In this mailing:
- Guy Millière: France: Smoke Grass, Kill a Jew, Skip the Trial, Go Free
- Lawrence A. Franklin: U.S.-China Trade Deal Should Not Obscure Beijing's Hegemonic Objectives
- Jagdish N. Singh: Tibet: The Pointless Pursuit of Dialogue with China
by Guy Millière • January 22, 2020 at 5:00 am
"In France, perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks claim insanity to elude justice. The mental illness defense has become more prevalent when it comes to hate crimes in France. And it seems to be working." — Shirli Sitbon, Haaretz. Muslim anti-Semitism has long been ignored in France. "The situation is not under control." — Celine Pina, Le Figaro.
A French court recently ruled that Kobili Traoré would not stand trial for torturing and murdering Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old Jewish woman, saying that Traoré had a "temporary abolition of discernment" from smoking marijuana. Francis Kalifat (pictured), president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, remarked that "an anti-Semitic murder could become the only murder excused by the courts on the basis of the use of drugs, while in all other cases, drugs are an aggravating factor." (Photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)
Paris, April 4, 2017. Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old Jewish woman, is thrown from her third-floor balcony or window. Her body lands in the building's courtyard. Her murderer first had tortured her. Neighbors had heard screams and called the police. Nine officers came, but when they heard through the door a man shouting "Allahu Akbar", they ran downstairs to wait for reinforcements. When Kobili Traoré finally surrendered, he said, "I killed the sheitan" (Arabic for "Satan"). While torturing his victim, he said, he had recited verses from the Qur'an, and the Qur'an had "ordered him to kill a Jew". He said he had spent the previous day in a nearby mosque. He was placed in a mental institution, where he told the psychiatrist who examined him that he smoked marijuana.
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • January 22, 2020 at 4:30 am
It [the deal] does not prevent China from its pursuing its aggressive designs on the South and East China Seas, where it is positioning itself to challenge the U.S.'s role as protector of the world's sea lines of communication... Cambodia's concession to China includes a 99-year lease for 20% of its coastline. This arrangement provides China with the ability to keep Vietnam's granting of access to the U.S. Navy in check. Of equal, if not greater, significance is China's purchase of territory overlooking the potential maritime chokepoint, the Panama Canal Zone. The other [Chinese acquisition] is a 99-year lease of Australia's Port Darwin, where U.S. Marines train for six months of each year. This means that China will be able to document American military exercises and collect ship signal emissions from U.S. combatants. This pattern of China's investments in some 20 ports around the globe should be of great concern to the Free World.
An important part of China's projected hegemonic plan is the establishment of a naval facility at the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb in Djibouti, a potential maritime chokepoint across from the Arabian Peninsula at the mouth of the Red Sea. Pictured: China's President Xi Jinping (right) meets with Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh on April 28, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Madoka Ikegami-Pool/Getty Images)
The recent signing of the first stage of a trade pact between the United States and China should not mask what appear to be Beijing's ultimate hegemonic ambitions. Phase 1 of the deal, which went into effect on January 19, includes a partial reduction of current -- and cancellation of planned -- tariffs; a Chinese pledge to increase American agricultural imports; and an agreement from Beijing to address Washington's concerns about U.S. technology being transferred to China by American companies doing business there, and about intellectual property theft. While the trade deal appears to be beneficial to U.S. interests, there are two things to consider. The first is that it is likely to be temporary. The second is that it does not prevent China from its pursuing its aggressive designs on the South and East China Seas, where it is positioning itself to challenge the U.S.'s role as protector of the world's sea lines of communication (SLOCS).
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by Jagdish N. Singh • January 22, 2020 at 4:00 am
China has persisted in doing inestimable damage to Tibetan identity, language, culture and ecology. Communist China has destroyed more than 6,000 Tibetan monasteries on the Plateau, and Beijing's destructive activities in Tibet continue unabated. Since 2009, at least 156 Tibetans have immolated themselves in protest against Chinese rule. It is not only the Dalai Lama, however, who needs to push for complete Tibetan independence. All liberal democracies that uphold the value of freedom need to do so, as well. The US Congress recently introduced the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2019, which seeks to impose sanctions and a visa ban on any Chinese official who interferes in the selection of a successor to the current Dalai Lama, and which requires the establishment of an American consulate in Lhasa. The next step for the US administration in its negotiations with Beijing should be to insist on total Tibetan independence.
China is seeking to gain more effective control over Tibetan society by taking over the institution of the Dalai Lama. Beijing insists that it had recognized the current Dalai and that, after the 84-year-old spiritual leader dies, it must approve his successor. Pictured: The Dalai Lama (center) on October 25, 2019. (Photo by Lobsang Wangyal/AFP via Getty Images)
Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, apparently hoping to ease the tension that has existed between Lhasa and Beijing since 1949, recently expressed interest in "explor[ing] the same channels of communication" with the Chinese government that he had established in the past. To this end, the 32nd session of the Tibetan Task Force met in Dharamshala on December 11, to "hold an in-depth discussion on the situation inside Tibet, the perceptible shifts in the global political landscape and the overall prospects for the resumption of dialogue between Dharamshala and Beijing to resolve the protracted issue of Tibet." The Dalai Lama's approach, however, makes little sense. After China occupied Tibet in 1949, the Dalai Lama downgraded the status of his independent country to that of autonomy within China. He did this through the 17-Point Agreement, signed on May 23, 1951 between Lhasa and Beijing. After escaping to India in 1959, he continued on the same path.
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