CHINA

[Lhalo]

5 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I'm gona go out on a  limb and say it's because they are privately owned. They are buying up tons of real estate in California as well.

It should be illegal for foreigners to own US real estate. 

[Tank]

2 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I'm gona go out on a  limb and say it's because they are privately owned. They are buying up tons of real estate in California as well.

I’ve known about them buying real estate, which I find slightly less troubling. But from a strategic and security POV, I can’t fathom anyone having permission to sell a resource as important to our country as an oil field.

[Blarg]

2 hours ago, Lhalo said:

It should be illegal for foreigners to own US real estate. 

What about Americans owning foreign real estate? 

[Tank]

41 minutes ago, Blarg said:

What about Americans owning foreign real estate? 

Are you going to be the one to tell Karen she can’t have a vacation home in St. Kitts? Good luck with that.

[Lhalo]

8 hours ago, Blarg said:

What about Americans owning foreign real estate? 

Their country, their rules. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52762291

NPC: China moves to impose controversial Hong Kong security law

Quote

China's ruling Communist Party has set in motion a controversial national security law for Hong Kong, a move seen as a major blow to the city's freedoms.

The law to ban "treason, secession, sedition and subversion" could bypass Hong Kong's lawmakers.

Critics say Beijing is breaking its promise to allow Hong Kong freedoms not seen elsewhere in China.

GG Hong Kong

[Tank]

so it's now against the law to commit treason? that's very progressive!

[gotbeer]

flashback.

Hong Kong's Return To China

[AngelsLakersFan]

4 hours ago, Tank said:

so it's now against the law to commit treason? that's very progressive!

There were thousands of people on the streets back in March who would be tried under these new laws.

[Tank]

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

There were thousands of people on the streets back in March who would be tried under these new laws.

were they all committing treason or were they protesting? these are not necessarily the same thing.

[AngelsLakersFan]

5 minutes ago, Tank said:

were they all committing treason or were they protesting? these are not necessarily the same thing.

You're thinking like an American. When China pushes through a special law outlawing "treason, secession, sedition and subversion" in the wake of mass protests it's pretty clear what they are doing. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-blacklist-idUSKBN22Y2QR

Dozens of Chinese companies added to U.S. blacklist in latest Beijing rebuke

Quote

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it would add 33 Chinese firms and institutions to an economic blacklist for helping Beijing spy on its minority Uighur population or because of ties to weapons of mass destruction and China’s military.

Seven companies and two institutions were listed for being “complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs” and others, the Commerce Department said in a statement.

 

[gotbeer]

3 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

There were thousands of people on the streets back in March who would be tried under these new laws.

LOL if you think they would receive a trial.  

They'd be buried with the non existant Rona deaths.

[AngelsLakersFan]

6 minutes ago, gotbeer said:

LOL if you think they would receive a trial.  

They'd be buried with the non existant Rona deaths.

Why bother with laws then. I wouldn't expect a fair trial, but they'll get a trial.

[AngelsLakersFan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/briefing/churches-china-memorial-day.html

Quote

As China unveiled a plan to put Hong Kong more firmly under its rule, President Xi Jinping, emboldened by China’s relative recovery from the coronavirus, appeared willing to risk diplomatic confrontation with the U.S.

The proposal, announced at the opening of China’s annual legislative session, would allow Chinese officials to crack down on political freedom and dissent in Hong Kong. One Chinese official said the proposal was a means to “punish” the city’s pro-democracy protest movement.

The congress also declined to set an annual economic growth target amid the worst slump since Mao. Hong Kong’s stock market plunged.

The U.S. condemned China’s plan as “disastrous” for Hong Kong’s semi-autonomy and civil liberties, and held out the possibility of economic retaliation.

 

[gotbeer]

Just now, AngelsLakersFan said:

Why bother with laws then. I wouldn't expect a fair trial, but they'll get a trial.

We are talking about Communist China right? 

 

No they won't.  The most they will get is the guilty charges read to them.

[AngelsLakersFan]

2 minutes ago, gotbeer said:

The most they will get is the guilty charges read to them.

That sounds like a trial to me!

(Also this is Hong Kong)

[gotbeer]

4 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

That sounds like a trial to me!

(Also this is Hong Kong)

It was Hong Kong.  The iron curtain is going to swallow them up.  

It's too bad too.  Hong Kong is a great place to visit.  

[AngelsLakersFan]

This is a pretty great article outlining everything going on in China over the last two months.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/05/china-hong-kong-pandemic-autonomy-law-aggression/611983/

The End of Hong Kong

China has moved to take away the city’s autonomy, one of several aggressive actions by Beijing across the region.

Quote

Over the course of April and throughout May, while much of the world’s attention was trained on the coronavirus’s spiraling death toll, hardly a day passed in Hong Kong without news of arrested activists, scuffles among lawmakers, or bombastic proclamations from mainland officials. Long-standing norms were done away with at dizzying speed.

In that time, Beijing was undertaking aggressive actions across Asia. A Chinese ship rammed a Vietnamese vessel in the contested waters of the South China Sea, sinking it. Off the coast of Malaysia, in the country’s exclusive economic zone, a Chinese research vessel, accompanied by coast-guard and fishing ships—likely part of China’s maritime militia, civilian vessels marshaled by Beijing in times of need—began survey work near a Malaysian oil rig. The standoff that followed drew warships from the United States and Australia, as well as China. Beijing then declared that it had created two administrative units on islands in the South China Sea that are also claimed by Vietnam. Chinese officials have reacted, too, with predictable rage to Taiwan, whose handling of the pandemic has won plaudits and begun a push for more international recognition.

The moves were capped this week when China’s National People’s Congress announced that it would force wide-ranging national-security laws on Hong Kong in response to last year’s prodemocracy protests. In doing so, Beijing circumvented the city’s autonomous legislative process and began dismantling the “one country, two systems” framework under which Hong Kong is governed, setting up what will likely be a fundamental shift in the territory’s freedoms, its laws, and how it is recognized internationally.

 

[Redondo]

China tells US to ‘give up’ wishful thinking or face Cold War

Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, said Sunday that the U.S. should “give up on its wishful thinking of changing China” and avoid bringing the two countries to a “new Cold War.”

“China has no intention to change, still replace, the United States,” he said, according to the Washington Post. “It is time for the United States to give up it's wishful thinking of changing China and stopping 1.4 billion people in their historic march toward modernization.”

The relationship between the U.S. and China has been strained for some time. President Trump has criticized Beijing over a trade imbalance and the outbreak of the coronavirus lead both to accuse the other of an improper response. Trump recently said that he may completely end U.S. funding for the World Health Organization over its cozy ties with Beijing.

The White House has insisted that Beijing downplayed the virus' threat in December, which led to the subsequent outbreak. China has denied the charge and accused Trump of shirking responsibility to the organization, according to the AFP.

[AngelsLakersFan]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/25/taiwan-promises-support-for-hong-kongs-people-china-national-security-law?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1

Taiwan promises 'support' for Hong Kong's people as China tightens grip

President Tsai Ing-wen pledges ‘necessary assistance’ after a resurgence in protests against newly proposed security legislation from Beijing

Quote

Hong Kong officials have said they support the looming legislation. On Monday, Hong Kong’s security chief said “terrorism” was growing in the city, as government departments rallied behind Beijing’s plans to introduce the national security laws.

“Terrorism is growing in the city and activities which harm national security, such as ‘Hong Kong independence’, become more rampant,” Secretary for Security John Lee said in a statement.

Quote

Officials in Beijing and Hong Kong have bristled at the growing international condemnation of the move to impose national security laws and accused those supported the protesters of foreign interference. Hong Kong China has accused supporters of Taiwan independence of colluding with the protesters.

China believes Taiwanese President Tsai to be a “separatist” bent on declaring the island’s formal independence. Tsai says Taiwan is already an independent country called the Republic of China, its official name.

 

[Tank]

man, this is going to blow up.

[tdawg87]

1 hour ago, Tank said:

man, this is going to blow up.

Gross.

[Lhalo]

China isn’t going to win this battle. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

10 minutes ago, Lhalo said:

China isn’t going to win this battle. 

We have the upper hand right now, but within the next 20 years China will be the worlds dominant super power. The Europeans seem to want to avoid all conflict, but if you let this bully keep pushing you around things will only be worse when they are that much bigger than you.