Quotulatiousness

January 5, 2024

QotD: Hong Kong and the “league table” of world economic freedom

Filed under: China, Economics, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The Fraser Institute issued its annual Economic Freedom of the World report last week. It didn’t get much attention; it never does these days. Considered as a league table, the report is very boring and static, and makes poor copy.

The same countries typically appear at the top from year to year, and are separated mostly by microscopic, irrelevant differences. For 2017, whence the data in the new report come, Canada sat in eighth place just a hair above Australia and a hair below the U.K. Ascending to the top, we meet other siblings of the English-speaking world, Ireland and the U.S.; the Swiss Republic stands in its typical fourth; the relatively wild child of the Commonwealth, New Zealand, remains third; and then, in the top two places, you have the twin beacons of radical economic freedom, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Ah, yes, Hong Kong. The Special Administrative Region seems, for now, to have won a short-term victory in its struggle to preserve the conditions of its reunion with mainland China. This has not, ostensively, been a struggle over economic freedom per se, but it is not a coincidence that the rioting ultimately originated in a conflict over bookstores. It is mighty hard to draw a line where “economic” freedom stops and purely personal or civil freedoms begin, and the design of the index reflects this. It has a large basic rule-of-law component, includes mobility rights under the free trade factor, and takes points away for imposing military conscription. (This is surely a tiny tribute to the shade of Milton Friedman, who was one of the originators of the index.)

Even if Hong Kong’s immediate quarrel with China has been resolved for now, it is only a manifestation of what is likely to be a longer game. Clever columnists always like exoticizing talk about how the Chinese think in generations, but when it comes to Hong Kong, the cliché has weight. The 2019 riots, in showing how attached young HKers are to their distinct identity and to the English-speaking world, have revealed a nightmarish, even delegitimizing failure by the Chinese Communists. Mainland influence on Hong Kong education and politics has been used with the intention of prolonging and deepening the spirit of ’97; China, so often deemed the super-country of the future by admiring or fearful intellectuals, has tested the results of this effort in the eyes of the world and been made a laughingstock.

Colby Cosh, “Hong Kong’s still king in economic freedom rankings … for now”, National Post, 2019-09-17.

July 22, 2023

Look at Life – Ticket to Tokyo (1959)

Filed under: Britain, History, India, Japan — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

PauliosVids
Published 24 Nov 2018

Travelling with Britannia Airline from London via Bombay to Tokyo to discover Japan and back via Hong Kong.

(more…)

November 20, 2022

Printing books in China is economical, but also allows China to censor what you print

Filed under: Books, Business, Cancon, China, Economics, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In the latest SHuSH newsletter, Kenneth Whyte explains why some of Sutherland House’s books are now being printed in China … and illustrates some of the risks of having them printed there:

We decided last spring to offshore some of our book printing to China (see “The Crisis in Book Publishing”, SHuSH 138). It was not a difficult decision. The difference in price is enormous.

For instance. Next week we’re releasing a book called The Prison Lady: True Stories and Life Lessons from Both Sides of the Bars by Phyllis Taylor. Presales have been strong. We need to print more copies. We can’t go back to the original Chinese printer, which charged us $2.08/copy, because it takes months to get books from Guangzhou to Toronto. We need the books now. So we shopped around. The best North American price we could find is $4.39/copy.

Why is that a problem? The book is a paperback priced at $22.95. The retailer takes half that, leaving us $11.50. After our distributor and sales agent take their fees and we pay the author her royalty, we’re left with $6.32 out of which we pay for editing, cover art, design, overhead, and shipping. And printing. If the printing bill comes to $4.39 a copy, we make no money.

Those of the economics of a straightforward paperback. A friend of mine recently called about a quote from a Canadian printer for a full-color illustrated book that came in at $15.31/copy. It seemed steep, so I sent the exact same specs to a Chinese printer who quoted $5.27/copy.

[…]

Our initial plan was to print four of our spring books in China (we’re also using printers in Turkey and India). The files for the first two of the four were delivered last month. On Nov. 7, we received the following email from the printer:

    After more detailed review of some of the written content of these two books, there are some significant censorship concerns related to certain references to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.

    As you may be aware, China vehemently enforces a “one China” principle in which Hong Kong and Taiwan are part of the “one China”. Therefore, China censorship will not allow any reference to either Hong Kong or Taiwan as its own country.

    With this in mind, there is some “sensitive wording” on page 46 of The Big Exit that would not be possible to print in China due to it implying that Hong Kong and Taiwan are “countries”.

The Big Exit isn’t about politics. It’s a book about end-of-life choices or, more particularly, how we can dispose of the remains of a billion boomers over the next several decades without wrecking the planet (conventional burial and cremation are both environmentally reckless). The censorship issue arose in this paragraph, which the printer helpfully circled in bright red:

I grant that while Hong Kong still shows up in a lot of data as its own country, it is technically an administrative region of China. Taiwan’s independence is also disputed by China. Against China’s claims, we have the Frank Zappa rules of diplomacy which recognize as “a real country” any place with its own beer and its own airline. Taiwan and Hong Kong both qualify.

In any event, we are now printing The Big Exit in India.

April 21, 2021

“The error in Western thinking was to view CCP officials as civilised counterparts”

Filed under: China, Economics, Europe, Government, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Quillette, Aaron Sarin traces the last twenty years of successful diplomacy, industrial espionage, and ever-increasing CCP media influence in China’s relationships with western nations:

President Donald Trump and PRC President Xi Jinping at the G20 Japan Summit in Osaka, 29 June, 2019.
Cropped from an official White House photo by Shealah Craighead via Wikimedia Commons.

By the end of 2020, China’s relationships with the US and Australia had reached their lowest point in living memory, while Sino-British relations weren’t far behind. Yet the European Commission chose this moment to sign a major new investment treaty with Beijing. The deal appeared to have been rushed to completion just before Joe Biden’s inauguration, as if to avoid the fuss that a new American administration would be sure to make. Indeed, incoming National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan felt sore enough to send a pointed tweet: “The Biden-Harris administration would welcome early consultations with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices.”

The truth is that Brussels has been drifting further and further from Washington ever since the election of Donald Trump, and there are few signs the winds will change now that Biden has taken office. In 2017, Merkel said that Europe could no longer rely on America. By 2020, it seemed truer to say that Europe would rely on China from now on. Indeed, diplomats like Emmanuel Bonne (Macron’s foreign policy adviser) have been most enthusiastic about “France’s readiness to step up strategic communication with China.” In his gushing deference, Bonne can sometimes sound like a man with a gun to his head: “France respects China’s sovereignty, appreciates the sensitivity of Hong Kong-related issues, and has no intention of interfering in Hong Kong affairs.” There are times when the language of neutrality reveals with painful clarity that a side has been chosen.

Brussels officials talk of “strategic autonomy,” of course. They hope to carve out a path to self-sufficiency while at the same time enjoying mutually beneficial relationships with partners like Beijing. The problem is that mutually beneficial relationships are not possible with predators. As successive American administrations have found, those who maintain close connections with the Communist Party will eventually suffer large-scale intellectual property theft and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs.

Brussels can hardly expect that Beijing will respect this new agreement. Recall the various promises that were made regarding Hong Kong: all of them were broken. Party officials may have signed a legal document recognising the city’s special administrative status, but this was purely for show. In 2017, having apparently now ascended to a position above the law, they declared that the document had “no practical significance.” Remember how Barack Obama was given firm assurance that Beijing would never militarize the South China Sea? There were handshakes and smiles all round, and then Beijing proceeded to militarize the South China Sea.

Indeed, some of the commitments included as part of the new deal echo those made 20 years ago, when China first joined the World Trade Organisation. It was agreed in 2001 that prices in every sector would be determined by market forces; that state-owned enterprises would begin operating free of state influence; that international norms regarding intellectual property would be respected; and so on. After two decades, we can see that the Communist Party has kept not one of its promises.

The error in Western thinking was to view CCP officials as civilised counterparts. We failed to see that we were dealing with a pack of thugs and grifters — men for whom the rule of law is neither reality nor ideal, but façade. This lesson has now been learned in some quarters, but clearly not in the upper echelons of the European Union. This new investment deal even includes a reference to “commitments on forced labour,” which is little short of an insult when we consider the hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs who have been made to toil all day till dusk in the cotton fields of Xinjiang. The truth is that the EU has been fooled. There will be no “win-win situation.” Not when dealing with the Communist Party, which has always viewed geopolitics as a zero-sum game. In the words of Bilahari Kausikan, once Singapore’s top diplomat, “only the irredeemably corrupt or the terminally naïve take seriously Beijing’s rhetoric about a ‘community of common destiny.'”

February 1, 2021

Battle of Hong Kong 1941 – Pacific War

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, China, History, India, Japan, Military, Pacific, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Kings and Generals
Published 31 Jan 2021

The first 100 people to go to https://www.blinkist.com/kingsandgenerals are going to get unlimited access for 1 week to try it out. You’ll also get 25% off if you want the full membership

Kings and Generals 3d animated historical documentary series on modern warfare continues with a video on the battle of Hong Kong of 1941. Japanese Empire is waging another Sino-Japanese war against China and decides that it is time to take over Hong Kong, as the British were using it to supply the Chinese. This battle is considered one of the first in the Pacific War within World War II.

Support us on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals or Paypal: http://paypal.me/kingsandgenerals. We are grateful to our patrons and sponsors, who made this video possible: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o…

The video was made by Leif Sick, while the script was developed by Ivan Moran. The video was narrated by Officially Devin (https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficiallyDevin)

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Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound: http://www.epidemicsound.com

#Documentary #HongKong #PacificWar

December 27, 2020

Heinz Guderian’s Christmas and the fall of Hong Kong – WW2 – 122 – December 26, 1941

World War Two
Published 26 Dec 2020

The Japanese offensives and advances in Southeast Asia and the Pacific continue unabated and both Hong Kong and Wake Island fall. British and American leaders begin the Arcadia Conference to decide just how they are going to fight this war together, and there are more changes made in the German High Command on the Eastern Front, even as the Soviets make advances there.

Check out Jean Paul’s museum here: https://www.romagne14-18.com/english-…

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
– Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/
– Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations – https://www.instagram.com/blaucolorizations
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/

Sources:
– IWM: FE 203
– Battleship by Anand Prahlad from the Noun Project
– Man by Milinda Courey from the Noun Project
– prisoner by Luis Prado from the Noun Project
– bockelsound from freesound.org

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

December 20, 2020

The Japanese are unstoppable everywhere – WW2 – 121 – December 19, 1941

World War Two
Published 19 Dec 2020

The Japanese make gains in Malaya, Burma, Hong Kong, Borneo, and the Philippines. The Allies also have trouble in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, where they are beginning to seriously suffer from a lack of capital ships. The Soviet Red Army is advancing, though, and Stalin takes personal control of planning for the upcoming counteroffensive, while Adolf Hitler takes personal control of the German Army.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/
Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucolorizations
Spartacus Olsson
Daniel Weiss
Mikołaj Uchman

Sources:
Bundesarchiv
IWM MH 26392, WPN 298, K 2204, FL 20432, A 12126, A 9257, FL 1203, E 3469E
Mil.ru
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Picture of Mark Young, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Skrya – “First Responders”
Hakan Eriksson – “Epic Adventure Theme 4”
Philip Ayers – “The Unexplored”
Max Anson – “Ancient Saga”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 9”
Johannes Bornlof – “Death And Glory 2”
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

December 13, 2020

Hitler Declares War on the USA and the Jews – WW2 – 120 – December 12, 1941

World War Two
Published 12 Dec 2020

The Japanese launch attacks all over Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and launch a preemptive surprise attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The war is suddenly much larger. In the USSR, the Germans find themselves now heavily on the defensive after the failure to take Moscow, while in North Africa, Erwin Rommel decides he must withdraw out of Cyrenaica to await reinforcements.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Daniel Weiss
Adrien Fillon – https://www.instagram.com/adrien.colo…
Mikołaj Uchman
Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations – https://www.instagram.com/blaucolorizations
Klimbim – https://www.flickr.com/photos/2215569…
Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man?ig…

Sources:
IWM HU 56120, K 1385, HU 675, TR153, HU 81216, WPN 298
NARA
Bundesarchiv
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Picture of a victim of starvation during the siege of Leningrad, courtesy of George Shuklin
Picture of Alfred Godwin-Austen, courtesy of Berserker276 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…
Picture of Harold Cole, courtesy of Cumbria County Archives

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”
Johannes Bornlof – “Deviation In Time”
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 4”
Jo Wandrini – “To War!”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Wendel Scherer – “Defeated”
Johannes Bornlof – “Death And Glory 3”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Hakan Eriksson – “Epic Adventure Theme 3”
Skrya – “First Responders”
Bonnie Grace – “Imperious”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
2 days ago (edited)
Five days ago, we covered the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor minute by minute in real time over five hours. If you missed that, then check out episode one right here, you’ll love it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joh2BXPsrXs&t=4s

NOTE: An error snuck through our controls regarding the Japanese casualties at Wake, we are working with YouTube to have it fixed before the video goes public. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Japan attacked a whole variety of places that day, launching massive offensives all over SE Asia and the Pacific. I’ll be covering them here weekly, of course, but for even more coverage, check out our day by day Instagram coverage of the war: https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day

October 18, 2020

The diplomatic spat with China is “forcing the prime minister to bring out the biggest guns in his arsenal: his really serious socks”

Filed under: Cancon, China, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Line shows just how seriously Justin Trudeau is taking China’s most recent not-so-veiled threats against Canadians in Hong Kong:

The warm glow of a good feed faded quickly in Ottawa, alas, where our nice little vacation from history continues its unravelling apace. China’s ambassador to Canada is issuing increasingly dire threats to the safety of our citizens, specifically the hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in Hong Kong, forcing the prime minister to bring out the biggest guns in his arsenal: his really serious socks, a very frowny photograph by Adam Scotti, and, we expect, the imminent announcement that on top of all her current duties, Chrystia Freeland will be appointed Progressive Minister In Charge Of Figuring Out What The Hell We Should Do About China But Not In A Way That Offends Anyone The Middle Class Build Back Green Error Error Program Alarm—

Whoa! Sorry! The Freeland Job Generator glitched again. No surprise, considering the miles Trudeau has put on it in only five years. Let’s hope it doesn’t give out entirely — we’d need 47 years to procure another one.

Anyway, as to the matter at hand, your Line editors are pragmatic folk. Canada can’t punch at the same level as China; under Mr. Trudeau, indeed, despite all our for-Liberal-egos-only preening about Canada being back, we can’t even punch at the same level as Ireland and Norway. But it’s time Canadians face facts: we can either continue pretending that China’s increasingly aggressive and threatening behaviour is a problem that will go away if we ignore it long enough, or we can at least pretend that we have balls and take what actions we can. Obviously we’re not going to send a fleet to parade up and down their coast, but there are things we can realistically do, and we aren’t. Australia, for instance, also in Beijing’s sights, has rolled out a series of measures to curtail China’s substantial influence there. Canada ought to be doing the same. And we could start by immediately banning Huawei, and encouraging every other country that would listen — which doesn’t seem to be many — that they should too.

Do we expect the Liberal government to do this? No. Making money shilling for the Chinese regime is the best thing to happen to post-politics Liberals since Ontario’s air ambulance service. But they should do this. And the delay is only gonna make it hurt more when events eventually force us to accept that China is not our friend, never has been, and never will be under the current political leadership.

October 10, 2020

China’s national memories are oddly inconsistent

Filed under: Britain, China, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At UnHerd, Bill Hayton looks at the one conflict between China and a western nation that bulks disproportionally large in the current Chinese government’s historical grievance-bank:

“The 98th Regiment of Foot at the attack on Chin-Kiang-Foo, 21 July 1842.”
Painting by Richard Simkin (1840-1926) via Wikimedia Commons.

Take three mid-19th century Asian conflicts: one killed 20 million people, one killed well over 100,000 and a third killed 20,000. Which one, despite being barely noticed by the Chinese government at the time, is the most discussed today and has become emblematic of an historic clash between East and West?

The immensely deadly Taiping Rebellion between 1850 and 1864 and the vicious conflict between “Hakka” and “Cantonese” peoples between 1855 and 1867 are barely known outside China, despite their far bloodier impacts on human lives. We know vastly more about the “First Opium War” of 1840 because it has played a totemic role in two political arenas: one in China and one in the UK. And in both places, the origins of the war have been obscured and distorted to suit political agendas.

In China, the “Opium War” marks the beginning of what the Communist Party currently calls the “century of national humiliation” — a period of unrelenting misery that only ended in 1949 with the Party’s victory in the Chinese Civil War. It is a narrative that underpins both the Party’s right to rule China and its increasingly assertive foreign policy. In Britain, the narrative of the war has been a weapon wielded variously by Liberal critics of a Whig government, puritan campaigners against drugs, leftist opponents of British foreign policy and Twitter-users claiming that white people are inherently racist. All these critiques and narratives caricature the evidence.

In the comic-book version, the British Empire went to war in 1840 to force an illegal and immoral drug, opium, down the respiratory passages of the Chinese people, purely for its own ill-gotten ends. This narrative is oddly patronising. It assumes that the Chinese side were merely naïve dupes, hapless victims to imperial power. It is time to recognise that there were several protagonists in the First Opium War.

On one side were the British free-traders, men who wanted an end to Chinese restrictions on commerce, whether of cotton or opium. There was also an East India Company anxious to maintain its good relations with local officials, and a London government and its critics with their own agendas. On the other was an imperial court in Beijing split between reformers and a clique of Chinese conservative “scholar-officials” intent on keeping foreign influence at bay. In the middle was an Asian financial problem triggered by a European war.

August 16, 2020

Surviving the surrender of Japan as allied Prisoners of War

Filed under: Cancon, History, Japan, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Seventy-five years ago, the war in the Pacific had ended with the surrender of Japanese imperial forces after the atomic bombing attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war may have technically ended, but there was still plenty of danger for the surviving POWs in various camps around the Japanese home islands. George MacDonnell was a Canadian soldier who had been captured in the fall of Hong Kong early in the Japanese swathe of conquest that engulfed so many areas. He had been held as a slave labourer at a prison camp in the mountains of northern Honshu in Iwate Prefecture. In Quillette, he tells how his captivity came to an end:

US Navy aerial photo of Ohashi prison camp in 1945.

It was noon on August 15th, 1945. The Japanese Emperor had just announced to his people that his country had surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers.

To those of us being held at Ohashi Prison Camp in the mountains of northern Japan, where we’d been prisoners of war performing forced labour at a local iron mine, this meant freedom. But freedom didn’t necessarily equate to safety. The camp’s 395 POWs, about half of them Canadians, were still under the effective control of Japanese troops. And so we began negotiating with them about what would happen next.

Complicating the negotiations was the Japanese military code of Bushido, which required an officer to die fighting or commit suicide (seppuku) rather than accept defeat. We also knew that the camp commander — First Lieutenant Yoshida Zenkichi — had written orders to kill his prisoners “by any means at his disposal” if their rescue seemed imminent. We also knew that we could all easily be deposited in a local mine shaft and then buried under thousands of tons of rock for all eternity without a trace.

We had no way of notifying Allied military commanders (who still hadn’t landed in Japan) as to the location of the camp (about a hundred miles north of Sendai, in a mountainous area near Honshu’s eastern coast), whose existence was then unknown. Because of the devastating American bombing, Japan’s cities had been reduced to rubble, its institutions were in chaos, and millions of Japanese were themselves close to starvation, much like us. The camp itself had food supplies, such as they were, for just three days.

Lieut. Zenkichi seemed angry, and felt humiliated by the surrender. Yet he appeared willing to negotiate our status. And after some stressful hours, we reached an agreement: The Japanese guards would be dismissed from the camp, while a detachment of Kenpeitai (the much feared Military Police) would provide security for Zenkichi, who would confine himself to his office.

To our delight, the local Japanese farmers were friendly, and agreed to give us food in exchange for some of the items we’d managed to loot from the camp’s remaining inventory — though, unfortunately, not enough to feed the camp. Meanwhile, through a secret radio we’d been operating, we learned that the Americans were going to conduct an aerial grid search of Japan’s islands for prison camps. We followed the broadcasted instructions and immediately painted “P.O.W.” in eight-foot-high white letters on the roof of the biggest hut.

Two days later, with all of our food gone, we heard a murmur from the direction of the ocean. The sound turned into the throb of a single-engine airplane flying at about 3,000 feet altitude. Then, suddenly he was above us — a little blue fighter with the white stars of the US Navy painted on its wings and fuselage. But the engine noise began to fade as he went right past us. Please, God, I thought — let him see our camp.

July 31, 2020

Xi Jinping and the “Chinese dream”

Zineb Riboua outlines possible ways for the West to counter ongoing Chinese economic espionage:

President Donald Trump and PRC President Xi Jinping at the G20 Japan Summit in Osaka, 29 June, 2019.
Cropped from an official White House photo by Shealah Craighead via Wikimedia Commons.

Since 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s favourite catchphrase has been “the Chinese dream”. In stark contrast to the evil, capitalistic American dream, Xi’s alternative vision of progress teaches that the only route to prosperity is through rigid adherence to collectivist ideology.

The Chinese state embodies a very particular ideology. Over the last few decades, it has aggressively ramped up its economic and political capital through business and enterprise, inextricably tying itself to the economic fortunes of both developed and developing countries. It is now seeking to use the economic capital it has accumulated to force its political agenda into reality.

That is why the role of private companies in China is unparalleled. Milton Friedman defined corporate social responsibility in terms of private companies’ sole duty to make a profit, and then increase that profit. Chinese companies appear to be exempt from this rule because they interact with the state in a unique and troubling way.

The current state of the Chinese political and economic landscape is no accident. When Deng Xiaoping spoke in the 1980s of building a “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, this is probably exactly what he had in mind. The Chinese Communist party has succeeded in weaponising local market forces in such a way that it now holds all the cards in its nation’s dealings with the outside world, both political and economic, because the line between the public and the private is non-existent.

This strategy has not gone unnoticed. Thanks to the Chinese Communist party’s recent conduct – unprecedented aggression in Hong Kong, the appalling genocide of the Uyghur people and a costly unwillingness to share information relating to the coronavirus outbreak – the state of its internal affairs has come into sharp focus on the international stage.

Unsurprisingly, the hawkish US has placed itself at the forefront of counter-Chinese rhetoric. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said recently: “We gave the Chinese Communist party and the regime itself special economic treatment, only to see the CCP insist on silence over its human rights abuses as the price of admission for Western companies entering China.”

July 16, 2020

Canada should welcome immigrants from Hong Kong with open arms

Filed under: Australia, Britain, Cancon, China — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The PRC communist government is clearly set on extinguishing the unique status of Hong Kong within China and a lot of Hong Kong residents are considering getting out before the gloves come off. Canada should join Britain and Australia in offering a safe refuge, regardless of the attitude of Beijing. Sadly, this probably won’t happen, as Justin Trudeau has demonstrated that he’s willing to kow-tow whenever his paymasters demand:

“Hong Kong night Panorama” by Andos_pics is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Britain has taken the lead by announcing that Hongkongers holding a British National Overseas (BNO) Passport will be allowed to live and work in the UK for five years, after which they can apply for settled status, and, one year later, citizenship. This could mean that almost three million people will be able to relocate to Britain if they so choose. In response to earlier British overtures along these lines, China made clear in no uncertain terms that Hong Kong is their concern, and that the UK should mind its own business, with China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian saying that the “UK has no right to lecture or interfere in China’s internal affairs …”.

However, a BNO Passport is only available to Hong Kong residents born before the 1997 transfer of the city back to Chinese control, which leaves around 4.5 million of the city’s residents — including many of the younger generation born after the handover occurred — unable to access that option.

This is why this sort of idea must be expanded on more broadly by all liberal democracies, who should consider granting special dispensations allowing Hong Kong residents who wish to emigrate to do so. The United States is considering following Britain’s example, and Australia has opened the door to citizenship for any Hongkongers with work or student visas. Hopefully, they are just the first of many.

It wouldn’t be the first time liberal democracies have taken in a large influx of exiles from specific countries.

Consider the influx of refugees which started with the Boat People, who originally were mostly South Vietnamese fleeing after the U.S. pulled out of the war and their country fell to the communist north. They, and many more from other southeast Asian countries who fled their homes in the 1970s and 80s, many ending up in Western nations. The United States took in the majority, with Canada, Australia, and a few others accepting large numbers as well.

There are some major differences however when it comes to opening our doors to residents of Hong Kong who wish to leave the increasingly oppressive rule from Beijing. Unlike many who flee war-torn or poverty-stricken nations searching for a better life, Hongkongers are among the most educated and wealthy people on the planet. Most important though, many of them love freedom, and have grown up in a society where many of the things we claim to value — rule of law, personal liberty, freedom of conscience, free speech, and a free market — are (or, at least, were) paramount.

Accepting Hongkongers into our countries would be good for us. It seems that in the last few decades, liberal democracies have been growing complacent about our hard-won freedoms. We have forgotten or ignored history, and seem not to realize that the foundations on which our freedoms are built need constant maintenance and defense.

July 6, 2020

Cold War Two is upon us, but it’s not all Trump’s fault (believe it or not)

Niall Ferguson on the rapid drop in temperature in US/Chinese relations in the last eight years:

President Donald Trump and PRC President Xi Jinping at the G20 Japan Summit in Osaka, 29 June, 2019.
Cropped from an official White House photo by Shealah Craighead via Wikimedia Commons.

“We are in the foothills of a Cold War.” Those were the words of Henry Kissinger when I interviewed him at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing last November.

The observation in itself was not wholly startling. It had seemed obvious to me since early last year that a new Cold War — between the U.S. and China — had begun. This insight wasn’t just based on interviews with elder statesmen. Counterintuitive as it may seem, I had picked up the idea from binge-reading Chinese science fiction.

First, the history. What had started out in early 2018 as a trade war over tariffs and intellectual property theft had by the end of the year metamorphosed into a technology war over the global dominance of the Chinese company Huawei Technologies Co. in 5G network telecommunications; an ideological confrontation in response to Beijing’s treatment of the Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang region and the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong; and an escalation of old frictions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Nevertheless, for Kissinger, of all people, to acknowledge that we were in the opening phase of Cold War II was remarkable.

Since his first secret visit to Beijing in 1971, Kissinger has been the master-builder of that policy of U.S.-Chinese engagement which, for 45 years, was a leitmotif of U.S. foreign policy. It fundamentally altered the balance of power at the mid-point of the Cold War, to the disadvantage of the Soviet Union. It created the geopolitical conditions for China’s industrial revolution, the biggest and fastest in history. And it led, after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, to that extraordinary financial symbiosis which Moritz Schularick and I christened “Chimerica” in 2007.

How did relations between Beijing and Washington sour so quickly that even Kissinger now speaks of Cold War?

The conventional answer to that question is that President Donald Trump has swung like a wrecking ball into the “liberal international order” and that Cold War II is only one of the adverse consequences of his “America First” strategy.

Yet that view attaches too much importance to the change in U.S. foreign policy since 2016, and not enough to the change in Chinese foreign policy that came four years earlier, when Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Future historians will discern that the decline and fall of Chimerica began in the wake of the global financial crisis, as a new Chinese leader drew the conclusion that there was no longer any need to hide the light of China’s ambition under the bushel that Deng Xiaoping had famously recommended.

July 5, 2020

Andrew Sullivan – “There is no doubt at this point that communist China is a genocidal state”

Filed under: China, Government, Liberty, Politics, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In his latest column, Andrew Sullivan discusses China’s latest outrages against groups within China:

Protest against the Chinese government in Hong Kong, 25 November 2019.
Photo by Studio Incendo via Wikimedia Commons

Genocide is not measured simply by the number of human beings in a demographic group who have been killed. Such numbers vary. The pogroms in Europe of the 14th century killed far, far fewer Jews than died in the 20th-century Holocaust, but it would be crazy not to see a very similar eliminationist impulse. It’s the genocidal intent that defines a genocide. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum defines it as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Their definition includes the following five categories:

  1. Killing members of the group.
  2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
  3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
  4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
  5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

There is no doubt at this point that communist China is a genocidal state. The regime is determined to coerce, kill, reeducate, and segregate its Uighur Muslim population, and to pursue eugenicist policies to winnow their ability to sustain themselves. The Associated Press just published an exhaustive and chilling account of the extent of the campaign, which was reportedly supported and seconded by the president of the United States when speaking with President-for-life Xi.

We already know about the reeducation camps. We found out this week the grisly detail that China may even have been exporting human-hair products taken from Uighur political prisoners in those camps. What the AP helps us better understand is how the regime is forcibly sterilizing Uighur women inside and outside the camps, attempting to control the Uighur population by assaulting basic reproductive freedom. Uighur families with multiple children are now in danger of being sent to camps for the crime of bringing Uighur kids into the world: “Time in a camp — what the government calls ‘education and training’ — for parents with too many children is written policy in at least three counties, notices found by [scholar Adrian] Zenz confirmed. In 2017, the Xinjiang government also tripled the already hefty fines for violating family planning laws for even the poorest residents — to at least three times the annual disposable income of the county.”

And the campaign of terror is working: “Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone — compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show.” In the Uighur city of Hotan, over a third of all married women of childbearing age were sterilized in 2019 alone. And this is taking place in the context of a new campaign to increase the fertility and offspring of the majority Han Chinese. This is pure racial social engineering.

This genocidal dictatorship also took this past week to stomp all over what’s left of freedom in Hong Kong. Just before the anniversary of the end of British rule in Hong Kong, Beijing has introduced a new security law that all but eviscerates any freedom for dissent in the former British colony. It renders a variety of offenses that involve pro-democracy activism and criticism of the regime punishable by up to a lifetime in jail. The law is deliberately vague, was passed with no input from Hong Kong’s own government before its details were revealed, and criminalizes offenses such as “secession, subversion against the central Chinese government, terrorism, and colluding with foreign forces.”

The effect has been immediate: Key members of a leading dissident group, Demosisto, resigned, and the party has been disbanded. Throughout Hong Kong, businesses that had posted messages of support for the pro-democracy forces are swiftly removing them. People are deleting their social-media accounts for fear of imprisonment. A BBC reporter notes the immediate impact: “One contact of mine, a lawyer and human-rights activist, sent me a message shortly after the law was passed. ‘Please delete everything on this chat,’ he wrote.”

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