Mike Pompeo and Chris Patten call for solidarity with the people of Hong Kong as they face draconian new laws to curb their freedoms. Global Strategy Forum article “Why the China Reckoning Must Put Human Rights At Its Heart” argues that the Chinese Communist Party’s behaviour “means standing four square with the beleaguered people of Hong Kong in their existential battle for ‘two systems, one country’ – and to whom we have a historic, legal, and moral responsibility.” Question in Parliament about CCP involvement in strategic infrastructure and the World Health Organisation

May 22, 2020 | News

Mike Pompeo and Chris Patten call for solidarity with the people of Hong Kong as they face draconian new laws to curb their freedoms. Global Strategy Forum article “Why the China Reckoning Must Put Human Rights At Its Heart” argues that the Chinese Communist Party’s behaviour “means standing four square with the beleaguered people of Hong Kong in their existential battle for ‘two systems, one country’ – and to whom we have a historic, legal, and moral responsibility.” Question in Parliament about CCP involvement in strategic infrastructure and the World Health Organisation

Following the decision of the Chinese Communist Party to impose new draconian laws on the free people of Hong Kong   Mike Pompeo has told the people of Hong that the US will stand with and has strongly urged Beijing to reconsider its “disastrous proposal.” 

The British Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman has said “we expect China to respect Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms and high degree of autonomy. As a party to the joint declaration, the UK is committed to upholding Hong Kong’s autonomy and respecting the one country, two systems model.”

And Lord Patten – Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong – has urged the UK to rally international opinion in defence of Hong Kong, describing the assault on its freedoms as “outrageous”:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52763944/chris-patten-uk-should-tell-china-this-is-outrageous#

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Global Strategy Forum

Following a trenchant defence of Hong Kong’s freedoms by the UK’s former Foreign  Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the Global Strategy Forum has published this follow up onWhy the China Reckoning Must Put Human Rights At Its Heart.”

Extracts:

Dominic Raab, current the Foreign Secretary, has told us that once
the COVID-19 pandemic is over, it cannot be ‘business as
usual’ with China.
He is right.
It is clear from this pandemic that the ‘one party, one
system’ Communist Party dictatorship – which has tragically
abandoned the reform programme of Deng Xiaoping – is
both a danger to the people of China, through its brutal
repression of human rights and basic freedoms, but also a
threat to the wider world due to that same repression and
mendacity.

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The ‘China Reckoning’, as it has been dubbed, must put
human rights and basic liberties at its heart. The reality is
that the UK has for too long pursued a naive approach of
kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party regime, being
too often silent in public on the grave human rights concerns,
turning a blind eye to the regime’s increasing aggression
well beyond its borders, and compromising national security.

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Our policies have been dogged by what I believe to be a
myth – the idea that in order to trade you have to stay silent
on human rights. A myth that plays into a false narrative
about the centrality of China’s importance to our national
interests. Look at the facts – in 2018, China accounted for
just 3.5% of UK imports and 6.6% of UK exports. By contrast,
the EU accounted for 45% of exports from the UK and 53%
of imports into the UK.

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However, be in no doubt, China has been targeting our
economy. In the UK its financial power is now worth the
equivalent of £100 billion with £43 billion invested by the
Chinese since 2000 – significantly more than other European
countries. From British Steel, to Premier Football Clubs,
from Thames Water, Heathrow Airport, Pizza Express, to
the company which makes London’s black cabs and the
brewers, Greene King, China has been playing a real life
version of a game of Monopoly.

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Our response should be targeted at the CCP regime, not
at China, as a country, or the amazing Chinese people. So
we should join calls for an international investigation into
the causes of the pandemic. We should stop the Huawei
deal. We should diversify supply chains so that we are
not dependent on China for vital products, strengthen our
relationship with Taiwan – which is a democracy that is committed to human rights and good governance and which, in
stark contrast with the methods of the Chinese regime, has
handled this crisis remarkably effectively. We should impose
targeted Magnitsky sanctions on CCP officials responsible
for grave violations of human rights – against lawyers, prodemocracy advocates, political dissidents, people of Faith,
and in places like Xinjiang, where one million Muslim
Uighurs are incarcerated to be forcibly ‘re-educated.’ We
should seek fundamental re-form of multilateral institutions
such as the WHO, the World Bank, UN bodies and others, to
reduce China’s disproportionate influence.

=================

As Beijing ridicules ‘weak’ liberal values and democracy
we need to strengthen alliances with coun-tries that
share our values of democracy, human rights and the rule
of law – with our traditional allies in the Commonwealth,
North America, and Europe, but also with established and
more fragile democracies in Asia, particularly Japan, South
Korea, Indonesia and elsewhere. It means standing four square with the beleaguered people of Hong Kong in their existential battle for ‘two systems, one country’ – and to whom we have a historic, legal, and moral responsibility.

You can read the full article here:

GSFEdition No.6 – May 2020

Written Questions from Lord Alton of Liverpool, May 21st 2020.

Question text

when they intend to publish the next edition of the six-monthly report on Hong Kong relating to the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong; and why that edition has not yet been published.

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In oral and written questions in Parliament the Government has been asked to reflect on the reliance of UK and other NATO members on Chinese involvement in areas of important national  strategic infrastructure.

Oral Questions: House of Lords May 19th 2020

Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)

My Lords what consideration are the noble Baroness and NATO giving to a new report which reveals that members of the Five Eyes are strategically dependent on China for 831 separate categories of imports, of which 260 involve elements of critical national infrastructure?

Baroness Goldie

NATO and the member partners always have an interest in reliance on export and import sources. Obviously, it is for individual nation states to determine how and with whom they trade. We have to recognise that that is a necessary freedom in the free flow of trade internationally.

 

Written Questions by Lord Alton of Liverpool May 20th 2020

 

Question text

what assessment they have made of the report by the Henry Jackson Society? Breaking the China Supply Chain: How the ‘Five Eyes’ Can Decouple From Strategic Dependency, published on 14 May, which states that the UK is strategically dependent on China for 229 categories of goods, 57 of which are used in critical national infrastructure

And, questions about the CCP’s role in the World Health Organisation:

 Question text

what assessment they have made of the case for reform of the World Health Organisation; and what steps they intend to take to ensure the organisation commissions an independent inquiry into the genesis of COVID-19.

 

Question text

what assessment they have made of (1) reports that the World Health Organisation (WHO) cooperated with the government of China to suppress information about the emergence of COVID-19, and (2) the extent of the influence of that government within the WHO. [T]

 

 

stand with hong kong

Lord David Alton

For 18 years David Alton was a Member of the House of Commons and today he is an Independent Crossbench Life Peer in the UK House of Lords.

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