Two young Chinese recently uploaded a video in which they expressed opposition to China’s one-party dictatorship, requesting freedom of expression and calling for people who have been “disappeared” to be released. Their clothes carried the text “Oppose [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s [習近平] backsliding. Oppose the Chinese Communist Party’s one-party dictatorship.”
In the text, the characters in Xi’s given names had been replaced with a homophone (禁評, “jinping,” meaning “banning debate”). The two can no longer be contacted and observers are worried that they, too, have been “disappeared.”
Three recent cases of Xi banning debate have also occurred in Hong Kong: On Nov. 8 — a month after Financial Times Asia news editor Victor Mallet had his work visa extension denied — he was barred from entering Hong Kong, while hours earlier, exiled Chinese author Ma Jian (馬建) said that his participation in a literary festival had been canceled by the host venue; and on Nov. 2, an art show by Badiucao (巴丟草), a Chinese political cartoonist living in Australia, was canceled by the organizers, who cited safety concerns due to “threats made by Chinese authorities relating to the artist.”
Instances of Xi banning debate are not only taking place in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, as he has now also turned to restricting US personnel from participating in negotiations.
There have been media reports that a meeting between Xi and US President Donald Trump might be arranged at the G20 summit in Argentina next week.
Xi has named White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro and said that he does not want to see Navarro at the meeting.
Navarro, who has published a book titled Death by China, is one of the hawks behind the US-China trade dispute and an advocate of forcefully bringing down the US trade deficit.
He is also said to have been the main force behind the 36-page report How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World issued by the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in June.
The report accuses China of systematic economic aggression.
On Oct. 4, US Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech at the Washington-based Hudson Institute that was seen as signaling a major turn in US-China relations. Navarro might have been the mastermind behind that speech, which would make him one of the most troublesome people in Xi’s eyes.
It is no wonder that “Emperor Xi” says he does not want to see Navarro at the summit.
Xi restricts freedom of expression among Chinese, bars foreign critics from entering Hong Kong and keeps US officials out of trade talks: It seems that he really does think he is an emperor — the kind who has the power to control the world.
China under his rule is becoming a rogue nation.
Yu Kung is a businessman.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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