6/18/19

Last year Donald Trump reneged on President Obama's 2015 nuclear JCPOA deal with Iran. He reinstated heavy financial sanctions, broke with his international allies and called it the "worst deal ever." Tehran has largely held to the deal but has just announced that it would soon exceed the nuclear enrichment limits.

And wouldn't you know it, Trump is pissed at Iran and demanding that the allies pressure them to hold to an agreement that he himself breached. I don't know the farsi word for chutzpah but that definitely rates the farsi word for chutzpah.

*
When Hong Kong ended the 99 year old lease with Britain in 1997 and Beijing instituted the "one country, two systems" policy the place was giddy and the nationalism was as thick in the air as Chinese fireworks. Mainland China promised not to interfere, to let Hong Kong do its thing until 2017. The Basic Law was supposed to protect peoples' rights.

I was worried at the time, having seen what the Chinese have done in Tibet and to the ethnic minorities in the Western provinces. And there has been a steady erosion in those Hong Kong people's rights ever since. Things have obviously come to a head in Hong Kong this week, with demonstrations bringing out a reported two million protesters.

The people of Hong Kong have received an apology this week from Carrie Lam, the mainland appointed titular head of Hong Kong. But they should not get too giddy. This is the most ruthless dictatorship in the world this side of North Korea. The iron hand awaits to swoop and I fear for these people. Beijing brooks no opposition and an incorrigible Hong Kong would be a signal to an even more hated Taiwan. Tiananmen Square would pale compared to the horrors they could rain down on these people.

I have written before about the horrible treatment of the Uighers. I was sick to my stomach today reading about how the Chinese government is now killing and harvesting its enemies and political opponents' organs. Is there a more perfidious and reprehensible regime on this earth? And yet we do business with them and turn a blind eye. They need to be reproached and isolated.