FIRST, if you think you would find justice in China, sorry; their justice system is nothing but a big bluff rubber stamp of the Communist Party of China(CPC).
An article by one Vincent Gale on Solomon Times about the protests going on in Hong Kong more than meets the eye.
It is only a tip of the iceberg about the justice system on the mainland China, and reflects Beijing’s reckless attitude towards the rule of law even against its own people.
China as a country is described as a prison in itself, even by human rights standards.
This is because all the citizens of China have been profiled in a huge database using facial recognition technology.
There’s no place in China where you can escape being recorded by one of these face recognition cameras.
With Artificial Intelligence, Chinese people are being monitored 24/7, 365 days a year.
One cannot afford to even whisper in public places a negative notion about the CPC.
The walls, the trees, the bricks, the sidewalks, the street lights, even the seemingly quiet parks have eyes and ears.
If they even suspect your behaviour against the CPC, they’d come up with all kinds of conspiracy theories about you and you’ll be visited by one of their secret service personnel.
You’ll be detained without trial for who knows how long.
Added to this is their so-called social credit system in which those who do not perform well financially are denied certain privileges.
These privileges includes, but not limited to not travelling on trains, buying an air ticket, sending your kids to one of the fine schools, not being allowed to travel outside of China, or even borrowing money from any financial institution.
If your social credit rating is not improved, you would be seen as nothing to the CPC, but rubbish to be gotten rid of.
And there’s more!
The Chinese government not only deprives and denies the Hong Kong residents their rights, but deny them of the one China two systems universally accepted by countries having bilateral relations with China.
This was the framework agreed on by Britain at the handing over of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
The Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim people in the western part of China are being put into what they call re-education centres, prison camps actually and are being taught to submit to Communist ideologies.
They are taught to sing patriotic communist party songs, force their allegiance to the party and indoctrinated with Chinese culture and language.
A phone call by any of the Uighurs would mean prolonged detention or even disappearance without trace.
The Tibetans suffer the same fate since their promise of self-autonomy has become a dream only in one’s lifetime.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, in exile has been trying in vain to rein in support from outside for an uprising, but this too only led to the CPC tightening its grip on power over them.
In Chinese state prisons, there are about 2.3 million prisoners, whilst there’s also another 200,000 pre-trial detainees, and another 650,000 being held in detention centres in China.
These figures could be changed as we speak.
You do not have any right or privilege to speak your mind against the ruling party.
From the outside looking in, China is a model country the CPC wanted to promote to the world, and the one even our government wants to embrace.
In fact, there’s no country in the world, even in the West where a whole city is built within a decade and millions of people were lifted out of poverty to be residents of those cities, than in China.
But to someone like you and I who do not know the real deep intention of the ruling communist party’s real agenda behind this, you can never know now until maybe in twenty years.
The Chinese president Xi Jinping, usually tells the world that they would like to share the Chinese dream and experience with the world.
Chinese dream? At the expense of your own people?
This is absurd!
Look at the South China Sea.
A nine (previously eleven) dash line printed on a map somewhere in the 1940’s (December 1947 to be precise) has become something they claim as fact to justify their claims in the South China Sea.
A challenge by the Philippines on this claim at the International Court of Justice ruled in favour of the Philippines, stating that China’s claims to the South China Sea was groundless.
However, Philippines, powerless like us couldn’t even reclaim what was rightly theirs.
In return, China aggressively built artificial islands on coral and sand islands and militarized them, backing its claims.
Using its third maritime force, “The People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia”, the PLA use them as a front line force to claim islands near its neighbouring countries.
Disguising as fishermen, these are actually military trained men who would go out to intimidate nearby countries who stake claims to these islands and provoke them.
The Chinese Navy and Coastguard would be lurking nearby to suppress any resistance by claimant countries.
This is a total disregard for the rule of law, especially international law.
The same tactic is employed in the East China Sea against Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
Yet, we still want to be friends with such a reckless regime?
Let me come to the real reason why China would like to be allies with us and would like to lavish us with their money.
China is a super power in the rising.
History has it that once an existing super power sees that a new rising power is becoming influential and is seen as a threat, they would do all they could to contain the rising power.
Remember, that as a rising power flexes its muscle and sees the existing power’s influence waning, it would start to act innocently, playing the victim and not the perpetrator.
You will notice that every time China is acting this way, and is accused, it plays being the victim and USA as the aggressor.
So China changes its tactics and do what we call ‘soft power diplomacy’ using its money to lure in unsuspecting, third world, impoverished, cash strapped nations like us to its circle of influence.
When we are no longer able to repay what they have dished out to us, then they either re-possess the assets, or take away land from host countries.
The Pacific Island countries are seen by China as the next line of defense against any aggression by the United Sates of America and its allies.
The South China Sea, which it now militarize be their final line of defense from any such war with the USA.
They want to keep America at bay far away from mainland China.
Therefore, when they build infrastructures in our nations, they ascertain that these infrastructures are military standards.
Unlike the USA, which has the whole globe covered with its military bases, China as a rising super power does not.
Therefore, they are trying to do the same. And doing the same they did with much aggressiveness and fastness.
Moreover, the tug of war between them and American and its allies are a daily occurrence in our lives now.
We are now caught in between this struggle for world dominance by an existing and a rising super power and those they influence.
To project power globally, one must be able to be anywhere any time with a maritime force.
This is the crux of the issue.
So development by China should be seen with this back drop and to be treated with caution.
So I just lament the fact that as we are right now, struggling financially, to make ends meet, let alone trying to pay our other debts, are trying to accumulate more debts that are very risky to say the least.
At least with those other debts, we are not deprived of the assets or any other hidden demands by them like taking over islands or strategic assets.
China do not want to put their eggs in one basket as it were, so they want to spread them around the globe as quickly as possible, because the USA is trying to contain them.
There was a ‘blue print’ after the ‘cold war’ ended, and that there would never be another super power than the USA.
So to have China rising and having its influence in the areas once enjoyed by the USA is something the hawks in Washington don’t like.
So there you have it!
Think about it. Do we still want to do business, even have friendships with such a regime?
Anything the CPC says must never be taken at face value, or accepted as truth.
Let’s remain with Taiwan.
Take the advice or leave it, or hope for the best!
By JACKSON RAY
Fulton College
Nadi, Fiji Islands.
