Recent reports have shown the Chinese communist government and its allies are using the civil unrest tied to the death of George Floyd to suggest a double standard for the United States and the crackdown by China in Hong Kong.
During an interview with Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty noted that China’s actions in Hong Kong and the Floyd protests are two very different things.
“I want to be perfectly clear: China is our rival,” he said. “And when our rival sees America in distress, I think they feel it is good for them. You see what China has been doing with Hong Kong. The unrest there — the folks in Hong Kong are actually trying to stand up. China has broken a major promise in terms of maintaining a separate system. They’ve broken that promise. They’re exerting the Chinese national security law on the people of Hong Kong, and they’re depriving them of their democracy and their freedom. That’s what they’ve been protesting about in Hong Kong.”
“Here, what I see — there’s room for lawful protests, but it has been hijacked,” Hagerty continued. “It has been hijacked by criminals. It has been hijacked by groups like Antifa. They’ve hijacked the legacy of a poor man like George Floyd, who suffered through this. We want to see justice served for him and certainly want to listen for those voices that need to be heard here — but in a lawful way, a way that abides by the Constitution, but not by having violence incited all across the nation. They’re just doing it to create mayhem.”
Hagerty said the communist Chinese were undoubtedly using the negative portrayal of those protests for domestic political gain.
“It helps the Chinese communist government to continue to retain their authoritarian rule over people,” Hagerty said. “They’ve got a huge population and a very small sliver are the communists, and they control with an iron fist there, as you know. … They try their best to channel their messages to make America, to cast America in a bad light and therefore cast themselves in a better light. China is the most predatory nation on the planet. They’re economic predators. They’re military predators. And I think a lot of people have seen now their predatory diplomatic practices. The influence they have over the W.H.O. has become very, very clear. I think it is something we have got to be in a position to stand up to — certainly to have voices in the Senate that understand the threat that China is, and the strength and the insight to stand up to that, which is what I intend to do if I am fortunate enough to be sent by the people of Tennessee to represent them in the Senate next January.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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