Beijing: Chinese citizens continue to remain in an unhappy state and face the totalitarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party while it openly declares its dominance of the legal system and also rejects judicial independence. According to The Hongkong Post, the local courts in the communist nation are not often regarded in high esteem in the country.There has been widespread public unhappiness in China as it is the worst perpetrator of human rights in the world, while the CCP is fully aware that their "campaign-style" justice is a flagrant violation of the rule of law, and it is well aware of the inherent hazards of such campaigns and the possible consequences to public support for its monopoly on power. Earlier, under Xi Jinping's overall anti-corruption push, five provinces claimed the arrest of more than 1,000 organized criminal suspects, each within a span of two weeks, a local media report stated.Shandong province even instituted a quota system, mandating prosecutors' offices in each local district to prosecute at least one such case every year, or face poor performance evaluations, it added. During the three-year effort, police allegedly cracked down on 246,000 cases, prosecutors issued 36,000 indictments in which numerous defendants were implicated, and trial courts decided 32,900 cases involving 225,500 defendants. According to the little public reports on sentencing data available, those determined to be members of "organized criminal gangs" or "gang-like groupings" earned considerably lengthier jail sentences than their pre-campaign counterparts.Furthermore, the seizure of assets from convicted campaign targets has been a significant source of non-tax revenue for several local governments, emphasizing on hefty corruption that is embedded in Xi Jinping's government. At the behest of their political superiors, compromised cops, prosecutors, or judges often use the local public security bureau to criminally arrest and occasionally punish persons who refuse their demands. Several beaurocrats of China like He Xingxiang, former vice president of China Development Bank, and Wang Linqing, a former assistant judge at China's Supreme Court have been booked earlier for taking bribes and held indicative of corruption in China, putting the Chinese government and the judicial system at issue.—ANI

Chinese citizens continue to remain in an unhappy state and face the totalitarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party while it openly declares its dominance of the legal system and also rejects judicial independence. According to The Hongkong Post, the local courts in the communist nation are not often regarded in high esteem in the country.

Chinese people 'unhappy' under Xi Jinping's authoritarian regime

New Delhi : The Central&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/topic/consumer-protection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(37, 145, 220);">Consumer Protection</a>&nbsp;Authority (CCPA) has directed District Collectors to ensure enforcement of guidelines issued with regard to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/topic/service-charge-by-hotels" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(37, 145, 220);">service charge by hotels</a>&nbsp;and restaurants.Upon receiving related complaints, the District Collector may conduct investigation pertaining to violation of the guidelines and submit the report to the authority within 15 days, said CCPA in a statement on Saturday. In a letter to Chief Secretaries of all States, UTs and District Collectors, the CCPA has asked to arrange wide publicity of the guidelines along with its immediate implementation for protection of consumer interest. The letter gives clear direction that levying of service charge is in violation to the guidelines and constitutes unfair trade practice wherein affecting rights of consumers as a class, and cognizance of such complaints must be taken on priority.According to CCPA, total 537 complaints were lodged by consumers on levying of service charge on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/category/current-affairs-news-national-1150106.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(37, 145, 220);">National</a>&nbsp;Consumer Helpline from April 1 to June 20, 2022. The major grievances include hotels, restaurants making service charge compulsory, and also adding service charge by some other name and suppressing from consumers that paying service charge is optional and voluntary.From July 5 to 8, after the guidelines were issued, 85 complaints have been registered on NCH, the CCPA said. The top 5 cities of service charge complaints are New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune and Ghaziabad with 18, 15, 11, 4 and 3 complaints respectively.Nidhi Khare, Chief Commissioner, CCPA has also clarified that the guidelines are not advisory in nature and are fully enforceable by law."If any consumer finds that a hotel or restaurant is levying service charge in violation to the guidelines, a consumer may make a request to the concerned hotel or restaurant to remove service charge from the bill amount. Or the consumer may lodge a complaint on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/category/current-affairs-news-national-1150106.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(37, 145, 220);">National</a>&nbsp;Consumer Helpline (NCH), which works as an alternate dispute redressal mechanism at the pre-litigation level by calling 1915 or through the NCH mobile app", said CCPA.The difference between the new guidelines issued by CCPA and the previous guidelines by the Department of Consumer Affairs is that, in the intervening period, the erstwhile&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/topic/consumer-protection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(37, 145, 220);">Consumer Protection</a>&nbsp;Act, 1986 was replaced with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/topic/consumer-protection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(37, 145, 220);">Consumer Protection</a>&nbsp;Act 2019, which came into effect in July 2020. It created a new statutory body - the Central Consumer Protection Authority, which has been empowered by the Parliament to take cognisance of the unfair trade practices, added CCPA in statement.--IANS

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has directed District Collectors to ensure enforcement of guidelines issued with regard to service charge by hotels and restaurants.

District Collectors to ensure enforcement of service charge norms: CCPA

New Delhi (The Hawk): CCPA is continuously monitoring the consumer protection landscape in the country. Recently, CCPA issued advisory to all e-commerce platforms with regard to sale of Ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani drugs containing ingredients as listed in Schedule E(1) of Drugs and Cosmetics Rules highlighting that sale or facilitation of sale of such drugs shall be done done only after a valid prescription of a registered medical practitioner is uploaded by the user on the platform.CCPA has also recently issued Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements. The guidelines include conditions for valid and non-misleading advertisements, due diligence required for endorsement of advertisements and considerations for advertisements targeted at children.&nbsp;&nbsp;CCPA has also issued Safety Notices under Section 18(2)(j) of the Act to alert and caution consumers against buying goods which do not hold valid ISI Mark and violate compulsory BIS standards. While the first Safety Notice was issued with regard to Helmets, Pressure Cookers and Cooking gas cylinders, the second Safety Notice was issued with regard to household goods including electric immersion water heaters, sewing machines, microwave ovens, domestic gas stoves with LPG etc.The Central Consumer Protection Authority, headed by Chief Commissioner Mrs. Nidhi Khare, recently passed order against violation of consumer rights by Amazon e-commerce platform for allowing sale of domestic pressure cookers in violation to mandatory standards prescribed by the on its e-commerce platform.It may be mentioned that CCPA had initiate suo-moto action against e-commerce platforms for sale of domestic pressure cookers in violation to compulsory standards on its e-commerce platforms. CCPA had issued notices to major e-commerce platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm Mall, Shopclues and Snapdeal as well as to the sellers registered on these platforms.After examination of the response submitted by the company, it was observed that total 2,265 pressure cookers not conforming to mandatory standards were sold through Amazon after notification of the QCO. The total fee earned by the Amazon on sale of such pressure cookers through its platform was Rs.6,14,825.41.Amazon admitted that it earned ‘sales commission’ fee for the pressure cookers sold on its platform. It was observed by CCPA that when Amazon earns commercially from each sale of the product listed on its e-commerce platform, it can not disassociate itself in case of issues arising from sale of products through its platform.&nbsp;In the order, CCPA directed Amazon to notify all consumers of the 2,265 pressure cookers sold on its platform, recall the pressure cookers and reimburse their prices to the consumers and submit a compliance report of the same within 45 days. The company was also directed to pay a penalty of Rs. 1,00,000 for allowing sale of pressure cookers in violation to the QCO on its platform and violating rights of consumers.It may be mentioned that CCPA had passed similar order of penalty and recall of defective pressure cookers against Paytm Mall, which has complied with direction passed by CCPA and deposited the penalty of Rs.1,00,000.

CCPA is continuously monitoring the consumer protection landscape in the country

Central Consumer Protection Authority passes order against Amazon for allowing sale of domestic pressure cookers

Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping is aiming to seize control over the internet to curb dissent, which could possibly threaten the Chinese Communist Party's regime.
Xi is heading towards "smart governance" which translates to having an upper hand in social and political control. Smart governance is the realm of cyberspace administration work -- the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud computing, with the ultimate goal to transition China's cyberspace from technical administration to "AI administration."
However, Vinu Dharunesh J, an associate research fellow writing in Indo-pacific Center for Strategic Communications (IPCSC) said that one of the largest military conglomerates in the world is seizing control of cyber security in order to eliminate threats that do not exist.
Chinese Electronics Technology Group (CETC), a state-owned military conglomerate deployed military-style surveillance -- using the Hikvision Digital Technology, and command of networks across China that includes a facial recognition system which is capable of automatically identifying people, also run ethical profiling on them and tracking almost every being in sight of the cameras.
This step taken by CETC is to strengthen 'national security' as they say it. However, it's still quite unsure how widely specific patent-registered technologies have been used in practice -- in this article, we'll dive into how they would use technologies to monitor cyberspace, said Vinu Dharunesh J.
The Chinese state's priorities are to harness methods in policing online activity and 'somewhat...' quite undetected, naturally, influencing and guiding public opinions. Why? This is to eliminate any sorts of rising risks against CCP's regime. Controlling public opinions is basically removing direct political blowups -- anything that could make the world raise fingers at China or Chinese citizens protesting.
According to a report by the Jamestown Foundation, CETC openly declares that its purpose is "leveraging civilian electronics" to gain the People's Liberation Army (PLA). There are concerns raised against CETC's military links to its work with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in the past, reported IPCSC.
CETC is allegedly involved in human rights abuses which prompted US sanctions on some of its research institutes and subsidiaries, including Hikvision Digital Technology.
The company is the largest manufacturer of surveillance equipment. Information gathered from multiple sources cites that they're responsible for supporting massive human rights violations against ethnic and religious minorities in China.
Moreover, the Hikvision cameras and monitoring services are regularly used by CCP to spy on Uyghurs. Similarly, internet-connected devices are manufactured by Tuya, a Chinese company backed by state-owned Tencent.
Tuya's hardware, software, and cloud services power more than 100 million "smart" devices -- including consumer products, surveillance equipments, manufacturing and supply chain applications that are proliferating across the world, said Vinu Dharunesh J. Meanwhile, Beijing stated that it is the "new era" where they are focusing on military technologies, skills and training, and a shift towards "intelligentisation." —ANI

Chinese President Xi Jinping is aiming to seize control over the internet to curb dissent, which could possibly threaten the Chinese Communist Party's regime.

Xi Jinping Aims To Seize Complete Control Over Internet To Curb Dissent

Beijing: China's healthcare system is facing several hardships and at the verge of collapse as the faulty Covid policies of the Xi Jinping-led Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the form of draconian zero-Covid policy which not only harmed the economy but also terribly failed to control the virus, Inside Over reported.
At a time when thousands of people are dying and doctors are giving out in overcrowded hospitals, not even a mask mandate exists in the nation right now. The schools are still open, but nobody is going there since the kids are either sick or are afraid they will become sick amid a Covid spike in the Chinese mainland.
According to several media reports, confidence in China's manufacturing and service sectors was at its lowest point since 2020 at the end of 2022.
According to the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, about 80 per cent of European companies operating in China have reduced their revenue forecasts. According to estimates, 20 per cent of young people are unemployed, Inside Over reported.
According to a World Health Organization assessment of the Covid situation in China, there were 31,585 fatalities and more than 10 million verified cases of the disease between January 3, 2020, and December 23, 2022. Between one million and two million deaths are predicted for China in 2023, according to experts.
Employees in local hospitals have been working overtime during the holidays to ensure the treatment of patients amid the epidemic wave as part of the overall coordination of the epidemic prevention and control departments to optimize epidemic prevention policies and ensure scientific treatment, according to Global Times.
Districts in Shanghai, including Jiading, Minhang and Songjiang have improved their management measures for graded treatment to divert non-urgent COVID patients from top-tier hospitals as infections and critical cases peaked in recent days. The country is also facing a shortage of medical supplies amid the ongoing wave of covid and healthcare is at brink of collapse.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on December 28 announced that the US will require a negative COVID-19 test from all travellers arriving in the country from China as well as those from Hong Kong and Macau. "CDC is announcing today that it will implement a requirement for a negative COVID-19 test or documentation of recovery for air passengers boarding flights to the United States originating from the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau," the CDC said in a statement released on its website.
Earlier, protests erupted across China due to the harsh lockdowns after 10 people died in an apartment fire. There were allegations that firefighters were stopped from coming inside the apartment block due to the quarantine orders. The country reversed its COVID policy due to widespread protests in nine cities across China. —ANI

China's healthcare system is facing several hardships and at the verge of collapse as the faulty Covid policies of the Xi Jinping-led Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the form of draconian zero-Covid policy which not only harmed the economy but also terribly failed to control the virus, Inside Over reported.

CCP's Faulty Covid Management Pushes Healthcare System Of China To Edge

Beijing: Beijing's increasing reliance on imports, making it dependent on a number of foods is likely to result in China becoming vulnerable in various ways that could be used against it in a crisis, Toronto-based Geopolitical Monitor, an international intelligence publication reported. The subject of food security in China has received widespread media attention suddenly after Xi Jinping's recent article on agricultural self-reliance in Qiushi Journal, a publication of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), compared it to national security. Xi argued in his article that the Russia-Ukraine crisis has shown that agriculture has turned into a "foundation of national security" and urged making food self-sufficiency a major priority in the upcoming years. China's per capita grain production increased just a little under Xi, from 462.5 kg in 2013 to 483.5 kg in 2021. This has led to an increase in import dependency during the same period, which, in Xi's opinion, is a national security worry, Geopolitical Monitor reported. In comparison to other nations, China currently imports the most soybean, corn, wheat, rice, and dairy goods, and this dependence has mostly grown over the past ten years. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has defined three levels of food self-sufficiency. Below 80 per cent is considered a food deficit, between 80 pc-120 pc as food self-sufficiency and above 120 per cent as a food surplus country.  China's food self-sufficiency rate decreased from 101.8 pc in 2000 to 76.8 pc in 2020 and is further expected to fall to 65 pc by 2035 if timely measures are not implemented. Rising import dependency on crucial food items has largely worsened China's food security, according to Geopolitical Monitor. Several consumers across China are increasingly choosing imported goods due to factors such as shrinking cultivable land, fewer productive seeds, increased expenses of home production, and worries about the safety of local brands. As a result, despite having a high level of domestic production, China has turned into a net importer of food since 2004. In addition to being overly reliant on imported food grains, China is also overly reliant on imported seeds, particularly for non-staple food. The seeds sector in China, known as the "chips of agriculture," is similarly plagued by poor quality, ineffectiveness, and a lack of innovation, the Toronto-based publication said in its report. China only had around 9 per cent of global arable land (around 2.3 billion mu) by 2019 to feed over 20 per cent of the global population. Thus, new Premier Li Qiang has emphasised China's goal to boost agriculture production by concentrating on expanding arable land. The realization of economic benefit to common citizens has been the bedrock of the CPC's legitimacy in China. However, failure in ensuring food security can rapidly erode this legitimacy. As per Geopolitical Monitor, this was made clear by the demonstrators' demand for food during the Sitong Bridge demonstration a few days prior to the 20th Party Congress rather than COVID tests. Furthermore, the problem has repercussions for China's foreign policy considerations, as shown by the trade war's use of China's dependence on US soybeans. (ANI)

Beijing's increasing reliance on imports, making it dependent on a number of foods is likely to result in China becoming vulnerable in various 

Failure in ensuring food security can erode CCP legitimacy in China

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government has announced allocation of more than Rs 146 crore for reimbursement of the first installment of concessions to eight mega projects under the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Investment Policy. The mega projects for which the first installment of incentive reimbursement has been released include Jaypee Cement Aligarh, RCCPL Pvt Ltd, Rae Bareli and Gallantt Ispat Ltd, Gorakhpur. The government's move to provide incentives, special facilities and concessions to the investors is aimed at accelerating implementation of proposed mega projects for which agreements were signed between the government and investors during the Global Investors Summit 2023, held between February 10 and 12 in Lucknow. A decision regarding reimbursement process of incentives to these industrial undertakings as per their eligibility was taken at a recent meeting chaired by Infrastructure and Industrial Development Commissioner (IIDC) Manoj Kumar. JK Cement Works, Aligarh (a unit of JK Cement Ltd), will also be reimbursed a total incentive of Rs 21.85 crore for the financial year 2020-21 and Rs 12.52 crore for 2021-2022. Similarly, Paswara Papers Ltd, Meerut, will be reimbursed Rs 12.65 crore as incentive, according to a media handout issued by the government. An amount of Rs 1.63 crore will be received as SGST reimbursement of Rs 11.02 crore and capital interest subvention reimbursement. Varun Beverages Ltd, located in Sandila, Hardoi, will be reimbursed incentive amount of Rs 8.52 crore for the year 2021-22 whereas Gallantt Ispat Ltd Gorakhpur will get the first reimbursement amount of a total of Rs 15.96 crore, including Rs 6.88 and Rs 9.08 crore in two categories, according to the government spokesman. Besides, Sparsh Industries Pvt Ltd, Kanpur Dehat, will be reimbursed Rs 3.66 crore, RCCPL Pvt Ltd, Raebareli, Rs 46.55 crore and Shree Cement Pvt Ltd, Bulandshahr, will get the first incentive amount of Rs 24.28 crore in three categories. —IANS

The Uttar Pradesh government has announced allocation of more than Rs 146 crore for reimbursement of the first installment of concessions

UP Govt Announces Concessions For 8 Mega Projects

Hong Kong: Communism was supposed to create workers' paradises, but history demonstrated that was a forlorn hope. China, the global factory, makes much of its outstanding economic growth, but economic coercion internationally, and forced labor abuses at home, are very much part of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) equation. For example, China has used trade as a weapon against the likes of Australia, Lithuania and South Korea for political purposes. Recognizing repeated Chinese intransigence, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said last week, "We should be clear-eyed about the growing challenge we face. China is engaged in a concerted and strategic economic contest." The leaders of the G7 announced in Hiroshima on 20 May measures to respond to economic coercion in order to adopt a common approach against China and others of similar ilk. The G7 stated: "We are taking additional steps today to enhance our ongoing strategic coordination on economic resilience and economic security by reducing vulnerabilities and countering malign practices that exploit and reinforce them." Certainly, coordinated action is far more effective than unilateral efforts, as China seeks to divide and conquer with its economic cudgel. Noting that the world is encountering "a disturbing rise in incidents of economic coercion" which exploit economic vulnerabilities and undermine foreign and domestic policies worldwide, the G7 added: "We will address non-market policies and practices designed to reinforce dependencies, and will counter economic coercion. We will continue to ensure that the clearly defined, narrow set of sensitive technologies that are crucial for national security, or could threaten international peace and security, are appropriately controlled, without unduly impacting broader trade in technology." Referring to dual-use technologies, the grouping continued: "We have a common interest in preventing the narrow set of technological advances that are assessed to be core to enhancing the military and intelligence capabilities of actors who may use these capabilities to undermine international peace and security, from being fueled by our companies' capital, expertise and knowledge." Knowing it was the target, China responded angrily to the G7's new joint mechanism, accusing the group of manipulation and interference in its internal affairs. Recent episodes of wanton Chinese economic coercion include sanctioning Lockheed Martin and Raytheon for weapon sales to Taiwan; investigating American microchip maker Micron; raiding the Chinese offices of US due diligence firm Mintz; and detaining an executive of Japan's Astellas Pharma group. Another massive issue of coercion is forced labor in China. Although Beijing denies any forced labor exists within its borders, a new peer-reviewed study by the academic Adrian Zenz demonstrated that China is pursuing a state-sponsored campaign of forced labor for cotton production in Xinjiang. Published by the Journal of Communist and Post-Communist Studies, via the University of California Press, the study noted that "state-sponsored forced labor is characterized by pervasive state-induced and systemic dynamics of coercion that are deeply embedded within sociocultural contexts ... Xinjiang's labor transfer program, which continued through 2022, pursues some economic aims but is predominantly designed to achieve Beijing's wider ethno-political goals in the region." Such measures form part of Xinjiang's official Five-Year Plan for 2021-25. Manual labor is required since premium-grade cotton in southern Xinjiang cannot be harvested by machines. Xinjiang produces more than 20% of the world's cotton harvest, feeding the clothing and garment industry. Indeed, Xinjiang offers a complete value chain for cotton, from picking through to production of yarn textiles and garments. Zenz said labor coercion accelerated after 2016, alongside a pogrom of mass interment and highly oppressive policies against Uyghurs, as the CCP sought to assimilate and re-engineer this ethnic community. Today, Uyghurs are forced at accept state-assigned work placements in cotton fields or related factories, separated from families and communities. Furthermore, they must endure intensive surveillance, long working hours and, in the evenings, mandatory political indoctrination and Chinese language classes. Recognizing forced labor in Xinjiang, the US Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in late 2021, thereby banning all imports from Xinjiang on the presumption of forced labor, unless businesses can prove otherwise. American imports from Xinjiang are now down 90% since the law took effect in June 2022. Although the EU will introduce similar legislation, Zenz fears that cotton tainted by forced labor will still enter global supply chains unless the laws specifically target Xinjiang. This is mostly because such laws address company-based forced labor, rather than state-sponsored labor, as exists in Xinjiang. The CCP has moved on from its mass concentration camps, in which millions of Uyghurs were incarcerated. Beijing received heavy international criticism once the full extent of its activities was exposed. Although many are still imprisoned, China has intensified the transition to forced labor, as the government can still indoctrinate and control the Uyghur population in this way. Zenz recorded: "From 2017, the region greatly increased the scope and coerciveness of transfers targeting especially Uyghurs for cotton picking." The policy was intensified in 2019. "Xinjiang's labor transfer program features its own mechanisms of coercion that operate in tandem with society-wide systems of surveillance and predictive policing. Transfers are part of wider schemes to reduce concentrations of non-Han populations. Since 2018, the region also coercively places camp detainees into heavily surveilled factory work." Before 2017, most of Xinjiang's cotton pickers were Han migrant workers from other parts of China. It was at this time that the government ordered that preference be given to Uyghur workers. Between 2016 and 2020, Xinjiang transferred an annual average of 2.87 million workers. Zenz obtained internal state documents from the Xinjiang Police Files website, which disclosed that state compulsion of Uyghurs into "poverty alleviation measures" intensified after mass interments peaked in 2018. Documents from 2019 sternly arned officials that efforts to employ Uyghurs fell short of targets. Officials were threatened with severe repercussions, and lists were compiled of "lazy" people with insufficient "inner motivation". These lists could include people as old as 77 years. Internal directives said such people must be subjected to "repeated...thought education" until it produced "obvious results". As well as able-bodied people, students and those older than 60 were forced to pick cotton, vegetables, tomatoes and peppers. Local governments organized centralized childcare so mothers could also participate in seasonal agriculture labor.  Such top-down directives from the CCP are not treated lightly. As with China's Draconian COVID-19 regulations, local officials passionately outdo each other to enact CCP orders. Not only are such directives met, but often they are exceeded thanks to heavy-handed enforcement. Zenz pointed out: "In reality, most forced labor in the region is unrelated to the camps. The bigger factor is coercive labor transfers, which are implemented as part of Xi's campaign to eradicate absolute poverty. These affect almost all forms of low-skill work, regardless of sector." Xinjiang's 2021-25 Five-Year Plan mandates that all persons able to work must have a job. Any Uyghurs who fail to comply with work placements are branded "extremists", and thus subject to open-ended imprisonment in a reeducation camp. Any resistance to state policies is deemed a threat to national security. Actually, Chinese officials admit the goal of "full employment" in Xinjiang is not just about economic development, but that it constitutes a political mandate seen as critical to China's national security. Chairman Xi Jinping personally stated that widespread unemployment would "provoke trouble"; thus, forcibly employing them keeps potential "troublemakers" gainfully occupied. Also part of the process is converting small plots of Uyghur-owned land into large-scale plantations. Uyghur families are forced to surrender their land usage rights in favor of large-scale collective entities. To add insult to injury, these farmers were then forced to perform manual work in nearby factories or sweatshops. It is not just cotton and farming that are subject to forced labor. As China pushes both vocational training and forced employment in Xinjiang, the possibility grows that more highly skilled industries will also embrace forced labor. In 2021, Xinjiang dispatched 400,000 cadres to investigate 12 million rural households. They identified 774,000 households for real-time monitoring and, more than coincidentally, the number of transferred workers reached a record high that year. These "recruitment drives are characterized by tightly organized transfers and close supervision". China promises material benefits from employment, including anti-exploitation regulations, improved work conditions, higher safety standards and social benefits. While this sounds positive, such nominal measures actually underscore the whole coercive nature of the scheme. Throughout their employment, cadres closely monitor workers and even assess their "state of mind". Zenz said: "Xinjiang's system at least nominally aims to increase incomes so that the state can declare ethnic regions to be free from poverty. Given China's low absolute poverty threshold, even meager remuneration for picking cotton suffices to push ethnic pickers above that line. However, the state's long-term goal is to shift people from traditional livelihoods and communities to 'modern' state-controlled settings of work, indoctrination and social control". China ratified International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions banning the use of forced labor in August 2022. Beijing did so because it feels confident in disguising its forced-labor programs, plus signing it makes the country look law-abiding. Zenz conceded: "To understand and evaluate the dynamic, whole-of-society nature of state-led coercive work placements, international inspectors would have to conduct extensive fieldwork in relevant rural settings - something impossible in Xinjiang." Thus, even on-scene investigations in Xinjiang will not necessarily raise red flags. The German academic wrote: "The resulting environments of 'structurally forced consent' are not necessarily immediately observable to outsiders, and may be challenging to assess through conventional means such as the ILO's forced labor indicator framework, which was not designed to evaluate state-sponsored forced labor." Nor, in a highly repressive environment such as Xinjiang, can talking to individual workers get to the truth. The greatest levels of coercion occur at the initial recruitment stage, and where the prevailing social context precludes free movement. The CCP thus feels confident it can obfuscate the existence of such labor programs. It can circumvent ILO indicators on the ground (of which there are eleven, including abuse of vulnerability, restriction of movement, isolation, intimidation, abusive work conditions, violence, debt bondage and withholding wages), because it is difficult to identify forced labor on the ground. Thus, efforts to expose China's duplicity must look beyond mere economic exploitation, and also examine ethnic, religious, cultural and national security aspects. Chinese clothing companies using Xinjiang cotton are already obfuscating supply chains to evade Western sanctions. Furthermore, Beijing has obstreperously implemented its own counter-sanctions law penalizing Chinese businesses if they comply with Western sanctions. Xinjiang is one of the tightest security states in the world, and ethnic profiling against Uyghurs is rampant. The authorities even "preempt" acts of deviance through mass surveillance and predictive policing. Internment is a go-to solution for any hint of trouble, which may include past actions, social interactions and behavior patterns. Zenz further noted: "Beijing's policies in Xinjiang focus on ethnic profiling and are framed as an urgent matter of national security for the state, which has portrayed Uyghurs as a type of 'biological threat'. Compared to traditional rural livelihoods, surveilled factory environments in China provide the state with greater control over workers, weaken traditional community structures and curtail the intergenerational transmission of indigenous culture." Zenz warned that China's forced-labor program may continue for "a long time to come", owing to its economic might, the CCP's long-term political aims in Xinjiang, and Xi's perceived implications for national security. As the G7 explained: "Our policy approaches are not designed to harm China, nor do we seek to thwart China's economic progress and development. A growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest. We are not decoupling or turning inwards. At the same time, we recognize that economic resilience requires de-risking and diversifying." If only China would desist from its coercive behaviors at home and abroad. But there is negligible chance of this happening as long as Xi determinedly holds the reins of power. (ANI)

Communism was supposed to create workers' paradises, but history demonstrated that was a forlorn hope

Coercion is China's modus operandi, whether in domestic cotton fields or economically abroad

Beijing [China]: Chinese internet users have been supporting Hamas for the last two months and posting caricatures of the group's fighters on Bilibili, a video-sharing website based in Shanghai and other Chinese social media sites, Voice of America (VOA) reported. Some of the social media users also shared pictures of themselves dressed like Hamas fighters.
A man disguised as a Hamas fighter, posted a video on social media, brandishing a knife and a rifle at the camera while wearing a green headband, a camouflage suit, and a Palestinian flag patch. But instead of being a part of Hamas or any other armed organisation, he is a YouTuber on the Chinese video platform Bilibili, according to VOA. The videos, which appear on social media daily, show how many people in China believe that Hamas, which the US and other nations have classified as a terrorist group, is waging a justifiable national liberation war. Strong antisemitic attitudes and overwhelming sympathy for the Palestinian side inundated the Chinese Internet in the weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7. However, Manya Koetse, a Dutch Sinology researcher and the creator and editor-in-chief of the news website "What's on Weibo," said that following a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in mid-November, antisemitic remarks on the Chinese Internet had drastically dropped, VOA reported.  China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin, however, had recently stated that China's laws "unequivocally prohibit disseminating information on extremism, ethnic hatred, discrimination and violence via the internet" during a regular news briefing on October 30. Nevertheless, VOA discovered a number of movies on Bilibili that presented Hamas favourably. In the videos, Hamas is shown as a valiant and skillful fighter. One video included the caption, "Hamas marched barefoot into an Israeli military post, killed ten people, and escaped unharmed." Moreover, the comment section of these videos show even more praise for the Hamas. A few social media users drew a parallel between the Chinese Communist Party's WWII counteroffensive against the Japanese and Hamas's attacks on the Israeli army, VOA reported. "It can be said that in them, we can see the figures of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army fighters among the white mountains and black waters in the old days," a comment read.
—ANI

Chinese internet users have been supporting Hamas for the last two months and posting caricatures of the group's fighters on Bilibili

The Hawk

Tag : CCP

Chinese people 'unhappy' under Xi Jinping's authoritarian regime

Pushkar Raj Kapoor

Tag : CCP

Chinese people 'unhappy' under Xi Jinping's authoritarian regime

Pushkar Raj Kapoor

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