Wednesday 11 August 2021

China: Crisis-Testing US Presidents by Lawrence A. Franklin

 

In this mailing:

  • Lawrence A. Franklin: China: Crisis-Testing US Presidents
  • Nasir Saeed: Forced Conversions and Child Marriage in Pakistan: An Everyday Event

China: Crisis-Testing US Presidents

by Lawrence A. Franklin  •  August 11, 2021 at 5:00 am

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  • Trump's adoption of a realistic relationship with China successfully slowed any CCP plans for military expansion in the South and East China Seas. What ended any possibility of a warming trend in US-China diplomatic ties was Beijing's repeated lies that there was no human-to-human transmissibility of its Wuhan virus. Soon, Chinese propaganda organs were labeling America racist for closing US airports to flights from China, even as the CCP itself had already stopped all domestic flights out of Wuhan.

  • China's deceit, and its continued refusal to help investigate the cause of the release of the Wuhan virus, not only killed more than 4.3 million people worldwide, but shattered countless economies. To date, there have been no reprisals and no accountability.

  • To date, Communist China has not been held accountable for any of its damage or duplicity, or for obstructing all investigations into the origins of the Wuhan virus, or for enslaving and torturing more than a million Uyghurs, or for destroying Tibet and Hong Kong. Instead, China is being rewarded for unspeakable behavior by being allowed to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

  • This event presents Biden with an opportunity: there is still time to move the Olympics to a country more deserving -- one that will not potentially use the DNA of the world's greatest athletes to genetically-engineer its future newborns. Will the US finally stand up to Communist China's provocations, let alone future ones -- whether to Australia, Taiwan, Japan, India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Jamaica or the Bahamas -- that are already on the way?

To date, Communist China has not been held accountable for any of its damage or duplicity, or for obstructing all investigations into the origins of the Wuhan virus, or for enslaving and torturing more than a million Uyghurs, or for destroying Tibet and Hong Kong. Instead, China is being rewarded for unspeakable behavior by being allowed to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Pictured: Then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on December 4, 2013 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

China has tested the mettle of all recent US presidents, usually early in their terms of office, and China's Communist Party (CCP) has already certainly been testing President Joe Biden. Just four days into the Biden presidency, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) fighter aircraft violated Taiwan's Air Defense Zone. The provocation was a clear message to remind the new president of China's "Red Line": not to build upon the Trump administration's increased military cooperation with Taiwan.

Beijing's harsh rhetoric, accusing the US of hypocrisy on human rights at the March 2021 meeting in Alaska with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, was probably an indication that China is still calculating to what degree it can intimidate the Biden administration into settling for policies more accommodating to Chinese military, political, security and commercial interests.

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Forced Conversions and Child Marriage in Pakistan: An Everyday Event

by Nasir Saeed  •  August 11, 2021 at 4:00 am

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  • Governmental and law enforcement agencies are aware of the problem, but they do not officially accept it. Instead, they claim that Islam has not set a minimum age for conversion, so if a girl wants to convert to Islam of her own free will, no one can do anything about it.

  • By stating this, they transfer all blame to the victims and discharge themselves of any responsibility. They also accuse minorities and NGOs of making it a problem and claim it is a false allegation to enhance their own prominence.

  • It is the responsibility of the state to stop this practice even if they have to introduce new laws to ensure that the rights of minorities and children are not being violated. It is also the responsibility of politicians, courts, civil society and the ulema [Islamic clergy] because failing, in the name of religion, to enforce the laws already in place cannot be justified.

Forced conversion to Islam of young Christian and Hindu girls, some under the age of 12, seems to be an everyday occurrence. To those who are in a position to stop this practice, it appears not to matter. Almost no day goes by without news of these events. (Image source: iStock)

Forced conversion to Islam of young Christian and Hindu girls, some under the age of 12, seems to be an everyday occurrence. To those who are in a position to stop this practice, it appears not to matter. Almost no day goes by without news of these events.

This major and growing problem in Pakistan affects religious minorities. Human rights organisations working on this issue estimate that every year 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls are forced to convert to Islam -- an estimate that could be far higher as many cases remain unreported. Most of the time, these girls are lured by much older men by the promise of a better life and sometimes are pushed into prostitution or even sold.

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