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UK could offer ‘path to citizenship’ for Hong Kong’s British passport holders

The UK could offer British National (Overseas) passport holders in Hong Kong a path to citizenship if China does not suspend plans for a security law in the territory, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says. There are 2.9m people in Hong Kong eligible for the passport.

There are 300,000 BNO passport holders in Hong Kong who already have the right to visit the UK for up to six months without a visa.

But the Home Office confirmed that the proposed new rights, allowing those eligible to spend 12 months in the UK without a visa, could be offered to anyone with BNO status as long as they applied for and were granted the passport – opening it up to 2.9m Hong Kong residents.

British National (Overseas) passports were issued to people in Hong Kong by the UK before the transfer of the territory to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.  Raab said the six-month limit on stays in the UK for BNO holders would be scrapped.

“If China continues down this path and implements this national security legislation, we will remove that six month limit and allow those BNO passport holders to come to the UK and to apply to work and study for extendable periods of 12 months and that will itself provide a pathway to future citizenship,” he said.

This is so good, the best joke next to the Trump announcement.

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‘We’ve shut it down’

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52775216 ‘We’ve shut it down’

Donald Trump has boasted repeatedly in the past couple of months that no country has done more coronavirus testing that then USA. “It’s not even close,” he says. No country has built more ventilators or supplied so much PPE to its front-line workers, he says. The president has claimed that other world leaders are jealous of what the US has managed to achieve. Really? Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Greece envious?

Hard to believe somehow.

No country has had more deaths, more infections. And that too, so far, is not even close.

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全国人民代表大会关于建立健全香港特别行政区维护国家安全的法律制度和执行机制的决定

十三届全国人大三次会议审议《全国人民代表大会关于建立健全香港特别行政区维护国家安全的法律制度和执行机制的决定（草案）》。国家出手救港，这是堵塞香港国家安全法律漏洞、让香港尽快走上正轨的必要之举，也是确保“一国两制”行稳致远的治本之策。

违法者得不到惩戒，是香港法治之殇。修例风波以来，香港公共安全遭受严峻挑战，几乎陷入无法无天的境地，但乱港暴徒依然有恃无恐，只因香港司法一再上演令人费解的判决：被控“暴动罪”疑犯可用1000港元保释；撕毁、焚烧和践踏国旗的暴徒仅判处240小时社会服务令；众所周知的“港独”组织头目黄之锋只被控“煽惑他人参与未经批准集结罪”……类似事件无疑在传递“无须为暴行负责”这类荒唐的信号！

今日之香港，不仅要依靠警方严正执法，更要有法可依，让妄图“揽炒”香港社会的极端“港独”分子付出应得的代价。“港独”势力气焰嚣张，是国家主权之患。在“港独”和本土激进势力的蛊惑下，一些青年公然危害国家安全，所作所为令人发指。另一些人甘当民族败类，恬不知耻地乞求外国干预香港事务，“叛国乱港四人帮”之首的黎智英更多次公开宣称“为美国而战”。如此赤裸恶劣的反中卖港行径却无足够法律及机制约束。这在当今世界，也恐怕闻所未闻！补上香港维护国家安全立法的“短板”，是对反中乱港势力从事破坏国家统一、分裂国家活动的坚决遏制。

斩断外部势力插手干预的“黑手”，也是不容回避的问题。以美国为代表的某些西方势力原本通过代理人遮遮掩掩插手香港事务，如今撕破脸皮走到前台，多次对特区立法和司法机构依法履职说三道四，极力美化和怂恿极端分子的违法犯罪行为，甚至以香港为据点大肆从事危害我国国家安全的活动。众目昭彰，岂能容忍如此猖狂干涉？

国家此次下定决心出手救港，以立法方式堵塞国家安全的漏洞，也再次向国际社会表明，中国政府维护国家安全、维护香港大局稳定、维护香港同胞根本福祉的决心和意志坚定不移。

香港不能再乱下去了！广大香港市民越来越清楚，极端激进分子不断升级黑色暴力，反中乱港势力大肆鼓吹“港独”，外部势力公然干预香港事务，不仅严重挑战“一国两制”原则底线，更严重危害国家主权、统一和领土完整，他们是想把香港变成颠覆中国、分裂祖国的“战场”！善良的香港市民决不会上这些人的贼船。

防范、制止和依法惩治任何危害国家安全的行为，为“一国两制”行稳致远筑牢制度根基，这是“港版国安法”立法的初衷。国家出手救港，就是为了维护香港市民的根本福祉。只有国家安全根基牢固，社会大局稳定，才能保障“一国两制”不走样、不变形，保持“马照跑、舞照跳”的生活方式不变样，才能续写香港经济繁荣、市民生活幸福的新篇章。

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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.

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Thornberry wants $6 billion this year to launch counter-China fund

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/04/16/thornberry-wants-6-billion-this-year-to-launch-counter-china-fund/?fbclid=IwAR08QGCKt94Q4LIBS0g1tgcm34StZO-vKJFsgw-ncDghC-tJ45HbnjNjZ2g

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee will release a proposal Thursday to formally create a new fund to counter Chinese actions in the Pacific, Defense News has learned.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, is calling for the creation of an Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative (IPDI), with a $6.09 billion invest in fiscal year 2021. The fund would be based on the European Deterrence Initiative, a special DoD fund for projects focused on deterring Russia that was set up in the wake of the annexation of Crimea.

Mac Thornberry will not run for reelection in Texas' 13th District ...

“The Indo-Pacific has been called our highest priority theater and I believe that is true. It is time to put our money where our mouth is,” Thornberry told Defense News. “This effort consolidates and funds the policies, infrastructure, and platforms needed to reassure our allies and partners while we deter China. It also serves as a benchmark against which we can judge our efforts in the region. We may not be able to get this all done this year, but it is vital that we make a start.

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China-US relations will no longer be the same

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1185584.shtml?fbclid=IwAR1SVO3JlFJn2GfEI2C5eyieNyJTBEy3e8QYa8TuTljkxgiMDFRxtmDPSoc It is beyond the Chinese people’s imagination that China-US relations have become what they are today. The epidemic outbreak brings new shocks, and the turbulence in relations between the two countries is likely to be more severe. No one in China wants that.

Some held the view that China brought this on itself. Those people said China should fully demonstrate its goodwill toward the US and make major concessions in the hope of regaining the trust of the US and putting the relationship back on track.

Those people are so naïve to believe that it is China that has ruined the China-US relationship and as long as China fundamentally changes its attitude, bilateral ties can improve significantly. There are profound and complex reasons for the deterioration of China-US relations. The biggest driving force behind the change in US attitude toward China is the constant change of the strength pattern between China and the US. The US does not accept the possibility of China becoming a parallel and equal force. This is the fundamental reason.

Many people say that in the 1980s, the relationship between China and the US was so good. Why can’t that atmosphere be recovered? In the 1980s the Soviet Union was the No.1 enemy of the US, and a weak China at that time was the one the US was trying to win over. China’s strategic position was as comfortable as India’s is today, and the US adopted a broadly supportive policy towards China. Today, the situation is quite different. A stronger China is seen by Washington as its top strategic rival, and some US politicians are even thinking of roping in Russia to contain China. 

If, as they imagine, the US were to return to its old attitude towards China, the first thing China needs to do is to turn back the clock of development by more than 20 years, and go further to reassure the US. This means that China must first stop its high-tech progress and let the US take the lead in all-round scientific and technological development. China has to focus only on low-end industries, unable to compete with the US and the West in high-end manufacturing.

These are not enough. It also means that China needs to fully accept US dominance over the Taiwan question. China should also accept international arbitration on the South China Sea issue and dismantle its new facilities on Nansha Islands. Beijing will have to accept the arrangement of Washington over questions of Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong of China.

Ultimately, the US would also demand that China impose significant self-limits on its development of nuclear weapons and strategic strike capabilities.

Do you think China can back down on these issues? And where does this end? Did the US let Russia off the hook after the collapse of the Soviet Union? No. Russia inherited the Soviet nuclear weapons, which did not reassure the US. The US has spared no effort to further weaken Russia and squeeze its strategic space.

What the US really wants to do is weaken China so that it completely loses its strategic competitiveness against the US. The US won’t stop until China is brought to its knees and crippled.

Unfortunately, US strategic vigilance against China is fully activated and the reality is that we can’t go back.

It’s meaningless to look back at the old China-US relations. We have to look forward with the strength of realism, accept the challenges we will face as a great power, and meet the challenges of the future with new will and wisdom.

China’s endurance is no longer the same as it was 20 or 30 years ago. We have a unique Chinese philosophy of resistance to pressure. We will not become a second Soviet Union, nor will we provoke the antagonism and confrontation between China and the US from our side. China ‘s way of safeguarding its core interests will be brand new, and we need to surprise history.