Category: international affairs

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general freedom international affairs Regulating Protest social media

Rotten Apple

rotten apple, China

Apple Inc. has a good side and a bad side.

A strong work ethic, oodles of innovativeness, much neat technology.

But a taste for censorship and a willingness to abet the censorious efforts of China’s totalitarians.

One manifestation of Apple’s contempt for unfettered discourse? Its apparent threat to kick the Twitter app off the iOS platform now that Twitter is run by someone friendlier to freedom of speech than the previous management.

Obnoxious though this would be, it’s not half as horrible as knowingly facilitating Chinazi repression. Yet Apple has recently crippled the iPhone AirDrop feature that protestors in China have used to share files like videos of the surging protests against the government’s insane zero-COVID mega-lockdown policies.

Because of a new iOS update, iPhone users in China — and only in China — can now only send files to persons not on their contact list for just ten minutes, hampering the ability of protesters and others to evade Chinese government censorship.

The company’s officers read the news. If Apple really didn’t intend to do this, all it has to do is roll out another update pronto to restore full AirDrop functionality.

Reclaim the Net notes, however, that Apple has often helped the Chinese Communist Party conduct its censorship: for one thing, by removing thousands of apps from its Chinese store at their behest. The deleted apps include VPN apps that helped users evade China’s wide-ranging and determined censorship of the Internet.

Think Different, Apple, not in lockstep with tyrants.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom international affairs

Chain of Command?

truckers, Canada, Justin Trudeau, civil rights violations

Early this year, Canadian truckers rebelled against the Canadian government’s tyrannical response to the pandemic by protesting en masse — in their trucks.

The truckers objected to being forced to accept experimental non-vaccines in order to go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border.

The Canadian government could have instantly solved the problem by rescinding the nonsensical travel ban and letting truckers truck freely.

Instead, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deployed a dormant triple-the-tyranny measure called the Emergencies Act to make the truckers regret that they had ever dared lift a pinky in protest against the assault on their lives and livelihoods. The insanity included imposing freezes on their bank accounts and suspending their vehicle insurance.

Now Trudeau’s actions are being investigated in the Canadian parliament.

And guess what’s come to light? You’ll get a kick out of this if you’re one of my United States readers: Trudeau was urged to do something about those darn truckers by none other than the Biden administration.

February 10: the director of the U.S. National Economic Council spoke to Canadian officials. 

Same day: U.S. Transportation Boss Pete Buttigieg asked the Canadian Transportation Boss about Canada’s plan to cure the protests. 

February 11: President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau spoke.

Don’t worry, Trudeau told Biden. He had a plan to end the protests. Somehow I doubt that Biden said “Fine, so long as it’s not about stomping the truckers even harder.”

Three days later, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act.

Correlation ain’t causation, but a schedule of influence indicates . . . almost . . . a conspiracy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs public opinion

Point Blank Protest

blank sheet of paper, Chinese protest

“Protests spread to cities and college campuses around China on Saturday night,” reports The New York Times, “reflecting rising public anger at the country’s draconian Covid controls, with some in a crowd in Shanghai directing their fury at the Communist Party and its top leader, Xi Jinping.”

Reuters informs that this “wave of anger was triggered by an apartment fire that killed 10 people on Thursday in Urumqi, a far western city where some people had been locked down for as long as 100 days, fueling speculation that COVID lockdown measures may have impeded residents’ escape.”

Demonstrations are rare in China; “room for dissent has been all-but eliminated under President Xi Jinping,” reminds Reuters. Yet, a month ago, a lone “Bridge Man” in Beijing unfurled anti-government banners in a crowded intersection.

“Go on strike at school and work, remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping!” the man, now in CCP custody, yelled through a loudspeaker. “We want to eat, we want freedom, we want to vote!” 

Yes, vote. Xi Jinping was just elected to a term-limit busting third term, but by the Communist Party — not the Chinese people.

In a numberof videos, students hold “up blank sheets of paper in silent protest, a tactic used in part to evade censorship or arrest.” In 2020, Hong Kong activists did this to avoid prosecution under the national security law imposed by Beijing. 

Across social media, people have been posting pictures of themselves with blank pieces of paper in solidarity. “By Sunday morning, the hashtag ‘white paper exercise’ was blocked on Weibo,” notes Reuters.

“If you fear a blank sheet of paper,” posited a Weibo user, “you are weak inside.”

A blank page, on the other hand, displays surprising strength, as well as meaning — for people to one day freely write their own stories.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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government transparency international affairs Snowden

The Turn-on-a-Dime’s Difference

UFO, UAP, unidentified flying object, government secrets

Over two out of five. The first articles I saw put the ratio at “nearly 50 percent,” but the percentage is, more accurately, “nearly 41.” What’s significant is we would expect that figure to be much, much lower.

I’m talking about UFOs. Or “UAP” — as it is now trendy to say. I’m going to stick with the old term, just to rub the long history of the subject into smug, refined noses.

The story is this: in an upcoming-any-day-now report to Congress on UFOs, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence claims that there were 366 military-reported Unidentified Aerial … er … Flying Objects, last year, and 150 of them remain unexplained and not likely to be explained, since they behaved extremely oddly. That is, they acted in classic “flying saucer” manner. 

“The unexplained ones they just have no clue,” says Daily Mail reporter Josh Boswell, “because these things are moving in ways that we just don’t understand. At hypersonic speeds, and then they just turn on a dime. I mean, it’s incredible.”

The bad news is that it appears these things “exist.” The good news, one can hope, is that now the military has protocols in place to handle such reports rather than turn each UFO/pilot interaction into a case fraught with secrecy and suppression, fear and consternation. The UFO reports now go to the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

It is worth mentioning that many of the stories in this upcoming report toe the old government line, insisting that these sightings are in theory explainable as enemy drones, etc. If true, drone tech has made serious advances!

And the world is even more dangerous than previously thought.

Or weirder.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war general freedom international affairs

Stuck in the Middle with US?

China, United States, Taiwan

Is Taiwan, the island democracy of 24 million, really caught in the nation-state equivalent of a lovers’ triangle?

“Taiwan is caught in the middle of escalating tensions between the U.S. and China,” is how National Public Radio headlined its recent story about Communist Party-ruled China “speeding up its plans to seize Taiwan.”

“Entangled in a geopolitical power struggle between the US and China, the wants of the Taiwanese people get overshadowed,” informs CNA, the Singapore-based English language news network, pitching its weekly hour-long news program, Insight, which sought to present “the Taiwanese perspective to being caught between giants.”

Nothing new. 

“As China challenges the global dominance of the United States,” NBC News reported back in 2020, “tiny Taiwan finds itself stuck, rather uncomfortably, smack dab in the middle of the conflict between the two international giants.”

The Taiwanese are no doubt uncomfortable. In a recent survey, nearly 40 percent now believe a Chinese military invasion, killing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or more, to be likely. 

They are not torn, however, between two superpowers. Taiwan is — most assuredly — not preparing to defend against an armed attack by the United States. 

In fact, Taiwan is coordinating its national defense efforts with the U.S., hoping and praying for direct U.S. help in defending themselves from totalitarian China.

Taiwan is not stuck with us. Nor we with them. We are simply allies in deeply valuing societies where individual lives matter. 

Against a superpower for whom they don’t

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Getting Guns to Good Guys

China, Taiwan

No sooner had President Biden shared his somewhat soothing takeaway from a three-hour meeting with Chinese ruler Xi Jinping — Joe doesn’t think there is an “imminent” threat of China invading Taiwan — then here comes a report that Russian missiles have killed two people.

Not in Ukraine, where Russia is “arguably” at war, but in neighboring Poland, a NATO country.

I’ve repeatedly suggested we review all the military alliances and commitments our politicians and diplomats have entered into . . . “on our behalf.” But there comes a time (and it seems fast approaching) when it is too late for review and the U.S. will have to stand up and meet the commitments it has made.

While I have little doubt in the current generation of volunteer soldiers, I cannot say that about my generation of generals and politicians and bureaucrats. “We cannot manufacture and produce weapon systems fast enough,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) told Full Measure host Sharyl Attkisson.

Pointing to $3 billion in U.S. arms sales to threatened Taiwan, McCaul complained that it has been “three years and we haven’t delivered one of these weapon systems into Taiwan. . . . Remember, in Taiwan, they actually have purchased these weapons.” 

One step to fix this mess is the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 (S.4428), which would allow the U.S. to transfer significant weaponry, “essentially to do for Taipei what is being done for Kyiv — but before the bullets start flying.”

Our best opportunity to keep Chinese guns silent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs media and media people

Tyranny Without Limits

Hu Jintao, President Xi Jinping, China

This weekend, at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a unanimous vote of elite communist party officials gave President Xi Jinping his third five-year term.

But the story that made the headlines focused on the physical removal from the main chamber of Hu Jintao, the previous Chinese leader (2003–2013), on the final day. No one is sure what it means, but we cannot unsee the pattern.

“In 10 years of ruling China, Xi Jinping has expunged political rivals, replacing them with allies,” notes The New York Times. “He has wiped out civil society, giving citizens no recourse for help but his government. He has muzzled dissent, saturating public conversation with propaganda about his greatness.”

The Times forgot to mention the genocide against Uyghurs or the full extent of CCP censorship or repression or the stepped-up harassment and threats to invade democratic Taiwan, but the article does convey that Xi is a thug of totalitarian proportions. 

“What is happening is potentially very dangerous,” Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a political scientist at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, argued back when the limit was repealed, “because the reason why Mao Zedong made one mistake after another was because China at the time was a one-man show.” 

Those “mistakes” cost millions of Chinese their lives. One-man totalitarian rule is bad news for everybody everywhere. Xi’s personal power makes China more repressive at home as well as more dangerous and aggressive abroad. 

“For Xi Jinping, whatever he says is the law,” Lam added. “There are no longer any checks and balances.”

Lam meant internally, but, for better or worse, we are likely to see what checks and balances and defenses there are outside of communist-run China. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fifth Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights international affairs

The Chinazis Next Door

China, spies, police, Canada, USA, America

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

This 1966 comedy about the accidental grounding of a Soviet submarine off the coast of New England was nominated for four Academy Awards and captured the Golden Globe Award for best motion picture.

But a remake exclaiming “The Chinese Are Coming!” would be old hat: They’re already here. 

“The People’s Republic of China has opened at least three police stations on Canadian soil as part of an alleged attempt by the country’s security state to keep an eye on the Chinese-Canadian diaspora,” The National Post informed last month.

“Canada-based dissidents of the Beijing government have long warned Canadian authorities that they face organized harassment from Chinese authorities,” The Post added.

A new report by Safeguard Defenders, a Spain-based foundation working for human rights in Asia, reveals there are now 54 of these Chinese “service stations” in 30 countries . . . including one in New York City.

The organization warns of “China’s growing global transnational repression,” explaining that in the last year 230,000 expats were “persuaded to return” to China but “these returns are often obtained by visiting extreme sanctions on the families of those targeted, such as asset seizures and prohibition from seeking government health care or education.”

In another recent report noted by The Globe and Mail, “the United Nations human-rights office said it found ‘patterns of intimidations, threats and reprisals’ against Uyghurs and other Chinese nationals living overseas who had spoken out against Beijing.”

Just last week, “El Correo published direct corroboration from Chinese authorities” of “illegal policing operations” with an anonymous Chinese official telling the Spanish paper, “The bilateral treaties are very cumbersome, and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China. I don’t see what is wrong with pressuring criminals to face justice. . . .”

The message to Chinese dissidents is clear: “You’re not safe anywhere.”

Are we?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Musk Gone Mad?

China, Taiwan, authoritarianism

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has often been lauded in this commentary — regarding SpaceX and the growth of private space travel, and recently for providing crucial internet access through his company’s Starlink satellites first to Ukraine and now for Iranian protesters.

I like that.

But the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) doesn’t like it at all. As Musk acknowledged last week in an interview with the Financial Times (FT), explaining that Chinese rulers wanted “assurances” he would not provide Starlink internet to the 1.4 billion people they actively repress.

With a Tesla plant in Shanghai, Musk is much more vulnerable to the dictates of Xi Jinping and the CCP than he is to Vladimir Putin or Iran’s Ayatollah. 

“Tesla, though headquartered in the U.S.,” Forbes notes, “made about half of its cars last year in mainland China, the world’s largest auto market.” 

Which amounts to an awful lot of leverage.

In that same FT interview, Musk floated a “solution” to the tensions between China, which threatens a military attack that might kill millions, and its target Taiwan, which overwhelmingly favors a war of resistance to CCP takeover and threatened re-education.

“My recommendation,” the usually innovative businessman told FT, “would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan [under China’s authority] that is reasonably palatable,” adding, “it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong.”

While the Chinese ambassador to the U.S. thanked Elon Musk for his idea, a senior Taiwanese official reminded, “The world has seen clearly what happened to Hong Kong.”

Does this brilliant businessman really think that the promise of a more “lenient” totalitarianism is any kind of solution?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Armageddon, Anyone?

war, Russia, nuclear bomb

Ah, the things one hears at high-dollar Democratic Party fundraisers!

Like declaring Russia’s threat to unleash nuclear weapons against Ukraine as the most serious “prospect of Armageddon in 60 years.”

Last week, Sleepy Joe “startled many Americans” with those remarks at a closed-door meeting of big donors.

Backpedaling on Friday, “U.S. officials stressed . . . that the United States has no reason to change its nuclear posture.” No reason? We’re backing one side in a war in which nukes are on the table!

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, didn’t defend Biden’s “Armageddon” terminology but offered that it was “useful for the president and the administration to be having a conversation with the public about the risk.”

Of course, the president gave this frank evaluation to his party’s top check-writers, not the public. And that’s the second biggest problem with U.S. foreign policy: it’s totally divorced from the people. 

The biggest? Headin’ towards Armageddon. If Mr. Biden is serious about slouching towards the End Times, he should do more than make it the subject of political locker-room talk. 

Like what? How about:

  1. Seek to reduce tensions, wherever possible, and help Mr. Putin find an off ramp from his war in Ukraine; 
  2. Double- and triple-down on technologically defending the American people from the threat posed by nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction; and  
  3. Speak to the people about these threats and the U.S. response.

While security concerns may dictate that information not be shared publicly, if it’s good enough to share on the rubber-chicken circuit, it good enough for ‘We the People.’

We pay the highest prices; we deserve to hear the sales pitch.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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