Myanmar coup: China blocks UN condemnation as protest grows

The Biden administration wants to be "in lockstep" with allies and partners and then will engage with China, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday.
Price said it was "no coincidence" that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken's initial interactions were with partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, noting that "we see our alliances, our partnerships globally as again this force multiplier across a wide range of challenges, and that includes in our relationship with Beijing."
Relations between Washington and Beijing during the previous Trump administration were oftentimes fractious, with clashes on issues relating to trade, technology, regional security and human rights.
 
Price described the US' current relationship with Beijing as one viewed "through the lens of competition and positioning ourselves to compete and ultimately to out-compete with the Chinese."

"We know that China is engaged in a range of conduct that hurts American workers. It blunts our technological edge. It threatens our alliances and influence international organizations," Price said at a State Department briefing Tuesday.
"And China has engaged in gross human rights violations that shock the conscience. So we will counter China's aggressive and coercive actions, sustain our key military advantages, defend democratic values, invest in advanced technologies and restore are vital security partnerships," he said.
However, he noted that there are issues like climate change "for which we share a national interest, in which it is in our national interest to cooperate on a limited basis with China."
"I think it goes without saying that we can walk and chew gum at the same time, not to be too colloquial," Price said.

The State Department spokesperson also called on China "to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan's democratically elected leadership."

"We are going to stand up for a certain set of principles in the face of aggression and the kinds of steps that China has taken," Sullivan said during a panel discussion at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.

"I think we really want to carry forward and build on that format, that mechanism which we see as fundamental a foundation upon which to build substantial American policy in the Indo-Pacific region," Sullivan said.

Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO team currently in Wuhan and president of EcoHealth Alliance, an environmental health non-profit, said he was confident in the lab's safety protocols.
"I know that lab really well," said Daszak, who has worked closely with virologist Shi in the past.
"It is a good virology lab that was doing good work that got close to finding what the next SARS-related coronavirus would be. But it didn't find it as far as I know. But you know, unfortunately, it maybe got so close that people now ironically start to blame it."

@mikepompeo
 
Not only has the CCP destroyed millions of American jobs, but they’re behind the gates. They’re lobbying members of Congress. They’re working our school boards and city councils to try and change our way of life.
 
We, along with our allies, must take the China threat seriously.

Sur les réseaux sociaux chinois, il faudra une autorisation pour parler économie et politique

Désarroi sur la Toile chinoise : ces derniers jours, les principaux réseaux sociaux du pays ont averti leurs utilisateurs que seuls les comptes disposant d’une licence ad hoc seraient désormais autorisés à publier des contenus originaux sur des sujets tels que la politique ou la défense.

“J’ai reçu un coup téléphone du service client de Weibo.” Cette révélation de Ma Xiaolin, le 30 janvier, sur son compte Weibo – l’un des principaux réseaux sociaux chinois – a déclenché une tempête sur la Toile. “Désormais, rapporte Ma, les comptes individuels de Weibo ne doivent plus publier de contenus originaux sur la politique, l’économie, la défense, etc. En tant que chercheur et chroniqueur sur les questions internationales, je suppose que je n’aurai qu’à prendre le chemin du divertissement”, ironise ce spécialiste de renom.
 
Les utilisateurs de Weibo ne sont pas les seuls à se retrouver dans cette situation. Ceux de WeChat, l’autre réseau social dominant dans le pays, ont également reçu ce “conseil”. WeChat appelle ses utilisateurs à ne pas “publier et à ne pas commenter les contenus politiques, économiques, diplomatiques ou d’autres actualités majeures” s’ils n’ont pas les “qualifications requises”. En clair, une “licence de service d’information en ligne sur l’actualité” et d’autres qualifications associées aux médias sont nécessaires pour pouvoir traiter de ces sujets.

@CNN

The United States Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, the first time a US warship has gone through the waterway that separates China and Taiwan during the Biden administration

US 'deeply disturbed' by reports of systematic rape in China's Xinjiang camps

State department says ‘atrocities’ against detained Uighur and Muslim women in region must be ‘met with serious consequences’

The US state department was responding to a BBC report, published on Wednesday, detailing horrific allegations rape, sexual abuse and torture, based on interviews with several former detainees and a guard. The interviewees told the BBC “they experienced or saw evidence of an organised system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture”.

“We are deeply disturbed by reports, including first-hand testimony, of systematic rape and sexual abuse against women in internment camps for ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang,” a state department spokesperson said, reiterating US accusations that China has committed “crimes against humanity and genocide” in Xinjiang.

“These atrocities shock the conscience and must be met with serious consequences.”

The spokesperson demanded China allow “immediate and independent investigations by international observers” into the rape allegations “in addition to the other atrocities being committed in Xinjiang.”

U.K. regulators stripped China’s state TV channel of its national broadcasting license on Thursday, after an investigation cited lack of editorial control and links to China’s ruling Communist Party.
 
The communications watchdog, Ofcom, said it revoked the U.K. license for China Global Television Network, or CGTN, an international English language satellite news channel.
 
CGTN had been available on free and pay TV in the U.K. It did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
 
Regulators started looking into the station after receiving a complaint from a human rights group, Safeguard Defenders, calling for an investigation into its ownership

Ofcom launched an investigation into CGTN - previously CCTV - following broadcasts which showed British journalist Peter Humphrey appearing to confess to a criminal offence, and reported his conviction and an apology.
 
Mr Humphrey, 64, was jailed for more than two years by a court in Shanghai in 2014, in connection with a corruption case involving pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.  
 
The two reports from CCTV identified Mr Humphrey but his face was blurred. The 2013 footage was broadcast across Chinese media as well as – astonishingly – in Britain.  
 
China's star TV presenter James Chau, a Cambridge-educated journalist who counts the Duchess of Sussex among his friends, solemnly introduced the shocking footage to viewers.
 
But according to Mr Humphrey, the entire broadcast was a lie.  
 
The investigator, who was arrested with his wife and business partner Yu Yingzeng while probing alleged corruption at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, insists that the footage masked the truth of his ordeal.
 
Mr Humphrey claims that he and his wife are innocent and the so-called 'confession' was a sham – confected from doctored footage captured after he had been plied with sedatives.
 
Speaking previously from his home in Surrey, Mr Humphrey told The Mail on Sunday: 'It was a travesty of my human rights.

In 2020, Ofcom found CGTN had breached the broadcasting code by failing to preserve due impartiality in its coverage of the Hong Kong protests.
 
The media watchdog said the channel often focused on violence by protesters against police officers while ignoring attacks by the authorities on members of the public.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs later released a statement accusing the BBC of 'fake news' in its coronavirus reporting.  
 
It said coverage broadcast on January 29 about coronavirus had 'linked the pandemic to politics' and 'rehashed theories about covering up China.'    
 
It alleged the BBC used a clip to say the Chinese virus prevention department had used violence to enforce the law, when it was actually a clip about an anti-terrorism exercise.  
 
The BBC said in response: 'We stand by our accurate and fair reporting of events in China and totally reject these unfounded accusations of fake news or ideological bias.
 
'The BBC is the world's most trusted international news broadcaster, reporting to a global audience of more than 400 million people weekly without fear or favour and in accordance with our editorial standards.'

BBC News (World)

China suggests young men are too "feminine" and promotes education drive to make them more "manly"

Op-ed: Cracking down on China’s shady shell companies

While it hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as some other topics regarding the Chinese government, anonymous shell companies have proven a key component of the country’s recent rise.
 
More importantly, these shell companies – which prevent investigators from successfully tracking financial flows – have proven to be key tools in both the CCP’s corrupt and tightening grip on the country and its expansionist efforts abroad, all aimed at increasing the influence of the People’s Republic of China and eroding American power and American interests.

From Southeast Asia to Africa and even Europe, the BRI has relied on anonymous shell companies to hide payments to corrupt officials abroad, greasing their palms in order to sign sweetheart deals with PRC officials and state-affiliated entities.

As a report from the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative found, the Belt and Road Initiative “supercharged kleptocracy throughout the developing world, with bribes and unprecedented opportunities for embezzlement” – much of it reliant on anonymous shell companies, blocking both journalists and anti-corruption activists from uncovering the details of the crooked deals.

More often than not, anonymous shell companies are at the center of these corrupt, oligarchic schemes. To take just one example, the Panama Papers revealed global graft operations hidden behind anonymous shell companies – with some 40,000 anonymous shells tied directly to politically influential Chinese nationals, including Chinese president Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law.

Thankfully, the U.S. is finally on the verge of eliminating this scourge. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, which became law on January 1, 2021, included our legislation – the ILLICIT CASH Act – that will effectively ban anonymous shell companies once and for all. The move will not only be the U.S.’s biggest anti-corruption reform in decades, but will eliminate one of the favorite tools of the criminal and corrupt around the world.

French President Emmanuel Macron called on China to be more transparent with the science behind its coronavirus vaccines.
 
It’s not clear if Chinese vaccine developers are adopting common standards because details on their inoculations are less available than those from Western drugmakers, Macron said on Thursday during an online panel discussion to mark the opening of The Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
“I have absolutely no information,” Macron said. “It seems that we can have more information about the Russian vaccines,” he said, citing a study published in the Lancet and Russia’s initiatives to register its Sputnik V inoculation with European Medicines Agency.

During the discussion on Thursday, Macron described a recent agreement between the EU and China on investments as “not honestly a huge deal,” and said it failed to address issues of intellectual property. The accord was seen as the latest sign that Europeans wanted to diversify alliances after four tense years with Donald Trump in the White House -- and one that could make it difficult for the U.S. and the E.U. to agree on a common strategy in dealing with China.
 
In downplaying those concerns, Macron highlighted the common history and values that bind Europe and the U.S. which he said isn’t a “systemic rival,” contrary to China.

@ABC
 
Pres. Biden: "We'll confront China's economic abuses, counter its aggressive, coercive actions, push back on China's attack on human rights...but we are ready to work with Beijing when it's in America's interest to do so."

In his first foreign policy address, US President Joe Biden on Thursday described China as the “most serious competitor” to the United States and vowed to confront Beijing on various fronts, including human rights, intellectual property and economic policy.

Appearing at the State Department, Biden declared his administration would “take on directly the challenges posed [to] our prosperity, security and democratic values by our most serious competitor: China”.

“We’ll confront China’s economic abuses, counter its aggressive, coercive actions, and push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property and global governance,” Biden said.

“We’ll compete from a position of strength, by building back better at home, working with our allies and partners, renewing our role in international institutions and reclaiming our credibility and moral authority, much of which has been lost,” Biden said, drawing a contrast with the “America first” ideology that underpinned much of the foreign policy pursued by Donald Trump’s administration.

While pledging to hold the Chinese government to account, Biden said the US also stood ready to “work with Beijing when it’s in America’s interest to do so”, alluding to his administration’s ambition to cooperate on the climate crisis.

The State Department’s special envoy for climate, John Kerry, also recently signalled that US grievances with China, including intellectual property theft, market access and Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea, would “never be traded for anything that has to do with climate”.

US lawmakers have nominated Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement for the Nobel peace prize, calling the campaigners a global inspiration in the face of a crackdown by Beijing.
In a letter to the Nobel committee released on Wednesday, nine lawmakers across party lines cited the estimate that more than two million people took to the streets on 16 June 2019.