RE <<The USA is falling all over itself apologizing for all things racial, cultural, and economic. To the point it has become a bad habit.>>
Perhaps the MSM and the people who hijack MSM has something to do w/ the developing and enveloping mess.
Maybe the trouble cannot be stopped because the people, meaning the electorates, I.e by the people for the people have got no one to hold materially responsible, therefore necessitating upping the tempo of the current proto- cultural revolution progressively without reasonable end in sight
On another matter, to do w/ accountability and responsibility attribution ...
In the case of China, the all-people, entire-state, complete-party approach is coming together, and the Neo-people everywhere already complaining, because they all of a sudden discovering that they have no cover, since lies spread cannot be covered, and there are legal consequences. I am only guessing.
for example, here below is an ex-spook (note, there are no ex-spooks, there are only spooks) complaining
I only suspect I can guess at what is and isn't going on in Xinjiang, and I happen to believe court of law is where proper handling should start at, per sunshine kills all germs and viruses, and so let the sunshine shine, as opposed to shutting out the rays as Michael is hoping
In the matter of Meng of Huawei in Vancouver, the sunshine is doing some good Message 33381549 <<Meng Prosecutor Says HSBC Records Don’t Belong in Extradition>>
The case in court scmp.com
Xinjiang court to hear defamation case against German researcher Adrian Zenz over forced labour claims
... against Zenz should also be revealing Message 33359053 <<begins with“Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.”>>
Jerome Cohen is a big time lawyer and has following advice for Zenz that, frankly, sounds rather unpleasant, akin to a prison sentence without the prison jeromecohen.net
Here is a recent article by Eva Dou on a lawsuit against U.S.-based academic Adrian Zenz for his work on exposing human rights abuses in Xinjiang. I assume this is a civil lawsuit for defamation. It is probably an effort to reinforce propaganda throughout the country to convince the Chinese people that foreign stories about Xinjiang are demonstrably false. Defamation can also be a crime in China. Zenz has nothing to worry about as long as he does not set foot in China, unless some effort is made to enforce a PRC judgment in the courts of a country where he resides or has assets, which could be the United States, Germany or elsewhere. In such case, he might well benefit from the pro bono services of local lawyers who oppose this form of PRC oppression. Otherwise, legal defense fees could prove costly even if, as I assume, he defeats the attempt at enforcement of the foreign judgment and the court does not require the plaintiffs to reimburse his fees.
Similarly, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew made good use of defamation suits to crush local political opponents by persuading his courts to award huge damage verdicts against the opponents. They would also have to pay court costs and lawyers’ fees, perhaps even for the lawyers who sued them! The defendants had no place to hide.
Perhaps Zenz should contemplate bringing suit outside China against the Chinese companies who seek to harass him in China if they have a presence in relevant jurisdictions. He can probably find lawyers to help him pro bono, and this would not only cause the companies to incur expense but also harm their reputations in markets of importance.
Am guessing that the suspects of spin are now less amused as their lives are consumed by working for court cases.
Here below is Michael, feeling exposed as his minders must step back to leave him dangling, per Mission Impossible ghost protocol.
J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa and the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., and a former intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
nationalpost.com
J. Michael Cole: China is using our legal systems against us
The Chinese are increasingly resorting to lawfare to intimidate, silence and impose financial and psychological costs on Beijing's critics
J. Michael Cole, Special to National Post
Apr 12, 2021 • April 12, 2021 • 4 minute read • 115 Comments
 Facing growing scrutiny over its sharp power operations, the crackdown in Hong Kong and the ongoing cultural genocide in Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has launched an all-out propaganda campaign to rewrite the facts and discredit its critics. Recently, the CCP has also begun resorting to lawfare — the use or threat of legal action — to intimidate, silence and impose financial and psychological costs on researchers and journalists who are uncovering facts that Beijing doesn’t want us to know about.
Two high-profile cases have gained attention over the past year: Huawei’s defamation lawsuit against Valérie Niquet, a researcher at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research; and a domestic civil lawsuit by Chinese businesses against German researcher Adrian Zenz, over his work on Xinjiang’s Uyghurs.
This disturbing practice, however, isn’t a recent phenomenon. Well before Xinjiang and Huawei were making headlines, the CCP and its proxies were using libel lawsuits, or the threat thereof, against academics and journalists as part of a campaign of intimidation.
Unable to shut down foreign media or think tanks, and without the ability to expel intellectuals not based in China, the CCP has hijacked the legal systems in Canada, Australia, the Czech Republic, Taiwan and elsewhere, to accomplish what it cannot do on its own.
In almost all cases, this attempt at extraterritorial censorship was made possible by legal systems that have a low threshold for libel suits, or judges that are willing to accept just about any lawsuit. In some instances, the Chinese plaintiff subsequently found itself in legal trouble abroad over the very activities exposed by the researchers it targeted.
Such was the case with the China Energy Fund Committee, a Shanghai-based Fortune 500 company, and its subsidiary in Hong Kong, which threatened or filed lawsuits against researchers in Australia, the United States, the Czech Republic and Taiwan (full disclosure: the latter case involved this author).
What many of the cases have in common is the frivolous nature of the lawsuits and their overt attack on free inquiry. In several cases, the plaintiff knew from the outset that it had little, if any, chance of winning in court, but nevertheless chose to proceed with the lawsuit.
With nearly limitless financing, plaintiffs linked to an authoritarian regime like China can afford to have a legal case drag on for years, knowing that media outlets, think tanks and universities have much more limited funding at their disposal. Additionally, in some countries like Taiwan, a defendant who prevails against a plaintiff does not recoup his or her legal costs —not even when a case is thrown out by a judge as frivolous, as was the case in this author’s two-year legal nightmare.
For Fortune 500 companies, the legal costs constitute pocket change, but this is not true for individuals, who often receive no assistance from their governments. These cases also have a large psychological impact on the defendants and their families, due to the stress, sleepless nights and pressure to self-censor.
It is now clear that the CCP wants to silence and punish its critics worldwide. Unless democracies address the blind spots in their legal systems, such incidents will only become more frequent. To prevent this, a few things need to be done.
First, the threshold for defamation suits should be sufficiently high so that frivolous lawsuits, or legal actions initiated by entities with proven links to authoritarian regimes, should never be allowed to proceed in court.
Second, alongside non-governmental organizations, states should provide legal and financial assistance to targeted intellectuals, in order to negate the financial asymmetry faced by defendants. Although some small organizations have provided limited, ad hoc assistance, a more permanent, co-ordinated and multinational effort should be made on this front. Defendants against whom frivolous legal action was taken should also be able to recoup the totality of their legal costs.
Thirdly, alongside media and other partners, governments should expose such cases and broadcast the findings that have resulted in legal actions taken against researchers. Besides making it impossible for the plaintiff to sue everybody, such a move would have the opposite effect of what authoritarian regimes seek to achieve with such lawsuits — namely, it would promote widespread exposure, rather than censorship. Whenever possible, intelligence agencies should also declassify and release information that corroborates a researcher’s findings.
Only with such measures can we signal to authoritarian regimes that they will no longer get away with exporting censorship to our shores by such means.
National Post
J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa and the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., and a former intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. |
