#Jean-Pierre Cabestan

[saxafimedianetwork]

The Somaliland Connection: Taiwan’s Return To Africa

#Somaliland is close to the #UnitedStates & #attracted by #Taiwan’s shared #political #values, its own “#economicmiracle,” & #generous #development #assistance. In the #foreseeable #future, then, it is unlikely that #Somaliland will #succumb to #China’s #siren #song.

(more…)

[phroyd]

HONG KONG — Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, has a very loyal majority in the territory’s legislature. She has the complete backing of the Chinese government. She has a huge bureaucracy ready to push her agenda.

Yet on Saturday, she was forced to suspend indefinitely her monthslong effort to win passage of a bill that would have allowed her government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China, Taiwan and elsewhere. Mrs. Lam’s decision represented the biggest single retreat on a political issue by China since Xi Jinping became the country’s top leader in 2012.

Huge crowds of demonstrators had taken to Hong Kong’s streets in increasingly violent protests. Local business leaders had turned against Mrs. Lam. And even Beijing officials were starting to question her judgment in picking a fight on an issue that they regard as a distraction from their real priority: the passage of stringent national security legislation in Hong Kong.

The risk for the Hong Kong government is that the public, particularly the young, may develop the impression that the only way to stop unwanted policy initiatives is through violent protests. With each successive major issue since Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, the level of violence at protests has risen before the government has relented and changed course.

As many as a million people marched peacefully a week ago against the extradition bill. But the government’s stance did not begin to shift until a smaller demonstration unfolded on Wednesday. It began peacefully until some protesters pried up bricks and threw them at police officers, and police responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas.

At a news conference on Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Lam denied that she was acting simply to prevent further violence at a planned rally on Sunday.

“Our decision has nothing to do with what may happen tomorrow,” she said. “It has nothing to do with an intention — a wish — to pacify.”

But that assertion drew broad skepticism. Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the family-friendly march a week ago was not enough to send a message.

“Without a bit of violence and political pressure on the authorities, you don’t get a thing,” he said.

Anson Chan, who was Hong Kong’s second-highest official until her retirement in 2001 and now a democracy advocate, said, “Denied a vote at the ballot box, people are forced to take to the streets to make their voices heard.”

In the first years after Hong Kong’s handover in 1997, the government tended to be more responsive. A previous government had given up passing national security legislation in 2003 after 500,000 people marched peacefully.

That march was so tame that not a single person was arrested and the staff at an Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry store at the end of the protesters’ route did not close their steel security shutters or even remove the extremely expensive diamond jewelry from the store’s windows.

The extradition bill debacle underlines Beijing’s central dilemma in Hong Kong. It wants to retain complete control, and so does not want to allow full democracy in the semiautonomous territory.

But without democracy, a succession of Hong Kong governments have blundered into political crises by underestimating or ignoring the public’s concerns — and each time, Beijing gets some of the blame. Some of her close advisers say that it is unclear whether she had any discussion with Beijing leaders in advance about the extradition bill.

On Saturday, Mrs. Lam repeatedly declined to discuss her conversations with Beijing leaders.

The Hong Kong government has also proved steadily more prone to push on, at least initially, in the face of public outcry.

Hong Kong’s leaders increasingly echo top Beijing officials in perceiving malevolent foreign forces in stirring up protests. That foreign influence appears to consist of meetings that Hong Kong democracy advocates have arranged with American officials and politicians when they fly to Washington.

But Mrs. Lam and her senior advisers have nonetheless distrusted the sincerity of the protesters.

“The riots I believe were instigated by foreign forces and it is sad that the young people of Hong Kong have been manipulated into taking part,” said Joseph Yam, a member of Mrs. Lam’s Executive Council, the territory’s top advisory body.

Suspicions of foreign influence make Saturday’s retreat by Mrs. Lam even more surprising. But the path to this week’s public policy fiasco really appears to have begun last November.

That was when Mrs. Lam and her top aides traveled to Beijing for a rare meeting with Mr. Xi. He gave a long speech telling them to safeguard national security, according to a transcript released by the official Xinhua news agency.

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng spoke to media about the extradition law at the Legislative Council Hong Kong in April.CreditVincent Yu/Associated Press

The speech included what looked like a message that Hong Kong could not postpone indefinitely its legal duty under the Basic Law, its mini-constitution, to implement national security laws against sedition, subversion, secession and treason.

“Compatriots in Hong Kong and Macau should improve the systems and mechanisms related to the implementation of the Constitution and the Basic Law,” Mr. Xi said.

But the 2003 experience underlined how hard it would be to pass national security legislation. Mrs. Lam was also deeply troubled last winter by another issue.

She had received five letters from the parents of a young woman who was slain in Taiwan, allegedly by her boyfriend who then returned to Hong Kong. The absence of an extradition arrangement between Hong Kong and Taiwan, an island democracy that Beijing regards as part of China, complicated the extradition of the young man.

Mrs. Lam decided that a short bill — just 10 articles — should be introduced in the legislature to make it easier to extradite people.

The bill was brought to a meeting of the Executive Council, a top advisory body, right before a three-day Chinese New Year holiday, and was approved with virtually no discussion, said a person familiar with the council’s deliberations who insisted on anonymity.

The council consists of the government’s ministers plus 16 business leaders and pro-Beijing lawmakers. A holdover from the colonial era, the council is often criticized as an insular group with little to no accountability.

The week after the holiday, Mrs. Lam promptly announced the legislation.

But the bill also called for police to provide what is known in legal jargon as “mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.” Hong Kong’s top finance officials and leading financiers, who were at the meeting right before Chinese New Year, had not been alerted that the extradition bill would also allow mainland security agencies to start requesting asset freezes in Hong Kong.

They were appalled when they learned that this was involved, said the person with a detailed knowledge of the meeting. Mr. Yam did not discuss the council meeting but other people familiar with the meeting did so on condition of anonymity because of rules banning disclosure of the council’s activities.

Mrs. Lam’s bill exposed not only Hong Kong citizens to extradition to the mainland but also foreign citizens. That horrified the influential chambers of commerce that represent the West’s biggest banks, which almost all have their Asia headquarters in Hong Kong, as well as some of the West’s biggest manufacturers, which keep staff in Hong Kong while overseeing factories on the mainland.

The business community began pressing for a halt to the extradition bill. With the government having now stopped consideration of that bill, even Mrs. Lam’s allies in Hong Kong say that she almost certainly does not retain enough political capital to pass the national security legislation that Beijing really wanted.

Shortcomings in the Hong Kong government’s handling of the extradition issue underline that the chief executive is only accountable to Beijing. Yet Beijing has also promised Hong Kong a “high degree of autonomy.”

The Communist leadership likes the political structure because it ensures the loyalty of the Hong Kong government, and it rebuffed protesters who demanded free elections five years ago. But the system means Hong Kong’s leader often misreads and sometimes ignores public opinion and operates with limited feedback even from Beijing.

“Had the chief executive been elected by Hong Kong people instead of by Beijing, perhaps he or she would not have tabled that bill,” Mr. Cabestan said.

Phroyd

[cnnnewsnetwork-blog]

China Sets Stage For Xi's Historic Power Grab to rule indefinitely

China Sets Stage For Xi’s Historic Power Grab to rule indefinitely

CNN Global: President Xi Jinping is poised to make a historic power grab as China’s legislators gather from Monday to approve changes that will let him rule indefinitely and undo decades of efforts to prevent a return to crushing dictatorship.

This year’s gathering of the ceremonial National People’s Congress has been overshadowed by Xi’s surprise move — announced just a week ago — to end…

[bountyofbeads]

Did Xi Jinping Bungle the Hong Kong Crisis? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/world/asia/china-hong-kong-xi-jinping.html

Is Xi Mishandling Hong Kong Crisis? Hints of Unease in China’s Leadership

Beijing’s halting response to the protests in Hong Kong has raised questions about President Xi Jinping’s imperious style and authoritarian policies.

By Steven Lee Myers, Chris Buckley and Keith Brasher | Published Sept. 7, 2019 Updated 10:21 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 7, 2019 12:07 PM ET |

BEIJING — China’s leader, Xi Jinping, warned a gathering of senior Communist Party officials in January that the country faced a raft of urgent economic and political risks, and told them to be on guard especially for “indolence, incompetence and becoming divorced from the public.”

Now, after months of political tumult in Hong Kong, the warning seems prescient. Only it is Mr. Xi himself and his government facing criticism that they are mishandling China’s biggest political crisis in years, one that he did not mention in his catalog of looming risks at the start of the year.

And although few in Beijing would dare blame Mr. Xi openly for the government’s handling of the turmoil, there is quiet grumbling that his imperious style and authoritarian concentration of power contributed to the government’s misreading of the scope of discontent in Hong Kong, which is only growing.

On Friday and Saturday the protests and clashes with the police continued in Hong Kong, even after the region’s embattled chief executive, Carrie Lam, made a major concession days earlier by withdrawing a bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland, legislation that first incited the protests three months ago.

The Communist Party’s leadership — and very likely Mr. Xi himself — has been surprised by or oblivious to the depth of the animosity, which has driven hundreds of thousands into the streets of Hong Kong for the past three months. While it was the extradition bill that set off the protests, they are now sustained by broader grievances against the Chinese government and its efforts to impose greater control over the semiautonomous territory.

Beijing has been slow to adapt to events, allowing Mrs. Lam to suspend the bill in June, for example, but refusing at the time to let her withdraw it completely. It was a partial concession that reflected the party’s hard-line instincts under Mr. Xi and fueled even larger protests.

As public anger in Hong Kong has climbed, the Chinese government’s response has grown bombastic and now seems at times erratic.

In July, at a meeting that has not been publicly disclosed, Mr. Xi met with other senior officials to discuss the protests. The range of options discussed is unclear, but the leaders agreed that the central government should not intervene forcefully, at least for now, several people familiar with the issue said in interviews in Hong Kong and Beijing.

At that meeting, the officials concluded that the Hong Kong authorities and the local police could eventually restore order on their own, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

There are hints of divisions in the Chinese leadership and stirrings of discontent about Mr. Xi’s policies.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and an expert on Chinese politics, said it appeared that there was debate during the annual informal leaders’ retreat in Beidaihe, a seaside resort not far from Beijing.

Some party leaders called for concessions, while others urged action to bring Hong Kong more directly under the mainland’s control, he said. Mr. Cabestan said he believed that “the Chinese leadership is divided on Hong Kong and how to solve the crisis.”

Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, said Mr. Xi’s government had in effect adopted a strategy to procrastinate in the absence of any better ideas for resolving the crisis. “It is not willing to intervene directly or to propose a solution,” he said. “The idea is to wait things out until there is a change.”

The upshot is that instead of defusing or containing the crisis, Mr. Xi’s government has helped to widen the political chasm between the central government and many of the seven million residents in a city that is an important hub of international trade and finance, critics say.

Another sign of the disarray within the government was the reaction to Mrs. Lam’s withdrawal of the bill. On Tuesday, officials in Beijing declared there could be no concessions to the protesters’ demands. A day later, when Mrs. Lam pulled the bill back, she claimed to have Beijing’s blessing to do so. The same officials were silent.

On Friday, China’s premier, Li Keqiang,  said during a news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who was visiting China, that the government supported Hong Kong in “halting the violence and disorder in accordance with the law.”

Mr. Xi, who is 66 and in his seventh year of his now unlimited tenure as the country’s paramount leader, has cast himself as an essential commander for a challenging time. He has been lionized in the state news media as no other Chinese leader has been since Mao.

This has made political solutions to the Hong Kong situation harder to find, because even senior officials are reluctant to make the case for compromise or concessions for fear of contradicting or angering Mr. Xi, according to numerous officials and analysts in Hong Kong and Beijing.

“Beijing has overreached, overestimating its capacity to control events and underestimating the complexity of Hong Kong,” said Brian Fong Chi-hang, an associate professor at the Academy of Hong Kong Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong.

The tumult in Hong Kong could pose a risk to Mr. Xi, especially if it exacerbates discontent and discord within the Chinese leadership over other issues.

“I think the danger is not that his standing will collapse, but that there is a whole series of slowly unfolding trends that will gradually corrode his position,” said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney and author of “Xi Jinping: The Backlash.”

“Hong Kong is one, as the protests look set to carry on despite the concessions,” Mr. McGregor said. “The trade war is adding to the pain,” he added, referring to the current standoff with the United States.

Mr. Xi returned on Tuesday to the same venue as his speech in January — the Communist Party’s Central Party School — and reprised the warnings he raised in January without suggesting they were in fact worsening.

“Faced with the grim conditions and tasks of struggle looming down on us, we must be tough-boned, daring to go on the attack and daring to battle for victory,” he said.

While he warned of “a whole range” of internal and external threats — economic, military and environmental — he mentioned Hong Kong only once, and then only in passing.

“By painting a dark picture of hostile foreign forces or even unrelenting internal challenges the Communist Party faces in retaining power, it helps justify his continuing strong hand,” said Christopher K. Johnson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Some analysts see a parallel between Mr. Xi’s handling of Hong Kong and the trade war with the United States, which, like the economy more broadly, seems to be the greatest worry for his government at the moment.

In Hong Kong, Mr. Xi’s government unwaveringly supported the extradition bill. And it stuck by that position, refusing to allow Mrs. Lam to withdraw it formally, even as the protesters’ demands grew broader. Her pledge to withdraw it now has been dismissed as too little, too late.

In the trade talks, China also balked at accepting President Trump’s initial demands for concessions. When the two sides came close to an agreement in the spring, outlined in a 150-page document, Mr. Xi appeared to balk, scuttling the process.

Now Mr. Xi faces an even bigger trade war, with much higher tariffs and greater tensions. The government appears to be hewing to a strategy of waiting out Mr. Trump, possibly through his 2020 re-election campaign, even as the dispute has become a drag on the economy.

It remains unclear how Mr. Xi’s government conveyed its approval for Mrs. Lam’s decision — or whether it did. Mrs. Lam’s sudden shift evolved in a matter of days after last weekend’s clashes between protesters and the police, several officials said.

Mrs. Lam said the decision to withdraw the extradition bill was hers, but she also asserted that she had Beijing’s full support for doing so, suggesting more coordination than either side has publicly acknowledged.

The silence from officials and in the state news media about Mrs. Lam’s concession suggested that if Mr. Xi’s government did approve of the sudden shift, it wanted to stifle public discussion of it in the mainland.

Mrs. Lam herself described the tightrope she must walk during recent remarks to a group of business leaders that were leaked and published by Reuters.

“The political room for the chief executive who, unfortunately, has to serve two masters by constitution, that is, the central people’s government and the people of Hong Kong, that political room for maneuvering is very, very, very limited,” she said.

She also offered a candid assessment of Beijing’s views, even if one she did not intend to make public. She said Beijing had no plan to send in the People’s Liberation Army to restore order because “they’re just quite scared now.”

“Because they know that the price would be too huge to pay,” she went on. “Maybe they don’t care about Hong Kong, but they care about ‘one country, two systems.’ They care about the country’s international profile. It has taken China a long time to build up to that sort of international profile.”

Hong Kong’s unique status, with its own laws and freedoms, has long created a political dilemma for China’s leaders, especially for Mr. Xi, who has made China’s rising economic and political might a central pillar of his public appeals.

China’s recovery of sovereignty over the former British colony is a matter of national pride that reversed a century and a half of colonial humiliation. But the mainland maintains what amounts to an international border with Hong Kong.

The government’s deepest fear now appears to be that the demands for greater political accountability and even universal suffrage heard on the streets in Hong Kong could spread like a contagion through the mainland. So far, there have been few signs of that.

As the crisis has grown, the government has sent thousands of troops from the People’s Armed Police to Shenzhen, the mainland city adjacent to Hong Kong, but the exercise was hastily organized and used an outdated plan drawn up after the protests in 2014, according to one official in Hong Kong.

Beijing also stepped up its propaganda, launching an information — and disinformation — campaign against the protesters and opposition leaders in Hong Kong.

Mr. Xi continues to barely mention Hong Kong. He has said nothing about the protests, even in his passing reference on Tuesday. He has not visited since 2017, when he marked the 20th anniversary of the handover from Britain.

After the traditional August holiday break, Mr. Xi’s public calendar of events has since betrayed no hint of political upheaval or threats to his standing. The media’s portrayal of him, already verging on hagiography, has become even more fawning. State television and the party’s newspapers now refer to him as “the People’s Leader,” an honorific once bestowed only on Mao.

“The People’s Leader loves the people,” The People’s Daily wrote after Mr. Xi toured Gansu, a province in western China.

Mr. Xi’s calculation might be simply to remain patient, as he has been in the case of Mr. Trump’s erratic shifts in the trade war. In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Xi also gave a possible hint of the government’s pragmatism.

“On matters of principle, not an inch will be yielded,” he said, “but on matters of tactics there can be flexibility.”

Javier C. Hernández contributed reporting. Claire Fu and Amber Wang contributed research.

[antikorg]

Chine - Hong Kong : un pays, toujours deux systèmes ?

Chine – Hong Kong : un pays, toujours deux systèmes ?

[ad_1] 2019-06-11 17:27:40 Europe solidaire

Hongkong a vécu, dimanche l’une de ses manifestations les plus importantes depuis sa rétrocession, en 1997 : plus d’un million de personnes ont manifesté contre le projet de loi prévoyant d’autoriser les extraditions vers la Chine. Carrie Lam, la cheffe de l’exécutif a écarté tout abandon du projet.

Intervenant : Jean-Pierre Cabestan Directeur du…

[sethmeeyn]

China's Leader Now Wields Formidable Power. Who Will Say No to Him?

(The 24-member Politburo no longer has women either for the first time in 25 years.) “Xi is surrounded by yes-men,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a ...

[sauolasa]

Xi ha fatto il pieno. Ma il rischio di fare errori ora è più alto

Per Jean-Pierre Cabestan, che è professore emerito di Scienze politiche a Hong Kong la leadership in Cina è monocromatica, ma il rischio è che il margine di errore nella leadership aumenti

[xtruss]

World Power China 2008 Vs 2022: Richer, Stronger and More Confrontational

— By Joe McDonald | Associated Press | January 25, 2022

BEIJING (AP) — China has undergone history-making change since the last time it was an Olympic host in 2008: It is richer, more heavily armed and openly confrontational.

As President Xi Jinping’s government prepares for February’s Winter Olympics, it has greater leverage to exert influence abroad and resist complaints from the United States and other governments over trade, technology theft and its treatment of Taiwan, Hong Kong and China’s Muslim minorities.

The economy is three times larger today. The ruling Communist Party is using that wealth to try to become a “technology power” and is spending more on its military than any country other than the United States.

“2008 was a turning point,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, an expert on Chinese politics at Hong Kong Baptist University. “That was the beginning of China’s assertiveness.”

As fireworks exploded over Beijing in August 2008, China was about to overtake Japan as the No. 2 global economy. The ruling party celebrated with the most expensive Summer Games to date.

Foreign media dubbed it China’s “coming out party,” echoing the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 that symbolized Japan’s recovery from World War II. After three decades of keeping its head down to focus on development, Beijing was ready to emerge on the global stage as an economic and political force.

The ruling party declared its more assertive stance in 2012, the year Xi took power, in a document that called for “more strategic rights,” military status and a bigger global role.

Xi’s government sees its system of one-party dictatorship under threat and accuses Washington of trying to deny China its rightful role as a global leader. The ruling party is tightening control over society and business and using internet filters and other censorship to shut out what it deems unhealthy foreign influences. It is doing more to intimidate Taiwan, the island democracy Beijing says belongs to China.

“You can see that China is forced by the United States and its allies such as Australia, Japan and Britain to do so,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Xi is seeking to cement his control over the country. He is expected to use key political meetings late in 2022 to try to break with tradition and stay in power for a third five-year term as head of the ruling party. Earlier, he had the Chinese constitution changed to get rid of term limits on his role as president.

Once “more open to the outside world,” China now is “much more paranoid,” Cabestan said.

Beijing has sent warplanes in growing numbers to fly near Taiwan. It is pouring money into developing nuclear-capable missiles that can hit the United States and aircraft carriers and other weapons to extend its military reach beyond China’s shores.

Chinese leaders believe, Shi said, that they need to defend themselves on several fronts: a tariff war launched by then-President Donald Trump in 2018; curbs on access to U.S. technology; and military alliances involving Japan, Australia and other governments to counter Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea and other territory.

“If there is a bad relationship between China and another country, it is because the other country harms China,” Shi said.

In 2008, Summer Games preparations included a $43 billion makeover of the Chinese capital. The party built the eye-catching Bird’s Nest stadium and other Olympic venues, installed new subway lines and upgrading roads. Exercise equipment was installed in thousands of public parks across China.

The capital, one of the world’s smoggiest cities, launched a “blue sky” campaign that shut down or replaced power plants, steel mills and other facilities and imposed traffic controls at an estimated cost of $10 billion.

Today, Xi’s government is wrestling with debt, pollution and other excesses of earlier years. It’s also in the midst of a marathon campaign, launched before he took power, to steer the economy to sustainable growth based on consumer spending instead of exports and investment.

Under a vaguely defined initiative — dubbed “common prosperity” after a 1950s slogan — the ruling party is trying to narrow a politically volatile wealth gap between a billionaire elite and China’s working-class majority.

Successful private sector companies in e-commerce and other fields are under pressure to invest in the party’s efforts to reduce reliance on the United States, Europe and Japan as technology suppliers by developing computer chips and other products. They are paying for rural job creation and other political initiatives.

Xi and other leaders promise to open markets wider to foreign and private competitors while also saying government-owned banks, oil producers, telecom carriers and other companies are the “core of the economy.” Business groups complain that despite steps such as ending limits on foreign ownership in auto manufacturing, global companies are being squeezed out of promising technology and other fields.

“China will continue to expand its opening up to the outside world,” Xi said in a Jan. 17 speech by video link to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He promised to “ensure all enterprises have equal status before the law and equal opportunities.”

In a slap at Washington, Xi complained about “hegemonic bullying” and said governments need to “abandon a Cold War mentality.”

As athletes and reporters arrive ahead of the Feb. 4 opening of the Winter Games, Chinese leaders face the challenge of shoring up slumping economic growth while they try to contain coronavirus outbreaks and force real estate developers, an industry that supports millions of jobs, to cut debt that Beijing worries is dangerously high.

China rebounded quickly from the 2020 pandemic and became the only major economy to grow that year. But growth fell abruptly in late 2021 as Beijing’s debt crackdown bit, triggering a slump in real estate sales and construction.

The economy expanded by a robust 8.1% in 2021 but growth tumbled in the last quarter to 4% over a year earlier. Forecasters say the slump will deepen before interest rate cuts and other stimulus measures can take effect. The World Bank and private sector economists have trimmed this year’s growth forecasts to as low as 5%, though that still would be among the world’s strongest.

“Economic stability is the top focus in 2022,” said Tommy Wu of Oxford Economics in a report.

— AP researcher Yu Bing contributed.

[fhecker]

Der ideologische Schmelztiegel sorgt für ein langes Leben der KP China

Der ideologische Schmelztiegel sorgt für ein langes Leben der KP China

China. Interview mit Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Prof. Jean-Pierre Cabestan ist Professor und Leiter des Department of Government and International Studies an der Hong Kong Baptist University. Außerdem ist er Associate Researcher am Asia Center at Science Po, Paris. Von 2003 bis 2007 war er Senior Researcher am französischen Nationalen Zentrum für wissenschaftliche Forschung (Center national de la…

[somalilandmonitor]

The Somaliland Connection: Taiwan’s Return to Africa?

The Somaliland Connection: Taiwan’s Return to Africa?

Taiwan’s Somaliland connection and Taiwan’s new representative office in Hargeisa not only gives Taipei another connection to the African continent, but also establishes a new model of relations that could be extended to other states. By Jean-Pierre Cabestan Without fanfare and much to the surprise of many observers, on February 26, 2020, the foreign ministers of Taiwan and Somaliland met in…

[lollipoplollipopoh]

How will China's communist party manage challenges to its rule? | Inside Story by Al Jazeera English The founder of modern China once said: "A single spark can start a prairie fire". 70 years since Mao Zedong established the Communist People's Republic, China's modern-day leaders want to contain the sparks potentially threatening their hold on power. President Xi Jinping wore a traditional Mao suit to launch the celebrations with a large military parade in Beijing. Xi warned against threats to national unity, and sent a message to the self-ruled island of Taiwan. And in semi-autonmous Hong Kong, the government toned down celebrations as four months of anti-China protests turned violent. Along with trade wars and territorial disputes, how will China manage these challenges? Presenter: Folly Bah Thibault Guests: Einar Tangen - China Political Analyst who advises the Chinese govenrment on economic and development issues Jean-Pierre Cabestan - Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and author of "China Tomorrow: Democracy or Dictatorship" Gordon Chang - Political Analyst and author of "The Coming Collapse of China" Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglish Find us on Facebook https://ift.tt/1iHo6G4 Check our website: https://ift.tt/snsTgS #Aljazeeraenglish #News #InsideStory #China

[bountyofbeads]

Violent Protesters Storm Legislature https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-live-updates.html

Hong Kong Protest Live Updates: Protesters Storm Hong Kong’s Legislature

After destroying the building’s facade, protesters entered the building, where riot police warned them not to breach the central chamber.

Alexandra Stevenson, Mike Ives, Tiffany May, Katherine Li, Javier Hernandez, Austin Ramzy, Gillian Wong and Ezra Cheung contributed reporting. | Published July 1, 2019 | The New York Times | Posted July 1, 2019 |

RIGHT NOW

Dozens of protesters breached Hong Kong’s legislature building, as thousands of other protesters took to the streets on the anniversary of the city’s return to China’s control.

Here’s what you need to know:

Protesters smashed glass walls as they charged the offices of the legislature.

The demonstrations are a challenge to China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

The attack on the legislative complex exposed divisions among the protesters.

The city’s embattled leader promised to be “more open and accommodating.”

‘Carrie Lam, step down,’ protesters elsewhere chanted in a peaceful march.

Protesters smashed glass walls as they charged the offices of the legislature.

After steadily destroying the facade of Hong Kong’s legislative complex on Monday, protesters entered the building leaving broken glass and torn steel shutters in their wake, hours after the government held a ceremony commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the territory’s return to China from Britain.

“Come on, people of Hong Kong!” dozens of demonstrators gathered along the side of the building shouted.

Using metals bars and makeshift battering rams to break the building’s outside glass walls and doors, some protesters entered the building and attempted to force open metal roller shutters that sealed the entrance to the legislative chambers.

The protesters did not seem to have a clear strategy beyond the destruction of the building’s facade. After shattering several glass walls and doors, many did not enter the building but instead moved on to rip off metal panels and dismantle an outdoor fence.

Riot police with gas masks and shields guarded the facility from within the building, holding up signs warning the protesters that they would use force if the demonstrators charged. The police and government said that they condemned the violence at the legislature and that officers were exercising restraint.

But early in the day, hundreds of riot police officers had used batons and pepper spray to beat back protesters at a different site — near a government flag-raising ceremony attended by the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam.

“I think most of the Hong Kong people are in no mood to celebrate,” Lam Cheuk-ting, a democratic lawmaker who joined the protesters, said of the July 1 holiday. “We urge Carrie Lam to step down as soon as possible, because she has refused to listen to the Hong Kong people for so long.”

At the handover of Hong Kong to China’s control in 1997, the Chinese government agreed that Hong Kong could retain its democracy, justice system and protections for civil liberties for 50 years, under a philosophy commonly known as “one country, two systems.” Protesters today are angry because they see Ms. Lam’s pushing of the extradition bill as giving up those rights to the mainland.

The demonstrations are a challenge to China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

Huge crowds of demonstrators have taken to Hong Kong’s streets in the past several weeks, protesting a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China. The protests forced Mrs. Lam to suspend the bill but demonstrators want a full withdrawal and for her to resign.

The turnout of protesters on Monday was among the largest attempts to disrupt the Hong Kong government’s most important annual political event. It underscored the deepening anxiety that many in Hong Kong feel about the erosion of the civil liberties that set the city apart.

Monday’s protests, which also fell on the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, were a direct challenge to President Xi Jinping and his increasingly authoritarian policies.

Analysts said the chaos risked giving Mr. Xi an opportunity to justify his tough approach.

“If it gets really violent, the risk is that Beijing has a good excuse to become even more uncompromising,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University. “Xi can put even more pressure on Carrie Lam not to make any concessions.”

The attack on the legislative complex exposed divisions among the protesters.

Protesters who joined the demonstration outside the legislature said they were frustrated that the government was not listening to their concerns. “Friends, don’t leave,” read the signs many were waving. “People of Hong Kong, don’t give up,”

This was the latest instance in which a group of predominantly younger protesters have taken measures that test the boundaries of civil disobedience in this usually orderly financial hub. In recent weeks, to protest the extradition bill and what they saw as a heavy-handed police response, the protesters have twice besieged the city’s police headquarters and sought to disrupt government services.

The protesters said they chose to descend on the Legislative Council because the police prevented them from getting close to the site of the government’s flag-raising ceremony that morning.

Several protesters said that while they did not personally plan to break into the complex, they supported those on the front lines who did. Peaceful protest methods were ineffective, they said, and they increasingly felt open to a more confrontational approach if it would help to protect Hong Kong’s freedom and relative independence from Beijing.

“We have been too peaceful for the past few times, so the police think we are easily bullied,” said Natalie Fung, 28, who was outside the legislative complex supporting the protesters with food and drinks.

Not all protesters supported the handful who attacked the Legislative Council. Several democratic lawmakers tried to stop the protesters by positioning themselves between the demonstrators and the building but were eventually pushed aside.

Claudia Mo, who was among the pro-democracy legislators attempting to stop the protesters, said she thought the violence had affected the turnout of the peaceful march.

“I’m extremely worried because the young really seem like they have nothing to lose, when they have a lot to lose,” Ms. Mo said. “It’s their Hong Kong they’re fighting for. It’s their future and they need to take their future into account.”

Samson Yuen, a political scientist at Lingnan University in Hong Kong who studies social movements and identity politics, said that many protesters who felt like they were facing repression could set aside their ideological differences about the use of violence. “People understand that they need to band together in order to avoid being fragmented.”

In the morning, police used batons and pepper spray to beat and push back demonstrators who tried to march to the convention center. Protesters who had been hit with pepper spray stumbled to seek help at medical stations set up by supporters. Some poured water over their bodies.

The government said around midday that demonstrators had attacked police lines and thrown an unidentified liquid at officers. Some officers reported difficulties breathing and irritated skin, and 13 were sent to the hospital, the government said in a statement. The police also said that some protesters had scattered lime powder at the police, injuring officers.

“Police strongly condemn such illegal acts and will stringently follow up,” it said.

The city’s embattled leader promised to be “more open and accommodating.”

Mrs. Lam, the city’s chief executive, sought to strike a conciliatory note on Monday morning, pledging that she and her government would be more responsive to public sentiment. She was earlier criticized for insisting on pushing the unpopular legislation through despite an intense public outcry.

“I will learn the lesson and ensure that the government’s future work will be closer and more responsive to the aspirations, sentiments and opinions of the community,” Mrs. Lam said at the official ceremony commemorating the handover anniversary. “The first and most basic step to take is to change the government’s style of governance to make it more open and accommodating.”

Local television news channels broadcast a startling split screen. On one side, Mrs. Lam and officials from Hong Kong and mainland China clinked champagne flutes in a toast to a unification, on the other riot police clashed violently with protesters.

Mrs. Lam said she would make more time to meet with people from different political backgrounds and reach out to the city’s youth. She said that Hong Kong’s economy could feel the repercussions of a protracted trade war between the United States and China and urged Hong Kong residents to work with the government on managing the impact of the trade dispute and addressing the housing shortage and other issues.

The broad public anger has already forced Mrs. Lam to suspend the proposed legislation, but demonstrators want it to be fully withdrawn and have also turned their scrutiny on the police, whom they say acted with excessive forcein dispersing a June 12 protest. A march was planned for later in the day that pro-democracy organizers said was expected to draw a large turnout.

‘Carrie Lam, step down,’ protesters elsewhere chanted in a peaceful march.

Separately, tens of thousands of other protesters, including families and children, marched through nearly 90 degree heat on Monday afternoon to fill the streets of downtown Hong Kong in a separate demonstration calling on the city’s leader to resign.

Protesters carried signs saying “Free HK Democracy Now,” and “Hong Kong Fights For Democracy.” The march began at Victoria Park, where a few people handed out yellow signs urging people to “stand firm and investigate police violence.”

“Carrie Lam, step down, get some dignity for yourself,” said Lo Woon-fun, 84, who was sitting under a small umbrella in the muddy field at the beginning of the march. “I came out today because I want to tell Carrie Lam that despite my old age, I still come out to demand she step down.”

“I have come here because of the future generation of ours. I want them to live a good life as I have,” she said.

Members of the labor union for Postal Service workers carried a large printed banner that read: “When a million people walk against the mainstream, it’s inhumane to neglect it,” referring to a massive protest in June.

China Vowed to Safeguard Hong Kong’s Freedoms. Some See a Wolf at the Door.

‘One country, two systems’ was Beijing’s pledge when it took back a former British colony. But concerns over civil liberties are mounting.

By Austin Ramzy | Published July 1, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 1, 2019 |

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

HONG KONG — When Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997 after more than a century of colonial rule, it was a moment of immense pride for Beijing, and immense trepidation for a territory that had long enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity than the nation that was reclaiming it.

An authoritarian state run by the Communist Party was taking over a global financial center with independent courts, burgeoning democracy and extensive protections of civil liberties. Would the Chinese government hold to its promise to maintain “one country, two systems” for the next 50 years? Would it let Hong Kong remain Hong Kong?

Beijing was quick to offer reassurances.

“China,” its premier told his British counterpart, “would prove her words by her deeds,” according a declassified British government memo.

But as Hong Kong marks the 22nd anniversary of the handover on Monday, some of China’s recent deeds suggest something else.

Hong Kongers may still enjoy a degree of freedom mainland Chinese can only envy, with freedom of assembly, a free press and an unfettered judicial system. But almost every day brings new evidence those freedoms are slipping away, with the territory falling farther under Beijing’s shadow.

In recent weeks, Hong Kongers have taken to the streets to protest. For many here, there is a sense of time running out.

“There will be a moment that mainland China will completely take over Hong Kong,” said Danny Chan, a 25-year-old primary school teaching assistant who joined a recent protest. “As a Hong Kong citizen, the best we can do is postpone it.”

A war over opium, an island as a prize

The British arrived in China in the late 17th century, bent on trade and empire, and soon found themselves at odds with Chinese rulers happy to export their goods, but far less interested in importing the West’s.

In opium, Britain saw a way in, forcing the drug onto the Chinese market against the wishes of the Manchu emperors.

The British claimed Hong Kong from the Chinese through two wars, later securing part of the territory with a 99-year lease that expired on July 1, 1997.

During the Hong Kong handover talks in the 1980s, China rejected Britain’s desire to continue running the territory, and instead proposed that Hong Kong become a semi-autonomous region of China. China’s then-premier, Zhao Ziyang, told Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain that there should be no doubts about Beijing’s trustworthiness.

And at first, when Beijing took over in 1997, it did take a light touch.

While the fears of many in Hong Kong that their rights would disappear overnight in 1997 proved exaggerated, since then there has been a gradually escalating assault on liberty.

“Unlike in 1997, I think some of the unease today comes from certainty, not uncertainty,” said Peter T.Y. Cheung, an associate professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong.

China’s controlling approach toward the territory has grown increasingly clear since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 and set out to strengthen his grip across the country.

“In particular over the past six, seven or eight years, we have seen Beijing tightening its grip over Hong Kong,” said Anson Chan, the No. 2 official in Hong Kong government before the handover and for four years after.

A stalled march toward democracy

During Britain’s rule of Hong Kong, the colonial governor was appointed, and directly elected seats on the legislature were only introduced in the early 1990s.

The Basic Law, which amounts to a constitution for Hong Kong and took effect in 1997, declares that the “ultimate aim” is for the chief executive and the entire legislature to be chosen by voters. In 2007, when China was led by Hu Jintao, it set a date for the vote, saying the chief executive could be directly elected in 2017, followed by the whole legislature.

That did not happen.

In 2017, Hong Kong’s chief executive was once again chosen by a committee that has always done Beijing’s bidding. And nearly half the legislature is made up of representatives chosen by professional sectors, not the voters at large. There is no sign that will change when the legislature is up for election again next year.

“The most significant area of erosion is the promise that 20 years after 1997, Hong Kong should be able to choose its own chief executive through a direct election,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “That promise has clearly not been kept.”

Carrie Lam, who became chief executive in 2017, often says that she has two bosses, Beijing and Hong Kong. But Beijing’s role in choosing the chief executive leads to widespread questions over who calls the shots in Hong Kong.

Beijing did once endorse a form of direct elections for Hong Kong, but with a big catch: Hong Kongers could vote for their leader, the Chinese legislature decided in 2014, but the candidates must first be approved by a pro-Beijing nominating committee. In other words, Hong Kong could elect its own leader, but only from a handful of candidates acceptable to the Communist Party.

Thus was the so-called Umbrella Movement born. Those restrictions set off huge protests in Hong Kong, and demonstrators occupied city streets for nearly three months to protest what they labeled “fake democracy.”

A year later, the Hong Kong legislature rejected the plan, with pro-democracy lawmakers voting unanimously against it. Some suggested that the democratic camp may have missed a chance at an incremental gain that could have later been improved upon.

The long reach of the mainland

When Britain and China hashed out a treaty in the 1980s on what a post-handover world would look like, negotiators were at pains to establish where China’s authority ended and Hong Kong's began.

Foreign affairs? China. National Defense? The same.

But under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, all other responsibilities were to reside with Hong Kong.

In recent years, though, there have been clear signs those lines are blurring, especially when it comes to the realm of justice.

So when Hong Kongers, who were already afraid their autonomy was deteriorating, got word about a new extradition measure coming before the Hong Kong legislature that would ease sending people to mainland China for trial, the result was huge street protests unlike any since the Umbrella Movement — and a delay of the plan by the authorities.

While the extradition measure would make it legally easier for mainland China to seize Hong Kongers, the absence of such a law appears not to have stopped mainland authorities in the past.

In 2015, five people connected with Causeway Bay Books, a Hong Kong establishment that sold gossipy books about mainland Chinese politics,  disappeared. One was apparently grabbed off the streets of Hong Kong, another kidnapped from his home in Thailand. Three more were detained in mainland China, where all five were held and one remains in custody.

As lawless as these covert actions may seem, they may be, paradoxically, less of a threat to Hong Kong’s autonomy than overt coercion, since they involve going around the backs of the local courts rather than insisting that judges bend their standards.

Many in Hong Kong fear that the proposed extradition law would allow mainland authorities to directly demand the handover of people wanted in political cases, despite promised human rights safeguards.

After the law was proposed, Lam Wing-kee, one of the previously detained booksellers, fled to Taiwan.

“From the book store incident, you can see that the Chinese government wants to control free speech in Hong Kong,” he said. “Now it’s gotten worse. With the extradition law they want to make such kidnappings legal, and bring Chinese law to Hong Kong.”

A free press in the cross hairs

The Joint Declaration signed in 1984 declares that a free press will be ensured by law. But many media organizations say they are struggling as mainland China undermines that right.

There are many ways such pressure is applied.

Executives at the most vocally pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, say the Chinese government’s liaison office has told large companies to pull advertising.

And last year, Hong Kong expelled a Financial Times editor who had hosted a talk by an activist who called for the city’s secession from China.

The decision to expel a representative of a powerful Western publication sent a chill through many in the city. Some journalists began saying that the long-predicted “death of Hong Kong” had finally arrived.

The independent book publishing industry has also taken a big hit. The Causeway Bay Books detentions shocked many in the industry, leading some businesses to close. The few that remain say they have run into severe difficulties printing and selling books on politics and history in Hong Kong, which they attribute to pressure from the mainland.

Sino United Publishing, a Chinese government-owned company, now controls almost all of the book publishing and retail sales market in Hong Kong. Books banned on the mainland are not found on the shelves of its outlets.

A venerated judiciary, now threatened

Hong Kong’s judiciary is one of the most deeply respected of local institutions, prized for its independence. Its judges, often educated in England, are in the habit of issuing decisions that protect civil liberties.

Beijing promised to protect all that. Instead, it is whittling away at it.

China’s central government made its views on Hong Kong courts clear in a 2014 white paper that called judges “administrators” who must be patriots and for whom “loving the country” is a basic political requirement.

“Hong Kong people are used to separation of powers,” said Martin Lee, a founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party who served on the Basic Law drafting committee. “This was alarming.”

While most observers say Hong Kong’s courts remain independent, the fundamental weakness is that Beijing acts as a Supreme Court, deciding how the territory’s laws should be interpreted.

In 2016, Beijing used that power against pro-democracy lawmakers who staged protests during their oaths of office. After the Chinese legislature ruled that oaths must be taken “sincerely and solemnly,” what happened to the lawmakers? They were ousted.

The Takeaway: On paper, Hong Kong’s autonomy is guaranteed for another 28 years. On the ground, the reality appears far less certain.

[rodezaggloculture]

Laissez-vous conter la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rodez

Episode 11

Les cloches de Notre-Dame

  « Ce qu'il aimait avant tout dans l'édifice maternel, ce qui réveillait son âme et lui faisait ouvrir ses pauvres ailes qu'elle tenait si misérablement reployées dans sa caverne, ce qui le rendait parfois heureux, c'étaient les cloches. (…) »

Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris

 “Les cloches arrivèrent enfin, la veille de Noël 1843 comme un cadeau aux fidèles : « Dès qu’ils en furent avertis, les habitants coururent en foule à la rencontre du convoi exceptionnel lourd de douze tonnes de bronze (!), sur des chariots énormes, tirés par plusieurs paires de bœufs.» (Robert Taussat)

Crédit photographique et remerciement : André Méravilles 

Au XVe siècle, il existait deux sonneurs de cloches ayant obligation d’habiter de jour comme de nuit à l’intérieur à la cathédrale, afin d’en assurer la sécurité face aux vols ou autres dégradations. Ils étaient également sollicités pour la préparation de certains offices, ainsi qu’à l’entretien du sanctuaire. Leur logement était situé au pied du clocher et ils pouvaient disposer du foyer d’une cheminée pour se réchauffer l’hiver. Un règlement régentait les sonneries en cas d’incident graves, précisant quelle cloche devait être sollicitée parmi les sept que le clocher possédait au XIVe siècle : pour les épidémies, les sonneurs devaient sonner trois Ave Maria, pour les tempêtes les cloches appelées Martial et Tertial devaient résonner, annoncer une procession en raison de tempêtes, épidémies ou guerre, c’était le rôle de la Calmont.

Plusieurs siècles après, en 1841, Monseigneur Giraud, évêque de Rodez, est profondément ému du silence du clocher, dont le carillon a été brisé par les marteaux des révolutionnaires en 1793. Il commanda donc à M. Gédéon Morel, fondeur à Lyon, six nouvelles cloches pour lui rendre « sa sublime voix, sa haute et solennelle parole ». Car que devenait un clocher sans cloches ? Dans la tradition catholique, elles ont une valeur particulière : elles sont bénies et font parties de ce qu’on appelle les sacramentaux, c’est-à-dire des objets dont on se sert pour des actes religieux.

Son successeur, Jean-François Croizier, continua le projet en ajoutant trois autres cloches afin d’avoir un carillon entier.

Elles arrivèrent enfin, la veille de Noël 1843 comme un cadeau aux fidèles : « Dès qu’ils en furent avertis, les habitants coururent en foule à la rencontre du convoi exceptionnel lourd de douze tonnes de bronze (!), sur des chariots énormes, tirés par plusieurs paires de bœufs.» (Robert Taussat)

Mais on attendit prudemment la fin de l’hiver, en mai 1844, pour entreprendre les opérations de montage « en présence d’innombrables curieux, contemplant avec une admiration mêlée d’anxiété la lente ascension des énormes masses de bronze élevées à la force des cabestans »

Une seule cloche de l’époque des bâtisseurs du clocher de la cathédrale et fondue en 1523, demeure encore, immobilisée aujourd’hui dans le lanternon sommital. Deux inscriptions latines gravées sur ses flancs rappellent le nom de son baptême (Icona est mihi nomen) et sa fonction « stimuler ceux qui rendent louange et gloire à Dieu et à sa divine Mère ». Elle est ornée de médaillons en relief dont une représentation de saint François d’Assise recevant les stigmates, auquel  François d’Estaing était très attaché.

 Cloche fondue en 1523 et ornée de médaillons en relief évoquant saint François d’Assise. 

Crédit photographique et remerciement : André Méravilles

Plus récemment, les cloches perdirent à nouveau leurs voix avant que l’association « Les Amis de la cathédrale » n’intervienne dans les années 1990 et permette notamment à l’impressionnant bourdon Saint-Pierre avec ses 5 229 kilos, de faire résonner à nouveau sa note la plus grave ; d’anciens ruthénois racontent encore comment autrefois ils étaient chargés de l’actionner, en s’accrochant à des poignées et en poussant vigoureusement sa lourde jupe de bronze avec les pieds !

Une onzième cloche, la « Mandarelle » est en place dans le clocheton situé à la croisée de la nef et du transept et était jadis actionnée depuis le haut du jubé.

Le clocheton situé à la croisée de la nef et du transept abrite la cloche dite “la Mandarelle”.

Crédit photographique et remerciement : André Méravilles 

Et une dernière cloche enfin, la douzième fondue par M.Triadou de Rodez, fut offerte en 1847 par les congréganistes de Notre-Dame ; elle est accrochée dans la tour sud-ouest et servait aux offices de l’autel paroissial.

  A suivre...

Retrouvez le service du patrimoine de Rodez agglomération sur : www.patrimoine.rodezagglo.fr 

[jaguarmen99]

1989年に中国の首都・北京の天安門広場（Tiananmen Square）で民主化運動が軍によって武力弾圧された「天安門事件」の死者が、少なくとも1万人に上るとする英国の公文書が新たに公開された。　公開されたのは英国の外交機密電報で、陰惨な天安門事件の詳細をつづっている。天安門事件から28年以上を経て公にされた電報をAFPが英国立公文書館で確認した。　当時の英駐中国大使アラン・ドナルド（Alan Donald）氏は本国政府への電報で「最低に見積もっても一般市民の死者は1万人」と報告している。　当時、一般的に報じられた死者数は数百人から1000人余りで、弾圧が起きた翌日の6月5日に出された同氏の推定は、広く受け入れられていたその人数のほぼ10倍となっている。　フランス人の中国研究家ジャンピエール・カベスタン（Jean-Pierre Cabestan）氏は、最近機密解除された米国の文書も類似した死者数を割り出しており、当時の英大使によるこの推定値には信ぴょう性があると述べている。【翻訳編集】AFPBB News

「天安門事件の死者は1万人」英国の公文書が新たに公開 - ライブドアニュース

[itsfinancethings]

New world news from Time: Japan’s Shinzo Abe Resigns for Health Reasons, Leaving Unfinished Political Business

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he was stepping down on Friday, citing health issues.

“Even though there is one year to go in my tenure and there are challenges to be met, I have decided to stand down as prime minister,” Abe told a press conference in Tokyo. He said he would stay on as prime minister until his successor is chosen. His right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which dominates the Japanese parliament, said it will hold a leadership contest by the end of September, and the winner will almost certainly replace Abe as prime minister.

Abe, 65, suffers from ulcerative colitis, a chronic bowel disease. He told reporters he had controlled the condition for years but that it had made a resurgence earlier this summer. He is now receiving treatment that would conflict with his duties as prime minister if stayed on to the scheduled end of his term, in September 2021, he said. The disease was also a factor in Abe’s 2007 resignation from his first term as Japan’s prime minister.

The departure, coming amid the COVID-19 pandemic and Japan’s first recession since 2015, adds “uncertainty to troubled times,” says Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor in political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Abe’s second period as prime minister, which began in 2012 and lasted through three elections and nearly eight years, was a period of unusual political stability for Japan. On Monday he became the country’s longest continually-serving prime minister. He led the recovery from the devastating Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, and succeeded in stalling Japan’s long-term economic stagnation through a strategy known as Abenomics. He also championed the elaboration of Japan’s Indo-Pacific strategy, a foreign policy effort aimed at expanding cooperation between countries across Asia and Africa, and countering Chinese hegemony. Abe’s establishment of a personal relationship with Donald Trump, even before he took office as U.S. president, is credited with maintaining strong U.S.-Japanese relations during a period of global political instability.

However, Abe missed key political aims, says Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus. “His goal of [revising Japan’s pacifist post-war constitution] remains elusive as does his promise to make women shine,” he says, referring to the prime minister’s promise to address Japan’s gender gap and bring more women into the workforce.

Abe also failed to deliver fully on structural reforms to Japan’s rigid labor market – a crucial part of the Abenomics doctrine – and to address the looming threat of Japan’s rapidly ageing population, with 28% of the country now aged over 65. “He has little to show for being in power for seven years with a majority in the [legislature],” Kingston says.

His time in office was also marred by diplomatic disputes with neighbours in East Asia, some of them stemming from historic tensions over Japan’s early 20th Century imperialism. Relations with South Korea, a traditional Japanese ally, suffered during Abe’s term. South Korea’s demand for reparations for abuses committed during Japan’s 1910–1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula, including the use of forced labor by Japanese companies, sparked disputes over trade and territory in 2018 and 2019.

Duyeon Kim, senior adviser on North East Asia & Nuclear Policy at the International Crisis Group, says Abe’s “nationalist and personal worldview” contributed to complicating relations between the two countries. Abe angered South Koreans, as well as China and North Korea, with a 2013 visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which many consider a tribute to Japan’s imperial military past.

The change in leadership in Japan “might be a chance for the mood and atmosphere between Seoul and Tokyo to improve,” Kim says, “but translating into real improvements in relations is a different story.”

Yet despite the turbulence at home and abroad Abe may be remembered as Japan’s most important prime minister since the mid-20th century, says Michael J. Green, a Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies. “He did not accomplish everything Japan needed, but he accomplished more than any Japanese leader in many decades. And above all, he demonstrated that Japan can lead,” he says.

“More than any other democratic leader, he patiently kept Donald Trump away from his worst campaign promises and isolationist instincts. It is not clear which world leader will play that role if Trump is re-elected.”

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3gA1xIl via IFTTT

[newstechreviews]

A national security law for Hong Kong was passed on Tuesday by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, amid international criticism and fear among pro-democracy figures in the former British colony.

The law prohibits acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

The full text of the legislation has not yet been released, and even Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, acknowledged in a press conference shortly after the passage that she had not seen a full draft. Local media reports that the law is expected to come into effect on July 1, the 23rd anniversary of the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over the territory.

Beijing announced plans at the end of May to bypass Hong Kong’s lawmaking process and implement the laws for the enclave after Hong Kong failed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to do so.

Alan Leong, the chairman of the pro-democracy Civic Party and the former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association told TIME that it was “totally unacceptable” that the law was passed without its details being known to Hong Kong officials. He said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be signaling to Hong Kong officials that “They are just here to execute instructions given to them by the CCP.”

Many experts say that Beijing ran out of patience following violent anti-government protests that paralyzed the city for much of the second half of 2019, and plunged the global financial hub into its first recession in a decade. Under the One Country, Two Systems principle, agreed when the United Kingdom retroceded the colony to China, the city of 7.5 million has its own legislature and system of laws and courts. Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the mini-constitution governing the territory, required the Hong Kong government to enact national security laws itself, but local lawmakers could not agree on them.

“The rapid rise of unprecedented violence and calls for independence coupled with a dysfunctional [legislative council] left Beijing government with no alternatives but to enact a law with the hope of preventing the worse from happening,” Ronny Tong, a member of the Executive Council, Hong Kong’s de facto cabinet, tells TIME. “We can only hope that a proper balance will be struck between protecting national safety and integrity on the one hand and preserving the freedoms and core values of the people of Hong Kong on the other.”

The Chinese government says that matters of national security are the responsibility of Beijing, and that Hong Kong, like jurisdictions across the world, should have a national security law in place.

The Chinese foreign ministry said in June that the Hong Kong protests, which have seen thousands injured and arrested and caused millions of dollars worth of damage, made the national security legislation a matter of “the greatest urgency.”

“Some separatists even made a public appeal for foreign sanctions against China and invited the U.S. military to Hong Kong,” the statement said. “Forceful measures are therefore required to prevent, forestall and punish these acts,” the statement said.

Some experts say the law was rushed through to avoid further mass unrest. “[Chinese authorities] were afraid of the popular reaction,” Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), told TIME. “They want to make sure it’s going to be promulgated as soon as possible before people get organized and start protesting against it.”

How have the U.S. and other governments responded?

Beijing’s increasing hold over Hong Kong has been a point of contention between the U.S. and China. Following the Communist Party’s decision to roll out national security laws for the territory, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Hong Kong was no longer sufficiently autonomous from mainland China, a decision that puts the city’s special trade and economic relationship with the U.S. at risk. The Senate approved legislation June 25 to require sanctions against entities deemed to violate the promises China made to Hong Kong at the time of its 1997 handover—and against foreign financial firms that knowingly conducts “significant transactions” with those entities.

On June 26, Pompeo announced that the State Department would impose visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party officials that it believes are undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, and restricting its human rights.

And on Monday, the U.S. announced that it will stop exporting U.S. defense equipment to Hong Kong. “We cannot risk these items falling into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, whose primary purpose is to uphold the dictatorship of the CCP by any means necessary,” Pompeo said in a statement.

The European Parliament has meanwhile passed a non-binding resolution urging European Union member states to adopt “sanctions and asset freezes against Chinese officials responsible for devising and implementing policies that violate human rights.” It also recommended that the EU and its member states file a case before the International Court of Justice once the national security law was passed.

On June 26, about 50 United Nations rights experts denounced the repression of “fundamental freedoms” in China, highlighting the “repression of protests and democracy advocacy” in Hong Kong. The experts urged the Chinese government to withdraw the legislation.

The U.K. has said that if the law is implemented, it will amend immigration laws to make it easier for some Hongkongers to live in the country. Taiwan also said it will help Hongkongers who want to move to the island.

In response to the international criticism, Chinese officials have urged the U.S. and other governments to stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs. In retaliation for visa restrictions announced by the U.S., Beijing said on Monday it will impose visa restrictions on some Americans with “egregious conduct relating to Hong Kong.”

How have Hong Kong protesters responded?

The introduction of the national security legislation has sparked fresh unrest in Hong Kong, albeit on a reduced scale. More than 50 people protesting against the law were arrested on Sunday. Despite a police ban on the annual July 1 protest march, some activists are planning to demonstrate anyway.

Experts expect that the national security law might further dissuade moderate protesters, many of whom began to shy away from attending demonstrations late last year as the protests became increasingly violent.

“Some people might be afraid,” Willy Lam, an expert in Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, tells TIME. “Protests against the law might be construed as subversion of state power.”

Ahead of the law’s passage, some protesters have deleted or wiped out content from social media accounts for fear that past posts might incriminate them.

HKBU’s Cabestan said demonstrators might be more cautious about what slogans they chant and signs they carry going forward—protesters have frequently waved American and other foreign flags and called on foreign governments to come to their aid, and calls for Hong Kong independence have become increasingly popular at protests in recent weeks

But, he says, the implementation of the law may exacerbate tensions between young Hong Kongers and the police, and lead to more confrontations. “There’s one thing the law cannot change, the mindset,” he said. “I think if anything the new law is going to consolidate the anti-China mindset among a lot of young Hongkongese.”

One young protester told TIME that the law won’t stop him from taking to the streets.

“Nothing can stop us, we have lost so much already,” said W., 20-year-old university student who asked to go by his initial for safety reasons. “We know it’s risky but there’s no turning back, the only thing we can do is resist until the end.”