One-Sided Hardball
On Monday, the United States, Britain, Canada and the European Union announced sanctions against multiple Chinese officials for “serious human rights abuses” against the Muslim-minority Uighurs in the far-west region of Xinjiang. That’s wrist-slaps over genocide while Beijing goes for the jugular against powers that displease it.
Targeting a few Chinese officials doesn’t begin to match the scale of the atrocities — torture, rape, brainwashing and 1 million in concentration camps.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken rightly says the Chinese Communist Party engaged in “genocide,” then makes noises about the allies’ “ongoing commitment to working multilaterally . . . for human rights and shining a light on” a few officials “responsible for these atrocities.” Huh? They’re not rogues, they’re following government policy.
Beijing, meanwhile, has imposed tariffs and bans on $50 billion a year of Australian seafood, wine, coal and barley just because Prime Minister Scott Morrison simply called for an independent investigation of the origins of a pandemic that has killed millions and decimated the world economy.
China is also jailing innocent Canadians on trumped-up charges and trying them in secret in a bid to blackmail Ottawa into releasing a Huawei exec arrested at US request, in full compliance with international law.
Not to mention the CCP’s nonstop cold war against the free nation of Taiwan, which has gone on for decades. On Friday, at least 20 Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s airspace, Beijing’s biggest incursion in months of bullying exercises.
Now Beijing is canceling H&M and Nike within its borders for issuing statements decrying the use of forced labor to produce cotton in Xinjiang. H&M has been pulled from major e-commerce stores in China and blocked by several major navigation, review and rating apps; Chinese celebrities have cut ties with Nike.
The West does its best not to overly offend the architects of atrocity; the CCP aims to crush those who cross it. No wonder they call us “decadent.”