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In this mailing:
* Giulio Meotti: Coronavirus: China's Disappeared Heroes and the Silence of the West
* Amir Taheri: Mullahs' Missiles Kill Iranians but Can't Defend Iran


** Coronavirus: China's Disappeared Heroes and the Silence of the West ([link removed])
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by Giulio Meotti • May 17, 2020 at 5:00 am
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* These intrepid dissidents showed how fragile, vacuous and dangerous is the edifice of the Chinese regime.
* The Chinese Communist Party "is the biggest and most serious virus of all... The CCP represses and manipulates information to strengthen its hold on power, It is time to recognize the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to all humanity." — Chen Guangcheng, blind Chinese dissident, now a refugee in the US. Asianews.it, April 27, 2020.
* Today...if we know something about China we owe it to China's vanished heroes. We have, horribly, chosen to abandon them. Very few in the very free West call out the Chinese authorities and ask these great men and women to be released.
* The Australian University of Queensland, with close links to China is actually trying to take disciplinary action, including possible expulsion, against a student, Drew Pavlou, known for his criticism of Beijing. We are playing Beijing's game of repression of dissent.
* Bloomberg News is said to censor articles that might anger China and expose Xi's personal wealth. And the European Union just softened criticism of China in a report on disinformation about the pandemic... It looks as though free thought is more valued among China's daring dissidents than in many corners of the West.
* To paraphrase Leon Trotsky: You may not be interested in China, but China is interested in you.

Dr. Li Wenliang, who died from coronavirus on February 7, had been reprimanded by the Chinese government, with seven other doctors, for warning of the outbreak in December. He was accused of "spreading false rumors" and "disrupting social order" and, for his brave efforts, was detained and interrogated. Pictured: A vigil to mourn Wenliang on February 7 in Hong Kong. (Photo by Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Three Chinese internet activists have disappeared and are believed to have been detained by police. They have reportedly been charged with preserving articles that were removed by China's online censors. Chen Mei, Cai Wei and Cai's girlfriend went missing on April 19.

A few days earlier, Beijing police formally arrested retired professor Chen Zhaozhi for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" in a speech about the pandemic. The former Beijing University of Science and Technology professor had posted comments online, including that "Wuhan pneumonia is not a Chinese virus but Chinese Communist Party virus". In addition, Wang Quanzhang, a Chinese human rights lawyer, who ended his prison sentence after more than four years for "subversion against the state", immediately after leaving the penitentiary, was placed in "quarantine", meaning under arrest.

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** Mullahs' Missiles Kill Iranians but Can't Defend Iran ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • May 17, 2020 at 4:00 am
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* That leaves the third angle, missiles, to thrive. Missiles are the weapon of the poor, especially when copied from foreign models courtesy of North Korea, China and, to a lesser extent, Russia.
* One more problem is Iran's continued dependence on North Korean and Chinese partners for spare parts, technology, maintenance and training-for-use of virtually all its missiles. There is no guarantee that either Beijing or Pyongyang would want to be dragged into a war that the Islamic Republic might trigger to prolong its existence as an exporter of revolution.
* More importantly, perhaps, there is no evidence that as many Iranians today would be "volunteers for martyrdom" as the time the ayatollah developed his nightmarish dream.

Tehran's obsessions with missiles started in the 1980s during the war with Iraq. Pictured: A ballistic missile on display during a military parade marking the annual National Army Day in Tehran, on April 18, 2019. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Last Monday's tragedy in the Gulf of Oman in which 19 Iranian naval officers were killed and 15 others injured in a "friendly fire" incident has focused attention on the Islamic Republic's failure to develop a realistic defense doctrine that reflects Iran's interests as a nation rather than as a vehicle for an ideology.

The exercise during which the tragedy happened was one of several designed to test the Islamic Republic's ability to engage in naval battles with an unnamed "enemy" and, thanks to several generations of missiles, emerge victorious.

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