RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3087229/britain-lobbies-five-eyes-allies-share-burden-possible-hong?utm_medium=email&utm7

Prime minister says if Beijing acts, Britain will have ‘no choice but to uphold our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong’
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab lobbies Five Eyes allies to ‘share burden’ of possible Hong Kong exodus
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised Hongkongers “one of the biggest changes in our visa system in British history” if Beijing pushes through the national security law, 
he wrote in an op-ed

 published in the South China Morning Post and The Times of London on Wednesday.

In his first direct message to the former British colony amid the recent political furore, Johnson acknowledged that “many people in Hong Kong fear their way of life … is under threat” since the National People’s Congress proposed the law last month.

“If China proceeds to justify their fears, then Britain could not in good conscience shrug our shoulders and walk away; instead we will honour our obligations and provide an alternative,” Johnson said.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16079/turkey-islam-criticism-prison

According to the Koran and the recorded sayings (hadith) and biographies (sira) of Islam’s founder, “To leave Islam, to insult Muhammad or Allah, to deny the existence of Allah, to be sarcastic about Allah’s name, to deny any verse of the Koran” or to commit other acts of blasphemy are all punishable by death.

More alarming is that these pressures and bans come not only from governments. Many of the people in the countries mentioned above also appear enthusiastically to support strict or even deadly blasphemy and apostasy laws.

According to a 2013 Pew survey, overwhelming percentages of Muslims in many regions — Southeast Asia (84%), South Asia (78%), the Middle East and North Africa (78%), and Central Asia (62%) — favor making sharia, or Islamic law, the official law of the land. According to sharia, blasphemy and apostasy are punishable by death.

Critics of Turkey’s government and Islam continue being targeting by the country’s authorities.

On May 17, Turkish photographer Fırat Erez, a former supporter of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party, was arrested in the city of Antalya after saying “Islam is immoral” on his Twitter account.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16083/eu-trade-china-hong-kong

The British government announced that it was considering granting citizenship to the nearly three million residents of Hong Kong. The move infuriated China, which fears a massive brain drain from Hong Kong that would jeopardize the city’s role as a global financial and trading hub.

Germany, which takes over the six-month rotating EU presidency on July 1, has announced that it will prioritize relations with China. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is particularly determined to proceed with a major EU-China summit to be held in the German city of Leipzig in September. She is reportedly under intense pressure from German automobile manufacturers, who are concerned about maintaining their access to the Chinese market.

“Europe can and should respond more forcefully than it has so far…. [If Germany cancelled] its looming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Leipzig in September 2020 unless Beijing withdraws its national security legislation…. That would send a strong signal that it will not be business as usual…” — Noah Barkin, a senior fellow in Berlin at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

“German Chancellor Merkel does not seem to fully appreciate how continued Communist Party rule endangers peace, security and public health, not just in China, but around the world.” — Andreas Fulda, a senior fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute.

“The European Union… has the choice. Should we make a pact with an authoritarian regime or should we work to strengthen a community of free, constitutionally governed market economies with liberal societies? It is remarkable that German politics, with its love of moralizing, seems to throw its values out the window when dealing with China…. If current… policy on China continues, this will lead to a gradual decoupling from America and a step-by-step infiltration and subjugation by China. Economic dependence will only be the first step. Political influence will follow. In the end, it is quite simple. What kind of future do we want for Europe? An alliance with an imperfect democracy or with a perfect dictatorship? It should be an easy decision for us to make. It is about more than just money. It is about our freedom…” — Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, Europe’s largest publishing company.

The European Union has issued a predictably weak and equivocal declaration on China’s growing interference in Hong Kong. European leaders, apparently fearful of retaliation by Beijing, have signaled that economic interests will take priority over the EU’s much-trumpeted founding values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Europe’s continued appeasement of China indicates that the EU will be a weak link in efforts by Western democracies to confront the leadership in Beijing.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/how-strong-islamic-republic-iran-ari-lieberman/

The Islamic Republic of Iran frequently boasts of its military prowess. Periodically, the regime will showcase what it characterizes as an indigenously produced piece of military hardware, bragging about its supposed sophisticated features and uniqueness. But it’s often the case that the unveiled weapon system is either a painfully obvious, unworkable plastic model dressed up to look like something really cool or a poor replica of vintage American hardware, readily apparent to anyone with rudimentary knowledge of military hardware.

In 2013, Iran showcased its Qaher F313, which it touted as a fifth generation fighter with stealth capabilities similar to the American F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Military experts immediately identified the aircraft as a fake, and a poor one at that. Andrew Davies of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute dryly noted that “It looks like it might make a noise and vibrate if you put 20 cents in.”

In 2018, the Iranians tried to pull off a similar hoax with their unveiling of a purportedly domestically produced twin seat fighter jet called the “Kowsar.” The Iranians boasted that the aircraft was “completely indigenously made,” and featured “advanced avionics.” The plane was showcased before Iran’s “moderate” president, Hassan Rouhani, who boasted that the United States is fearful of Iran’s power.

Rouhani’s bombast notwithstanding, the plane was actually a copy of an American F-5F, which was unveiled by the Northrop Corporation in 1974, and is based on the single seat version of the F-5E, which had its first test flight in 1972. Iran purchased a number of these aircraft during the Shah’s reign and cannibalized many of them for spare parts. It is now trying to pass off half-century old, copied technology as its own. Rather than projecting military prowess, Iran’s efforts here come across as not only disingenuous but desperately pathetic.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/chinese-state-media-editor-taunts-about-rioters-joseph-klein/

Chinese state media are having a field day exploiting the riots that have occurred in recent days in  Minneapolis and other cities across the United States led by a coordinated cadre of left wing radicals. These violent extremists have sought to hijack the peaceful protests by many well-meaning people outraged by the killing of an unarmed African-American, George Floyd, by a rogue ex-policeman. Chinese propagandists lump the peaceful protesters and the smaller number of dangerously violent rioters together as if they were part of one indistinguishable movement, in the same way as the ruling Chinese Communist Party treats all the protesters in Hong Kong.

Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of Chinese and English editions of the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times, tweeted sarcastically, for example, “Secretary Pompeo, please stand with the angry people of Minneapolis, just like you did with people of Hong Kong.” Then, in a tweet aimed at President Trump after the president vowed to use force as necessary to deal with the violent riots, Xijin wrote: “Just three days after unrest broke out in Minnesota, Trump threatened the use of ‘shooting’ and announced the army supports the governor. I strongly condemn such threats. Please protect the people of Minnesota, just like you sympathize with Hong Kong thugs.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/switzerland-businesses-face-prospect-tougher-ethical-regulations/

Switzerland is generally a well-run place, with a healthy respect both for the preservation of capital and for the way that its referendums help ensure that Swiss democracy is genuinely bottom-up as well as top-down.

But, judging by this Financial Times report, these two qualities may be about to come crashing into each other:

Some of the world’s biggest companies, from Nestlé to Glencore, face the prospect of tougher ethical regulations in Switzerland, as a four-year debate over business practices comes to a head in parliament this week.

From Tuesday, MPs will have less than three weeks to thrash out a compromise to a proposed change to the law brought by the Responsible Business Initiative (KVI) .

The proposal will make businesses in Switzerland legally liable and “guilty until proven innocent” for abuses of human and environmental rights anywhere in their supply chains around the world — whether at subsidiaries or third-party companies.

The Responsible Business Initiative emerged in 2016 as a result of Switzerland’s direct democratic process garnering the support of more than 100,000 citizens, the threshold for triggering a referendum.

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/authors/shoshana-bryen/

Europe is straddling a line between what it wants to say and what it actually wants. The former is about opposing Israel, opposing the Trump administration, not alienating its own restive Arab populations, and not completely severing its relations with Iran and its jihadist proxies. The latter involves hoping Israel won’t pay too much attention to the former.

While U.S. President Donald Trump called both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rotation partner and Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, to congratulate them, French President Emmanuel Macron, welcomed the new government with his view that Jerusalem should “make it possible to decisively revive the Middle East peace process and to achieve a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, in accordance with internationally agreed parameters.”

The European Union also issued a statement, though not a unanimous statement (thank you, Austria and Hungary): “The two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the future capital for both States, is the only way to ensure sustainable peace and stability in the region … we note with grave concern the provision—to be submitted for approval by the Israeli cabinet—on the annexation of parts of occupied Palestinian territories. … We strongly urge Israel to refrain from any unilateral decision that would lead to the annexation of any occupied Palestinian territory and would be, as such, contrary to International Law.”

https://patriotpost.us/articles/71024-video-whos-sneaky-ties-to-chinas-most-powerful-communists-2020-06-01

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/06/the-slow-strangulation-of-hong-kong/

“The stifling by China of democratic development didn’t prevent Hong Kong making one of the few successful transitions from Third World poverty to prosperity and modernisation, not only in Asia, but anywhere. On present trends, it looks set to make the journey in reverse.”

The Chinese Communist Party has no peer when it comes to strategic thinking, even if the thinking is wrong or repellent. Anyone else, anywhere else, would have thought that if the Hong Kong chief executive couldn’t cope, the sensible thing to do would be to replace her with someone who could. But no. The party’s answer is to replace its representative in the territory, someone most people wouldn’t have known existed. It’s the right answer, too, for that’s where the real power lies. The new man, Luo Huining, is one who unlike his predecessor isn’t encumbered with any experience of Hong Kong matters. Luo is a party loyalist long familiar with imposing party discipline and organisation in troublesome regions.

It’s an honest answer, too. Chief executive Carrie Lam can continue to twist ineffectively in the breeze, a fit demonstration of the powerlessness of old colonial mechanisms, while the new order gets on with the real task. And the real task is not to address mass protests or their causes, as one might think. Rather, the party’s new representative has announced that his task will be the further integration of Hong Kong into the surrounding provinces of China, especially Guangdong. That means the people of Hong Kong can just get used to the fact that Beijing is not going to take any notice of their demands for democracy and openness; they can start getting used to the inevitability of being more like the rest of China.

Luo has also asserted the right of Beijing to supervise affairs in Hong Kong. The territory’s autonomy is beginning to resemble the autonomy the party promised Tibet when it took over there.