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Thursday, June 04, 2020, 10:30
US should leave China alone, focus on putting its own house in order
By Andre Vltchek
Thursday, June 04, 2020, 10:30 By Andre Vltchek

In the United States, one city after another goes up in flames, as African Americans and other protesters are battling the police, even the National Guard, while protesting against the continuous and brutal killings of black people, in all parts of the country.

The spark came, as George Floyd in Minneapolis was allegedly choked to death by the police as he was screaming in agony: “I can’t breathe!”

RT, among other non-Western media outlets, provided detailed reporting on what is happening in the US:

“The death of Floyd, an unarmed black man who was pinned to the ground and choked out by a police officer, resonated with many protesters, even outside Minneapolis where the tragedy happened.

“‘I got little brothers, I got nieces, nephews,” a protester named Briana Jenkins told Ruptly in Brooklyn, New York. ‘I’m scared for them to go out in the public and not be with one of us, you feel me. You don’t even want your child going to the store real quick because you don’t know what could happen.’”

While the US, the UK and other Western countries are busy insulting the Chinese government, the Hong Kong administration and the Hong Kong police, American citizens, particularly minorities, are getting gunned down, literally murdered by law enforcement agents at rates unseen anywhere else in the world.

While Hong Kong rioters march under foreign flags, claiming that they are “fighting for democracy”, the increasingly privatized prisons in the US are holding more detainees than in any other country on Earth. For decades, incarceration in the US has not been about punishing the crime. It has become an enormous business, at the expense of millions of human lives.

The US, the greatest violator of human rights, domestically and internationally, is now ready to “punish” China for introducing the Hong Kong national security law, which is by no means excessive when compared to similar laws in Europe and Asia

In 2020, 2.3 million prisoners are being held in US jails — 698 per 100,000 people, the highest rate in the world.

Since 2015, the US police have killed 1,252 black people, and 877 Hispanics.

Civil rights attorney and co-counsel for the Floyd family, Lee Merritt, summarized the situation: “America has the deadliest police culture in the modern world. There is no nation on the planet that kills and incarcerates more of its people. We are in a crisis position.”

Merritt and attorney Benjamin Crump believe that there should be sanctions imposed on the US by the United Nations because of the “continual denial of basic human rights to the African-American community.”

The rioters in Hong Kong should read, again and again, a recent tweet by President Donald Trump related to the protests, a tweet which shocked the entire world:

“Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

In the meantime, Trump is threatening China with sanctions! US officials criticized China and Hong Kong for trying to stop rioters.

It is all turning into a huge, bizarre, paradoxical political gaga.

The US, the greatest violator of human rights, domestically and internationally, is now ready to “punish” China for introducing the Hong Kong national security law, which is by no means excessive when compared to similar laws in Europe and Asia.

For obvious reasons, images and footage from Minneapolis and Hong Kong are never played side by side, never compared, as there is no “culture of comparison’’ in the Western mainstream media: How many people die from police brutality annually in China and the US? Where are human rights violated more?

And based on where human rights are being really violated, which country deserves to face sanctions?

Apart from moral issues, there are also serious economic questions. If the US acts on its threats, and terminates the US-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, it is not going to be Beijing, but Hong Kong, which will be the most affected.

On Saturday, MarketWatch reported: “‘The Hong Kong economy would basically be gone,’ if the US were to end all privileges afforded it by the United-States Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, Diana Choyleva, chief economist at Enodo Economics told MarketWatch.

“Most important, Choyleva said, is that the law mandates the free exchange of Hong Kong dollars for US dollars. If the US moves to restrict the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s access to US dollars, ‘that would be an extreme nuclear option’ that could devastate the region’s banking and shipping and logistics sectors, while triggering widespread capital flight.”

US policy, domestic and international, thrives on absurdity. It is Kafkaesque. Logic is not applied anymore.

The more confused, the more irrational it gets, the less it can get defined, exposed and consequently confronted.

Hong Kong is turning into a victim of the dying, decomposing empire.

The confusion of the Hong Kong “protesters” is just a reflection of the intellectual and moral chaos of those whom they are serving.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. He is the author of 20 books including“China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, and “China and Ecological Civilization".

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.


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