As we all know now, Xia Lin, a 46-year-old lawyer whose clients have included dissident artist Ai Weiwei and free speech champion Pu Zhiqiang, was sentenced to jail for 12 years — a verdict meant as both payback and warning to China’s human rights lawyers. Legal activist and scholar, Guo Yushan, penned this essay in the lead up to Xia’s sentencing reflecting on the price paid by Xia and his colleagues for work that has been described elsewhere as “all that is hopeful and optimistic about China”.
Xi’s anti-corruption drive ‘doing more harm than good’
New academic research and analysis shows President Xi Jinping’s high-profile anti-corruption drive has fallen short of its goal. Citizens blame local graft on the central government rather than regional authorities. The Financial Times reports.
Canada should refuse to vote human-rights abusers to UN council, MP alliance says
Former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler and an all-party alliance of MPs call for Canada to vote down countries known for their human rights violations – Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba – as they seek re-election to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Michelle Zilio reports for the Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau.
Trudeau’s Human Rights Compromise
Join us Tuesday, October 11, at 8 PM. Patricia Adams of Probe International will discuss how the Trudeau administration’s willingness to extradite Canadian residents to China will embolden the Chinese government in their widespread crackdown on China’s civil society.
Peter Kent: It’s ‘concerning’ Trudeau’s office won’t criticize China
“China uses the death penalty universally, there is no due process, white-collar criminals and others of non-capital crimes are regularly put to death, one way or another, sometimes by neglect, sometimes by torture, mistreatment, by organ harvesting. And in other cases, it is a formal execution… We don’t understand why they are bothering to discuss, or talk, or negotiate at all.” ~ Conservative critic Peter Kent
Trudeau playing part as China’s patsy
“Justin Trudeau’s recent statements about considering an extradition treaty with China, a military dictatorship that executes more ‘criminals’ than any other country, and hoping to get a free trade deal with China to double trade by 2025 are both troubling.” Once again, he is showing poor judgment when it comes to China and has done so before. Bill Tieleman for The Tyee.
China’s damming of the river: A policy in disguise
China’s dam-building spree on the Tibetan Plateau has given Beijing immense leverage as controller of the region’s “blue gold” and with that power comes responsibility. For starters, to permit an open assessment of the impacts of these projects – particularly given the region’s vulnerability to seismic risk – and to share those findings with neighboring countries and the people most directly affected by dam construction upheaval.
It’s alarmingly clear now that the EU trade deal is toxic for Canada
The EU sees trade as a mechanism through which its political goals can be met. That’s why it still insists that its trading partners agree to everything from welfare policies to open borders — it even demands this of the U.K. in any new trade deal that Britain strikes after it leaves the EU.
The Three Gorges Dam: Do recent floods indicate flaws?
The Three Gorges Dam’s flood control performance continues to generate scrutiny. Jonathan Green for The Market Mogul asks how effective has the dam been period.
Disgorging
More on the Three Gorges Dam’s flood control capabilities and its performance in one of the wettest seasons for China since the record-breaking El Niño event of 1997-98. In this report, The Economist concludes the country’s weakened river pulse is “in danger not only from floods but from its flood controls.”
Why is the flood control capacity of the Three Gorges Dam project being questioned again?
Because the project’s flood control capacity doesn’t work.
Expropriation for Scarborough subway extension an unnecessary evil
A common test of whether a proposed expropriation is legitimate is whether it is “fair, sound, and reasonably necessary.” Expropriations for the Scarborough extension fail all three tests.
Brexit is already proving to be a huge victory for global free trade
World trade, Canada’s included, is beating a direct path to the British market.
The EU has no choice but to give the U.K. whatever deal Brexiteers want
The EU needs the U.K. much more than the U.K. needs the EU.
Brexit was the U.K.’s vote against a new socialist empire
The UK’s decision to leave the European Union continues the Great Unwinding of multinational states that began with the collapse of empires after the First World War.
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Other News Sources
