Over a dozen Hong Kong lawmakers staged a protest in the legislature on Wednesday, chanting “Protect press freedom!” and holding up placards reading “Free Press, No Persecution,” until security guards escorted them from the chamber.
HONG KONG (AP) – Britain has expressed concern over freedom of speech in its former colony Hong Kong after authorities refused to renew the work visa of a senior editor of the Financial Times.
The Financial Times announced on Friday that the government of Hong Kong decided not to renew Asian news editor Victor Mallet’s work visa, effectively beginning the process of expelling him from the island. The decision stunned the international financial community and deeply alarmed press freedom advocates.
One of China’s many double standards involves the behavior of reporters. Foreign reporters are expected to conduct themselves with humility and exquisite good manners in China, while Chinese reporters abroad can become rather energetic at press conferences.
October 1 is National Day in China, kicking off a week-long holiday marking the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Facebook is seeking entry into China’s digital market — which will require compliance with dictates from China’s ruling Communist Party, as Google is doing in a censored search project with China — according to a Wednesday-published Bloomberg report.
The Hong Kong National Party (HKNP) was formally outlawed on Monday, marking the first time a political organization has been banned outright since Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese control in 1997. The British Foreign Ministry pronounced itself “concerned by the decision,” while stressing the U.K. does not support the Hong Kong independence movement.
Once again, Chinese media and internet users are lashing out at a Western corporation for the unforgivable insult of listing Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate entities from Communist China. The latest company to trigger the Chinese is Apple, whose iPhone XS rollout event included a slide that listed China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as three separate markets among the two dozen or so that would receive Apple’s new product on September 21.
The new West Kowloon railroad station in Hong Kong was the scene of a Monday night ceremony denounced as a “sneaky” compromise of Hong Kong’s autonomy, a “secret underground ritual” at which part of the rail station was ceded to Chinese control.
North Koreans are reportedly refusing to use Chinese medicine because they fear the products might be unsafe in light of a major scandal in China involving the manufacturing of faulty vaccines, a report revealed on Wednesday.
AFP — Britain expressed concern Wednesday after police in Hong Kong sought to ban a political party which promotes independence for the city as Beijing ups pressure on challenges to its territorial sovereignty. The bid to bar the Hong Kong
The Associated Press reports an official from the territorial security bureau wrote to 27-year-old Hong Kong National Party leader Andy Chan to inform him a decision has been made to dissolve his party as a threat to “public safety” and “public order” under a national security law that was last invoked against a political party in 1997. The HKNP has only been around since 2016, formed in protest of Beijing’s growing influence over semi-autonomous Hong Kong.
Passengers aboard Air China flight CA106 from Hong Kong on Tuesday night found themselves plunging 25,000 feet in ten minutes because their co-pilot was smoking an e-cigarette in the cockpit and hit the wrong switch when he attempted to keep the vapors from wafting into the passenger area.
The long-simmering controversy over West Kowloon railway terminus in Hong Kong boiled over on Thursday, as Hong Kong lawmakers voted to give China sovereign control over part of the train station, making it an enclave of pure Chinese law.
Hong Kong held a huge candlelight vigil in Victoria Park on Monday to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The event displeases Beijing, which has done what it can to suppress attendance and warn participants away from incendiary criticism of the Communist government.
A group of animal rights activists staged a demonstration Saturday at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park to protest dolphin shows as part of their annual “Empty the Tanks’ campaign against holding marine animals in captivity.
The Wall Street Journal noted on Monday that several U.S. airlines appear to be resisting Beijing’s demand to change their websites to describe Taiwan as part of China. The Trump White House denounced such demands as “Orwellian nonsense” over the weekend.
Hong Kong’s democracy movement finds itself at a crossroads four years after the high-water mark of the Umbrella Revolution.
Contents: Xi Jinping invokes the 1840s Opium Wars to justify military action for China’s ‘rejuvenation’; Xi Jinping stokes China’s nationalism with harsh threats to Taiwan and Hong Kong
The semi-autonomous government of Hong Kong on Friday announced plans to impose a three-year jail sentence on anyone who disrespects the Chinese national anthem.
Outgoing People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan held a press briefing on Thursday in which he dropped a few hints about the launch of China’s new digital currency, known as “DCEP” for Digital Currency Electronic Payment.
Chinese state media reported Monday that a new round of “discipline” inspections began this weekend, seeking to stamp out graft, inappropriate behavior or any threat to Xi Jinping’s totalitarian rule within the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).
Contents: New book documenting China’s infiltration into Australia overcomes Chinese threats; New Zealand investigates attacks on author of report on China’s infiltration into New Zealand; Hamilton’s book ‘Silent Invasion’ describes China’s infiltration into Australia
Contents: As North Korea’s ‘charm offensive’ fades, decision time for military action approaches; New Trump administration sanctions target companies trading with North Korea; China angrily demands that the US retract the new North Korea sanctions
The Hong Kong Bar Association issued a statement on Wednesday criticizing a court ruling that effectively bans political candidates who favor greater independence from China. One prominent young pro-democracy activist immediately announced that she would file her election papers anyway.
A group of Catholics in Hong Kong has expressed “shock” and “disappointment” over the Vatican’s reported plans to enter into an agreement with the Chinese government over the appointment of bishops and the status of the state-approved Catholic Patriotic Association.
Marriott International was one of several companies caught up in China’s crackdown on foreign corporations that allegedly insult its territorial integrity by treating controversial or semi-autonomous regions like Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, and especially Taiwan as separate “countries” on their websites. Days after the story broke, Marriott is still offering fulsome apologies and implementing a draconian “eight-point rectification plan” to get right with Beijing.
The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times argued in a column Wednesday that the “Divided States of America” faces a growing identity crisis before the “increasingly confident Chinese people,” failing to note growing separatist movements and political dissidents within its own borders.
The Marriott International hotel chain and Australia’s Qantas Airwaves have changed their website under pressure from the Chinese government to remove references to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Macau as separate “countries,” rather than regions of China.
The Hong Kong Bar Association declared itself “appalled” on Friday by the Chinese parliament’s order to enforce mainland Chinese law inside a Hong Kong rail station, warning that the move would “severely undermine” the rule of law and rattle public confidence in Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” state of pseudo-independence.
A new hotel which caters to members of “The Resistance” will open its doors in 2018 just blocks away from the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.
An editorial from China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday called for “peaceful co-existence” between the United States and China, a goal the Chinese evidently seek to achieve by insulting and belittling everyone who doubts the majestic benevolence of Beijing as a warmongering would-be conquistador.
Contents: Philippines maid Lorain Asuncion employed in Hong Kong killed in mainland city; Demand for Filipina maids creates thriving black market in China; Hong Kong cracks down hard on illegal foreign workers
The 24-hour BBC World Service broadcast will be replaced by Chinese state radio; part of a “mainlandisation” process which the Communist authorities are said to be encouraging.
Contents: India reinforces its military in preparation for war; Bhutan makes it clear to China that its ally is India; SCMP: China and India on brink of war that could spread to the Indian Ocean
