Year: 2016

Hong Kong Publishers Reportedly Being Kidnapped by Chinese Authorities and Taken to the Mainland

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A Hong Kong lawmaker said Sunday he believes Chinese security officers kidnapped five publishing company employees who have gone missing in the city, possibly because of a planned book about the former love life of President Xi Jinping.

The five work for a publishing house known for producing books critical of the Chinese government.

The disappearances add to growing unease that freedoms in the semi-autonomous Chinese city are being eroded.

Under Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, it enjoys freedom of speech and Chinese law enforcers have no right to operate in the city.

It is unclear where the men are or how they went missing.

– From the AFP article: Missing Hong Kong Booksellers “Working on Book on Xi’s Love Life”

For several years now, I’ve periodically observed that China’s increasingly aggressive crackdown on dissent serves as a harbinger of far more difficult times ahead. The thinking goes that if anyone is privy to the severe fragility of the country’s economic situation, it would be Chinese leadership. As such, desperate moves by Chinese leadership should foretell drastically worse economic and social conditions.

As an example, here’s an excerpt from this summer’s post, Chinese Authorities Arrest Over 100 Human Rights Activists and Lawyers in Desperate Crackdown on Dissent:

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A Stupid Standoff but a Just Cause – My Thoughts on the Hammond Situation in Oregon

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Oath Keepers including founder Stewart Rhodes was the only organization to predict how Ammon Bundy’s vague calls for action on the part of the Hammond Family would actually play out.  They received a lot of ignorant attacks in response, and yet, they were absolutely right.

Ammon, apparently trying to recreate what cannot be recreated, is looking for another Bundy Ranch stand-off.  First, I would point out that such events can’t be artificially fabricated.  They have to happen in an organic way.  Whenever a group of people attempt to engineer a revolutionary moment, even if their underlying motivations are righteous, it usually ends up kicking them in the ass (Fort Sumter is a good example).  Ammon’s wingmen appear to be Blaine Cooper aka Stanley Blaine Hicks (a convicted felon), and Ryan Payne (who claimed falsely during the Bundy Ranch standoff that he was an Army Ranger and who worked diligently to cause divisions between involved parties on the ground).  This was the first sign that nothing good was going to come from the Hammond protest.

The plan is basically this – use the Hammond family as a vehicle (yes, this is what is being done) even though they did not want any kind of standoff to result and specifically refused aid.  Occupy federally owned buildings which have little to do with anything of importance and have no symbolic power as did Bundy Ranch.  Elicit federal response.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Bundy Ranch had many positive elements going for it, which is why it ended the way it did.  This standoff has none of the same elements.

– From Brandon Smith’s article: Oregon Standoff A Terrible Plan That We Might Be Stuck With

I wasn’t originally going to write anything about the armed occupation of a Federal outpost in Oregon by a group of opportunists creating an infantile and staged reaction to yet another egregious injustice of the U.S. criminal justice system. This is a very important distinction, because in today’s world everyone feels the need to take an immediate and unyielding stance on every national story without appreciating the nuances involved. One can support the Hammonds, while at the same time denounce the tactics of Ammon Bundy.

Pretty much all of you have heard about the situation by now, but if you’re like me, you probably haven’t had the time to dig into the nitty gritty of the situation. For this, I turn to an excellent post at Patterico titled: What Are the Bundys Protesting? Here are a few excerpts:

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From Baghdad to Bahrain…From Beruit to Tehran – Tensions Are Exploding Across the Middle East

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Either the rebel prince succeeds in convincing enough people who matter to remove the King, or the King counters and drives the prince out. The former situation is far and away the best option for stability in the Middle East, and would likely allow the Saudi royal lineage to hold on to power for longer. If the second scenario unfolds, current leadership will crack down even harder on dissent and run the state further into the ground. This behavior will ultimately lead to an unpredictable and likely violent revolution, and if you think the Middle East is volatile now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

As John F. Kennedy accurately noted:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

This also applies to Saudi Arabia.

– From the post: Regime Change is Coming – Saudi Prince Calls for Coup to Remove King

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been pretty checked out of global news over the past severals days. It’s time to get checked in.

The extremely dangerous developments currently unfolding throughout the Middle East cannot be overstated. Indeed, it appears we may be on the verge of all out regional conflict. In order to understand what’s happening and where things might go, let’s review the events of recent days.

On January 2nd, Saudi officials welcomed the New Year by holding its largest mass execution since 1980. 47 individuals were put to death across 12 cities, some by firing squad, others by beheading. While the vast majority (43) were Sunni jihadists accused of attacks upon Western compounds and government buildings during the 2003-2006 period, the remaining victims were Shiite dissidents, most notably the revered and prominent cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The resulting backlash from Beruit to Tehran, from Baghdad to Bahrain, has been nothing short of explosive. Expect this execution to be remembered as a major catalyst in the regional chaos to come.

Here’s a sampling of headlines from the Associate Press’ continuing coverage:

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