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      in US Politics

      Falun Gong-aligned media push fake news about Democrats and Chinese communists

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      US news outlets aligned with Falun Gong, a religious movement locked in a decades-long conflict with the Chinese state, have been increasingly successful in promoting conspiracy narratives about Democrats, election fraud and communists to the pro-Trump right in America.Experts say that in a future post-pandemic landscape, the cable news channel NTD, and especially the multimedia enterprise the Epoch Times, may amplify the efforts of Republicans to link Joe Biden and Democrats to the Chinese Communist party (CCP), and to harden US public opinion against China.According to Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of the media watchdog Media Matters for America, these outlets, and especially the Epoch Times, were always critical of China, and somewhat right-leaning, but were not commonly counted as problematic during the 2016 election as spreading falsehoods across social media platforms like Facebook.But in a telephone conversation, Carusone said Epoch Times pivoted hard from 2017 towards material which stoked conspiracy narratives, and began spending freely in order to make sure that their message was prominent on platforms like YouTube.“After social media sites moved against the fake news outlets, it left a gap,” Carusone said. “What Epoch Times did so well was to step right into that gap.” And, he says, they secured their niche by handing money to big tech platforms.After Epoch Times spent about $11m on Facebook ads in 2019, the platform banned them from advertising on the grounds that they had violated rules around transparency in political advertising. But the outlet simply took its business elsewhere: according to data from Pathmatics that was analyzed by Media MattersIn the year to date, Epoch Times has spent an estimated $930,000 in digital advertising promoting videos and desktop display ads. Over 95% of their spending was on YouTube.Through 2020 and into the early life of the Biden administration, Epoch Times and NTD alike promoted conspiracy theories related to the QAnon movement, the supposedly compromising international ties of Hunter Biden, and even sold merchandise outlining half-forgotten conspiracy theories such as “Uranium One”, which held that Hillary Clinton, as US secretary of state, engineered the sale of uranium deposits to Russian interests in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation.While US rightwing outlets like One America News and Newsmax have profited by supplying the seemingly bottomless appetite among the rightwing grassroots for material that depicts American politics as a tangle of elite conspiracies, Carusone says it is a mistake to view the Falung Gong-aligned outlets as normal media companies.The principal goal of Epoch Times – now publishing in 36 countries under the supervision of a network of non-profits – is not to generate profit, he says, but to mount a long and broad “influence operation”. And the goal of that influence operation, in turn, is “to foment anti-CCP sentiment”.By leveraging the deep partisan polarization in US politics, and by tapping into a long tradition of anticommunism on the American right, according to Carusone, the outlets have sought to link Biden and the Democratic party to radical leftist movements like antifa, and then publish “anything that ties them to CCP influence”, however spurious.He envisages the possibility that Republicans will cooperate with these outlets – who have also spread significant amounts of disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic – to ask “what is Joe Biden going to do about China causing coronavirus?”Although there is no evidence of direct cooperation, they have already shown a willingness to echo anti-China messaging with the likes of the former Trump aide Steve Bannon and billionaire Chinese exile Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok, who has financed Bannon’s activities through consulting contracts and donations.From as early as January 2020, Bannon and Kwok were attempting to spread a narrative alleging that the pandemic was caused by a Chinese bioweapon, both on Bannon’s radio program and on their shared media venture, G News. The Epoch Times followed that April with a documentary that repeated the bioweapon claims, and have taken further opportunities to allege, without basis, that China’s government started the pandemic deliberately.According to Carusone, such opportunistic retreading of existing conspiracy narratives is characteristic of these outlets. “They’re not drivers, they’re not weaving new conspiracy theories, they’re amplifying what’s already out there,” he said.This effort appears to be increasingly well-resourced. Although the financial arrangements of the many Epoch Times non-profits vary, the original Epoch Times Association Inc, headquartered in New York City, saw revenues and donations increase sharply every year between 2016 and 2019 according to IRS 990 declarations inspected by the Guardian. While in 2016, the association took in $3.9m in revenue, in 2019 they brought in $15.4m, and cleared $1.86m after salaries and expenses.Neither outlet has ever explicitly confirmed its links to Falun Gong, a religious organization which emerged from the so-called “qijong” movement, which teaches adherents to practice breathing, movement and meditation exercises. But former employees reportedly say that they are run by movement adherents, and that Falun Gong founder and leader, Li Hongzhi, and others in the movement’s hierarchy exercise a powerful influence over the outlets’ anti-China messaging.Alongside the English language outlets, Chinese language outlets and a dance troupe spread the group’s messages.Though Falun Gong emerged in China in the 1990s, its founder now lives in the US.The Epoch Times, which began as a print newspaper in 2000, has been a steadfast opponent of the CCP, which has persecuted Falun Gong and other, related qijong movement groups since the late 1990s.The newspaper was founded in Georgia by a Chinese-American Falun Gong adherent, John Tang, and a group of like-minded businessmen. Over the next half-decade it expanded internationally.Carusone says that the intensification of conspiracy messaging in the output of NTD and the Epoch Times, along with their embrace of Trumpism could make them more influential as the far right regroups in the coming months and heads towards the 2022 midterm elections.“There’s an incredible demand for a version of the world centered on one big villain.” he said. “Epoch Times provides that very simple narrative.” More

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      in World Politics

      Why Joe Biden Must Act on Myanmar

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      Burma, as Myanmar was known then, won its independence from the British in 1948. Since then, bilateral relations between the US and Myanmar can at best be described as lackluster. They have lacked what experts would call “strategic compulsions.” Western allies of the US lack strategic calculus in dealing with Myanmar. They have viewed it from the narrow prism of moralistic Western standards of democracy, human rights, rule of law, corruption and the trafficking of humans, drugs and weapons.

      Myanmar: What Comes Next for Minority Groups?

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      To be fair, the US has not always or entirely been sanctimonious. The historic Kissinger Doctrine integrated China into the liberal postwar order. It facilitated investments into, transferred technology to and trained manpower in China. Under Deng Xiaoping and his successors, China continued its peaceful rise. Xi Jinping, the current Chinese president, has ended that peaceful rise and destabilized the world order.

      Missing Out on Myanmar

      The US approach to Myanmar has been muddled and inconsistent. During the Cold War, Washington was happy to deal with allies in Asia that were military dictatorships. Under President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the US was happy to deal with a communist regime.

      In contrast, Burma was a parliamentary democracy from 1948 to 1962 when Ne Win led a military coup. For the next 26 years, the country was ruled by the Tatmadaw, the official name of the country’s armed forces. In 1988, nationwide protests broke out. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Oxford-educated daughter of Burmese independence leader Aung San, emerged as the leader of a pro-democracy movement. The National League of Democracy (NLD) went on to win the 1990, 2015 and 2020 parliamentary elections.

      In comparison with China, Myanmar’s regime has been far less oppressive. There is no counterpart to the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. The Tatmadaw has yielded to public pressure and held largely free and fair elections. In elections, even members of the Tatmadaw have voted for Suu Kyi’s NLD. Yet the US and its Western allies have ignored the strategic importance of Myanmar in the Indian Ocean region in general and the Bay of Bengal in particular.

      Chinese Influence Wanes and Waxes

      In the past, the US and its allies put pressure on the Tatmadaw by imposing sanctions on Myanmar. Instead of weakening the Tatmadaw, sanctions hurt the people and pushed the country into the arms of China. Between 2004 and 2007, a generational change in the Tatmadaw caused a rethink in Myanmar’s relationship with China.

      The younger officers of the Tatmadaw decided to decrease dependence on Beijing. They tried to reduce Chinese influence in political and military governance. They attempted to transition to some form of democracy and improve relations with the West and neighbors like India. In 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swung by Myanmar. President Barack Obama visited twice in 2012 and 2014. By 2016-17, the persecution of Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority in the country’s Rakhine state, was in the news and relations between the US and Myanmar were already souring.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Yet this was a relatively good time for the country. Even financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank opened their purse strings. During this brief honeymoon period with the West, China found itself on the back foot for the first time since 1988.

      In 2011, Myanmar suspended the construction of the Myitsone dam, a controversial hydroelectric project financed and led by a state-owned Chinese company. In 2015, Myanmar’s general elections led to yet another victory for Suu Kyi’s NLD. This was an opportune moment for the West to build relations with Myanmar and counter China. The Tatmadaw had ceded ground to elected officials. Washington could have cultivated both of Myanmar’s centers of power: the NLD and the Tatmadaw.

      But the US missed this opportunity. From 2017, the Rohingya issue clouded Myanmar’s relationship with the West and allowed China to regain its clout in the country. The military coup in February this year strengthens China’s hand further.

      China has already been strengthening its hand by following its tried and tested policy of investing in infrastructure. The China–Myanmar Transport Corridor is connecting the Chinese province of Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal. Roads, railways, river navigation, oil and gas pipelines are deepening economic ties between Myanmar and China. It is part of the Middle Kingdom’s “Look South” policy that seeks to draw Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan into the Chinese arc of influence.

      The military coup in Myanmar presents a great opportunity to China and represents the first major foreign policy challenge to President Joe Biden’s administration as well as the Quadrilateral Security Alliance, the informal strategic dialogue between the US, Japan, Australia and India known as the Quad.

      The US Still Has Some Cards

      China may be in the ascendant right now, but the West still has clout in Myanmar. Suu Kyi studied at Oxford, lived in the UK for decades and married an Englishman. People from Myanmar have immigrated to Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US. So, the West commands what Joseph Nye has calls “soft power” in the country. Burmese people want to immigrate not to China but to the US.

      Yet American foreign policy to Myanmar has squandered this soft power prodigally. Obama is the only American president who gave Myanmar the attention it deserved. His foreign policy pivot to Asia was a strategic masterstroke, but Donald Trump abandoned Obama’s outreach not only to Myanmar but the rest of Asia.

      The military coup is a wake-up call for the US to act. China is now firmly in the saddle in Myanmar. The Tatmadaw is finding ferocious resistance on the streets. There is another overlooked problem. Like many postcolonial states, Myanmar is a bewildering patchwork of cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups. Many of them have been fighting for independence or autonomy for years.

      Few in the West realize that a savage conflict might be about to break out. About 20 rebel groups, including the United Wa State Army, Karen National Union, Kachin Independence Army and Arakan Army, control 33% of Myanmar’s territory. Many of them have condemned the coup. In response, the Tatmadaw has launched airstrikes in Karen state. With drugs and arms flush in rebel areas, Myanmar might be about to become the new Afghanistan.

      The Quad leaders’ joint statement on the White House website emphasizes “the urgent need to restore democracy and the priority of strengthening democratic resilience” in Myanmar. This mention is heartening, but the Quad and the US need to do more. Opening dialogue with the Tatmadaw would be a good start. Intelligence sources report that most young officers favor multi-party democracy and are wary of Myanmar turning into a Chinese tributary.

      A carrot-and-stick approach by Washington could still work. The World Bank has halted payments to projects after the military coup. International condemnation has rattled the Tatmadaw. Pressure to reach a political reconciliation might bear fruit. Carrots in the form of infrastructure funding and development assistance could prove attractive. Involving Asian nations such as India, Japan, South Korea and Bangladesh, as well as member states of ASEAN, could pave the path to Myanmar’s transition away from military rule.

      Despite foreign policy blunders, economic woes and internal division, the US is still the undisputed top dog in the world. With the help of its Asian and European allies, Washington can counter China, prevent civil war and restore democracy in Myanmar. The time has come for Biden to act.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Opposition Wins Greenland Election After Running Against Rare Earths Mine

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      Greenland’s left-wing environmentalist party promised to halt a mining project that could have made Greenland a major source of rare earths but at a potentially steep environmental price.Greenland’s left-wing environmentalist party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, won a victory in general elections on Tuesday after campaigning against the development of a contentious rare earths mine partly backed by China.The party, which had been in the opposition, won 37 percent of the vote over the longtime incumbents, the center-left Siumut party. The environmentalists will need to negotiate a coalition to form a government, but observers said their election win in Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark that sits on a rich vein of untapped uranium and rare earth minerals, signaled concerns from voters over the impact of mining.“The people have spoken,” Múte B. Egede, the leader of Inuit Ataqatigiit, told the Danish broadcaster DR, adding that voters had made their position clear and that the mining project in Kvanefjeld in the country’s south would be halted.Greenland Minerals, an Australian company behind the project, has said the mine has the “potential to become the most significant Western world producer of rare earths,” adding that it would create uranium as a byproduct. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the vote.The supply of rare earths, a crucial part of the high-tech global supply chain and used in the manufacture of everything from cellphones to rechargeable batteries, is currently dominated by China. Shenghe Resources, a Chinese rare earth company, owns 11 percent of Greenland Minerals.Opposition to the Greenland mine, which the incumbent Siumut party had supported, played a primary role in its defeat, its leader, Erik Jensen, conceded in an interview with the Danish station TV2.The mining project has been in development for years, with the government approving drilling for research, but not issuing final approval for the mine.Among Greenlanders, opposition to the mine had grown over potential exposure of a unique, fragile area to “radioactive pollution and toxic waste,” said Dwayne Menezes, director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative, a London-based think tank. “What they’re opposed to is dirty mining.”The election result sent a clear message, Mr. Menezes added: Mining companies that want access to Greenland’s deposits will have to abide by stringent environmental standards and should look to give Greenlanders a “viable alternative.”In Greenland, whose economy is heavily dependent on payouts from Denmark, the tensions over the mine centered on the potential economic boon, including hundreds of jobs on an island with about 57,000 people, versus the environmental cost of doing business.But the vote also highlighted the Arctic region’s growing geopolitical significance on a warming planet, as its polar seas become more navigable and as the melting ice unveils newly accessible resources, including the rare earths that play an essential part in the production of many alternative energy sources.“On a global level, we are going to need to address head on this tension between Indigenous communities and the materials we are going to most need for a climate-stressed planet,” said Aimee Boulanger, executive director of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, a nonprofit.Given China’s dominance over the global rare earth production and supply, Mr. Menezes said that Western countries should be looking for ways to enhance their partnerships with resource-rich Greenland to keep it in “their sphere of influence.”Two years ago, Greenland’s lucrative resources and its increasing strategic importance led President Donald J. Trump to muse about purchasing the island. Greenland’s government, however, made clear that it was not for sale.“We’re open for business, not for sale,” the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on Twitter at the time. More

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      in US Politics

      US in ‘close consultations’ with allies on possible action over Beijing Olympics

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      The US state department said on Tuesday the Biden administration is consulting with allies about a joint approach to China and its human rights record, including how to handle the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics.The department initially suggested that an Olympic boycott to protest China’s human rights abuses was among the possibilities, but a senior official said later that a boycott has not yet been discussed.The official said the US position on the 2022 Games had not changed but that the administration is in frequent contact with allies and partners about their common concerns about China. Department spokesman Ned Price said earlier the consultations were being held in order to present a united front.“Part of our review of those Olympics and our thinking will involve close consultations with partners and allies around the world,” Price told reporters.Human rights groups are protesting China’s hosting of the Games, which are set to start in February 2022. They have urged a diplomatic or straight-up boycott of the event to call attention to alleged Chinese abuses against Uyghurs, Tibetans and residents of Hong Kong.Price declined to say when a decision on the Olympics would be made but noted there is still almost a year until the Games are set to begin.“These Games remain some time away. I wouldn’t want to put a timeframe on it, but these discussions are underway,” he said. “It is something that we certainly wish to discuss and it is certainly something that we understand that a coordinated approach will be not only in our interest, but also in the interest of our allies and partners. So this is one of the issues that is on the agenda, both now and going forward.”The Beijing Winter Olympics open on 4 February 2022, and China has denied all charges of human rights abuses. It says “political motives” underlie the boycott effort.Rights groups have met with the International Olympic Committee and have been told the Olympic body must stay politically “neutral.” They have been told by the IOC that China has given “assurances’’ about human rights conditions.Both the IOC and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee have said in the past they oppose boycotts.In March, IOC president Thomas Bach said history shows that boycotts never achieve anything. “It also has no logic,” he said. “Why would you punish the athletes from your own country if you have a dispute with a government from another country? This just makes no real sense.”The USOPC has questioned the effectiveness of boycotts. “We oppose Games boycotts because they have been shown to negatively impact athletes while not effectively addressing global issues,” it said. “We believe the more effective course of action is for the governments of the world and China to engage directly on human rights and geopolitical issues.” More

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      in Elections

      How China Plans to Control Hong Kong’s Elections

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      New rules give Chinese security bodies power to investigate all potential candidates, meaning that opposition politicians face steep odds of even being allowed to run.HONG KONG — China’s sweeping overhaul of Hong Kong’s election system will give national security bodies vast power over who can run for office, a move that could sideline the pro-democracy opposition for years to come.Hong Kong’s pro-democracy figures had long enjoyed a greater share of the vote in direct elections, but the system was stacked against them, ensuring the pro-Beijing camp controlled the legislature. On Tuesday, the standing committee of the Communist Party-controlled National People’s Congress in Beijing approved changes that would ensure an even stronger legislative majority for the establishment.The changes give Beijing and its handpicked local leaders vast powers to block any opposition candidate China deems disloyal, aiming to stamp out the intense antigovernment sentiment that fueled protests in 2019.Here is a look at the changes and what they mean for Hong Kong:The changes cut the proportion of directly elected seats in the Hong Kong Legislature, to less than 25 percent.Vincent Yu/Associated PressA devastating blow to Hong Kong’s democracyAmong the most significant of the changes is how the city’s lawmakers will be chosen. The move slashes the proportion of directly elected seats on the legislature, to less than a quarter from half. Forty seats on the 90-member body will be chosen by an election committee, a pro-establishment body that also selects Hong Kong’s leader.Beijing further consolidated its grip over the election committee by removing elected district council members, after pro-democracy politicians swept most of those positions in 2019. Those seats were to be replaced with appointed advisory bodies and groups representing people from Hong Kong in mainland China.Opposition groups said the changes would most likely leave them completely shut out of elections at all levels. “The feeling is surreal. It’s beyond anger,” said Avery Ng, the head of the League of Social Democrats, a leftist, pro-democracy party in Hong Kong. “With the newly established structure, the Beijing government can have a 100 percent guarantee on the result in Hong Kong.”Ventus Lau, center, an organizer of the antigovernment protests, was among the candidates barred from elections last year.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesNational security comes to the forePerhaps the most dramatic transformation will be the power that national security bodies beholden to Beijing will now have over the electoral process.Any potential candidate will first be investigated by the national security department of the Hong Kong police and the city’s national security committee, a body created by Beijing last year that includes the central government’s chief representative in Hong Kong. Their reports would be handed to a new vetting committee, whose decisions on qualifying candidates are final and cannot be appealed in court.“The amendments achieved what has been emphasized before: Patriots need to rule Hong Kong,” said Tam Yiu-chung, a pro-Beijing politician and Hong Kong’s sole delegate on the standing committee of the National People’s Congress.He said the changes would block those who “opposed China and wreaked havoc on Hong Kong” — Beijing’s depiction of many pro-democracy figures — from holding seats in the legislature and the election committee.The changes show that Beijing will decide how elections are held in Hong Kong, said Lau Siu-kai, a former senior Hong Kong government official who now advises Beijing policymakers on Hong Kong issues, including the electoral changes.A TVB news broadcast in a Hong Kong mall in 2019. TVB said this month that it would not air the Oscars for the first time in 52 years.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesIt adds to Hong Kong’s transformed political environmentThe electoral overhaul is only the latest example of how Beijing has squeezed a once raucous and freewheeling political landscape and crippled free speech in Hong Kong.The authorities have waged an intense crackdown on the opposition with arrests and detentions. Last month, they charged 47 pro-democracy politicians, including most of the camp’s most prominent figures, with subversion under a national security law. Others are in court on charges of unauthorized assembly. The prosecutions have effectively silenced much of the opposition.The security law has also loomed over the city, curbing its environment for free expression. Some politicians have warned that Hong Kong’s new art museum, M+, risks violating the security law if it displays works from artists like the Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei.A local broadcaster, TVB, said this week that it would not show the Oscars after 52 years of televising the event. It said the decision was commercial, but this year’s awards include two nominees that are politically sensitive in China. “Do Not Split,” a nominee for best documentary short, focuses on the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and Chloé Zhao, the first Chinese woman and the first woman of color to be nominated for best director, has stirred a backlash over a 2013 interview in which she criticized her native country.Barriers outside the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong this month.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesBeijing has been unswayed by the international backlash.Beijing’s moves on Hong Kong have prompted criticism and countermeasures from foreign governments, including the United States. Both the Trump and Biden administrations imposed financial sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials deemed as having undermined the city’s autonomy.Several nations have also announced they would make it easier for people from Hong Kong to immigrate. Britain has opened up residency and a potential pathway to citizenship for millions of people from Hong Kong, a former British colony.As the political changes pushed by Beijing continue to shake Hong Kong, more people are likely to consider options for leaving, said Sonny Lo, a political analyst based in Hong Kong.“This will have a kind of chilling effect on society,” he said. “I expect a wave of migration. Because in the minds of ordinary citizens who don’t know about politics, who don’t know the complexities, they are really scared off.”Keith Bradsher More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on China, Xinjiang and sanctions: the gloves are off | Editorial

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      China’s response to criticisms of horrifying human rights violations in Xinjiang is clear and calculated. Its aims are threefold. First, the sanctions imposed upon individuals and institutions in the EU and UK are direct retaliation for those imposed upon China over its treatment of Uighurs. That does not mean they are like-for-like: the EU and UK measures targeted officials responsible for human rights abuses, while these target non-state actors – elected politicians, thinktanks, lawyers and academics – simply for criticising those abuses.Second, they seek more broadly to deter any criticism over Xinjiang, where Beijing denies any rights violations. Third, they appear to be intended to send a message to the EU, UK and others not to fall in line with the harsher US approach towards China generally. Beijing sees human rights concerns as a pretext for defending western hegemony, pointing to historic and current abuses committed by its critics. But mostly it believes it no longer needs to tolerate challenges.Alongside the sanctions, not coincidentally, has come a social media storm and consumer boycott targeting the Swedish clothing chain H&M and other fashion firms over concerns they voiced about reports of forced labour in cotton production in Xinjiang. Nationalism is a real and potent force in China (though not universal), but this outburst does not appear spontaneous: it began when the Communist Youth League picked up on an eight-month-old statement, and is being egged on by state media.China has used its economic might to punish critics before – Norway’s salmon exports slumped after dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel peace prize – and often with the desired results. But this time, it is acting far more overtly, and it is fighting on multiple fronts. Some clothing companies are already falling into line. Overall, the results are more complex. The sanctions have drastically lowered the odds of the European parliament approving the investment deal which China and the EU agreed in December, to US annoyance. Beijing may think the agreement less useful to China than it is to the EU (though many in Europe disagree). But the measures have done more to push Europe towards alignment with the US than anything Joe Biden could have offered, at a time when China is also alienating other players, notably Australia. Foreigners – who in many cases have offered more nuanced voices to counter outright China hawks – are already becoming wary of travelling there, following the detention and trial of two Canadians, essentially taken hostage following their country’s arrest (on a US extradition request) of a top Huawei executive. The sanctioning of scholars and thinktanks is likely to make them more so. Businesses, though still counting on the vast Chinese market, are very belatedly realising the risks attached to it. Those include not only the difficulty of reconciling their positions for consumers inside and outside China, but the challenges they face as the US seeks to pass legislation cracking down on goods made with forced labour, and the potential to be caught up in political skirmishes by virtue of nationality. For those beginning to have second thoughts, rethinking investments or disentangling supply chains will be the work of years or decades. But while we will continue to live in a globalised economy, there is likely to be more decoupling than people foresaw.The pandemic has solidified a growing Chinese confidence that the west is in decline, but has also shown how closely our fates are tied. There can be no solutions on the climate emergency without Beijing, and cooperation on other issues will be both possible and necessary – but extraordinarily difficult.Beijing’s delayed response to the UK sanctions suggests it did not anticipate them, perhaps unsurprising when the integrated review suggested we should somehow court trade and investment while also taking a tougher line. But the prime minister and foreign secretary have, rightly, made their support for sanctioned individuals and their concerns about gross human rights violations in Xinjiang clear. Academics and politicians, universities and other institutions, should follow their lead in backing targeted colleagues and bodies. China has made its position plain. So should democratic societies. More

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      in UK Politics

      China sanctions British MPs in response to criticism of Uighur treatment

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      Boris Johnson has condemned China’s sanctions against outspoken MPs and other British citizens, saying: “I stand firmly with them.”Beijing is punishing critics, including former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, in a tit-for-tat retaliation for UK sanctions over Beijing’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.In response, the prime minister tweeted: “The MPs and other British citizens sanctioned by China today are performing a vital role shining a light on the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against Uighur Muslims.“Freedom to speak out in opposition to abuse is fundamental and I stand firmly with them.” Mr Duncan Smith, one of the leading China critics on the Tory benches, said he would wear the sanctions “as a badge of honour”.Read more:And another, Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, branded Beijing’s move “a direct assault on British democracy”. Also on the list are fellow Tory MPs Neil O’Brien, Tim Loughton and Nusrat Ghani, Labour peer Helena Kennedy, Liberal Democrat peer David Alton, the China Research Group of MPs, Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, Uighur Tribunal, and Essex Court Chambers.In a statement on behalf of the CRG, Mr Tugendhat and Mr O’Brien said the “profoundly sinister” move could potentially affect 100 MPs involved with the Group.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekday“It is tempting to laugh off this measure as a diplomatic tantrum,” they said. “But in reality it is profoundly sinister and just serves as a clear demonstration of many of the concerns we have been raising about the direction of China under Xi Jinping. “It is telling that China now responds to even moderate criticism with sanctions, rather than attempting to defend its actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.”While the MPs said they would not personally be “hugely” affected by the sanctions, they voiced concern that Beijing’s aim was to make others feel threatened and to have a “chilling effect” on businesses which might make decisions based on China’s human rights record.They pointed to retailers like H&M and Nike which have faced a backlash in China after expressing concerns over allegations of the use of forced Uighur labour in cotton production.Mr O’Brien issued a string of tweets highlighting allegations of forced sterilisation and rape of Uighur women, mass internment of members of the Muslim minority and the use of AI face-recognition technology for surveillance.“The first ever sanctions against MPs by Beijing are a big deal and demonstrate exactly the concerns we have been raising,” said Mr O’Brien. “But ultimately, this isn’t about us, it’s about them trying to distract from human rights abuses reminiscent of South Africa under apartheid.”Ms Ghani said: “I won’t be intimidated or silenced and neither must the government. I will use my freedom to raise the plight of the Uighurs and I will take this sanction as a badge of honour.”And Lord Alton said: “The Chinese Communist Party assumes that trading with a state credibly accused of genocide will be more important to the UK than defending the values we cherish. They are fundamentally mistaken.“The imposition of tit-for-tat sanctions is a crude attempt to silence criticism. But the CCP needs to learn that you can’t silence the whole world and that the first duty of a parliamentarian is to use their voice on behalf of those whose voices have been silenced.”At a news conference at the Chinese embassy in London, a spokesman condemned “fabricated reports” about the country’s treatment of people in the Xinjiang region.The action taken – with reports of one million people detained without trial and widespread claims of torture and rape in the camps – “can’t be defined by a few satellite images”, he insisted. Britain, the US, Canada and the European Union slapped sanctions on Chinese officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses in Xinjiang, in a coordinated action on Monday.In retaliation, “the Chinese side decides to sanction nine individuals and four entities on the UK side that maliciously spread lies and disinformation,” a statement said.“As of today, the individuals concerned and their immediate family members are prohibited from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao of China, their property in China will be frozen, and Chinese citizens and institutions will be prohibited from doing business with them. China reserves the right to take further measures,” the statement said. The Chinese Embassy spokesman claimed “lies of the century” were being spread about what was going on in Xinjiang and criticised the UK’s deployment of sanctions.“Human rights in Xinjiang cannot be defined by a few satellite images, fake reports cobbled together by people thousands of miles away,” he said. But Mr Tugendhat said he had been “elected to speak for the people”, adding: “I view this as a direct assault on British democracy and an attempt to silence the people the British people have chosen to speak for them.”The chair of the foreign affairs committee in the German parliament offered “full solidarity with Tom and all his colleagues”.“Banning leading Western parliamentarians from entering the country for asking critical questions won’t do mutual understanding any good,” Norbert Rottgen tweeted.Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy blasted the sanctions as “a blatant attempt to silence British parliamentarians who are shining a spotlight on the appalling persecution of the Uighur people”.And Liberal Democrat spokeswoman Layla Moran voiced “full solidarity” with those named, adding:   “Targeting backbench MPs instead of ministers makes clear this is about China’s disdain for democracy around the world.” More