Posted on

Minneapolis Riot

日前，一名黑人被美国白人警察跪压其颈部长达7分多钟最终死亡的视频引发轩然大波，当地一时间暴发多起大规模抗议活动。当地时间周三（27日）晚抗议升级，美国明尼阿波里斯市的民众冲进商店哄抢商品并在店内纵火，抗议还导致当地发生一起枪击案，致1人死亡。
明尼阿波里斯市警察局局长27日晚些时候证实，抗议发生时有一人被枪杀，另外一人被拘留。报道称，死者当晚参与了该市发生的抗议并涉嫌抢劫商店，而枪手则是被抢商店的店主。这一说法尚未得到警方证实。
抗议活动目前已经发生了“戏剧性”的转变。多份报告表明，明尼阿波里斯市市长弗雷（Jacob Frey）已经向州长沃尔兹（Tim Walz）求援，要求在该市部署国民警卫队。
这场突如其来的抗议始于一则黑人被白人警察跪压颈部最终死亡的视频。视频显示，本周一（25日），一名白人警察用膝盖跪在了46岁黑人男子弗洛伊德的颈部长达7分钟，导致弗洛伊德无法呼吸。期间弗洛伊德的脸紧贴地面上不停呼救，苦苦哀求，“求你了，我不能呼吸了，不要杀我！”围观群众发现不对劲，便向警方表示抗议，可警察仍不为所动，直到救护车到达现场。然而，弗洛伊德在被送到医院后不久死亡。
这起事件在美国国内引起轩然大波，上千名当地民众上街抗议要求政府彻查此事。周二（26日），抗议者在事发警区游行了超过2英里，要求为黑人之死“伸张正义”。他们举着抗议标语，要求“起诉警察”。此外，抗议者还与全副武装的警察爆发冲突，他们砸碎警车玻璃并涂鸦，警察则向抗议民众发射催泪瓦斯和橡皮子弹。周三（27日）晚上抗议升级，大批抗议民众洗劫了商店并在店内纵火，现场火光冲天。
一名参与抗议的民众称，“有的人只想生活，却被冷血杀害，警察在这个国家不断对黑人施暴是不可接受的”。州长沃尔兹27日发出呼吁，要求人们进行社交隔离并和平抗议，同时呼吁警察在抗议过程中保持克制。

A few days ago, a black man was kneeled by white U.S. police officers for more than 7 minutes and eventually died. The video caused a huge uproar, a local outbreak of mass protests. Protests escalated on Wednesday night (27th) as people in Minneapolis rushed into stores to loot goods and set them on fire, the protest also led to a local shooting that killed one person.
The Minneapolis police chief confirmed late on the 27th that one person had been shot and killed and another detained at the time of the protest. Reports say the deceased participated in protests that night in the city and is suspected of robbing the store, while the gunman was the owner of the shop that was robbed. This claim has not been confirmed.
The protests have now taken a “dramatic” turn. Multiple reports indicate that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has reached out to Governor Tim Walz for help in deploying a National Guard unit in the city.

“There are people who just want to live and are killed in cold blood, and it is unacceptable that the police are constantly brutalizing black people in this country,” said one member of the public who participated in the protest. Governor Waltz issued an appeal on the 27th for people to socially isolate and protest peacefully, while calling on police to exercise restraint during the protest. 

Posted on

United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic-Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.24v1.pdf


As the President’s National Security Strategy says, it is time the United States “rethink the failed policies of the past two decades – policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners.” The report illustrates how the policies and actions of the Chinese Communist Party have compelled the United States to adopt a competitive strategy, guided by a return to principled realism. Too late.

Posted on

China’s state-run digital currency may be released early for post-COVID-19 stimulus: industry inside

China may accelerate the rollout of its state-run digital currency to counter potential US threats to Chinese financial institutions and the yuan’s international settlement, while facilitating the implementation and management of large-scale post-COVID-19 stimulus, said an industry insider.

“Although the US hasn’t put Chinese financial firms and institutions onto its Entity List, the US may still pose widespread threats to Chinese institutions and impact the yuan’s standing in international settlement. In this regard, China’s state-run digital currency may be rolled out sooner than expected to counter a possible US block, Cao Yin, a Beijing-based blockchain industry insider, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), said that internal pilot tests of the central bank’s digital currency are being carried out in four cities including Shenzhen in South China’s Guangdong Province and the Xiongan New Area, and will be carried out in scenarios for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, according to an article posted on the bank’s website on Tuesday.

“These tests are just routine work for the research and development (R&D) of the digital currency. No schedule for an official launch has been revealed, Yi said.

Any R&D progress of China’s state-run digital currency is widely reported, as the digital economy is increasingly becoming a momentum for global growth, especially amid the pandemic which forces social distancing.

To aid economic recovery, China aims to step up its fiscal policy by raising the deficit-to-GDP ratio to over 3.6 percent and further cut taxes and fees paid by corporations by 2.5 trillion yuan ($353 billion) in 2020. But concerns persist that numerous grassroots companies will not fully enjoy the favorable policy.

Cao said that the tracing characteristics of the blockchain-backed digital currency can help money flow into the real economy and toward firms in need.

The R&D and application of a fiat digital currency will efficiently meet the public’s needs for the currency so as to promote payment convenience and safety in retail, which will help boost the development of China’s digital economy, Yi said.

The PBC began R&D for a fiat digital currency relatively early. A special team was established in 2014 to carry out research on its framework, key technologies and international experience. At the end of 2017, the bank organized for some commercial banks and institutions to jointly conduct the R&D of China’s digital currency/electronic payment (DC/EP).

Posted on

China imported 5.16 million tons of crude oil from Saudi Arabia

China imported 5.16 million tons of crude oil from Saudi Arabia in April, touching a record low from 2019 May. This is puzzling, with the low price, one would think China would import a lot of crude. What is happening?  Perhaps this is one of the reasons? 100 million tons of oil reserves were detected in CNOOC-owned Kenli 6-1 oilfield. It is the first 100 million-ton oilfield in Bohai Bay area, guaranteeing China’s energy security and boosting the economy of regions around the sea.

Posted on

China making good progress in building world’s largest supercollider

Research and development for the first batch of key equipment for the world’s most powerful electron collider, the Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), in China, has made solid progress. Wang Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, who is also a deputy to the National People’s Congress, made the comments. The overall development of the CEPC project is moving forward smoothly, with some of the first batch of equipment reaching design standards.

Klystron is among the first batch of key equipment for the super-sized collider, which scored a 60 percent efficiency in the prototype test earlier this year, reaching world advanced levels, up from below 50 percent, according to Wang. Wang’s team aims to produce an even better version of the klystron with 80 percent efficiency this year. The location for the CEPC has yet to be determined, Wang noted.

The CEPC project will reportedly cost 35 billion yuan ($5.05 billion) and will have a circumference of 100 kilometers, with center-mass energy of up to 240 giga electron-volts, both setting a world record. Chinese scientists are eyeing the completion for CEPC construction by 2030.

The conceptual design for the CEPC passed international inspections in September 2019. Scientists from the US, Europe and Japan have participated in designing the project, and will work on the building process and conduct research with the collider.

The Large Hadron Collider, the Swiss project near Geneva, is currently the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider and reportedly the largest machine in the world. In a bid to maximize the project’s service life, scientists are mulling upgrading the electron positron collider in around 2040 into a proton collider, Wang noted. By then, the center-mass energy for the CEPC will have reached about 100 tera electron-volts, seven times as powerful as the Switzerland’s project, Wang said.

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has brought risks of suspension and delay in implementing procurement contracts for some equipment for large-scale projects due to adjustments in budgeting plans. Wang suggested that legal entities engaged in major project construction should be allowed to raise funds through multiple channels or borrow other funds to ensure that construction tasks are completed on schedule.

Wang revealed that another IHEP project, the cosmic ray observation station on an area equivalent to 200 soccer fields in the wilderness of Daocheng, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, 4,400 meters above sea level, has been affected by budget cuts.

Posted on

India, China Border Clash

The key area is around a spectacular 135 kilometer-long, 5-7 kilometer-wide lake, Pangong Tso. It’s in Ladakh, which is a de facto extension of the Tibetan plateau. One third is held by India and two thirds by China.  

Mountain folds around the lake are called “fingers.” The Indians say Chinese troops are close to Finger Two – and blocking their movements. India claims territorial rights up to Finger 8, but its de facto holding extends only to Finger 4.

New Delhi has been steadily expanding infrastructure development – and also troop deployments – in Ladakh for nearly a decade. Units now spend longer periods deployed along the LAC than the six months that used to be the standard rotation.

These are called loop battalions: They do a back and forth with the Siachen glacier – which was the theatre of a localized India-Pakistan mini-war in 1999 .

The Indians maintain there are no fewer than 23 “disputed and sensitive” areas along the LAC, with at least 300 “transgressions” by PLA troops every year.

Crossing the line

The Indians are now particularly focused on the situation in the Galwan valley in Ladakh, which they maintain was breached to a distance of 3 to 4 km by PLA troops now in the process of digging defenses. 

The current flare-up started building in late April, and led to a series of scuffles in early May, described as “aggressive behavior on both sides,” complete with fistfights and stone throwing. The Indian version is that Chinese troops crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC), with vehicles and equipment, to block road construction by India.

Indian Jawans Briefly Detained By China In Ladakh Last Week 5-24-20 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indian-jawans-detained-later-released-by-china-in-ladakh-last-week-sources-2234082 Indian Army denies reports that Chinese troops briefly detained jawans in Ladakh last week 5-24-20 https://www.thestatesman.com/india/indian-army-denies-reports-that-chinese-troops-briefly-detained-jawans-in-ladakh-last-week-1502891868.html “It only hurts national interests when media outlets publish unsubstantiated news”

 

Posted on

Solicitor Chan Tze Chin 陳子遷 attacked

Solicitor Chan Tze Chin 陳子遷 was attacked near Po Leung Kuk in Causeway Bay at around 3pm on Hong Kong Island 5-24-20. He was beaten by a group of armed men dressed in black.

The Law Society president Melissa Pang strongly condemned this serious crime, said that no matter what the ideology behind it, violence is unacceptable, and that civil disobedience is not a license to break the law, and different political views should be expressed peacefully.

The video shows he was attacked by several assailants in the parking lot and chased down the street, then he was beaten by three to four men,he fell to the ground holding his head, his shirt torn and bloodied, and a metal road sign was thrown at him as he got up on his own and fled. He was taken to the hospital, where he was undergoing an MRI scan and is in serious condition.

Chan is a solicitor practicing in Hong Kong. Graduated from Queen Mary University of London with a degree in Law and Politics. Having studied overseas for many years, he returned to Hong Kong to explore various livability issues in Hong Kong.

「港版國安法」通過在即，星期日（24日）市民發起「反惡法大遊行」，期間律師陳子遷在銅鑼灣與示威者爭執後被「私了」，打至臉部披血。

「港版國安法」引發示威衝突，律師陳子遷24日在銅鑼灣禮頓道近保良局位置疑被黑衣人「私了」，上衣被撕破，臉部披血。陳子遷在訪問中憶述經過，稱當時他說了一句「你哋呢班黑暴唔好走，差人會拉晒你哋」，之後就被打，「差啲命都無」。

他指黑衣人主要是打他的頭和後腦，「聽到砰砰聲，用鐵板打我」，形容自己那一刻「極度恐懼」，又想起家人，「覺得我對不起他們，我有老婆和仔女」，覺得很不開心。

他表示，示威者攻擊時有分工，「有人負責打你，有人負責開傘，有人唔畀你走」，「很兇殘，無咗理智」，又指示威者多是年輕人，認為他們思想未成熟，被人教唆。 陳子遷又認為現在香港人已經變質，指現在香港年輕人失去理智，但年輕人是香港的未來，所以覺得香港很可悲。 他贊成訂立「港版國安法」，「因為現在這班已不是藍黃之分，而是暴亂、分裂國家」，他希望立法之後，香港可以回復平靜，讓香港可以發揮到國際金融中心的地位。