IAN BIRRELL: The hideous crushing of Hong Kong's freedom is a victory for despots over democracy 

IAN BIRRELL: Thousands joined the territory's annual rally to mark the anniversary of its handover to China in 1997 with hundreds of pro-democracy protesters seized by police.

 

HUNDREDS are arrested in Hong Kong crackdown as riot police clash with protesters over draconian new security law imposed by China

 

The protests and arrests came on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from British administration and reverses promises made to respect its citizens' freedoms. Protesters initially found themselves outnumbered by riot police (pictured top), with groups of officers stationed at every major junction. Then thousands arrived to defy tear gas (bottom middle) and pepper pellets (pictured bottom left being fired by an officer) sprayed their way. Over 370 people were arrested (bottom right) on other charges, including unlawful assembly and possessing weapons.

 Chinese Communists are total control freaks. 

 

 

Simon Cheng (pictured) is the first person to have been granted political asylum by the Home Office in relation to China's crackdown on the Hong Kong anti-government movement after he was allegedly shackled, beaten, forced to stand for long hours in secret detention in China.

What is a British National (overseas)?

Hong Kongers could register for this special status before the 1997 handover. They get a UK passport but no automatic right to live and work in the UK. You cannot apply to become a BNO.

How many of them are there?

As of February, there were 349,881 BNO passport holders. The Government estimates that there are around 2.9million BNOs currently in Hong Kong.

What is Britain offering them?

A path to citizenship. BNOs will get five years 'limited leave to remain'. They can then apply for 'settled status'. After 12 months with settled status, they can apply for citizenship. Their close family will also be eligible. 

 

The Government offered three million Hong Kongers to relocate and live here The UK also granted asylum to Simon Cheng, a former British consulate worker   'Hundreds of thousands' from the city might follow his footsteps, Mr Cheng said Scores of Hong Kong citizens expressed online their desires to move to Britain

 

 

 

 

Riot police (L) deploy pepper spray toward journalists (R) as protesters gathered for a rally against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China

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How UK and China have clashed over 5G, Covid-19 and human rights 

In October 2015, then-PM David Cameron told Chinese state TV that Britain and China were entering 'something of a golden era in our relationship' - but those ties have since been thrown off course by a series of disputes. 

HUAWEI AND 5G 

Beijing has been angered by Western fears that Chinese tech giant Huawei could be used as a front for Communist Party espionage. 

Huawei has long been lobbying to help build Britain's 5G mobile network, but some politicians fear that Beijing could commandeer the technology to tap into communications.    

 

China has previously accused UK ministers of showing 'deep-rooted pride and prejudice' by raising fears about Huawei's involvement. Huawei denies any spying link. 

In January 2020, Huawei was granted a limited role in the 5G network after the government said it could manage the risks and would keep Huawei out of the 'core' of the network, limiting its role to 35 per cent. 

But US pressure has prompted a rethink in recent weeks. Ministers admitted this week that US sanctions are 'likely to have an impact on the viability of Huawei as a provider'.  

Britain is now studying ways it can cut Huawei out of its system entirely and build up an alliance of European and Asian providers that reduces China's dominance in the field. 

CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

UK ministers have said that China faces a 'reckoning' over its handling of the coronavirus crisis, which started in Wuhan late last year and has killed more than 40,000 people in Britain. 

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said in May that China has questions to answer about how the disease was allowed to spiral out of control, amid claims that China covered up the outbreak in its earliest days. 

Britain was among the countries to back Australia's calls for a WHO investigation into the pandemic. China has responded to Australia's pressure with a series of retaliatory measures.  

China's state-run Global Times stoked further tension in May by saying the UK's response to Covid-19 was 'flippant and ill-prepared' and saying the UK needed a 'miracle' to escape the 'mess' it was in. 

HUMAN RIGHTS 

Britain voiced concern about the crackdown in Hong Kong during last year's protests, saying that mass arrests and the use of live ammunition risked 'inflaming tensions'. 

In addition, Britain was one of 23 countries to voice alarm about Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where ethnic minority Uighurs have allegedly been detained in 're-education camps'.  

A joint statement signed by Britain said there were 'credible reports of mass detention; efforts to restrict cultural and religious practices; mass surveillance disproportionately targeting ethnic Uighurs; and other human rights violations and abuses'. 

Britain also urged China to give 'meaningful access' to UN investigators to assess the situation in Xinjiang.  

INFLUENCE ON BRITAIN'S ELITE    

A London club packed with political and business elites was caught in a row last month after a book claimed it was being used by China to 'groom' Britain's elites. 

The pro-China 48 Group Club, which lists Lord Heseltine among its patrons, is taking legal action over the book which suggested that China sees the club as a channel for its lobbying efforts. 

The club denied being a 'vehicle for Beijing' and said it was an 'independent body' promoting 'positive Sino-British relations', The Times reported.  

Experts have previously warned about Chinese tactics of 'elite capture' by appointing prominent foreigners as well-paid advisers and making them 'more amenable to Communist Party aims'.

 

 

 

China launched the final satellite in its global navigation system constellation Beidou earlier today - completing the network six months ahead of schedule.

The spacecraft was launched into geostationary orbit on top of a Long March-3B rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 02:43 BST this morning.

Completing its own global navigation system will allow Beijing to reduce its reliance on the US-owned GPS system and boost its own power and reputation in space.  

An initial launch scheduled for last week was scrubbed after checks revealed unspecified technical problems with the Long March-3B pre-launch.

Experts in space policy say the drive to have its own version of GPS stems from the fear that if there was a conflict with the US, China could be cut off from the system.

 

'The Chinese military now has a system it can use independent of the US GPS system,' Andrew Dempster, space engineering expert, told CNBC. 

The third iteration of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System promises to provide global coverage for timing and navigation, offering an alternative to Russia's GLONASS and the European Galileo systems, as well as America's GPS.

The launch of the 55th satellite in the Beidou family, but the 30th active operational device, shows China's push to provide global coverage has been 'entirely successful,' the system's chief designer Yang Changfeng told CCTV.

'In actual fact, this also signifies that we are moving from being a major nation in the field of space to becoming a true space power,' Yang said.

China's space program has developed rapidly over the past two decades as the government devotes major resources toward developing independent high-tech capabilities - and even dominating in fields such as 5G data processing.

Beidou is made up of 30 satellites giving China military independence in terms of navigation and even messaging independent of the US or other nations. 

 

 

Chinese city issues epidemic warnings for the BUBONIC PLAGUE after herdsman is infected with the Black Death

Bubonic plague, known as the 'Black Death' in the Middle Ages, is one of the most devastating diseases in history, having killed around 100million people. The new case was found in Inner Mongolia.

China backs down to India: Beijing's troops remove structures from contested Himalayan valley following deadly battles with Indian soldiers

 

China's People's Liberation Army soldiers were 'seen removing tents and structures' in the Galwan Valley, an Indian army source said Monday.

 

China opens Hong Kong headquarters for its secret police

Police walk past a plaque outside the new office. Source: Getty

City leader Carrie Lam hailed the opening as 'a historic moment'.

 

China opened a new office on Wednesday for its intelligence agents to operate openly in Hong Kong for the first time under a tough new security law, in a public display of its tightening control over the finance hub.

The new base is located in a rapidly-converted hotel overlooking the city's Victoria Park, a location that has hosted pro-democracy protests for years, including an annual vigil marking Beijing's deadly Tiananmen crackdown.

A plaque bearing the security agency's name was unveiled early Wednesday in front of Hong Kong government and mainland officials - including Beijing's top envoy to the city and the commander of the Chinese army barracks in Hong Kong.

 

The opening of the office on Wednesday.Getty

 

Police blocked roads around the former Metropark Hotel and surrounded it with water-filled barriers. A Chinese flag was unfurled on a pole erected outside the building while a plaque bearing the national emblem went up overnight.

City leader Carrie Lam - a pro-Beijing appointee - hailed the opening as "a historic moment" and said China's intelligence apparatus would be an "important partner" in helping to safeguard national security.

Beijing imposed a new security law on Hong Kong last week targeting acts of subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign collusion in response to huge and often violent democracy protests that erupted last year.

The law is the most radical change in Hong Kong's freedoms and autonomy since Britain handed the city back to China in 1997.

Similar national security laws are used to crush dissent on the mainland and police in Hong Kong have already made arrests for people voicing certain political views now deemed illegal, such as advocating independence or autonomy.

 

Riot police officers arrest a protester in Hong Kong.Getty

 

Speartip of security apparatus

The content of the security law was kept secret until it was enacted last Tuesday, bypassing Hong Kong's legislature.

China has said it will have jurisdiction over the most serious cases, toppling the legal firewall that has existed between its party-controlled courts and Hong Kong's independent judiciary since the handover.

Among the many precedent-breaking provisions the law contains is authorisation for China's security agents to work openly inside Hong Kong, with powers to investigate and prosecute national security crimes.

 

READ MOREFederal government warns Australians they risk arbitrary detention if travelling to China

 

Until now Hong Kong's own police and judiciary had complete jurisdiction over the semi-autonomous finance hub.

But China argues national security is the responsibility of the central government and says the laws are needed to restore stability. It has described the law as a "sword" hanging over the heads of critics.

On the authoritarian mainland, China's secret police are the speartip of a highly efficient and ruthless security apparatus that pursues critics and scrubs the public sphere of dissent.

New boss

Not much is known about the new security office beyond its top leadership.

Last week Beijing appointed Zheng Yanxiong to head up the agency. A party hardliner and a speaker of Hong Kong's Cantonese dialect, Mr Zheng is best known for his involvement in a clampdown against protests across the border in neighbouring Guangdong province.

At Wednesday's ceremony Mr Zheng said the agency would "strengthen our working liaison and coordination" with mainland bodies already in the city, including the local garrison of the People's Liberation Army.

His two deputies have been named. The first is Li Jiangzhou, a veteran public security officer who has worked in the Liaison Office, the body that represents Beijing in Hong Kong.

 

READ MOREPro-democracy Hong Kongers in Australia welcome Scott Morrison's safe haven plans

 

Little is known about the second deputy, Sun Qingye. Last week the South China Morning Post described Mr Sun as a senior official from China's intelligence agency, according to government sources.

Beijing's new security law says agents working for the office are exempt from Hong Kong's laws while carrying out their duties.

The opening of the new office comes little more than a day after Hong Kong announced expanded search and surveillance powers for police investigating national security crimes.

The new rules also empower Hong Kong police to order internet takedown notices if posts and comments are deemed to breach national security.

A host of US tech giants, including Facebook, Google and Microsoft have said they have stopped considering requests by Hong Kong's government for information on users because of the new law.

 

Did you know organs are being forcibly harvested from human beings?

 It is shocking, but human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal and organ trafficking persist around the world, with primary victims being political prisoners, ethnic and religious minorities, and other vulnerable people. Organ trafficking hotspots include India, China, Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, Nepal, the Philippines, Kosovo, Iran, and former Soviet states in eastern Europe.1

Alarmingly, globally only seven countries have passed legislation to combat these horrific crimes. Today, we demand more countries follow suit to stop forced organ harvesting and organ trafficking once and for all.

Forced organ harvesting and organ trafficking are interlinked crimes where organs are taken from victims through coercion or without informed consent and sold illegally, often making their way into the organ tourism transplant market. This means unknowing tourists undergoing organ transplants abroad are at-risk of receiving organs linked to organ trafficking and forced organ harvesting.

In many countries, impoverished people are targeted and coerced to sell an organ from which the traffickers make a significant profit. The ‘donor’ is left without medical care and with significant health risks.

In China, minorities rounded up by government crackdowns – political prisoners, ethnic Uyghurs2, and Falun Gong (Buddhist Qi Gong)3 practitioners — are known to be victims of forced organ harvesting. An international people’s tribunal in London recently found that some of China’s 1.5 million detainees in prisons camps have been killed for the state-sanctioned organ transplant trade worth over $1 billion.

“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale,” said the China Tribunal,4  calling the crimes “of unmatched wickedness – on a death for death basis.”5

In 2012, China pledged to phase out harvesting organs from prisoners, but the international tribunal, researchers, and human rights activists stress that the practice continues to this day. An academic research analysis of organ donation data in China uncovered “highly compelling evidence [the numbers] are being falsified” and that tracking the sources of organs in the country remains difficult.6

Despite the clear evidence of organ trafficking and forced organ harvesting, ‘tourists’ continue to go abroad for organ transplants where the source of the organ cannot be verified. In fact, research suggests that 28% of organ transplants in China go to foreigners.7

But there are promising signs that governments around the world are waking up to this problem. South Korea, Belgium, Norway, Italy, Taiwan, Spain, and Israel have all passed legislation to combat forced organ harvesting, organ transplant tourism, and organ trafficking.8

Canada and the UK are now tabling similar bills that would criminalize the practice of receiving an organ transplant where informed consent was not given or recklessly obtained, prescribing harsh punishments for those who engage in the organ trafficking trade at home and abroad.910

Organ transplants can save lives, but we believe that organs must be donated ethically and with complete transparency. Unfortunately, that is not the reality for many countries where organ trafficking occurs, and it’s high time for countries around the world to take a stand against organ transplant ‘tourism’ to these criminal hotspots.

Join our call, along with the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China, in pushing countries around the globe to step up and tackle the often-overlooked crimes of human trafficking for the purpose of organ removable and organ trafficking.

How China seduced its useful idiots: Chinese communists infiltrated Britain to push their party line in a plan designed to blind us to Beijing's thirst for world domination, new book claims

A new book claims senior politicians - on both the Right and the Left - are acting as 'useful idiots' to push the Chinese line at the top of government.

 

China seems to be following a very old tradition.

Way back in between 1405 and 1433, the Chinese Ming government sponsored seven naval expeditions under Admiral Zheng He. Zheng He's first voyage departed on this day 11 July in 1405, and consisted of a fleet of 317 ships holding almost 28,000 crewmen.

His fleet was heavily militarised and carried great amounts of treasures, which served to project Chinese power and wealth to the known world.

They brought back many foreign ambassadors whose kings and rulers were willing to declare themselves tributaries of China.

Reminds me of what they're up to in 2020 to "project Chinese power and wealth to the known world" and this time they're heading both east and west.

Chinese fixer targets FIVE Prime Ministers: New evidence of Beijing's infiltration of Britain as it emerges leading figure 'tasked with grooming foreign elites' met Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Tony Blair

Photographs uncovered by the Daily Mail show how Zhirong Hu has met Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

 

Wuyuan Dong Zoo, from eastern China, is living in Melbourne on a working visa

The 30-year-old has been using Twitter to criticise the Chinese government

The Chinese Communist Party's image is heavily guarded against negativityChinese authorities have warned that Ms Zoo's Twitter commentary is illegal.

A Chinese activist working in Australia has been ordered report to police when she returns home after she created a Twitter account mocking

President Xi Jinping.

Wuyuan Dong Zoo was born in the city of Hefei in the Anhui Province in eastern China and is currently living in Melbourne on a temporary working holiday visa.

The 30-year-old, who describes herself as a human rights activist, uses Twitter to criticise the Chinese Communist Party for hiding information from its citizens. 

In June she organised a protest in Melbourne which criticised China for censoring information about the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Wuyuan Dong Zoo was born in the city of Hefei in the Anhui Province in eastern China and is currently living in Melbourne on a temporary working holiday visa.

 

The demonstration also served as a memorial for whistleblower Li Wenliang - the Wuhan doctor who was arrested after he tried to warn the world about coronavirus before dying of the disease.

But Chinese officials have warned Ms Zoo that her presence in Australia does not make her exempt from Chinese laws, which are designed to protect the government from criticism. 

In a video call with Chinese police, an officer sits with Ms Zoo's father as he says: 'Let me tell you, you need to remember you are a citizen of the People's Republic of China.'  

'Although you are [in Australia], you are still governed by the law of China, do you understand?' 

The policeman warns Ms Zoo against speaking out against President Xi Jinping and asks her multiple times to hand over her Twitter password.

At one stage Ms Zoo even denies the account is hers but the officer demands that she 'come to the police station' when she returns to China.

'Let me make it clear to you, what you are putting out on Twitter is absolutely not permitted,' he says. 

In a video call with Chinese police, an officer (pictured) sits with Ms Zoo's father as he says: 'Let me tell you, you need to remember you are a citizen of the People's Republic of China.' 

Ms Zoo (pictured) hid her identity by wearing face masks and using a pseudonym until June 2

Twitter has been blocked in China, along with Facebook, Instagram, and anything the government believe could harm the nation's image.

This also includes Winnie the Pooh after internet users compared President Xi Jinping to the lovable bear in memes. 

Ms Zoo told SBS that her parents are being questioned by police on a weekly basis.

Although also said she doesn't know how police tracked her down because she hid her identity by wearing face masks and using a pseudonym until June 2.

While she fears for their safety, Ms Zoo said she won't give in to the government's scare tactics.

Born as an only child to a professor who teaches Community Party theory at university, her relationship with her parents - who have pleaded with her to stop speaking out against the government - has become fractured.

Her father has requested she turn herself in to Chinese authorities for her criminal activity, but Ms Zoo said she believes they have been 'brainwashed by the regime'.

'In the end, I blame what the Chinese government has created, this control and dictatorship is really the reason our relationship has been ripped apart,' she said. 

Pictured: Ms Zoo at a protest she helped organise in Victoria against the death of Li Wenliang who first tried to warn the world about coronavirus

 

China has strict laws designed to fiercely protect the government's image from negative commentary. Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping

Ms Zoo first became disillusioned with the Chinese government after she used a location-blocking VPN in China to access otherwise illegal websites detailing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

The seven-week pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing ended when military tanks and personnel entered the scene, setting vehicles on fire and killing thousands. 

The protests, first labeled a 'counterrevolutionary riot,' are now referred to as 'political turmoil,' when they are referred to at all, in an attempt to suppress all memory of them having occurred.

Ms Zoo said what she found was 'completely different to what we were taught in school'.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Chinese embassy in Australia for comment

 

Two Chinese contractors are charged with hacking British biotech firm as they are indicted in the US for trying to steal coronavirus vaccine research while being 'given safe haven' by Beijing

   

Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 31, allegedly stole 'hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of trade secrets, intellectual property, and valuable business information in a decade-long scheme.