A court in Hong Kong, China, on Monday sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to prison sentences that ranged from two months to 10 years, in the city’s largest national security case.
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Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz once claimed he was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China, though local news outlets showed he was in Nebraska at the time.
1989’s demonstrations saw protesters gather in Tiananmen Square from April 15-June 4 of that year demanding democratic reforms to the Chinese communist system. The demonstrations ended when the government dispatched troops to clear the square.
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A man who says he joined Tim Walz on a trip to communist China is speaking out about his experience of traveling to the country with the future vice-presidential candidate.
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The government of Hong Kong is offering a bounty of up to $1 million to anyone who can help find eight activists who fled to other countries and continue to fight against its authoritarian government.
I am not one of the eight, but all of us who fight for democracy in Hong Kong are in danger from a Chinese government that is chasing us for showing that it has broken its promises to keep Hong Kong a vibrant and free city-state.
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On Thanksgiving Day, 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, a Hong Kong priest, was convicted, along with five others, of failing to register a defunct charitable organization that tried to help pro-democracy demonstrators targeted by the regime.
Ostensibly, the charges stemmed from the group’s failure to submit paperwork to authorities. But Chinese people of faith and governments around the world understood the real message Beijing was sending when it arrested Fr. Zen, known as “the conscience of Hong Kong,” last May. The purpose of the prosecution, said U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price, was to show that China’s government “will pursue all means necessary to stifle dissent and undercut protective rights and freedoms.”
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The investigative reporter and author of the new book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” told The Star News Network that U.S. colleges and universities, such as the case with Yale University and Joseph Tsai, are not complying with federal reporting laws in regards to their gifts from China and Chinese nationals.
“Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 is very explicit,” said Peter Schweizer, the founder and president of the Government Accountability Institute and the host of “The Drill Down” podcast. “It says that if U.S. colleges and universities take in foreign donations, they’re required to report those to the federal government.”
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Disney’s streaming service pulled an episode of ‘The Simpsons” that mocked Chinese censorship of the Tiananmen Square Massacre from its Hong Kong platform, according to multiple reports.
The episode, titled “Goo Goo Gai Pan,” featured the Simpson family traveling to Beijing, where they walk past a plaque in Tiananmen Square, the site of the 1989 massacre, that read: “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.” Homer Simpson also referred to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong as “a little angel that killed 50 million people” in the episode.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken took down a tweet he posted Thursday saying the U.S. would “stand with the people of Hong Kong,” the South China Morning Post reported.
“Beijing should let the voices of all Hong Kongers be heard. The PRC’s disqualification of district councillors only weakens Hong Kong’s long-term political and social stability,” Blinken said in the tweet, as shown in screenshots from the South China Morning Post.
“We stand with the people of Hong Kong & continue to support their human rights & fundamental freedoms,” he added. Blinken took down his tweet on Friday, later replacing it with a milder message, South China Morning Post reported.
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A Hong Kong pro-democracy protestor was sentenced to nine years in prison in the first prosecution under the country’s new national security law, the Associated Press reported.
Tong Ying-ki was convicted Tuesday on charges of inciting secession and terrorism for allegedly driving his motorcycle into a group of police officers with a flag donning the banned slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” at a July rally in 2020, the AP reported. Tong pleaded not guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 6 1/2 years and eight years respectively on Friday, which judges ruled could be served concurrently for 9 years.
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China sanctioned former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and six other U.S. individuals or entities in retaliation for human rights penalties levied against the Chinese government Friday.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the sanctions were a response to the recent Hong Kong Business Advisory issued by the State Department earlier this month, which warned U.S. companies against engaging in business activity in Hong Kong due to a series of risks. On Friday, China accused the U.S. of engaging in behavior that “gravely” violates international law.
“I would like to stress once again that Hong Kong is China’s Special Administrative Region and its affairs are an integral part of China’s internal affairs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a statement on Friday.
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With the election of Joe Biden, there is increasing pressure for the United States to accommodate the global ambitions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Such a policy will weaken the strategic position of the United States and embolden the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which seeks to transform the rules of international politics, and has demonstrated its willingness to employ coercive measures, including threats and open conflict, to achieve its aims.
As it has done for decades, and does so now with the Biden Administration, the CCP makes appeals for accommodation while emphasizing the need to turn away from more confrontational policies, like those most recently advanced by the Trump Administration. And as always, China’s words must be seen as tactical measures it deploys in pursuit of its objectives. Thus, it is only a matter of time before attempts to cooperate with China fail. However tempting, accommodation will not succeed for the stark reason that China does not want it.
Party Chairman Xi Jinping has made clear that what China seeks is world hegemony. And it is upon the pursuit of this hegemony that his power in the regime depends.
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Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, sold out all 1 million copies of its final edition by 8:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
The newspaper has been a frequent critic of Chinese and Hong Kong authorities trying to suppress democratic sentiment and the freedoms of the semi-autonomous city, the AP reported. The newspaper was forced to close its doors after it said police froze $2.3 million of its assets, searched its office and arrested five executives and editors last week for alleged foreign collusion, in violation of Beijing’s national security law.
The arrests were the first time the law has been used against journalists for their work, the AP reported. Apple Daily was the last pro-democracy print newspaper in Hong Kong. Its owner, Jimmy Lai has been arrested multiple times and sentenced to 14 months in prison for involvement with the pro-democracy demonstrations.
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America’s economic freedom ranking has fallen to an all-time low, according to The Heritage Foundation’s 2021 Index of Economic Freedom.
The United States fell three places since last year and now ranks 20th in the world among countries evaluated, with an economic freedom score of 74.8 out of 100.
The 27th annual Index of Economic Freedom was released Thursday during a Heritage virtual event featuring Charles Payne, host of Fox Business’ “Making Money With Charles Payne.”
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New rules from the Chinese government indicate that China will exercise control over the appointment of Catholic clergy without any input from the Vatican.
The “Administrative Measures for Religious Clergy,” which will go into effect May 1, clarified that the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) will select candidates for clergy who will then be “approved and consecrated by the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference.”
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Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff of Georgia was compensated by a Hong Kong media company owned by an anti-democracy executive, a source of income previously undisclosed, The National Review said.
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Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers announced Wednesday they would resign en masse after four of them were ousted from the semiautonomous Chinese territory’s Legislature in a move one legislator said could sound the “death knell” for democracy there.
The resignation of the 15 remaining pro-democracy lawmakers will ratchet up tensions over the future of Hong Kong, a former British colony that has long been a regional financial hub and bastion of Western-style civil liberties but over which China’s government has increasingly tightened its control. A new national security law imposed by Beijing this year has alarmed the international community.
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Prominent pro-democracy Hong Kong protesters support President Donald Trump’s re-election bid citing his strong stance on China.
The protesters who have demonstrated against China’s tightening grip on Hong Kong believe that if Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wins Tuesday’s election, the U.S. stance on China would be weak, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). As vice president, Biden lead former President Barack Obama’s China policy, according to The Atlantic.
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The New York Times published an opinion piece on Thursday from a pro-Beijing official in Hong Kong who accused pro-democracy protesters there of “stirring up chaos” against “our motherland.”
In the article, entitled, “Hong Kong is China, Like it or Not,” Regina Ip defended the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) response to protests that started in Hong Kong in March 2019 over a proposed law that would allow for the extradition of fugitives to China.
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An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.
Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced Friday that the government will postpone highly anticipated legislative elections by one year, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
The Hong Kong government is invoking an emergency ordinance in delaying the elections. Lam said the government has the support of the Chinese government in making the decision to hold the elections on Sept. 5, 2021.
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Major American companies were quick to issue statements in support of Black Lives Matter or social justice causes in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, but dozens of those same firms that have operations in Hong Kong have yet to weigh in on the Chinese Communist Party’s de facto takeover of the city.
Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Marriott, McDonalds, Nike and Scholastic are among the dozens of major American companies with footholds in Hong Kong that weighed in after Floyd’s death but have yet to weigh in on the new security law Beijing recently imposed on the city, which impacts its employees working in the city and which critics say is designed to crack down on dissent of the ruling Communist Party.
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China’s communist government has brought an end to the siege of Hong Kong, or at least a beginning of an end. Their secret police seized a 33-story hotel to establish a new headquarters in the city of nearly 7.5 million people who have lived most of their lives in a human rights-supporting, Western-style democratic system.
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An all new LIVE STREAM of Descent Into Hell starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.
The two-hour special takes a closer look at the life of everyday Chinese citizens under the Chinese Communist Party and will air live on the John Fredericks Radio Network, America’s Voice Network, Dish TV Channel 219, The Epoch Times, ND TV, GTV and GNews in Mandarin.
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China on Tuesday approved a contentious national security law for Hong Kong that takes direct aim at some of the actions of anti-government protesters last year, in a move many see as Beijing’s boldest yet to erase the legal firewall between the semi-autonomous territory and the mainland’s authoritarian Communist Party system.
Details of the law remained under wraps until 11 p.m. (1500 GMT, 11:00 a.m. EDT), when it was published and took effect immediately.
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Hong Kong’s legislature approved a contentious bill Thursday that makes it illegal to insult the Chinese national anthem.
The legislation was approved after pro-democracy opposition lawmakers tried to disrupt the vote. It passed with 41 lawmakers voting for it and just one voting against. Most of the pro-democracy lawmakers boycotted the vote out of protest.
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Is China on the precipice of an aggressive expansion into Taiwan and Hong Kong while the U.S. is bogged down with the Covid-19 pandemic, the worst recession in a generation with more than 23 million jobs lost and riots over the police killing of George Floyd?
Amid the global response to the China-originated coronavirus, in January, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was reelected in a landslide, saying she supports the current political status of the island nation, which in her eyes is that Taiwan is so independent it doesn’t need to declare independence.
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