RUTHFULLY YOURS

tps://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/the-man-behind-chinas-raging-nationalist-campaigns-against-us_

Though it may not be clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is collapsing for many westerners, the Chinese are quite certain the crash of the Chinese regime is imminent as over 375 million Chinese have quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations.

The CCP—which is on the verge of a crisis—has again raised the banner of nationalism in order to save itself.

It has been a regular tactic over the past century when it has been cornered and has had no other choice.

The latest nationalist campaign started with the CCP’s diplomatic system when Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on March 18 that the United States had “deep concerns with actions by China, including Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber-attacks on the United States, [and] economic coercion toward our allies.”

In the midst of the diplomatic dilemma, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League (CYL) joined in to initiate a heated boycott of foreign goods, with the CCP’s official mouthpieces provoking nationalist sentiment along the way.

Taken altogether, this incident shows that Wang Huning, a current member of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, who controls not only the CYL but also the CCP’s Publicity Department, and has the official media as one of his tools, that he is controlling the diplomatic system from behind the scenes.

Staged Confrontation in Alaska

At the two-day senior-level Alaska talks between China and the United States on March 18 and 19, the two sides to the talks, led by Chinese foreign policy official Yang Jiechi, and Blinken for the United States, respectively, crossed fire with full force at the beginning of their talks, bringing their conflict under the international spotlight.

Yang spoke for 17 minutes without giving time for translation in between. The most surprising remark he made was: “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years ago, because the Chinese people don’t buy it.”

https://www.city-journal.org/canadian-father-jailed-for-speaking-out-about-trans-identifying-child

At this moment, a Vancouver postman named Rob Hoogland is sitting in a jail cell in British Columbia. He will be there until at least April 12, when he’s scheduled for a court date. At that time, he may be ordered to remain behind bars for a period yet to be determined.

Has Hoogland killed or robbed somebody? Is he an arsonist? A rapist? No. What did he do, then? Short answer: he tried to save his emotionally unstable daughter from self-destruction.

The long answer begins in the 2015–16 school year, when, as Hoogland recounted in a talk last October, his then fifth-grade daughter (he also has an older son) was getting into trouble at school and Hoogland and his estranged wife (whom he divorced in the spring of 2015) decided it might be good for her to see her school counselor. Since it’s forbidden by the British Columbia Supreme Court to make her name public, she’s referred to in legal documents as “A.B.” (Hoogland is “C.D.,” and the girl’s mother is “E.F.”)

Unknown to Hoogland, A.B. continued to see school counselors well into seventh grade, when one day she suddenly cut her hair very short. At the end of that school year, Hoogland saw that she was listed in her yearbook under a male name. It turned out that the school had been feeding her transgender ideology, and that she’d already begun “socially transitioning” to a male identity under the direction of a psychologist, Wallace Wong, who was encouraging her “to take testosterone.” To this end, Wong referred her to an endocrinologist at the Gender Clinic and Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.

It used to be understood that gender dysphoria is vanishingly rare, typically afflicts boys, and almost always begins to manifest when a child is extremely young. In recent years, however, there’s been an epidemic in many Western countries of older girls who suddenly claim to be in the wrong body. This “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” as Abigail Shrier argues in her important 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (which I reviewed), is a fad rooted in a number of contemporary social factors.

Many have expressed concern about this trend. Yet transgender activists, eager to increase their visibility and clout, have embraced these girls as real cases of gender dysphoria and have pushed for them to be “transitioned,” pronto. Such transition usually starts with the administration of puberty blockers, continues with massive doses of testosterone, and concludes with “gender-affirmation surgery”—known to today’s self-identified trans teenagers, rather innocuously, as “top surgery” (mastectomy) and “bottom surgery” (metoidioplasty and phalloplasty, which transform the clitoris into something resembling a penis).

A decade ago, subjecting minors to these protocols would have been seen as malpractice and child abuse. But in the last few years, the practice has won widespread political, cultural, media, and judicial support. Never mind that puberty blockers, while presented as harmlessly allowing young teens a “pause,” so that they can ponder their options, can in fact be quite harmful and are almost always followed by hormone therapy; that testosterone, which can cause sterilization, osteoporosis, heart disease, and stunted growth, invariably results in such irreversible symptoms as sterility, facial hair, and a deeper voice; and that “gender-affirming surgery,” of course, destroys healthy body parts that can never be restored.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/04/china-and-the-looming-warfare-over-taiwan/

It is hard to believe that the Japanese High Command is not saying to the Chinese High Command, secretly or otherwise, that if China attacks Taiwan, Japan will have to respond whatever the Americans or anybody else chooses to do.

Taiwan is absolutely essential to the defence and security of Japan. It is the key link in what has been called the First Island Chain running more or less parallel to the Asian mainland from Sakhalin in the north down through the pencil-like line of Japanese islands through the Ryukyu Archipelago to Taiwan through Batan and Babuyan to the Philippines and then down to Indonesia. This chain of islands prevents the Chinese from getting out of the Sea of Japan, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea into the North Pacific Ocean in any militarily significant numbers.

If China occupied Taiwan it would be able to amass significant and seriously threatening naval power both east and west of Japan. Being a long narrow line of islands, Japan lacks serious geographical strategic depth, and while it is reputedly the world’s third-largest economy, it must import all of its oil and most of its food, minerals and other essential goods. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for Japan to mount a successful defence without massive support from the US and other allies.

These strategic realities have been occupying the minds of Japan’s best strategists for at least a hundred years, and of course they have been working diligently to maintain the chain. I first became aware of these matters when I visited Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s and interviewed some of Japan’s major naval and other strategists.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9417537/ISIS-brag-killing-Christians-Mozambique-massacre-claimed-one-British-life.html

The Islamic State has bragged of ‘killing dozens of Mozambican armed forces and the Christians’ in a days-long assault near a major gas plant in the country’s northeast. 

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued by its Amaq news agency on Monday alongside a photo of militants from the group celebrating the capture of the town of Palma.

Scores of people have been killed, including one British contractor, and dozens of expats remain unaccounted for following the attack, which began last Wednesday. 

A contractor from Somerset who worked at a hotel in the area is among the missing and a friend has said he fears he has been killed.

Philip Mawer has not been seen or heard from since gunmen ambushed a convoy of vehicles fleeing a hotel on Friday.

His friend Peter Zweemer told The Sun that the French oil giant Total, whose employees Mawer was reportedly helping to build a camp for left its workers to be ‘slaughtered’.

‘As far as I know and from eye witness accounts, unfortunately, we have to assume Phil got killed Friday.

‘There is still no access into Palma to recoup bodies or asses damages and missing people do appear under the most amazing circumstances but I’m afraid the news about Phil is not encouraging.

‘It’s a shambles and they allowed these contractors to be slaughtered.’ 

Tales of horror began to emerge on Tuesday as some survivors made it to safety and established contact with loved ones.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17193/european-union-tragic-farce

Five hundred years from now, when historians look back on the COVID era, they will say that America’s “Operation Warp Speed,” under President Donald J. Trump, was a triumph of science and logistics.

Many liberals have a short memory, but the EU has not always been the big, remote machine it has become.

The principle of equality of states and the principle of equality of citizens cannot be reconciled in the current EU setting of institutions, says Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court.

Of course, EU institutions are dressed up with flowery language — such as “making the EU more democratic” — aimed at making people believe that EU institutions… are increasingly democratic and only waiting to become fully democratic.

This evolution consisted, first of all, in subverting European institutions to make them accomplish, in addition to their economic aims, missions that were foreign to them, such as a “common foreign policy” that was never anything than words. How could you have a foreign policy common to the UK, Austria and Portugal?

EU elites are weak, cowardly and pusillanimous because they know they do not represent anyone, in the true democratic sense of the word – they are not democratically elected, they are not transparent and they are not accountable to anyone. They are ultimately the playthings of governments that never agree with each other – but that do have the legitimacy of being truly democratic: elected, transparent, and accountable. There is also no mechanism for citizens to unelect anyone, should they wish to do so.

Concerning the European Union, opinions are divided between those who consider it useless and costly, and those who believe it to be the future of Europe and a model for the human race.

What is the reality?

Before today’s EU emerged, the construction of a European union was, at first, a tremendous success.

Many liberals have a short memory, but the EU has not always been the big, remote machine it has become. In the era of the more modestly named “European Communities” – entailing, for example, cooperation amongst multiple countries’ economies; or within their coal, steel and nuclear industries – Europe achieved four freedoms of movement: those of people, capital, services and goods. Despite its flaws, shortcomings and innumerable imperfections (nothing human is perfect), this common – or single – market made a massive and substantial contribution to the freedom and prosperity of Europeans.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/convicted-in-hong-kong-11617316506?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

A Hong Kong court Thursday convicted Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee and five others of organizing or taking part in a pro-democracy protest. Mr. Lai, 72, is a billionaire who founded and publishes Apple Daily, which is a frequent critic of the Chinese Communist Party and among Hong Kong’s most popular news outlets. Mr. Lee is 82 and known as Hong Kong’s “father of democracy.”

Everyone in the former British colony understands the message being sent from Hong Kong’s new masters in Beijing: If we can get these men, we can get you too.

That’s especially true for the thousands of other Hong Kong citizens, far less well known, who were also arrested on charges relating to participating in such protests. The Aug. 18, 2019, protest at the center of this trial drew 1.7 million people, which is roughly a quarter of Hong Kong’s population, though police had not granted a permit.

The convictions are the flip side of the recent rewrite of Hong Kong’s election rules meant to ensure that only pro-Beijing “patriots” hold positions of power. This week the U.S. consul general to Hong Kong, Hanscom Smith, explained that the new rules “will not produce meaningful democratic results, and will be neither inclusive nor credible representations of the will of people in Hong Kong.”

For China that’s a feature, not a bug. The real crime of those convicted this week is that they took seriously China’s promise of autonomy for Hong Kong in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. They are being punished today simply for trying to make the governments in Beijing and Hong Kong honor that promise.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/horrifying-conditions-sikhs-muslim-countries-krishna-priya/

Attempting to build alliances in their war against Hindutva, Islamists in India can now be seen wooing the Sikh community. However, the lesser-known chapters of history and the horrifying condition of Sikhs in Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan establish that those who are chasing the dream of bringing the world under the flag of their Islamic faith have no tolerance for people of any other religion.

Centuries ago, Islamic invaders in India martyred the revered Sikh gurus in unspeakable and disturbing ways. Guru Arjan Dev Ji, the fifth of the ten Sikh gurus, was executed by Jahangir in 1606 CE for refusing to embrace Islam.

Two generations later, the brave Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji was arrested by Aurangzeb’s forces for confronting the religious persecution of Kashmiri Hindus by the Mughal emperor. His three associates, Bhai Mati Das, Bhai Dayal Das, and Bhai Sati Das, were jailed as well. They were tortured in prison and told to abandon their faith and accept Islam. But true to their commitment, withstanding all torments, they refused to convert. Frustrated with their determination, all three were executed by the Mughal administration. Bhai Mato Das was sawed into two halves, Bhai Dayal Das was boiled in a large iron pot, and Bhai Sati Das was rolled up in sheets of cotton and burned alive. Even these grotesque slaughters of his associates couldn’t move Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji from his convictions. Tired of this, Aurangzeb ordered his execution by beheading in public.

Students in India were denied knowledge of these crucial episodes in history. Instead, they were forced to study history crafted by leftist propagandists who dexterously crafted chapters venerating these Islamic invaders.

The oppression of the Sikhs at the hands of Muslims continues to be common in South Asian countries with a Muslim majority. Muslims in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan frequently exert pressure on the Sikhs to convert to Islam, destroy their properties, seize their homes and businesses, and abduct their women. Their places of worship are attacked practically every time a group of Muslims are having a bad day. These instances are often swept under the carpet by the Muslim-sympathizing leftist establishment that casts a strong influence over the international media.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-macron-under-fire-for-pandemic-strategy

PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron announced a national lockdown Wednesday, closing schools and nonessential businesses, amid mounting public frustration over his government’s handling of the pandemic.

Speaking from the Élysée Palace on national television, Mr. Macron said new measures were needed after his strategy of relying on targeted restrictions failed to tame the pandemic. France’s sluggish vaccine campaign has left the country vulnerable to more contagious coronavirus variants, which have sent cases soaring and filled the country’s intensive-care units with Covid-19 patients.

“It would be false to say that things will get better on their own,” Mr. Macron said. “Then we would place ourselves in a sensitive situation where the entire country could be overloaded.”

Mr. Macron said restrictions that currently apply only to Paris and other hard-hit areas would be extended across the country for four weeks, starting Saturday evening. Schools will shut for three weeks beginning Monday, Mr. Macron said, with spring break being shifted to coincide with the last two weeks of the shutdown. Elementary-school students will return to in-person classes after the vacation, while middle- and high-school students will return to the classroom a week later, Mr. Macron said. Unlike a year ago at the start of the pandemic, the public won’t be required to fill out a form to leave the house during France’s third nationwide lockdown.

In an attempt to cushion France’s economy, Mr. Macron left the country relatively open during the depths of winter and then hewed to softer restrictions in mid-March as infections surged and intensive-care units in Paris overflowed. French authorities were loath to shut schools, taking pride in avoiding that step even as Germany and other European countries closed them months ago.

Some French doctors say the president’s refusal to impose strict measures during the winter missed an opportunity to bring the pandemic under control.

“Show me how a two-month lockdown in December-January is worse than what we’ve been living the past six months,” said Gilbert Deray, a doctor at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.

Now the French are staring into an abyss of uncertainty that risks extending into the summer, when the country’s tourism industry usually shifts into high gear.

France’s vaccine rollout, meanwhile, has been hamstrung by a lack of supplies and mixed messages from Mr. Macron and health authorities across the continent about the safety and effectiveness of the AstraZeneca PLC vaccine. Across the English Channel, about 45% of the U.K. population has received at least one vaccine dose, compared with 12% in France. On Sunday, London recorded zero deaths for the second time since the pandemic began.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/godfather-of-hong-kong-democracy-movement-convicted-for-big-2019-protest-11617262828

HONG KONG— Martin Lee, the 82-year old lawyer credited with helping found Hong Kong’s democracy movement, and newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai were among seven veteran activists found guilty by a judge on charges related to a mass demonstration in 2019.

The Thursday guilty verdicts raise the prospect of jail time for a prominent group of democracy campaigners who have been fighting to preserve the rule of law in the former British colony since before it was returned to China in the late 1990s. Sentencing on the charges, which can carry up to five years’ jail time, was set for later this month.

“We believe we were just exercising our constitutional rights to protest come what may,” said the labor leader Lee Cheuk-yan, one of the defendants, after the verdict. “It will be a badge of honor for us to go to jail for fighting for freedom and rights for Hong Kong people.”

The trial is part of a wave of prosecutions under way in Hong Kong as China crushes dissent in the former British colony. Amid a continuing crackdown that worsened last year when China imposed a sweeping national security law, many of the city’s democracy campaigners are now either on trial, in jail or living in exile.

After the judge read out the verdict Thursday, a lead prosecutor called on the judge to revoke bail until sentencing, saying the offenses were serious and risked plunging Hong Kong into anarchy by undermining public order. Defendants however, were granted bail but can’t leave Hong Kong.

The group was found guilty of organizing and attending an unauthorized assembly in August 2019, a rainy day in which hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the city Hong Kong to protest the mainland government’s growing intervention in the city.