US halts imports from China's Uighur region for forced labor

Four companies and a manufacturing facility in northwestern China were blocked Monday from shipping their products to the U.S. because of their suspected reliance on forced labor from people detained as part of a massive campaign against ethnic minorities in the region.

Many Uyghurs in Xinjiang have been detained in re-education camps, and the Human Rights Watch has alleged that these camps have been used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror," a policy announced in 2014. The re-educarion camps also functioned as forced labor camps, in which the detainees labor to produce products such as cotton for export.

Cotton is central to the industry of the region, and majority of China's cotton is produced in the Xinjiang province.

#US #Xinjiang #Uyghurs #Uighurs

Source: Associate Press #Sep15
https://apnews.com/0a2b64d4b2dfee8dc6be8d402a96ecbe

Attacks on media coverage of protests increase worldwide. UNESCO: Police don’t have to fear punishment.

Source：Appledaily #Sep15

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Attacks on media coverage of protests increase worldwide. UNESCO: Police don’t have to fear punishment.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a report on Monday, stating that violence against journalists covering protests has risen sharply across the world, mainly due to police not fear of punishment. The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, urged governments to take positive steps to ensure the safety of journalists at work.

UNESCO monitoring media development stated that journalists attacked, arrested and even killed in 21 protests around the world between January and June this year were just the tip of the iceberg. The report pointed to “a wide upward trend in the use of unlawful force by police and security forces over the past five years”.

According to a report investigated protests in study 65 countries, at least 10 journalists were killed during protests, and there were 125 instances of attacks on, or arrests of journalists who worked in Syria, Mexico, Israel, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Nigeria and Iraq. “Hundreds of journalists around the world trying to cover protests have been harassed, assaulted, intimidated, arrested, put under surveillance and kidnapped and their work equipment have been destroyed, “ mentioned in the report.

The report stated that the police and security forces carried out most of the attacks. "The police use of non-lethal ammunition such as rubber bullets and pepper bullets has injured dozens of journalists, and some lost their eyes." Police don’t fear to attack reporters. Impunity has continued to be the norm in recent years."

#UNESCO #PoliceBrutality #ViolenceAgainstJounalists #AFP

Source：Appledaily #Sep15

https://hk.appledaily.com/international/20200915/MOUCF7VSHFAJFBTS6AGJEM4VEA/

Human rights groups issued open letter calling for UN investigation into humanitarian and genocide crimes against Uighurs

Source: Apple Daily #Sep15

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Human rights groups issued open letter calling for UN investigation into humanitarian and genocide crimes against Uighurs

More than 20 human rights groups on Tuesday (15 September) issued an open letter calling for a United Nations investigation into humanitarian and genocide crimes against the Uighurs in China's Xinjiang, where more than a million people are currently detained in camps.

The letter was signed by human rights organisations including the Uighur Human Rights Project and Genocide Watch, both based in the United States. The open letter states: 'These atrocities include the arbitrary placement of 1 million to 1.8 million people in detention camps, massive political indoctrination programs, forced disappearances, the destruction of cultural venues, forced labor, disproportionate incarceration rates, and coercive birth control actions and policies.'

These human rights groups said the measures met the threshold for genocide, a major international crime under the UN Genocide Convention, and asked the UN Human Rights Council to initiate an investigation. China has claimed that the detention camps are vocational training centres as part of its counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation measures.

The Convention prohibits "measures intended to prevent births" within an ethnic or religious group. In international law, crimes against humanity are defined as widespread and systematic crimes. Genocide, on the other hand, is defined as the attempted extermination of part of a population, but is more difficult to provide evidence.

Source: Apple Daily #Sep15

https://hk.appledaily.com/international/20200915/CR242PNX4JDVLKG3GB2KBKGFE4/

#HumanRights #Uighur #Xinjiang

Australian cybersecurity firm helped decipher Zhenhua Data leak

Canberra-based company Internet 2.0 recovered a vast trove of information from leaked but corrupted China files, revealing China's profiling of millions of people around the globe.

The company's co-founder Robert Potter said his company was able to recover the records of about 250,000 people from the leaked files, including about 52,000 Americans, 35,500 Australians and nearly 10,000 Britons － among them are politicians such as the prime ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson and their relatives, the royal family, celebrities, and military figures.

Potter conceded that most of the data was based on material openly available on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Crunchbase and LinkedIn.

Source: The Guardian #Sep15

#China #Cybersecurity #ZhenhuaDataLeak #Australia

Experts call on Canadian universities to close off China's access to sensitive research

Source: CBC #Sep15

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Experts call on Canadian universities to close off China's access to sensitive research

The U.S. State Department, over the past three months, has expelled more than a thousand Chinese 'high-risk graduate students and research scholars' working at American universities.

In Canada, the Commons Committee on Canada-China Relations heard similar allegations in testimony in the weeks leading up to prorogation including the claim that some of the core technology behind China's surveillance network was developed in Canadian universities.

'If we're partnering with China on these areas, our R&D ... could be going directly to the Chinese military,' said Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, who spent decades in some of the federal government's top scientific posts and served on the Canada-China Joint Committee on Science & Technology before joining the University of Ottawa. She said AI and robotics are two areas of great interest to the Chinese military.

Source: CBC #Sep15

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-canada-universities-research-waterloo-military-technology-1.5723846

#Canada #University #Scholar #CCPsurveillance

#UK City Council Proposes to Rename as "Hong Kong Square" and "Tibet Hill" around the #ChineseEmbassy

Source: Stand News #Sep15

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#UK City Council Proposes to Rename as "Hong Kong Square" and "Tibet Hill" around the #ChineseEmbassy

The Chinese Embassy in the UK will move to the Tower Hamlets district in East London. Its city council is investigating to name "Hong Kong Square", "Uyghur Court" and "Tibet Hill" around the new site.

Some Hongkongers, Tibetans and Uyghurs host an assembly on September 14, 2021, calling to confirm the rename.

#PeterGolds, a Conservative party leader in the city council, indicates that minimising the effects on the residential and commercial addresses is one of the difficulties of renaming streets. Nevertheless, a road is known to be suitable for renaming in front of the Embassy new site, and Golds says, "everyone entering the new Chinese Embassy has to pass through it".

The Chinese Embassy in the UK was planned to relocate to the original site of #TheRoyalMint in 2018, which is in Tower Hamlets, London. On the Handover Ceremony of the Royal Mint in 2018, #LiuXiaoming, the Chinese Ambassador back then, stated the Embassy would be a new landmark in London. And #JohnBiggs, the mayor back then, indicates the move-in of the Chinese Embassy demonstrates an "open and energetic living and working place".

The Tower Hamlets City Council unanimously agreed with the research on renaming the streets and the new buildings around the Chinese Embassy new site in a general meeting in March 2021.

Having the names of "Hong Kong Square", "Uyghur Court", "Tibet Hill" and "Xiaobo Road" shows the city is with these places and people.

A hundred people called on the name change implementation.

A hundred Hongkongers, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and the local whites protest outside the Embassy new site today, calling for the implementation of the name changes. The event is hosted by the Hong Kong Liberty, Power to Hongkongers, Free Tibet, Stop Uyghur Genocide and other organisations.

A leaflet, written with "Tower Hamlets: Give Us a Sign You Care" slogan and "Tibet Hill", "Hong Kong Square" and "Uyghur Court".

#FinnLau, who is wanted by the Hong Kong Police and is exiled to the UK, states his opposition to the relocation of the Chinese Embassy at the assembly. "We need to stop the #CCP rebuilding a British heritage with 600 years of history to become a palace to serve an authoritarian regime."

Conservative Party leader in the City Council Peter Golds says that he empathises with Hongkongers', Uyghurs' and other people's situation as he does not have British ancestry that his parents are from Poland and Lithuania and moved to the UK to get rid of suppression. He says that trying hard to change the street is because "the CCP needs to take responsibility for their actions". He also criticises the CCP for violating the promise of "One Country Two Systems" to Hong Kong.

The Conservative Party leader in the City Council said a location is suitable to change its name.

Peter Golds explains that one of the most challenging parts of the project is that changing street names will affect the registration addresses for the local residents and commercials. Nevertheless, he said that a street in front of the Embassy belongs to Tower Hamlets district and does not have anyone living in or any enterprise operating. "We can place a road sign here, such as 'London Borough of Tower Hamlet, Hong Kong Square', that everyone will walk past here to enter the Chinese Embassy."

He also mentions that the actual chance of changing the name depends on the wishes of the city council, "but many of us want to do it". He indicates that he will not be afraid of counteraction from China. "What can they do to me? I am only a mayor. I serve my electorates, not the CCP. But I understand the fear of Hongkongers with my emphasis."

#China #TowerHamlets #UrbanPlanning #HongKongSquare #TibetHill #UyghurCourt #UKCityCouncil

Source: Stand News #Sep15
https://bit.ly/3hVhsV3

ADB: China Can Probably Stand On Its Own

source: Global Finance #Sep15

https://www.gfmag.com/magazine/september-2022/china-asia-development-bank-loans-end

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ADB: China Can Probably Stand On Its Own

In a sign of China's rising strength, the Asian Development Bank announced it may stop lending to the world's second largest economy.

The Asian Development Bank, the Manila-headquartered multilateral lender, may end loans to China in a move being characterized as more about the maturity of China’s economy—now the world’s second-largest—than political posturing. In a recent interview, ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa said a reassessment of whether China still meets the development criteria for further loans could start as early as next year.

Some analysts say the move has a political dimension and is symbolic of the estrangement between China and the West as well as a tectonic shift in geopolitical alliances. In 2016 China created its own infrastructure bank—the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank—but the US and Japan notably declined to join. At just under 7%, Russia is the third-largest contributor to the AIIB’s coffers, after China and India, according to the AIIB’s website.

Although the AIIB’s role in has been described as complementary to ADB’s, the fact that it is offering financial assistance to other countries calls into question China’s need for further aid. When development loans are monopolized by economic superpowers, it promotes economic imbalances that hold countries back, says David Baxter, a sustainable development consultant.

“It is important that aid loans go to countries that really need it,” he says. “China does not.”

source: Global Finance #Sep15

https://www.gfmag.com/magazine/september-2022/china-asia-development-bank-loans-end

#Sept1 #ChinaEconomy #BeltAndRoad