TOPPLING THE WORLD’S TOP COP:
China Has Re-Defined the Meaning of Law for All of Us.
By Paul Merkley.
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Triumphs of Engineering.
In recent days, we have witnessed a breath-taking acceleration of the state-planning project of the Communist regime in China.
Co-incidentally, we are witnessing great strides towards political and social absolutism — a vindication of the sober fantasy envisaged by George Orwell back in 1948. (See Paul Merkley, “Orwell Didn’t See The Half Of It, Bayview Review, September 22, 2018.) China is actively promoting around the world a fantasy about record-breaking economic consequences that are expected to follow from the building of its “Belt Road Initiative.” (See , Matt Brown, “New Silk Road seemingly built on good intentions, but some fear a China ‘debt trap,” October 14, 2018, https://www.stuff.co.nz.
A Chinese government spokesman for this project pledges that the highway itself, plus a global infrastructure to be built around it, will usher in “the Silk Road spirit of peace and co-operation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit.”
Seminars sponsored by local “China Councils” are underway as far away from China as New Zealand for the purpose of convincing businesses and local governments of the benefits to them of extending and ramifying the ancient silk road trade routes. We are now being told that China is now investing more into Latin America and likewise into Africa than the rest of the world combined. On the books, for example, is a trans-continental rail link across Brazil from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast in Chile , funded jointly by China and regional regimes.
But nay-sayers are warning of a “debt trap”, to be left behind after the hyperbole ends and China remains as far away as ever .
Writing in a New Zealand-based website, Matt Brown notes:
The Asian countries along the Silk Road are rightly reluctant to be involved after the way the Chinese business model has been well demonstrated in Africa. Make all sorts of promises, lend vast amounts of money for big projects using Chinese contractors so the profits flow to China, producing goods that mostly supply China, and when (not if) the target country is not able to repay the loan then Chinese interests take over ownership of those projects. In the end, that country becomes a slave labour supplier for no real value to the country or its people.(https://www.stuff.co.nz.)
The Nature of Chinese Communism.
Rather than accept with full seriousness the Chinese regime’s claim to be on the path towards Communism, most of our commentators are in thrall to the theory that modernization of China under its present dictatorship will inevitably lead to liberalization. There is absolutely no evidence for this. In fact, recent events disclose that the regime is becoming more and more successful in imposing its totalitarian will.
Just a few days ago, for example, Xi Jin Ping, recently elected by the Chinese Communist Party to a life-time contract as President of China, quietly extended his long arm all the way to Brussels , kidnapped Meng Hongwei, the world’s Top Cop, yours and mine, the leader of Interpol, and thus an international civil servant, and dragged him under cover of darkness back to China This was a man who, we all thought, was making China proud by his appointment to one of the world’s most important international bodies. Indeed, his appointment by that world-government-body which coordinates law enforcement activities among 192 member countries was just one of several appointments of Chinse governmental figures to the top of the topmost international greasy poles – so jampacked with prestige that, our commentators pictured China’s political masters glowing with satisfaction about their victory, while the rest of us were left imagining that the world had become not only a safer place but a more collegial one as well.
As president of Interpol, Meng was based in Lyon, the French city where the organization has its headquarters, and from there he regularly gave speeches promoting Interpol’s priorities and boasting of China’s enlightened contribution to them. At the Interpol General Assembly meeting in Beijing just a few months ago he asserted that his election underscored the fact that “China was among the safest countries in the world and [that it] abided by international rules.”
But then suddenly he was toppled.
A Policeman’s Lot.
How painfully ironical now seems this baffle-gab! Where in the international rule book is it written that a government is entitled to reach out and abduct one its citizens and carry him away for secret trial? And who in the world ever imagined that China intended to “abide by international rules? Of course Russia and Saudi Arabia and other recognized thuggocracies do this all the time. But up until now even the maddest of the authors of those mad novels about the world of international espionage never imaged that the government that rules the largest national population in the world would reach out and remove from his office by force and under cover of darkness the world’s top cop? What greater proof could there be of the essential lawlessness of Chinese Communism?
Several days after Meng disappeared, his wife, who had moved to Lyon to take up her role as the wife of the world’s Top Cop, reported him missing to the police! (Where else would one turn to report the disappearance of the World’s Top Cop?) The French police made their inquiries (as they say in the Agatha Christie novels.) Interpol demanded explanation from China. Eventually, the Chinese government sent a flunky to deliver the message that Mr Meng,(who is incidentally also China’s Vice Minister of Public Safety), was in their custody, under questioning for “violations of law.”
Gilbert and Sullivan could not have concocted this libretto.
Before a meeting in Beijing of senior police officials (Chinese ones, of course) Meng now stands accused of “taking bribes and other crimes.”
Our best-placed commentators are simply baffled. Why did China pull out all the stops to get this Chinese citizen appointed to this prestigious international post and then risk bringing universal condemnation upon itself by removing him in this blatant, criminal way?
Anarchy Has Won.
This is lawlessness over-reaching itself. The New York Times characterizes this as “a startling move that could set back the country’s efforts to expand its global presence.” Let’s hope that it does.
So far, under the Trump Presidency no less than under previous ones, the motto seems to be that China’s good will is so essential to all of us that we cannot afford public and official criticism of its gangster behavior.
And, come to think of it, where is the universal condemnation? I see in our own media no hint of recognition that this supremely lawless act has changed for ever what “lawlessness” means.
When the grandest dictatorship in the world abducts the Top Cop in the World the Rule of Official Lawlessness is now in effect. And no official voices are raised in protest. Anarchy has won
At a news briefing, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Lu Kang, said that China’s commitment to international police cooperation had not been affected by the sad case of Mr. Meng’. “As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and as a responsible great power, China will continue playing the role that it should in international affairs, especially multilateral bodies,” averred Mr. Lu
Of course it will. And apparently our governments will continue to encourage it to do so.
The Communist definition of Law is now firmly established in international diplomacy
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