cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/56159234
Op-ed by Reza Hasmath, Professor in Political Science, University of Alberta, Canada.
On July 1, China brought into force its Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, converting a decade of Xi Jinping’s doctrine of “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” into binding law.
Most attention has gone to its domestic machinery: entrenching Mandarin over minority languages, unified state textbooks and “inter-embedded” neighbourhoods engineered to dilute concentrations of Uyghurs and Tibetans among the Han majority. In other words, this is an assimilationist project that’s already far advanced.
The provision that matters most to the world outside China is buried near the end. Article 63 declares that organizations and individuals outside Chinese territory who “undermine ethnic unity” or “create ethnic division” shall be pursued for legal liability.
The Chinese government is therefore asserting, in statute, that its authority follows its critics across oceans into other countries, including Canada, home to some of the world’s largest Chinese, Uyghur and Tibetan diaspora communities. The danger is not that the law reaches across borders. It is what it criminalizes, whom it targets and how it’s enforced.
...
The intimidation inherent in the new law already violates many domestic harassment and foreign interference laws in jurisdictions around the world. Prosecutors, here, should use them against the agents carrying out the coercion, not the exiles who are its victims.
Governments should shut the unlicensed “police stations,” and press Interpol to reject politically motivated notices aimed at diaspora activists.
Governments can also build dedicated channels for those targeted: a clear law enforcement contact, protective guidance for Chinese and minority diaspora communities and training for officers who could mistake transnational repression for an ordinary domestic dispute.
Finally, asylum systems should treat Article 63 as evidence: a statute in which China announces that diaspora advocacy invites retaliation is close to proof of persecution for those seeking to flee.
China has every right to legislate for its own territory and citizens. What it cannot legitimately do, however warmly it speaks of unity, is disregard borders. The task for all nations, Canada included, is to insist, in law and in practice, that borders still exist.
...
FUCK THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT
They are actively manipulating Canada to their own benefit. Their electronics are riddled with backdoors and security holes, most of their domestically 'developed' products are lower quality ripoffs of a foreign product. We should be doing everything we can to cut down reliance on their slave driven manufacturing sector.
Carney will pander to them in order to appease his banker employers. He has done anything BUT oppose Trump. Trudeau did more than he did.
Trudeau was a haircut and a shirt. I suspect that he has had every decision fed to him since he was weened.
Carney is doing exactly what you would expect from a banker. maximizing profits for businesses and the ruling class. But the alternative was a spineless fuck who would have sold your blood to Trump for a pat on the head, so we have what we have.
Vote with your wallet, don't buy chinese made trash, whether it is routers, or cars.