Chinascope – Page 342

“World Leader”: Global Times Called Sweden “Irresponsible” for “Surrendering to the Coronavirus”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been trying to portray itself as the world leader in directing the global battle against the novel coronavirus. Recently the Global Times, a media under the CCP’s mouthpiece People’s Daily, published an article that criticized Sweden for being irresponsible in controlling the virus.

The article said that, on March 12, Sweden decided not to test patients with mild symptoms or suspected patients for the coronavirus infection since it is impossible to stop the spread of the virus in Sweden anyway. Instead, the government will focus its limited resources on medical staff and hospitalized patients who have a higher risk or have a severe condition.

The Global Times’ article called Sweden, “the first European country that surrendered to the coronavirus. Its latest policy is highly irresponsible, whether to protect the health of the Swedish people or coordinate the global battle against the pandemic.”

“Sweden’s action is to be an ostrich (to bury its head in the sand as if nothing has happened).”

“Carrying out this decision will severely violate humanity’s principles. It is shocking to see it happen in a developed European country that advertises “democracy” and ‘human rights.’”

“The international community, especially the European Union should vigorously condemn Sweden’s surrendering to the virus.”

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Hot Topics | | March 23, 2020 | Social Stability

World against the CCP: Nigel Farage: Time to “Rethink the West’s Relationship with China”

Nigel Farage, the British politician and broadcaster, who has led the Brexit Party since 2019, published an opinion article on Newsweek titled, “The Virus is Yet Another Reason to Rethink the West’s Relationship With China.” The following are excerpts from his article.

I believe that attention should now turn to China. When President Trump has talked about the “Chinese virus” (others have called it the “Wuhan Virus”) he has been met with waves of criticism and accusations of racism. In the House of Commons, the shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry even said of Trump: “Now he’s calling it the foreign virus, blaming it on Europe for its spread and today blaming China.” I hate to break it to Ms Thornberry, but Trump is right. And it is time we all challenged China.

Isn’t it time we in the West had a grown-up conversation about China, beginning with the truth that several layers of the regime—from sanitary inspectors to secret police— are responsible for this nightmare? Isn’t this the moment when we need to remind ourselves that China is a deeply unpleasant communist dictatorship, a surveillance society that executes thousands of its own people every year? We all need to examine our attitude to the Beijing regime. For too long, no global leader dared to say a word against it, much less adopt a remotely conditional approach to engaging with the regime. The priorities of globalization have been deemed far too important for human rights to even be considered. This is plain wrong.

The Left screams and shouts about Trump and, indeed, about anybody it perceives as being on the Right. We are all smeared as racists, fascists and homophobes. These days many of us are classed as transphobic, too. But while the Left is happy to pummel us into submission on so many subjects, they barely say a word about China. What about the oppression of Chinese Muslims? What about Tibet? Perhaps Emily Thornberry would do better by attacking President Xi rather than Donald Trump.

Ironically, the Serbian leader Alexander Vucic has been complaining this week that the EU won’t help his country and praising his new best friend, President Xi, who has apparently offered to step into the breach. Similarly, Italy has been happy to receive a helping hand from China, in the form of medical supplies. It would be nice if these acts of assistance would be accompanied by at least some admission of responsibility for allowing the situation to escalate in the first place, but one can hardly blame the Serbs and especially the Italians for taking help where they can find it. Still, this global crisis is as good a time as any to set ourselves the goal of recalibrating our relationship with this murderous autocracy that has brought the world such misery.

The West’s supply chains have become too dependent on China. To see China now exploiting a crisis that they have caused to spread their influence further and deeper into Europe should send a chill down our spines. If nothing else, Boris Johnson must see that his decision to invite the Chinese firm Huawei to build Britain’s 5G network is the wrong one. I have pointed out before that many members of our big business class, of the civil service, and indeed of our political class are increasingly in the pay of China. They ought to take their noses out of the trough and have a think. Their financial wellbeing is not above the good of our nation. The political correctness which their business deals engender means we are not able to speak the truth openly about a crisis like this one. This is highly corrosive.

I have no ill-will against the Chinese people whatsoever; nor against Chinese doctors battling the pandemic in Wuhan, nor against Chinese scientists working shoulder to shoulder with their colleagues around the world to break the code of the disease. But the fact remains that China is an ideological state with its own long-term purpose in mind, and President Xi—now in a totally commanding position in Chinese society—is not our friend.

World Against the CCP: Italian Officials Said CCP Lied

To boost its image as a world leader in fighting the coronavirus, the Chinse Communist Party (CCP) claimed that it had sent donations of medical supplies to Italy and that the Italian people were grateful to China.

However, United Daily News, a Taiwan media, reported that this has resulted in a wave of criticism from Italian politicians and reporters.

Maurizio Gasparri, the former Minister of Transportation, said, “China has not given us anything as a gift. We paid for all those materials. China is the worst country on Earth. They used unfair competition methods to plunge other countries into an economic crisis. They are the country with the most severe plastic pollution and carbon emissions, the country that has not revealed the truth about the pneumonia epidemic in Wuhan, and also the country that deliberately delayed and provided false information under the leadership of the CCP. China is a cancer on the Earth. Europe needs to wake up from this situation and stop being fooled by China’s lies. China is not a resource but a danger to the Earth.”

Congresswoman Giorgia Meloni said, “They cannot cheat us. China is not the savior of our country.” “It’s the Chinese who brought the virus to Italy. Don’t treat China as a role model.”

Renowned reporter Guilia Pompili also wrote that the CCP’s recent attempt to promote “China’s style of epidemic control as a model” and its export of medical supplies are a part of its propaganda campaign. “Observing Chinese media, you can see its main theme is ‘Charity China.’”

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Hot Topics | | March 22, 2020 | Social Stability

Leadership: Ren Zhiqiang Disappeared

Ren Zhiqiang, a princeling and a real estate tycoon who is known for having the guts to challenge the regime, wrote a lengthy article to criticize Xi Jinping for his mistakes in handling the coronavirus at the beginning and for his later actions, with a focus on ensuring his own authority, calling Xi “A clown who stripped naked and insisted on continuing to be an emperor.” (see Chinascope posting: Public Opinion: Ren Zhiqiang’s Article: “A Clown Who Stripped Naked and Insisted on Continuing to Be an Emperor”)

His article was opposite of the main theme of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) propaganda machine. The communist regime is working to portray Mr. Xi as a hero who is leading the country to victory in a “people’s war” against the virus.

It has been reported that Ren has disappeared.

The CCP disciplined Ren before. In 2016, Ren came under scrutiny after writing on his microblog that China’s news media should serve the people, not the party, contradicting one of Mr. Xi’s high-profile pronouncements. The party moved quickly to censure him, saying he had “lost his party spirit.” But he continued to speak out on other topics, such as China’s strict policies to limit the population in big cities.

Ren was a close friend to Wang Qishan and could have been protected by Wang in 2016.

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Sources:
1. South China Morning Post, March 15, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3075256/chinese-tycoon-ren-zhiqiang-goes-missing-after-criticising
2. New York Times, March 14, 2020

Hot Topics | | March 22, 2020 | Social Stability

Leadership: Ren Zhiqiang’s Article: “A Clown Who Stripped Naked and Insisted on Continuing to Be an Emperor”

On February 23, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held a teleconference with 170,000 CCP cadres and military officials. Xi gave a key speech on handling the coronavirus.

Afterward, an article, said to be written by Ren Zhiqiang, a princeling and a real estate tycoon who is known for having the guts to challenge the regime, was circulated among Chinese. It criticized Xi Jinping for his mistakes in handling the coronavirus at the beginning and his later actions in which he had a focus on ensuring his own authority, calling Xi “A clown who stripped naked and insisted on continuing to be an emperor.”

The South China Morning Post said that it had verified that Ren wrote this article.

The article, though it was long, made many good points and is worth reading. The highlights are:

Part I of Xi’s speech was about the epidemic prevention and controlling the work; it praised Xi for directing and arranging the work himself. The article questioned why the government hid the information and organized a public gathering in January.
Part II of Xi’s speech was on the focus of current work, which was “to resolutely stop any malicious, attacking opinions.” The article commented that in a modern country, where the public is considered the most important, not everyone has to share the same fate with the ruling party or the ruling party’s top leader. A democratic system can choose whom to have as its captain or fire the captain and his subordinates.
Part III of Xi’s speech was on the balance between epidemic control and resuming production. The article said credit should be given to the civil organizations and private companies who made a lot of sacrifices to contribute to the country. What the government did was to make up for its previous mistakes; while the private sectors’ contribution was to protect people’s interests and not to be damaged by the government’s mistakes. They were two different things. The CCP leader should not attribute that to his own credit.
Part IV of Xi’s speech was to strengthen the CCP leadership. The article said this was to make the officials stay loyal to the top leader. When a country goes back to the “party leads everything” but the party is not responsible for its mistakes, the epidemic that should not occur occurred.
Overall, the article commented that the speech used all sorts of lies to cover his mistakes and to cover the fact that he didn’t wear clothes. It showed the fear in Xi’s heart and his ambition to maintain his superior position.

Ren’s article has been deleted from most of the Chinese websites, it is still available on the New Highland Vision site.

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Hot Topics | | March 22, 2020 | Social Stability

Propaganda and Lies: Chinese Bots Flooded Twitter to Spread That the U.S. Is the Origin of the Coronavirus

To defuse its accountability, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tried to blame the United States for sending the coronavirus to China. On March 12, Zhao Lijian, Spokesman & Deputy Director General of the Information Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused the United States of being the origin of the novel coronavirus, stating, “It might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent!”

The National Pulse reported on March 16, that since then Chinese bots had flocked to Twitter to spread the accusation.

“In the past few days especially, brand new ‘bot’ – like accounts following zero people, and being followed back by no one, have flooded Twitter threads attacking the United States of America, President Trump, and many of those who believe the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should have to answer tough questions about the COVID-19 coronavirus.

“The accounts appear to be flocking to defend Chinese Communist Party state actors such as Lijian Zhao – China’s “Information Department” Deputy Director General, and Lin Songtian, China’s Ambassador to South Africa.

“Thousands of new accounts – many the same as those attacking the President and the United States – were created in March 2020 and have taken to ‘liking’ and ‘retweeting’ CCP propagandists such as Zhao and Songtian, including on stories such as: ‘COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.’

“The accounts have not been suspended and/or limited by Twitter, and neither CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, nor the rest of the political or media establishments in the Western world have commented upon the surge in social media agitprop pushed by the CCP.

One can’t help but wonder if this would be the same if Russia were behind the disinformation campaign.”

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Source: The National Pulse, March 16, 2020

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