananmen protests.

 

On Sunday, Tsinghua students were told they could go home early for the semester. The school, which is Xi’s alma mater, arranged buses to take them to the train station or airport.

 

Nine student dorms at Tsinghua were closed Monday after some students positive for COVID-19, according to one who noted the closure would make it hard for crowds to gather. The student gave only his surname, Chen, for fear of retribution from authorities.

 

Beijing Forestry University also said it would arrange for students to return home. It said its faculty and students all tested negative for the virus.

 

At least 10 universities have sent students home. Schools said classes and final exams would be conducted online.

 

Authorities hope to “defuse the situation” by clearing out campuses, said Dali Yang, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Chicago.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

China’s Population Falls, Heralding a Demographic Crisis  

 

The world’s most populous country has reached a pivotal moment: China’s population has begun to shrink, after a steady, yearslong decline in its birthrate that experts say will be irreversible.

 

The government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in China in 2022, while 10.41 million people died. It was the first time deaths had outnumbered births in China since the early 1960s, when the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment, led to widespread famine and death.

 

Births were down from 10.6 million in 2021, the sixth straight year that the number had fallen. That decline, coupled with a long-running rise in life expectancy, is thrusting China into a demographic crisis that will have consequences in this century, not just for China and its economy but for the world, experts said.

 

“In the long run, we are going to see a China the world has never seen,” said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine who specializes in demographics in China.

 

“It will no longer be the young, vibrant, growing population. We will start to appreciate China, in terms of its population, as an old and shrinking population.”

 

The news comes at a challenging time for the government in Beijing, which is dealing with the fallout from the sudden reversal last month of its zero-tolerance policy toward Covid.

 

Over the last four decades, China has emerged as an economic powerhouse and the world’s factory floor. That transformation led to an increase in life expectancy that contributed to its current situation — more people getting older while fewer babies are born. By 2035, 400 million people in China are expected to be over 60, accounting for nearly a third of its population.

That trend is hastening another worrying event: the day when China will not have enough people of working age to fuel the high-speed growth that made it an engine of the global economy. Labor shortages will also reduce tax revenue and contributions to a pension system that is already under enormous pressure.

 

The result, some experts have argued, could have implications for the global order, with India’s population poised to outgrow China’s later this year, according to a recent estimate from the United Nations.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Renegade7]

@China I bumped 8 billion people thread for same topic...but to this thread I can see China at some point lashing out to Taiwan "while they can", similar to what Russia is doing with Ukraine given they are also experiencing a demographic timebomb...

[China]

Chinese corn mill in North Dakota deemed ‘significant threat’ by US Air Force

 

The construction of a Chinese-owned corn mill in North Dakota will likely be halted after the U.S. Air Force flagged it as a “significant threat to national security.”

 

Fufeng Group, an MSG and xanthan gum manufacturer based in Shandong province, China, previously bought 370 acres of farmland in Grand Forks through its American subsidiary.

 

The city council approved the company’s $700 million proposal to build the mill last year, citing economic development success.

 

However, thousands of residents have since expressed their disapproval of the mill. In August 2022, at least 5,000 residents signed a petition that sought to prevent the mill’s development.

 

Although city officials initially supported the mill’s construction in the hopes of generating jobs and tax revenue, Mayor Brandon Bochenski issued a statement on Tuesday asserting that the proposed mill “should be stopped.”

 

“The federal government has requested the city’s help in stopping the project as geo-political tensions have greatly increased since the initial announcement of the project,” he said.

 

Bochenski said that he would block the construction by denying building permits and refusing to connect city infrastructure to the building site.

 

Republican Senators John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer shared a letter from the Air Force which states that “the proposed project presents a significant threat to national security with both near- and long-term risks of significant impacts to our operations in the area.”

 

Although the Air Force did not state specific threats, residents speculated that the corn mill might be used for spying for China.

 

However, Fufeng USA’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Chutorash has since denied that the mill would be used to spy on or harm the U.S.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

On 1/16/2023 at 10:38 PM, Renegade7 said:

@China I bumped 8 billion people thread for same topic...but to this thread I can see China at some point lashing out to Taiwan "while they can", similar to what Russia is doing with Ukraine given they are also experiencing a demographic timebomb...

 

U.S. to Boost Military Role in the Philippines in Push to Counter China

 

The United States is increasing its military presence in the Philippines, gaining access to four more sites and strengthening the Southeast Asian nation’s role as a key strategic partner for Washington in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan.

 

The agreement, announced on Thursday, allows Washington to station military equipment and build facilities in nine locations across the Philippines, marking the first time in 30 years that the United States will have such a large military presence in the country.

 

The deal comes as Washington has tried to reaffirm its influence in the region amid a broader effort to counter Chinese aggression, reinforcing partnerships with strategic allies and bolstering relations that have soured in recent years. Fears have also grown over a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the island democracy that China claims as its territory. Among the five treaty allies that the United States has in Asia, the Philippines and Japan are the most geographically close to Taiwan, with the Philippines’ northernmost island of Itbayat just 93 miles away.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Pentagon Discovers Suspected China Spy Balloon Over Northwest United States

 

The United States has detected what it says is a Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northwestern United States, the Pentagon said on Thursday, a discovery that comes days before Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s visit to Beijing.

 

The Pentagon has chosen, for now, not to shoot down the balloon after a recommendation from senior defense officials that doing so would risk debris hitting people on the ground, according to a senior defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

 

The decision to publicize the discovery appears to put China on notice ahead of Mr. Blinken’s Beijing visit — the first by an American secretary of state in six years — during which he is expected to meet with President Xi Jinping. The sudden appearance of the balloon is bound to raise tensions between the two powers.

 

The official said that while this is not the first time China has sent spy balloons to the United States, it has appeared to remain over the country for longer.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Spaceman Spiff]

I saw this and can't believe there's not a better way to bring that balloon down without having debris hitting people.  We can put a ****ing man on the moon over 50 years ago with a guidance system that had a fraction of my iPhone's power and yet we can't bring down a balloon in MONTANA where there's, you know, not a lot of people to begin with. 

 

If it were over Chicago or LA or NYC, I'd be more understanding but if we're afraid to bring this down because it might hit Beth Dutton, well I call bull****.  

 

And a "Spy Balloon" is a giant middle finger anyway.  That's absurd.  We're going to have this low flying, lackadaisical balloon flying over your country just to taunt you.  No, we're not going to have some cool ass plane like an SR-71 Blackbird flying near the atmosphere to spy on you, we're going to fly this thing a few football fields up where EVERYONE can see it so you know what we're doing, WE know what we're doing and we're going to see if you've got the balls to shoot it down.  

 

Get ****ed, a ****ing Spy Balloon.  That's gotta be the biggest all time-troll job in the history of spying.  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

I mean, won’t the balloon eventually expand too much and burst?

[Spaceman Spiff]

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

15 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I mean, won’t the balloon eventually expand too much and burst?

I’m removing dirigibles/airships from the list of expertise.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

8 minutes ago, TradeTheBeal! said:

I’m removing dirigibles/airships from the list of expertise.

[Jabbyrwock]

14 minutes ago, TradeTheBeal! said:

I’m removing dirigibles/airships from the list of expertise.

 

I dunno...I think the Tailgate has a generalized expertise in floating gasses and hot air.

[Wildbunny]

20 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

I saw this and can't believe there's not a better way to bring that balloon down without having debris hitting people.  We can put a ****ing man on the moon over 50 years ago with a guidance system that had a fraction of my iPhone's power and yet we can't bring down a balloon in MONTANA where there's, you know, not a lot of people to begin with. 

 

If it were over Chicago or LA or NYC, I'd be more understanding but if we're afraid to bring this down because it might hit Beth Dutton, well I call bull****.  

 

And a "Spy Balloon" is a giant middle finger anyway.  That's absurd.  We're going to have this low flying, lackadaisical balloon flying over your country just to taunt you.  No, we're not going to have some cool ass plane like an SR-71 Blackbird flying near the atmosphere to spy on you, we're going to fly this thing a few football fields up where EVERYONE can see it so you know what we're doing, WE know what we're doing and we're going to see if you've got the balls to shoot it down.  

 

Get ****ed, a ****ing Spy Balloon.  That's gotta be the biggest all time-troll job in the history of spying.  

I guess if the USAF really wanted to have it down they would have already done it, probably over Alaska, or worked something done with Canada.

I don't bite the story they weren't aware of it until someone posted pics of it.

I don't bite the story they cannot shoot it down, when it's just a ****ing ballon. Put a bullet in it, and it'll fall vertically, this stuff has no horizontal speed. So that would be easy to do.

 

I guess the USAF is working on a way to get that balloon and the stuff in it just to see the level chinese are at spy games. And get as many info as possible. Recovering it without destroying it seems to be easier said than done.

 

But since someone posted pics about it, US govt had no other choice to show muscles to embarass China, because well, using a ****ing spy balloon is ****ing amateurish nowadays...

[China]

23 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

I saw this and can't believe there's not a better way to bring that balloon down without having debris hitting people.  We can put a ****ing man on the moon over 50 years ago with a guidance system that had a fraction of my iPhone's power and yet we can't bring down a balloon in MONTANA where there's, you know, not a lot of people to begin with. 

 

If it were over Chicago or LA or NYC, I'd be more understanding but if we're afraid to bring this down because it might hit Beth Dutton, well I call bull****.  

 

And a "Spy Balloon" is a giant middle finger anyway.  That's absurd.  We're going to have this low flying, lackadaisical balloon flying over your country just to taunt you.  No, we're not going to have some cool ass plane like an SR-71 Blackbird flying near the atmosphere to spy on you, we're going to fly this thing a few football fields up where EVERYONE can see it so you know what we're doing, WE know what we're doing and we're going to see if you've got the balls to shoot it down.  

 

Get ****ed, a ****ing Spy Balloon.  That's gotta be the biggest all time-troll job in the history of spying.  

 

I don't think they're too worried about it.