#Xi Jinping step down

[mengjue]

What's Happening in China? The November 2022 Protests

Hello! I know that there's so much going on in the world right now, so not everyone may be aware of what is happening in China right now. I thought that I would try to write a brief explainer, because the current wave of protests is truly unprecedented in the past 30+ years, and there is a lot of fear over what may happen next. For context, I'm doing this as someone who has a PhD in Asian Studies specialising in contemporary Chinese politics, so I don't know everything but I have researched China for many years.

I'll post some decent links at the end along with some China specialists & journalists I follow on Twitter (yeah I know, but it's still the place for the stuff at the moment). Here are the bullet points for those who just want a brief update:

Xi Jinping's government is still enacting a strict Zero Covid policy enforced by state surveillance and strict lockdowns.

On 24 November a fire in an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, killed 10. Many blamed strict quarantine policies on preventing evacuation.

Protests followed and have since spread nationwide.

Protesters are taking steps not seen since Tiananmen in 1989, including public chants for Xi and the CCP to step down.

Everyone is currently unsure how the government will respond.

More in-depth discussion and links under the cut:

First a caveat: this is my own analysis/explanation as a Chinese politics specialist. I will include links to read further from other experts and journalists. Also, this will be quite long, so sorry about that!

China's (aka Xi Jinping's) Covid Policy:

The first and most important context: Xi has committed to a strict Zero Covid policy in China, and has refused to change course. Now, other countries have had similar approaches and they undoubtedly saved lives - I was fortunate to live in New Zealand until this year, and Prime Minister Ardern's Zero Covid approach in 2020-2021 helped protect many. The difference is in the style/scope of enforcement, the use of vaccines, and the variant at play. China has stepped up its control on public life over the past 10 years, and has used this to enforce strict quarantine measures without full regard to the impact on people's lives - stories of people not getting food were common. Quarantine has also become a feared situation, as China moves people to facilities often little better than prisons and allegedly without much protection from catching Covid within. A personal friend in Zhengzhou went through national, then provincial, then local quarantines when moving back from NZ, and she has since done her best to avoid going back for her own mental and physical health. Xi has also committed China to its two home-grown vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, both of which have low/dubious efficacy and are considered ineffective against new variants. Finally, with delta and then omicron most of the Zero-Covid countries have modified their approach due to the inability to maintain zero cases. China remains the only country still enacting whole-city eradication lockdowns, and they have become more frequent to the point that several are happening at any given time. The result is a population that is incredibly frustrated and losing hope amidst endless lockdowns and perceived ineffectiveness to address the pandemic.

Other Issues at Play:

Beyond the Covid situation, China is also wrestling with the continued slowdown in its economic growth. While its economic rise and annual GDP growth was nigh meteoric from the 80s to the 00s, it has been slowing over the past ten years, and the government is attempting to manage the transition away from an export-oriented economy to a more fully developed one. However, things are still uncertain, and Covid has taken its toll as it has elsewhere the past couple of years. Youth unemployment in particular is reaching new highs at around 20%, and Xi largely ignored this in his speech at the Party Congress in October (where he entered an unprecedented third term). As a result of the perceived uselessness of China's harsh work culture and its failure to result in a better life, many young Chinese have been promoting 躺平 tǎng píng or "lying flat", aka doing the bare minimum just to get by (similar to the English "quiet quitting"). The combination of economic issues and a botched Covid approach is important, as these directly affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Chinese, and historical it has only been when this occurred that mass movements really took off. The most famous, Tiananmen in 1989, followed China's opening up economic reforms and the dismantling of many economic safety nets allowing for growing inequality. While movements in China often grow to include other topics, having a foundation in something negatively impacting the average Han Chinese person's livelihood is important.

The Spark - 24 Nov 2022 Urumqi Apartment Fire:

The current protests were sparked by a recent fire that broke out in a flat in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province. (This is the same Xinjiang that is home to the Uighur people, against whom China has enacted a campaign of genocide and cultural destruction.) The fire occurred in the evening and resulted in 10 deaths, which many online blamed on the strict lockdown measures imposed by officials, who prevented people from leaving their homes. It even resulted in a rare public apology by city officials. However, with anger being so high nationwide, in addition to many smaller protests that have occurred over the past two years, this incident has ignited a nationwide movement.

The Protests and Their Significance:

The protests that have broken out over the past couple of days representing the largest and most significant challenge to the leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Similar to that movement, these protests have occurred at universities and cities across the country, with many students taking part openly. This scale is almost unseen in China, particularly for an anti-government protest. Other than Tiananmen in 1989, the most widespread movements that have occurred have been incidents such as the protest of the 1999 Belgrade bombings or the 2005 and then 2012 anti-Japanese protests, all of which were about anger toward a foreign country.

Beyond the scale the protests are hugely significant in their message as well. Protesters are publicly shouting the phrases "习近平下台 Xí Jìnpíng xiàtái!" and "共产党 下台 Gòngchǎndǎng xiàtái!", which mean "Xi Jinping, step down/resign!" and "CCP, step down/resign!" respectively. To shout a direct slogan for the government to resign is unheard of in China, particularly as Xi has tightened control of civil society. And people are doing this across the country in the thousands, openly and in front of police. This is a major challenge for a leader and party who have prioritised regime stability as a core interest for the majority of their history.

Looking Ahead:

Right now, as of 15:00 Australian Eastern time on Monday, 28 November 2022, the protests are only in their first couple of days and we are unsure as to how the government will respond. Police have already been seen beating protesters and journalists and dragging them away in vehicles. However, in many cases the protests have largely been monitored by police but still permitted to occur. There seems to be uncertainty as to how they want to respond just yet, and as such no unified approach.

Many potential outcomes exist, and I would warn everyone to be careful in overplaying what can be achieved. Most experts I have read are not really expecting this to result in Xi's resignation or regime change - these things are possible, surely, but it is a major task to achieve and the unity & scale of the protest movement remains to be fully seen. The government may retaliate with a hard crackdown as it has done with Tiananmen and other protests throughout the years. It may also quietly revamp some policies without publicly admitting a change in order to both pacify protesters and save face. The CCP often uses mixed tactics, both coopting and suppressing protest movements over the years depending on the situation. Changing from Zero Covid may prove more challenging though, given how much Xi has staked his political reputation on enforcing it.

What is important for everyone online, especially those of us abroad, is to watch out for the misinformation campaign the government will launch to counter these protests. Already twitter is reportedly seeing hundreds of Chinese bot accounts mass post escort advertisements using various city names in order to drown out protest results in the site's search engine. Chinese officials will also likely invoke the standard narrative of Western influence and CIA tactics as the reason behind the protests, as they did during the Hong Kong protests.

Finally, there will be a new surge of misinformation and bad takes from tankies, or leftists who uncritically support authoritarian regimes so long as they are anti-US. An infamous one, the Qiao Collective, has already worked to shift the narrative away from the protests and onto debating the merits of Zero Covid. This is largely similar to pro-Putin leftists attempting the justify his invasion of Ukraine. Always remember that the same values that you use to criticise Western countries should be used to criticise authoritarian regimes as well - opposing US militarism and racism, for example, is not incompatible with opposing China's acts of genocide and state suppression. If you want further info (and some good sardonic humour) on the absurd takes and misinfo from pro-China tankies, I would recommend checking out Brian Hioe in the links below.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a grass-roots protest made by people in China, who are putting their own lives at risk to demonstrate openly like this. There have already been so many acts of bravery by those who just want a better future for themselves and their country, and it is belittling and disingenuous to wave away everything they are doing as being just a "Western front" or a few "fringe extremists".

Links:

BBC live coverage page with links to analysis and articles

ABC (Australia) analysis

South China Morning Post analysis

Experts & Journalists to Check Out:

Brian Hioe - Journalist & China writer, New Bloom Magazine

Bonnie Glaser - China scholar, German Marshall Fund

Vicky Xu - Journalist & researcher, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Stephen McDonnell - Journalist, BBC

M Taylor Fravel - China scholar, MIT

New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre - NZ's hub of China scholarship (I was fortunate to attend their conferences during my PhD there, they do great work!)

If you've reached the end I hope this helps with understanding what's going on right now! A lot of us who know friends and whanau in China are worried for their safety, so please spread the word and let's hope that there is something of a positive outcome ahead.

#孟珏’s china corner #中国 #上海 #习近平 #习近平下台 #共产党下台 #China #Shanghai #China protests #China protests 2022 #Xi Jinping #Xi Jinping step down #CCP step down #Xi Jinping resign #CCP resign #乌鲁木齐 #Urumqi #Urumqi fire #Urumqi apartment fire

[jovialbasementbouquetblr]

2022: China Protests and Retribution

2022: China Protests and Retribution

This poem which appeared at Tsinghua University is circulating online in China. Many dots are added around the Chinese characters, apparently to frustrate the character recognition software that online censors used to scrub the Chinese networks clean. I found the two items below on on the Twitter feed at 冷山时评 @lengshanshipin Xi Jinping Step Down! Shared : this notice appeared at Tsinghua…

View On WordPress

#China #Chinese #Communist Party #COVID #習近平 #demonstrator #detention #police #PRC #protest #repression #torture #Tsinghua #Xi Jinping #Xi Jinping step down #清華大學 #中国

[xieyaohuan]

Jiang Zemin 1926-2022

The guy who won the award for "most often killed by Twitter" is finally dead for real

#jiang zemin #chinese politics #ding dong the witch is dead #this guy's literal only redeeming quality was that he was not xi jinping #and ANYBODY looks like a fucking joy to be governed by next to Xi #stop mourning this guy ok #I get it people are making a political point about not fucking up the country by actually stepping down when your two terms are up BUT #I'm missing the days when Beijing had to ban fireworks the day Li Peng (1928-2019 aka the Butcher of Beijing) died #(I may be misremembering that one but it's what happened in my head) #also can we normalize not being falungong and still hating jiang zemin #screaming into the void #Youtube

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple's business model made Chinese oppression inevitable

A month ago, a wave of rare political protests swept China, centered on Beijing, where Premier Xi Jinping was consolidating his already-substantial power by claiming an unprecedented third term:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/22/china/china-party-congress-overseas-students-protest-intl-hnk

Protest organizers in China struggle with the serious legal and extrajudicial penalties for anti-government activities, backed by a sophisticated digital surveillance grid that monitors and blocks online communications that might challenge government authority.

Though this digital surveillance network is now primarily supplied and serviced by Chinese tech companies, it can't be separated from western tech companies. The first version of the Chinese digital surveillance grid was built by Cisco:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ciscos-latest-attempt-dodge-responsibility-facilitating-human-rights-abuses-export

Tech companies like Yahoo went into China knowing that they'd have to censor the internet, and ultimately turned over their users' data to Chinese authorities, who subsequently arrested and tortured some of those users:

https://www.technewsworld.com/story/yahoo-charged-with-complicity-in-chinese-torture-case-57011.html

Google pulled out of China in 2010, after the Chinese government hacked and arrested Gmail users. But eight years later, Google was secretly working on Project Dragonfly, a censoring, surveilling search product designed for the Chinese market:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/19/138307/how-google-took-on-china-and-lost/

Apple plays a key ongoing role in Chinese state surveillance and oppression. Like most tech giants, Apple depends on access to low-waged Chinese factory workers with weak labor protections to hold down the wage bill for its manufacturing.

Apple also relies on selling phones and computers and services to the titanic Chinese middle class, a category that's loose enough that estimates of its size range from 350m to 700m - but even the lower figure is larger than the entire US population.

Apple's dual reliance on poor Chinese workers and rich Chinese consumers gives the Chinese state enormous leverage over the company. The Chinese government can order Apple to participate in its digital surveillance and dissent-suppression efforts and threaten the company with the loss of revenues and manufacturing if it balks.

But that's true of any western company that seeks to hold down costs and generate revenues through Chinese manufacturing and Chinese sales. What makes Apple uniquely vulnerable to Chinese state pressure is its business-model choices - choices that, ironically, are touted as a way to keep its users safe.

Apple's Ios platform is "curated." Ipads and Iphones ship locked to Apple's App Stores. Users aren't supposed to be able to install software unless it is delivered via the App Store. Apple describes this as a safety measure, a bulwark against the tricks that hackers and identity thieves use to lure users into installing malicious software.

But Apple also makes billions of dollars through this arrangement. The App Store is a chokepoint, and any software author who wants to sell an app to an Iphone owner can only do so if Apple approves of the transaction.

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Apple can arbitrarily withhold this permission, if, say, it has a competing product and doesn't want to have to win out over a new market entrant in a fair fight.

Apple can also burden its competitors: if you want to sell media that competes with Apple Books, Apple Music or Apple Video, the company will charge you 15-30% on each sale, while its own offerings escape this charge.

That means that media stores that competes with Apple's own retail storefronts have to either charge more than Apple, or make less money, or not sell media via an app at all - instead, they have to implement a clunky two-step whereby customers buy their media on the web and they flip back to an app to download it.

Even when an app maker doesn't compete with Apple, Apple can turn it to its advantage: the company simply appropriates 15-30% of ever dollar that changes hands when Iphone owners buy software and media from app makers.

This is "feudal security." In a lawless realm of roving bandits, Apple offers us a high-walled fortress bristling with fierce infosec mercenaries who promise to defend us from the threats outside the walls. In return, Apple uses its control over the gateway to the outside world to extract a tax from everyone who brings us the things we need.

Apple has every incentive to make this fortress as impregnable as possible. From the lowest levels of its chip designs to its lobbying blitzes to criminalize jailbreaking devices, the company is fully committed to ensuring that Ios device owners can't make choices Apple disapproves of.

This is the source of China's extraordinary leverage over Apple. Apple can't afford to leave China, because that would mean losing manufacturing and customers. Because of this, the Chinese state can order Apple to take any measure that Apple is technically capable of delivering.

Because of its business-model choices, Apple has the technical capability to introduce defects in the apps on its customers' devices. It can order every software vendor in the App Store to break their privacy tools so that the Chinese government can spy on those customers.

If companies don't comply, Apple can simply block them from delivering software to Chinese users altogether. An absolutely foreseeable consequence of this product design is that the Chinese state will order Apple to neuter all the privacy tools available to Chinese Ios users, which is exactly what happened:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ

Apple offers cloud storage to its Ios users. Because Apple can't afford to anger the Chinese state, the Chinese state can order Apple to introduce defects into the encryption on its cloud servers so that Apple customers can be spied on by the Chinese government. That's also exactly what happened:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html

Apple's business-model decisions reduce the consequences for betraying its customers. If defects in Apple's cloud product come to light, it can simply order all the other cloud services in the App Store to introduce similar defects, on pain of being kicked out of the store.

Last month's Chinese protests were coordinated in part thanks to a novel technological tactic, one that made use of one of Apple's most innovative technologies: Airdrop. Airdrop is an ad hoc, peer-to-peer file transfer protocol that lets two nearby Ios users exchange files with one another without identifying themselves.

Anti-Xi organizers used Airdrop to exchange forbidden protest literature. Because these files travel directly between Ios devices, they weren't visible to the censors and spies who monitor other digital communications tools in China.

This use of Airdrop is a canonical example of the ways that digital technologies can be part of human rights struggles, giving people new tools that give them leverage over powerful state actors.

Right on schedule, the Chinese government has ordered Apple to break Airdrop so that it can't be used to organize protests, requiring users to opt into receiving files from strangers every ten minutes, rather than letting them set their devices to publicly visible until they are ready to turn it off:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/11/apple-limits-iphone-filesharing-feature-used-by-protesters-in-china

Apple called this a "security update." It updates the security of the Chinese state from democratic accountability.

There's a strain of technology criticism that sees incidents like this as proof that digital tools have no place in human rights struggles, because they will always be turned against their users.

But no one forced Apple to launch its "curated computing" service, nor to design it so that its customers can't override it. Apple built a walled fortress in full knowledge that it might be called upon someday to turn that fortress into a prison.

The feigned outrage of tech companies when the weakenesses in their business-models are exploited by third parties is an obvious and shabby trick to deflect blame. Apple put the gun on the mantelpiece in Act I. It can't expect us to forgive it when Xi Jinping fires the gun in Act III.

Of course, this sin isn't unique to Apple. Google has designed a location-harvesting system that is impossible to opt out of, so that it can accumulate and sell access to a database of every movement of every person.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#goog

Having assembled this database, Google doesn't get to act surprised when cops show up with "geofenced reverse warrants" that demand the identity of every participant in a Black Lives Matter protest (or the January 6 riot):

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/5/22918487/fbi-geofence-seattle-blm-protest-police-guild-attack

Or take the scandal of Adobe customers' files being wrecked by the company's dispute with proprietary color system vendor Pantone. Pantone cancelled Adobe's license to use its technology and wants Adobe customers to spend $21/month to keep Pantone colors.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

But this doesn't just affect files created after the Adobe/Pantone split. Due to Adobe's subscription-based business model, which requires customers to pay monthly for software as a service (SaaS), Pantone can demand that Adobe break all the existing files its customers have created.

If you created a Photoshop file with some Pantone colors 20 years ago, they are broken now, and forever, unless you start paying Pantone $21/month, because Adobe has altered its cloud software so that all Pantone-colored pixels are rendered in black.

I've been corresponding with an Adobe PR flack doing damage control after the Pantone scandal broke, and as far as I can tell, she wants me to "correct" my article to blame Pantone for this mess, because it has Adobe over a barrel.

But Adobe built that barrel. This hostage situation was a completely forseeable consequence of redesigning its products to treat its users like hostages. Pantone are greedy scum, but so are Adobe - and it was Adobe's greed that exposed its customers to Pantone's greed.

The point isn't that having your Photoshop files corrupted is the same as being kidnapped and tortured by Chinese police. But both Adobe and Apple - and every other tech giant - has decided that the rise of networked computing is an opportunity to exercise ongoing control over their customers. All of these companies knew that this ongoing control could be hijacked by hostile governments or corporations at any time, and they did it anyway.

They have no business acting surprised now. Apple isn't responsible for Chinese state oppression, but it is knowingly, explicitly complicit in it.

[Image ID: A Chinese revolutionary poster depicting a marching army of peasant soldiers. It has been altered so that a man at the front of the column is carrying an Ipad. The image is surmounted by Apple's 'Think Different' wordmark.]

#pluralistic

[yourtongzhihazel]

You walk into the local party headquarters for Jiangsu province. The first thing you see is the portrait of Mao Zedong followed by Xi Jinping. The secretary greets you warmly.

"Hello comrade! Are you here for the provincial planning committee position exam?"

"Yes I am!"

"please follow me!"

She leads you into an adjacent hallway. It is lined with portraits of the local party officials and posters adorned with the hammer and sickle. In front of you stands a tan wooden door. The secretary steps ahead and opens it. She waves you inside. You instinctively follow.

Inside the room is a long table. Evidently, the attendants had cleared out a meeting room for the exam. At the table sat a white haired senior party official. She turns around and smiles.

"Ah! Welcome! Please, take a seat in front of the computer!"

It is then that you notice an antique-looking off-white computer. It is as if they had brought it out of a museum. You quickly take a seat in front of it. You look back at the senior official. Shes looking through some papers and quietly asking the secretary questions to which she, equally quietly, responds. Its evident they're discussing your details. You try not to let it get to you. Looking at the clock hanging on the wall, it had only been a mere five minutes since you arrived at the office, but it has felt like an hour. A bead of sweat forms on your forehead. You quickly wipe it away. At that moment, the senior official looks back up and smiles at you again. The secretary takes a few steps back as well.

"Oh how rude of me! My name is Zhu Baowei. Im the head of the local planning committee headquartered here in Jiangsu."

"Comrade, it looks like you have an outstanding record! I hope you perform well on the exam!"

"thank you, comrade Zhu!", you proudly reply

"you're welcome... But Baowei is fine."

"Thank you, comrade!" you echo with a slight hesistance. Baowei chuckles a bit before continuing.

"please, comrade, turn on the monitor"

You look at the computer in all its 1990's glory. The 4:6 aspect ratio stares back at you. You fiddle around with the buttons before one brings the monitor to life. The ambient silence of the room is quickly broken by the sound of several fans turning on to maximum power. As the startup screen fades away, a bright red desktop with a giant hammer and sickle appears on the monitor. In the very center, a small desktop icon of a red star. It is labeled "Planning Committee Exam".

"please open the exam program, comrade" Baowei calmly commands.

You maneuver the mouse over the icon and click it twice. Two command windows pop up then quickly disappear. Another bead of sweat forms on your forehead and drips down your face. You barely notice it. Suddenly, the monitor goes dark and for a brief moment your heartbeats skyrocket before a familiar tune starts playing. Its militaristic march and Soviet style melody jerks you to attention. Seconds later, a title screen appears. "Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic".

"your exam is quite simple", Baowei reassuringly says, "please construct for us a fully self-sufficient soviet republic under 'realistic' gamemode restrictions."

More sweat begins beading on your forehead. You stare at the "new game" button.

"you have 8 hours. Good luck, comrade"

#mmp

[thejackrandahotel]

Some report about the recent events happening in China from English news media.

The New York Times: Protests Erupt in Shanghai and Other Chinese Cities Over Covid Controls

BBC: Covid protests widen in China after Urumqi fire

CNN: Protests erupt across China in unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy

Reuters: Protests in Shanghai and Beijing as anger over China's COVID curbs mounts

The Guardian: Anti-lockdown protests spread across China amid growing anger at zero-Covid strategy

AP News: More anti-COVID protests in China triggered by deadly fire

The Wall Street Journal: Chinese Protests Spread Over Government’s Covid Restrictions

if you need more context, please view my early post:

or this tweet: (there is a complete timeline)

Also I'd like to explain something mistaken by the English media that holding blank white paper while protesting was not mean for mourning or for funerals, but for pointing out that we were not allowed to speak the truth or express our opinion under such a authoritarian government. Everything posted online would be immediately censored and deleted and people would get punished.

Reblogging is very much appreciated. Thank you all so much.

祝大家自由，勇敢，平安。

#urumqi #shanghai #xinjiang #China #Chinese news #Chinese protest #covid 19 #pandemic #international news #chinese politics #international politics #blockade #protest #中国 #新疆 #乌鲁木齐 #上海

[manorpunk]

A Brief Materialist History of the Former US in the Mid-21st Century

2030s: the Polycrisis. Unresolved issues of climate and pollution cause more and more intense natural disasters, which wipe out swathes of vital but poorly-maintained infrastructure. The US federal gov't is too hollowed-out at this point to fix anything, and the tangle of middlemen contractors responsible for actually building and repairing that infrastructure all try to deny responsibility, causing a massive growth spurt of federalism as state governments are forced to step in and try to put out the literal and metaphorical fires. All this embarrassing chaos tarnishes the US's economic reputation of stability, causing a feedback loop of economic contractions as more and more foreign investors pull back from US investments, causing stock market drops which make even more investors panic and pull back, etc. The decade ends with the signing of the Qingdao Accords, a sort of reverse Marshall Plan where the newly-formed Global Logistics Network pours money into infrastructure projects in exchange for creating their own tangle of middlemen contractors. The signing of the Qingdao Accords is generally taken as the end of the Second Cold War with a Chinese victory.

2040s: the Sheriff's Insurrection. A loose alliance of small-town sheriffs (as well as small-business tyrants, conspiracy theorists, retvrn types, and various opportunists, all collectively referred to as 'Sheriffs') resist the "Chinese takeover of America" in a 21st century version of the evergreen landowners-vs-industrialists conflict. They are quickly fought off by GLN-hired paramilitary forces (the same forces will go on to form the Surplus Young Men, an Armored Core/Outer Heaven style 'security force' which is technically unaligned but everyone knows they're cashing GLN checks). The Sheriffs flee to the Midwest, creating a decentralized zone of tiny feuding principalities derogatorily dubbed ‘the manors.’ Other former US states begin to unite into new regional nations - Boswash, California, Cascadia, Texaplex, and the Great Lakes Republic. These new nations actually seem like they might be here to stay, but with much less ability to go sticking their nose in the rest of the world's business, and the decade ends with a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, China’s victory in the Second Cold War proves to be a Pyrrhic victory as the death of Xi Jinping (probably of natural causes but who knows) allows the GLN to balloon in wealth and influence. The CCP takes a sharp nationalist turn, re-branding itself as the Chinese China Party and turning party politics into a game of who can dunk on Americans the most.

2050s: Things are… good? The GLN is delivering on their promise of a new economic order, an automated and algorithmic 21st century market socialism with an infrastructure-based middle class of technicians, data analysts, and civil servants. There's still a global underclass of cheap mobile labor to actually go out to the middle of nowhere and build all this stuff but, y'know, it's a smaller global underclass. The manors calm down a little as the GLN supports the formation of autochthonous American nations: the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota and Dakota in the Midwest and the Diné Nation in the southwest, along with the progressive majority-black government of Piedmont in the Atlantic South, make it feel like we might be doing something about that whole ‘foundational white supremacy’ thing (The GLN was, of course, happy to take credit for solving racism forever). The GLN gets to claim even more PR victories as various post-colonial regions peacefully unify as ‘leagues,’ EU-style intra-national coalitions that work together on economic on diplomatic matters while letting individual states largely manage their own affairs. The US nations start to wonder if it might be time to form a league of their own. (Incidentally, by this point the EU has split apart into Frankistan and Mitteleuropa, Spain has exploded again, and Punished Britain is not coping well with their fall from grace.)

2060s: Who knows? Things start getting tense as the global construction boom slows down and the money-hose starts to dry up. 'Minor' regional problems and potential long-term issues are swept under the rug because "we’ve got a good thing going here, don't fuck this up," and the once-radical new visions for the world are already beginning to seem calcified and sclerotic. The newly-formed American League is poised to be little more than a rubber stamp for GLN policy… or is it?

#manorpunk #unreality #lore post #timeline

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up March 16, 2023

Under the cut:

A remarkable video released by the Pentagon shows the moments before a Russian fighter crashed into a $32m US Reaper drone after spraying it with jet fuel on Tuesday morning over the Black Sea. The declassified footage shows an Su-27 Flanker jet making two exceptionally close passes of the uncrewed drone, spraying fuel in front of it, a harassment tactic that US experts say has not been seen before.

Poland will become the first country to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine in the next few days, marking a significant upward step in military backing for Kyiv ahead of an expected counter-offensive. The precedent, involving four Soviet-era MiG-29s as a first instalment, could lead to other Nato members providing warplanes, a longstanding Ukrainian request.

Negotiations about a possible conversation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are ongoing, but it is too early to say whether a conversation will actually take place, according to a Ukrainian presidential adviser.

Ahead of the Black Sea grain agreement expiring this weekend, the United Nations emphasized that the deal states it would be extended for 120 days — even though Russia said it agreed to a 60-day extension of the deal after negotiations in Geneva on Monday. The Black Sea Grain Initiative is an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, brokered by the UN and Turkey, that was established in July 2022 to guarantee safe passage for ships carrying grain and oilseeds — some of Ukraine's most important exports.  

Russian attacks were reported in Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk oblasts in the east, south, and north of Ukraine over the past 24 hours. According to local authorities, one person was killed, and 14 were wounded. Russian attacks killed one civilian in Bakhmut and injured 11 more in Donetsk Oblast, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported in his morning update on March 16. Russia hit ten settlements and three communities in the region, damaging over 25 houses, five high-rises, a school, an educational institution, and cars, said Kyrylenko.

(Content warning: Torture, rape.) Russia has committed wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine such as wilful killings and torture, a U.N.-mandated investigative body said on Thursday, in some cases making children watch loved ones being raped and detaining others alongside dead bodies. The alleged crimes, including the deportation of children, were detailed in a report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, which said some acts may amount to crimes against humanity.

“A remarkable video released by the Pentagon shows the moments before a Russian fighter crashed into a $32m US Reaper drone after spraying it with jet fuel on Tuesday morning over the Black Sea.

The declassified footage shows an Su-27 Flanker jet making two exceptionally close passes of the uncrewed drone, spraying fuel in front of it, a harassment tactic that US experts say has not been seen before.

On the second pass, the Su-27 moves so close to the MQ-9 Reaper that the image briefly becomes pixelated, indicating a collision had happened.

When the camera recovers, a bent propeller wing can be seen – damage sufficiently serious for the US Air Force to force the drone down. It fell into international waters in the Black Sea, and senior Russian officials have said they hope to salvage it.

The head of US Central Command, General Erik Kurilla, said Russian planes had also become more aggressive towards US bases in Syria over the past two weeks, flying loaded with weapons “in an attempt … to be provocative”.

“What we are seeing is an increase recently in the unprofessional and unsafe behaviour of the Russian air force in the region,” Kurilla told the Senate armed services committee. “We have seen a significant spike since about 1 March,” he added.

US officials briefed that the footage of the downing of the Reaper drone “absolutely confirms” there was a collision and dumping of fuel – but they added it did not confirm the Russian pilot’s intent and whether it was intended to strike the Reaper.

By pausing the imagery it is possible to see that the Su-27 was armed with at least four missiles. The US has said the Reaper was unarmed, most likely undertaking surveillance and reconnaissance related to the conflict in Ukraine.

The Pentagon said the footage, which is about 40 seconds long, had been edited by the US military for length but showed events in a sequential order at the end of a sustained period of harassment by two Russian jets.

The US has previously said the drone was damaged after a pair of Su-27s had spent at least half an hour trying to disrupt it by dumping fuel on it and flying in front of it. US air force officials said earlier this week that the jets flew close to the drone 19 times, spraying jet fuel on the last three or four times.

Russia has denied US accusations that its jets acted recklessly and has that its aircraft came into contact with the drone. It insists the drone fell from the sky after making a “sharp manoeuvre” and that it was flying towards Crimea, which Russia has occupied since 2014.

The video was released with the following caption: “Two Russian Su-27 aircraft conducted an unsafe and unprofessional intercept with a US Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance unmanned MQ-9 aircraft operating within international airspace over the Black Sea on 14 March 2023. Russian Su-27s dumped fuel upon and struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing US forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters.”

Justin Bronk, an aviation analyst with the Rusi thinktank, said: “The footage does show two extremely close and unprofessional passes at significant angles of attack, which is in line with the US claims that the Russian pilot involved in the collision was flying recklessly and accidentally collided with the MQ-9.”

On Wednesday, the Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, called the incident a provocation. “We are concerned about the unacceptable activity of the US military in the immediate vicinity of our borders,” he said, accusing the US of supplying intelligence to Kyiv. The US had summoned the ambassador over the incident.

The MQ-9 Reaper is a large remotely piloted aircraft, 11 metres long with a wingspan of more than 22 metres, and can be armed if necessary. The US Air Force says its primary use is as “an intelligence-collection asset” but it has frequently been used in drone strikes against targets in the ongoing “war on terror”.

The defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and joint chiefs of staff chair, Gen Mark Milley, have spoken to their Russian counterparts about the destruction of the drone.”-via The Guardian, video is at source link

~

“Poland will become the first country to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine in the next few days, marking a significant upward step in military backing for Kyiv ahead of an expected counter-offensive.

The precedent, involving four Soviet-era MiG-29s as a first instalment, could lead to other Nato members providing warplanes, a longstanding Ukrainian request.

The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, made the announcement in Warsaw. He said the first planes being handed over were inherited from East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Duda said the MiGs were coming to the end of their working lives after 30 years, but were “still in working order”. The president said that more Polish MiGs were being serviced and repaired in preparation for being handed to Ukraine. In all, Poland has 28 MiG-29s which are to be replaced over the next few years by South Korean FA-50s and US F-35s.

Until now, Ukraine’s backers in Nato have only provided spare parts for its fleet of Soviet-era warplanes, amid fears that delivering functioning planes to Ukraine would be seen by Moscow as direct participation in the war. A year ago, Poland offered to hand over all its MiGs to the US at its airbase in Ramstein, Germany, so they could be passed on to Ukraine, but Washington rejected the plan.

Slovakia, Finland and the Netherlands have all said they would consider supplying Ukraine with warplanes. The US and UK have so far refused to supply their F-16s and Typhoon combat aircraft respectively, on the grounds that they require too much training, ground support and long, smooth runways to be of any short-term help to Ukraine. However, the UK has offered to provide air cover for any eastern European country willing to supply Kyiv with Soviet-era jets.”-via The Guardian

~

“Negotiations about a possible conversation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are ongoing, but it is too early to say whether a conversation will actually take place, according to a Ukrainian presidential adviser.

"We can't say for sure, because negotiations are ongoing," Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on national television Thursday.

The Ukrainian president is open to conversations with other leaders as well, not just Xi, "in order to explain the nature of the war and to say why, without taking into account Ukraine's position, this war cannot be ended," Podolyak said.

"Why supporting for instance only the Russian side firstly will not lead to the finalization of the war, and secondly, it will not add points to China as a global player that understands the nature of war and understands how to end it," he added. Earlier on Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had a telephone conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. The two discussed Ukraine's peace plan and "the significance of the principle of territorial integrity," Kuleba said in a post on his official Twitter account.”-via CNN

~

“Ahead of the Black Sea grain agreement expiring this weekend, the United Nations emphasized that the deal states it would be extended for 120 days — even though Russia said it agreed to a 60-day extension of the deal after negotiations in Geneva on Monday.  

The Black Sea Grain Initiative is an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, brokered by the UN and Turkey, that was established in July 2022 to guarantee safe passage for ships carrying grain and oilseeds — some of Ukraine's most important exports.  

“The agreement is public, it’s an open document. It foresees a rollover of 120 days,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.   Russian state-run news agency RIA, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, reported on Monday that Russia and the UN had agreed to a 60-day extension of the grain deal after the negotiations in Geneva.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the addition of 60 days was a “goodwill gesture” on Russia's part when asked by reporters why the deal had not been extended by 120 days.  

When asked Thursday about the difference in the duration of the extension between Russian and the UN versions, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that it may be a display of “UN’s incompetence.”  

Dujarric responded to Zakharova’s remark, saying, “I was just stating and reading a line from the agreement, which talks about the fact that the agreement foresees a renewal for 120 days.”   The spokesperson stressed that the UN doesn't direct the talks or terms to the deal. The Russian Federation, Ukraine and Turkey are the parties involved in the agreement, with the UN as a witness, Dujarric said.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar told reporters on Wednesday that Ankara hopes to resolve the issue in a positive way “as soon as possible,” according to Turkish state media Anadolu.

“We started negotiations with the idea of extending the grain corridor for another 120 days in line with the initial version of the agreement. Our friends with the Russian and Ukrainian sides held talks at the technical level. We also continue our talks at the ministerial level,” he said.”-via CNN

~

“Russian attacks were reported in Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk oblasts in the east, south, and north of Ukraine over the past 24 hours.

According to local authorities, one person was killed, and 14 were wounded.

Russian attacks killed one civilian in Bakhmut and injured 11 more in Donetsk Oblast, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported in his morning update on March 16. Russia hit ten settlements and three communities in the region, damaging over 25 houses, five high-rises, a school, an educational institution, and cars, said Kyrylenko.

Russian forces struck Kherson Oblast 88 times, firing 413 projectiles on the oblast's settlements, according to Kherson Oblast Military Administration. The attacks reportedly wounded three people in the region as well as damaged houses and apartment buildings in the city of Kherson.

Russian troops launched an S-300 missile at Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv on March 15, damaging an educational institution, a high-rise, and cars, said Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Russia also attacked four regional districts over the past day, damaging houses and infrastructure sites in the villages of Hatyshche and Lemishcheno, Syniehubov added. No casualties were reported.

On the morning of March 16, Russian forces hit the community of Bilopillia with artillery and grenade launchers in Sumy Oblast, bordering Russia, according to the regional administration.

Earlier on March 15, Russia shelled four other communities in the region, destroying a farm building and an office building, the administration wrote. There were no casualties in the attacks.

Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration reported that Russia had struck civilian infrastructure in 17 settlements. Local authorities received ten reports about damage to citizens' households and infrastructure sites due to Russian attacks. The administration didn't provide information on casualties.

In Chernihiv Oblast, Russian troops used mortars to attack the villages of Berylivka and Yeline close to the Russian-Ukrainian border on March 15, according to the Northern Operational Command of Ukraine's Armed Forces.

The next day, the General Staff reported Russian attacks on two other regional settlements. No casualties were reported.

Russia also shelled four settlements in Luhansk Oblast, the regional administration said on Telegram. It didn't provide information on casualties or damage.”-via Kyiv Independent

~

(Content warning: Torture, rape.)

“Russia has committed wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine such as willful killings and torture, a U.N.-mandated investigative body said on Thursday, in some cases making children watch loved ones being raped and detaining others alongside dead bodies.

The alleged crimes, including the deportation of children, were detailed in a report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, which said some acts may amount to crimes against humanity.

At her weekly press briefing, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters that Moscow regularly heard accusations like these.

She added that if those behind such reports supported objectivity "then we are ready to analyse specific cases, answer questions, provide data, statistics and facts. But if they are biased, if they represent only one point of view ... then there is no use responding to these reports."

Russia denies committing atrocities or attacking civilians in Ukraine.

Based on more than 500 interviews as well as satellite images and visits to detention sites and graves, the report comes as the International Criminal Court in The Hague is expected to seek the arrest of Russian officials for forcibly deporting children from Ukraine and attacking civilian infrastructure.

It said Russian forces carried out "indiscriminate and disproportionate" attacks on Ukraine and called for the perpetrators to be held accountable.

"The ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine has had devastating effects at various levels," Erik Møse, chair of the commission, told a press briefing. "Human losses and the general disregard for the life of civilians...are shocking."

The report said at least 13 waves of Russian attacks since October on Ukraine's energy-related infrastructure as well as its use of torture "may amount to crimes against humanity."

It found that some 16,000 children have been unlawfully transferred and deported from Ukraine, citing a Ukraine government figure. Russia denies the charge, saying it has evacuated people voluntarily from Ukraine.

Other children were forced to watch their loved ones raped or, in one instance, detained in a school basement alongside the bodies of the deceased, the report said.

Victims in Russian detention facilities were subject to electric shocks with a military phone - a treatment known as a "call to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin" - or hung from the ceiling in a "parrot position", the report said.

The commission's 18-page report will be presented to the Geneva Human Rights Council on Monday. Countries at the council, the only body made up of governments to protect human rights worldwide, aims to extend and deepen the commission's mandate.

Sometimes, the council's probes lead to prosecutions in international courts. The commission said it is working on a list of possible perpetrators that would be passed onto U.N. authorities.

Asked whether Russia's acts might amount to genocide, as Ukraine believes, Møse said it had not yet found such evidence but would continue to follow up.

Ukraine, which has called for the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's political and military leadership with aggression over the invasion, has said the commission was essential to ensure Russia would be held accountable.

The commission found reasonable grounds to conclude that the Ukraine invasion qualifies as an act of aggression.

The report also found that Ukraine forces had committed a "small number of violations" including what appeared to be indiscriminate attacks and torture of prisoners of war. The Ukrainian presidency was not immediately available for comment.”-via Reuters

#Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #Daily Update #Poland #China #Black Sea #UN #donetsk #kherson #Zaporizhzhia #Chernihiv #sumy #luhank #US

[dankxsinatra]

Chinese citizens chanting "CCP, Step down" and "Xi Jinping, step down".

There is always hope

[newstfionline]

Monday, April 22, 2024

The Town at the Center of a Supreme Court Battle Over Homelessness (NYT) Inside a warming shelter, Laura Gutowski detailed how her life had changed since she became homeless two and a half years ago in Grants Pass, a former timber hub in the foothills of southern Oregon. “I never expected it to come to this,” Ms. Gutowski, 55, said. She is one of several hundred homeless people in this city of about 40,000 that is at the center of a major case before the Supreme Court on Monday with broad ramifications for the nationwide struggle with homelessness. After Grants Pass stepped up enforcement of local ordinances that banned sleeping and camping in public spaces by ticketing, fining and jailing the homeless, lower courts ruled that it amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment” by penalizing people who had nowhere else to go. Many states and cities that are increasingly overwhelmed by homelessness are hoping the Supreme Court overturns that decision. They argue that it has crippled their efforts to address sprawling encampments, rampant public drug use and fearful constituents who say they cannot safely use public spaces. That prospect has alarmed homeless people and their advocates, who contend that a ruling against them would lead cities to fall back on jails, instead of solutions like affordable housing and social services.

In New York City, Most Major Crimes Are Down, But Assaults Are Up (NYT) Just before noon last Saturday, a 9-year-old girl was with her mother at Grand Central Terminal when a man strode up to the child and, without warning, punched her in the face. The child, dizzy and in pain, was taken to the hospital. Jean Carlos Zarzuela, 30, a man who had been staying in a homeless shelter in East Harlem, was quickly arrested. It was among a number of recent assaults that have unnerved New Yorkers, who have seen a rash of attacks reported on the streets and on the subway. Police leaders and Mayor Eric Adams have trumpeted sharp decreases in the number of murders, rapes, robberies and burglaries since 2022. Still, assaults continue to vex police and city leaders. Felony assaults, a major crime category defined as an attack where a dangerous weapon is used or a serious injury results, are up in recent years. So are misdemeanor assaults, such as the one at Grand Central, in which a victim is punched, kicked or hit but no weapon is used.

Blinken will be the latest top US official to visit China in a bid to keep ties on an even keel (AP) Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China this coming week as Washington and Beijing try to keep ties on an even keel despite major differences on issues from the path to peace in the Middle East to the supply of synthetic opioids that have heightened fears over global stability. The rivals are at odds on numerous fronts, including Russia’s war in Ukraine, Taiwan and the South China Sea, North Korea, Hong Kong, human rights and the detention of American citizens. The United States and China also are battling over trade and commerce issues, with President Joe Biden announcing new tariffs on imports of Chinese steel this past week. The State Department said Saturday that Blinken, on his second visit to China in less than a year, will travel to Shanghai and Beijing starting Wednesday for three days of meetings with senior Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Talks between Blinken and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected, although neither side will confirm such a meeting is happening until shortly before it takes place.

Ecuadorians head to polls to toughen fight against gangs behind wave of violence (AP) Ecuadorians head to the polls Sunday in a referendum touted by the country’s fledgling leader as a way to crack down on criminal gangs behind a spiraling wave of violence. The majority of 11 questions posed to voters focus on tightening security measures. Proposals include deploying the army in the fight against the gangs, loosening obstacles to extradition of accused criminals and lengthening prison sentences for convicted drug traffickers. Ecuador, traditionally one of South America’s most peaceful countries, has been rocked in recent year by a wave of violence, much of it spilling over from neighboring Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Last year, the country’s homicide rate shot up to 40 deaths per 100,000, one of the highest in the region.

Wave of narco-violence stuns Argentina city (AP) The order to kill came from inside a federal prison near Argentina’s capital. Unwitting authorities patched a call from drug traffickers tied to one of the country’s most notorious gangs to collaborators on the outside. Hiring a 15-year-old hit man, they sealed the fate of a young father they didn’t even know. At a service station on March 9 in Rosario, the picturesque hometown of soccer star Lionel Messi, 25-year-old employee Bruno Bussanich was whistling to himself and checking the day’s earnings just before he was shot three times from less than a foot away, surveillance footage shows. The assailant fled without taking a peso. It was the fourth gang-related fatal shooting in Rosario in almost as many days. Authorities called it an unprecedented rampage in Argentina, which had never witnessed the extremes of drug cartel violence afflicting some other Latin American countries.

Thousands protest in Spain’s Canary Islands over mass tourism (Reuters) Thousands of people protested in Tenerife on Saturday, calling for the Spanish island to temporarily limit tourist arrivals to stem a boom in short-term holiday rentals and hotel construction that is driving up housing costs for locals. Holding placards reading “People live here” and “We don’t want to see our island die”, demonstrators said changes must be made to the tourism industry that accounts for 35% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the Canary Islands archipelago. Demonstrators say local authorities should temporarily limit visitor numbers to alleviate pressure on the islands’ environment, infrastructure and housing stock, and put curbs on property purchases by foreigners.

Moscow says 50 Ukrainian drones shot down as attacks spark fires at Russian power stations (AP) Ukraine launched a barrage of drones across Russia overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Saturday, in attacks that appeared to target the country’s energy infrastructure. Fifty drones were shot down by air defences over eight Russian regions, including 26 over the country’s western Belgorod region close to the Ukrainian border. Two people died during the overnight barrage. Ukrainian officials normally decline to comment about attacks on Russian soil. However, many of the drone strikes appeared to be directed toward Russia’s energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian and Western leaders laud US aid package while the Kremlin warns of ‘further ruin’ (AP) Ukrainian and Western leaders on Sunday welcomed a desperately needed aid package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, as the Kremlin warned that passage of the bill would “further ruin” Ukraine and cause more deaths. Ukrainian commanders and analysts say the long-awaited $61 billion military aid package — including $13.8 billion for Ukraine to buy weapons — will help slow Russia’s incremental advances in the war’s third year — but that more will likely be needed for Kyiv to regain the offensive. In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday called the approval of aid to Ukraine “expected and predictable.” The decision “will make the United States of America richer, further ruin Ukraine and result in the deaths of even more Ukrainians, the fault of the Kyiv regime,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

Time Is Running Out for Rahul Gandhi’s Vision for India (NYT) Rahul Gandhi stood in a red Jeep, amid a churning crowd in Varanasi, trying to unseat the Indian government. It was the morning of Feb. 17—Day 35 of a journey that began in the hills of Manipur, in India’s northeast, and would end by the ocean in Mumbai, in mid-March. In total, Gandhi would cover 15 states and 4,100 miles, traveling across a country that once voted for his party, the Indian National Congress, almost by reflex. No longer, though. For a decade, the Congress Party has been so deep in the political wilderness, occupying fewer than a tenth of the seats in Parliament, that even its well-wishers wonder if Gandhi is merely the custodian of its end. Indian pundits and journalists bicker about many things, but on this point they’re unanimous: Only a miracle will halt the B.J.P. Still, it falls to Gandhi, steward of his enfeebled party, to try. One of Modi’s successes has been not just to trounce the Congress Party but also to persuade people that the party has weakened India and emasculated its Hindus. Through his cult of personality, Modi is fulfilling a century-old project, recasting India as a Hindu nation, in which minorities, particularly Muslims, live at the sufferance of the majority.

No let-up for Gazans while world focused on Iran attack (BBC) While the media’s glare in the Middle East this past week was diverted to Iran’s dramatic missile and drone attack on Israel, there has been no let-up in fighting in Gaza. Dozens of Palestinians were killed daily—including many children, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry. It now says Israel has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza since the start of the war. As Israel’s forces continue with their efforts to destroy Hamas, they have conducted small-scale, often deadly operations, from the top to the bottom of the territory over the past week. On Tuesday, in the middle of Gaza, relatives clutching limp and bloodstained bodies of small boys and girls rushed from al-Maghazi refugee camp to al-Aqsa Martyrs’ hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah. Medics at the hospital said that at least 12 people were killed and some 30 injured by shelling in al-Maghazi. “They were playing in the street. Why were they struck? They weren’t in any position close to Israeli forces,” one man told the BBC.

Deadly heat wave surges through West Africa (AP) Street vendors in Mali’s capital of Bamako peddle water sachets, ubiquitous for this part of West Africa during the hottest months. This year, an unprecedented heat wave has led to a surge in deaths, experts say, warning of more scorching weather ahead. The heat wave began in late March, as many in this Muslim majority country observed the holy Islamic month of Ramadan with dawn-to-dusk fasting. On Thursday, temperatures in Bamako reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) and weather forecasts say it’s not letting up anytime soon. The city’s Gabriel-Touré Hospital reported 102 deaths in the first four days of the month, compared to 130 deaths in all of April last year. It’s unknown how many of the fatalities were due to the extreme weather.

#headlines #news

[beardedmrbean]

BEIJING (Reuters) -A Chinese court sentenced two prominent human rights lawyers on Monday to jail terms of more than a decade each, a relative and rights groups told Reuters, the latest move in a years-long crackdown on civil society by President Xi Jinping.

Xu Zhiyong, 50, and Ding Jiaxi, 55, went on trial behind closed doors in June last year on charges of state subversion at a court in Linshu county in the northeastern province of Shandong, relatives told Reuters at the time.

Xu and Ding are prominent figures in the New Citizens Movement, which sought greater transparency into the wealth of officials and for Chinese citizens to be able to exercise their civil rights as written in the constitution.

Ding's wife Luo Shengchun, who lives in the United States and has pursued his case with U.S. State Department officials, told Reuters about the sentencing but said she had no further details.

"Their lawyers are forbidden from publishing court verdict documents and they do not dare to reveal where they were sentenced and under what charges," she said by telephone.

She will keep pressing for information, she added.

"I will not let them put Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong in jail so easily."

Xu received a jail term of 14 years and Ding was sentenced to 12 years, she added.

China's foreign ministry said it was not aware of the cases.

"China is a country governed by law, all are treated equally under the law and cases are handled in accordance with the law," spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters at a daily briefing.

The court, and the justice ministry, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The two had been held for more than three years, with Ding taken by police in December 2019 shortly after attending a gathering in southern China with about 20 other lawyers and activists.

Then he was held incommunicado for almost six months while being routinely tortured to extract a confession, his lawyer Peng Jian told the court.

Xu, a close friend of Ding's who once wrote a searing open letter calling on Xi to step down, was detained in February 2020 after going into hiding.

Authorities have barred their lawyers from contact with foreign media, Luo added, in a practice that has become increasingly common in recent years so as to stifle publicity around rights-related cases.

Both had previously been imprisoned for their activism.

"The cruelly farcical convictions and sentences meted out to Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi show President Xi's unstinting hostility towards peaceful activism," said Yaqiu Wang, a senior China researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Their secret hearings were "riddled with procedural problems and allegations of mistreatment", the rights group added.

China has dramatically clamped down on dissent since Xi came to power in 2012. Hundreds of rights lawyers were detained and dozens jailed in a series of arrests commonly known as "709" cases, referring to a crackdown on July 9, 2015.

China rejects criticism of its human rights record, saying it is a country with rule of law and that jailed rights lawyers and activists are criminals who have broken the law.

#nunyas news

[panicinthestudio]

Protesters in China demand Xi Jinping step down, November 27, 2022

Unrest is growing in China over the country's strict COVID-19 measures. Fresh protests have broken out in major cities, with hundreds rallying at Beijing's elite Tsing-hua University, chanting 'we want freedom.' Many also held up blank sheets of paper in a symbolic protest against state censorship. More demonstrations have also been reported in Shanghai, following clashes with police overnight. Public anger has flared after a deadly apartment block fire, with many blaming an ongoing lockdown for hampering rescue efforts. Chinese officials have defended their zero-covid policy, despite the growing public backlash.

Deutsche Welle

Further reading:

AFP, via HKFP: Protests in Shanghai as anger mounts over China’s zero-Covid policy, November 27, 2022

BBC: China Covid: Protesters openly urge Xi to resign over China Covid curbs, November 27, 2022

The Guardian: Anti-lockdown protests spread in China as anger rises over zero-Covid strategy, November 27, 2022

Reuters: Blank sheets of paper become symbol of defiance in China protests, November 27, 2022

#Xi Jinping #Chinese Communist Party #china #COVID 19 #Urumqi #tsinghua university #Beijing #shanghai #censorship #protest #surveillance #police #pandemic #politics #zero covid policy #Deutsche Welle #BBC #nanjing #zhengzhou #guangzhou #hong kong free press #Agence France Presse #Hong Kong #Russia #Moscow #Reuters

[mariacallous]

SAN FRANCISCO—U.S. President Joe Biden met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco this week, in one of the most highly anticipated foreign meetings of Biden’s presidency. Though the aims of the meeting were limited, it has put to the test whether presidential diplomacy—and the right level of personal rapport between world leaders—can actually pave the way for major breakthroughs between the rival powers to avert the worst-case scenarios of an emerging new cold war.

In 1969, newly elected U.S. President Richard Nixon set out a mantra for his approach to foreign policy during a meeting with reporters on a trip to Europe: “When there is trust between men who are leaders of nations, there is a better chance to settle differences.” That stance led to historic foreign-policy breakthroughs—before Nixon resigned in disgrace—including major arms control deals with the Soviet Union and Nixon’s famous 1972 visit to China, dubbed as “the week that changed the world.”

More than five decades later, Biden is making a similar gamble against the backdrop of a new high-stakes geopolitical game with China: that face-to-face diplomacy with Xi can start to build up some trust and help stave off the risk of a conflict between two superpowers.

Many Western and Asian diplomats, as well as outside experts, lauded Biden’s efforts to dial down tensions with China, though whether that meeting yields results remains to be seen. “The Biden-Xi meeting sends a much-needed message to the rest of the world that even as the two countries compete, their leaders are committed to at least managing tensions and avoiding conflict,” said Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at the Wilson Center. Still, he added, “this is at best one step in a long road to finding a floor in the U.S.-China relationship, and it will not be without its share of obstacles.”

Every modern U.S. president has gambled on face-to-face meetings to net big gains on major foreign-policy initiatives. But it didn’t always used to be that way, and history shows inconsistent results when presidential diplomacy and pe

The atmosphere of the Biden-Xi meeting in San Francisco—at least the portion reporters were allowed to see—was polite, if choreographed. Still, it belied the mood in Washington, where U.S. lawmakers and other top foreign-policy experts describe China as an “existential” threat to the United States. The relationship is so fraught that some even castigated Biden for meeting with Xi in the first place.

“China is not a normal country—it is an aggressor state,” said Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Biden is caving to Xi in exchange for a series of meaningless working groups and engagement mechanisms.”

Biden didn’t come to the meeting looking to resolve all the challenges of the U.S.-China relationship. He was, however, looking to refresh ties with Beijing with limited agreements on issues such as military communications and countering drug trafficking—and all the while banking on the personal touch to help him out. “There is no substitute to face-to-face discussions,” he told Xi on Wednesday, as the two met for a working lunch.

The question for many officials in San Francisco—and back in Washington and other capitals of U.S. allies—is whether even face-to-face discussions can ultimately mend U.S.-China ties.

“China watchers have seen this movie many times before, and it never ends well for Washington,” said Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Despite signs of renewed engagement, both Xi and Biden remain committed to their current confrontational course, which means the prospects for stabilization remain distant at best and foolhardy at worst.”

Xi during his opening meeting with Biden acknowledged the stakes of the meeting and the global power that the relationship between these two men potentially holds. “For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option,” he said. “Mr. President, you and I, we are at the helm of China-U.S. relations. We shoulder heavy responsibilities for the two peoples, for the world, and for history.”

Before reporters were shuffled out of the room, a Western reporter shouted a question in Mandarin to Xi on whether he trusts Biden. Xi took the translation earpiece out of his ear to hear the question. But he didn’t respond.

The British politician and diplomat Harold Nicolson, deeply involved in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that led to the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, summed it up in his book Peacemaking 1919. “Nothing could be more fatal than the habit … of personal contact between statesmen of the world,” he wrote.

In the United States, this changed markedly under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed personal diplomacy and major summits with Allied leaders, including in Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in 1945, that charted the strategy for winning World War II and the future of the postwar world.

Some of his successors shuddered at the notion. “This idea of the president of the United States going personally abroad to negotiate—it’s just damn stupid,” President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, in what was seen as a rebuke of the Yalta and Potsdam meetings his predecessors attended that solidified Soviet gains over Eastern Europe and entrenched the Cold War battle lines. “Every time a president has gone abroad to get into the details of these things he’s lost his shirt,” Eisenhower said.

That line of thinking didn’t last. The personal touch may have been a Roosevelt family heirloom; Theodore Roosevelt, in one of the earliest feats of U.S. presidential diplomacy, brokered the end of the Russo-Japanese War in a marathon of diplomacy that earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. Jimmy Carter brokered peace between Israel and Egypt in the 1978 Camp David Accords. Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev almost succeeded in clinching a sweeping nuclear arms control agreement to dismantle both sides’ nuclear weapons during a fateful conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986 that remains one of the biggest “what ifs” of Cold War history. A so-called “shirt sleeves” summit in 2013 between Xi and Barack Obama at the Sunnylands estate in California and a state visit in 2015 struck a positive tone for bilateral relations that largely held for the rest of Obama’s tenure.

For every success story, there are also the failures: John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s first meeting in 1961 was meant to set the stage for a new and warmer era in U.S.-Soviet relations, but it completely backfired when the two leaders personally clashed. George W. Bush, upon first meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2001, famously said: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.” Obama vowed to achieve a two-state solution in the Middle East during his first term, a plan that joined a long string of successive failures of U.S. presidents to finally resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—failures that presaged the current Israel-Hamas war. And Donald Trump put his own self-proclaimed deal-making skills to the test with two historic summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to find a way to dismantle Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. That effort ended in failure.

In addition to his failed North Korea gambit, Trump also tried to put his own mark on U.S.-China relations when he met Xi in 2017. When Xi visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, many expected the two leaders to openly clash, given Trump’s relentless criticism of China as the root of many problems in the United States. Trump and Xi surprised everyone by ending their meeting with no signs of confrontation. Trump said they cultivated an “outstanding” relationship while they dined on “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.” Warm words and beautiful cake aside, however, the U.S. relationship with China only went downhill from there.

Biden’s current gamble on personal diplomacy with Xi comes as no surprise given the role of the president’s personal hand in modern U.S. foreign policy. He had a head start, getting to know Xi during his time as vice president from 2009 to 2017. But this bet also has a lot working against it.

There are numerous systemic issues in the U.S.-China relationship that some diplomats and lawmakers see as insurmountable: military tensions over Taiwan, spy (and spy balloon) scandals, Xi’s sharp authoritarian turn at home and crackdown on ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang that the U.S. government and others consider a genocide, massive trade disputes, and the overall surge in anti-China politics in Washington.

Two other wildcards next year could derail the limited progress Biden and Xi sought to hammer out at the APEC summit. The first is the upcoming presidential election in Taiwan, the independently governed island that Washington supports diplomatically and militarily but which China views as a breakaway state. The second is the U.S. presidential election, where Trump, who tried to center his foreign policy on combating China’s rise on the world stage, stands a real chance of being reelected.

And there’s diplomacy itself. Video calls make face-to-face contact easier than ever. But there’s no business like the business of showing up. Roosevelt clinched the 1905 peace deal that ended the Russo-Japanese War only after senior Russian and Japanese delegations spent a month together with him in New Hampshire. Nixon spent an entire week in China with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during his historic 1972 visit that paved the way for the United States and China to later formally reopen ties. Carter only finalized the vaunted Camp David Accords after devoting two full weeks to negotiations with Israeli and Egyptian leaders at the remote presidential country retreat in Maryland.

It’s the nature of modern diplomacy, and modern politics, that U.S. presidents just don’t take those types of lengthy trips anymore. Biden’s whirlwind tour of the APEC summit, where he met with multiple Asia-Pacific leaders, lasted just two days. His working meeting with Xi lasted four hours.

Still, Team Biden touts that they didn’t come away empty-handed. He and Xi announced a number of new initiatives during the APEC summit in a bid to ease tensions. That includes efforts to restore some military-to-military communication channels between the countries’ armed forces, which could prevent an accident or miscommunication from spiraling into a full military confrontation. They also announced a deal to crack down on the illicit flow of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid often manufactured in China before being smuggled to the United States, and announced new initiatives to cooperate on climate change and discuss artificial intelligence.

The U.S. president also scored some points, if not with Xi, then with his wife. Biden wished Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, a happy birthday. (The two share the same birthday, Nov. 20.) Xi said he was working so hard he forgot that his wife’s birthday was next week until Biden mentioned it, according to a U.S. official who briefed reporters on the meeting on condition of anonymity. It’s unclear if all that progress was lost when Biden later referred to Xi as a “dictator” in off-the-cuff remarks to reporters. Xi, for his part, won some soft-power points in the name of panda diplomacy by signaling that China could send new pandas to U.S. zoos again after the last remaining bears at Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington were repatriated.

“Personal rapport matters because the buck stops with the leaders in a potential crisis,” said Parameswaran of the Wilson Center. This factor played a major role in Reagan’s negotiations on arms control with Gorbachev; without their warm personal relationship, many historians have concluded, they wouldn’t have come so close to a major arms deal at Reykjavik.

Did it make a difference for Biden and Xi? Most officials at APEC agreed that it was too soon to tell whether China will adhere to all the agreements hashed out in San Francisco. Others say the agreements are nice but without ways to enforce it, they could be empty talk. “We can have all sorts of negotiations, but if there’s nothing that can enforce it, I don’t know that they mean a whole lot,” said Carolyn Bartholomew, the chair of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which just released a scathing report on U.S.-China relations and the hopes for personal diplomacy.

Biden, for his part, came out of all the APEC meetings insisting he had a good read on Xi. “I think I know the man. I know his modus operandi,” Biden told reporters. “We have disagreements. He has a different view than I have on a lot of things. But he’s been straight. I don’t mean that he’s good, bad, or indifferent. He’s just been straight.”

[xieyaohuan]

Hearing people in Shanghai chant "Xi Jinping step down!" wasn't on my 2022 bingo card.

Unlikely to go anywhere, but I cannot stress enough how unusual this is - not protests in China per se, which happen quite often, but protests across multiple big cities with explicit political demands.

#interrupting the kitty meow meow posting to scream about China #I do hope this leads to better and more flexible covid policies at least #also yes lots of urban elites in China kinda really hate Xi Jinping #he's basically considered an illiterate ogre #(not that people don't have lots of legit reasons to hate him too) #chinese politics #shanghai protests #Youtube

[argumate]

One protester calls out: "Xi Jinping!"

And hundreds reply: "Step down!"

Again and again: "Xi Jinping! Step down! Xi Jinping! Step down!"

The chant also went out: "Communist Party! Step down! Communist Party! Step down!"

got guts to do that in Shanghai

[tomorrowusa]

Two US residents were arrested by federal agents in connection with a Chinese government secret police station in Lower Manhattan.

The government of China is a totalitarian human rights abuser like Russia. But it has gone one step further than the Putin dictatorship by setting up over a hundred secret police stations in cities outside its borders. A major function of these stations is to keep an eye on oversees Chinese with special attention given to exiled dissidents. Allegedly thousands of Chinese overseas have been intimidated into returning to China by these stations. Though there is some evidence that these stations are involved in other activities such as supervising troll farms.

These secret police stations have been known about for a while. What got the two men in NYC arrested was their attempt to destroy evidence of their operation which was being investigated by the FBI. The US has been investigating the NYC operation for about a year.

14 governments launch investigations into Chinese 110 overseas police service stations

The infamous Chinese balloon shot down just off the coast of the Carolinas should be viewed in the context of China’s overall global intelligence operation which includes the secret police stations in foreign cities.

There is a clumsy arrogance about the Xi Jinping dictatorship spying so blatantly in the open outside the country’s borders. If other countries tried to do in China what China is doing in the rest of the world, the staff at such stations would end up in a gulag in Xinjiang.

Countries are allowed to have embassies and consulates overseas which help out citizens of those countries who are living or traveling abroad. Secret police stations are definitely not part of this system of diplomatic outposts.

#new york city #lower manhattan #fbi #china #secret police stations #spying #intimidating dissidents #diplomatic outposts #xi jinping #chinese dictatorship #中国 #习近平 #专政 #秘密警察局