The Jerusalem Post has refused to withdraw a published interview with Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) after China on Tuesday demanded that the newspaper retract it.
The paper’s editor-in-chief, Yaakov Katz, said a Chinese embassy official threatened that China would “downgrade relations with the state of Israel” if the article was not removed.
The threat demonstrates China’s fundamental inability, or refusal, to acknowledge the existence of media freedom in democracies it has relations with.
During a June 2016 news conference in Ottawa with then-Canadian minister of foreign affairs Stephane Dion, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) berated a Canadian reporter for asking about human rights in China and its jailing of a Canadian on dubious espionage charges.
“Your question is full of prejudice against China and arrogance... I don’t know where that comes from,” Wang replied through a translator. “This is totally unacceptable.”
Typically, officials deal with troublesome media queries by ignoring questions, denying accusations or obfuscation. Wang’s irate reaction revealed China’s disdain for media freedoms, its antagonism toward the West and its lack of concern over how the country is perceived outside its borders — a point that is especially evident given the involvement of its foreign minister.
The greatest hypocrisy is China telling other countries not to “interfere with its internal affairs” when they criticize its human rights abuses, or express support for Taiwan or Hong Kong.
China is continually directing international companies on how to refer to Taiwan on their Web sites, telling Western celebrities and athletes what they can say about Taiwan and Hong Kong, berating reporters in their own countries, censoring content in foreign films that have Chinese investors and attempting to censor discourse on university campuses in democratic nations.
The US and other countries have had China’s Confucius Institutes removed from their campuses after it was found that they were endangering academic freedom. In Australia, China critic Drew Pavlou has been physically attacked by pro-China thugs on campus and ridiculed in Chinese state-run media for shining a light on Beijing’s influence over his country’s universities, including his alma mater, the University of Queensland, with which he was engaged in a legal battle.
Fortunately, Katz’s response on Twitter was that the “story ain’t going anywhere.”
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has grown emboldened in the past few decades and is working to change the narrative in other countries. A Sept. 6, 2019, report in Canada’s National Post cited the training manual of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, in which CCP members operating in Canada were told to approach politicians of Chinese descent and “work with those individuals and groups that are at a relatively high level, operate within the mainstream of society and have prospects for advancement.”
People who notice the CCP’s incursions and speak out often find themselves and their families threatened.
After he grew vocal in his criticism of the CCP, Pavlou began receiving threats on social media such as: “I will hire a killer through deep web and then kill your family,” and “Your mother will be raped till dead.”
Hong Kong democracy advocates visiting or relocating to Taiwan have also been assaulted.
Taiwan must work with other democracies to stand up to threats and bullying from China, and governments must stand by individuals and companies who find themselves threatened.
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) recent visit to Beijing and her upcoming visit to Washington will serve as a high-level test of her diplomatic mettle. In Beijing, Cheng was received with symbolic gestures, a warm reception, and high-level access. In Washington, she will receive far less pomp and far sharper questions about the KMT’s vision for the future of Taiwan. Her challenge will be to persuade Washington that the KMT’s engagement with China can coexist with strong deterrence. Cheng’s April 7-12 visit to mainland China coincided with an intense period of conflict in Iran. Despite the strategic significance of Cheng’s trip,
The White House’s decision to take a 9.9 percent stake in Intel Corp is looking like very shrewd business indeed. Since the government bought in at US$20.47 a share last August, the US chipmaker’s surging stock price has delivered the US a US$43 billion return. One of the reasons the investment has so far proved so sound is that the White House has made sure of it. According to The Wall Street Journal, Howard personally pushed deals on Intel’s behalf with some of the most lucrative clients imaginable. They include Nvidia Corp, the company at the heart of the AI
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent the vast Asian chemicals industry into a tailspin. Deprived of the likes of Qatari natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, the region’s fertilizer and plastics plants are slowing production or even shutting down. Everywhere except China, that is. In petrochemicals, China is unique. As well as a traditional industry that uses oil and gas as feedstock, it has parallel output that relies on its abundant domestic coal. Unsurprisingly, India and other regional powers want to copy and paste the Chinese method. This would not be easy — or climate friendly. The
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto says he knows how to fix the problems facing Indonesia. Yet his economic mismanagement and authoritarian tendencies are steering the nation toward a familiar mix of currency instability and political chaos. The world’s fourth-most populous nation risks reversing the hard-won democratic and business reforms that came after the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. At that time, the rupiah collapsed and the political upheaval that followed forced former president Haji Mohamed Suharto from power. Prabowo’s administration is ignoring similar warning signs. That disconnect was apparent in a national address on Wednesday, when Prabowo projected the swagger that has
RSS