by Michael Ledeen
Washington is awash with rumors of millions of Hong Kong residents moving to America.
The Chinese are at our gates, eagerly rewriting the laws against civic disobedience within Hong Kong. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is supporting the people of Hong Kong who support democracy:
U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo said on June 1 that the United
States is worried that if Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam cancels
the elections or postpones them “that there would be violence or
something like that, which is just unfounded.”
“The Hong Kongers have held successful elections for years and
years, so we are urging Hong Kong to continue to move forward for
those,” he said during an interview with American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
The elections are currently scheduled for the first week in September, and there are fears of violence as Hong Kong moves toward assimilation with mainland China. Washington is awash with rumors of millions of Hong Kong residents moving to America. The head of the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, Joshua Wong, faced a grim future:
Joshua Wong—the iconic activist from Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella
Movement and secretary-general of pro-democracy party Demosistō—told AEI in an interview (pdf)
on May 12 that since the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong won 85 percent
of the seats in local district council elections “it is possible for
the pro-democracy camp to take the majority in the Hong Kong Legislative
Council” as well.
Wong is concerned that the new national security law
may allow Beijing to “just override the principle of procedural justice
and to disqualify as many candidates as they can” in the upcoming
election.
“Some of the youngsters, including me and Agnes Chow from Demosistō,
applied to run for office, but being censored out from the ballot, and we are not allowed to run for office,” Wong said.
The last elections produced a spectacular result in favor of pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, more than 70 per cent in favor. It calls to mind the massive turnout in East Germany in favor of the breakup of the wall, which was followed shortly afterwards by the end of the wall itself.
It’s inconceivable that there could be another pro-democracy landslide in Hong Kong. If any big surprises are in store for us, we could see a revived Nipponese militarism, featuring a rearmed Japan, rallying to the side of the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong. For many years I have warned of basic sea changes around the world, and the tempo of such changes is speeding up rapidly. The news of Japanese rearmament is important, and marks a major turning point.
We have to remind ourselves that Japan was long the major military power in the region, and that China, despite its enormous population advantage, constantly lost to the Japanese on the battlefield. The Japanese do not have an inferiority complex towards the Chinese, and they will be preparing to fight, and defeat, Beijing.
It should be quite a battle.
The Chinese are accordingly infiltrating US institutions, ranging from businesses, universities, and military units to high-powered university campuses, and on to international consultancies, and it is only recently that our leaders have picked up on the threat. Indeed, of the multiple scandals that beset the Trump Administration, perhaps the greatest is that it has taken the Republicans three years to get at it. The investigations—headed by Senator Lindsay Graham—begin tomorrow at 10 o’clock, and are scheduled to include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
It’s important to keep the starting points clear. Chinese armed
forces have long been powerful more on a quantitative basis than on a
qualitative one. Looked at traditionally, the so-called Japanese
“se;f-defense forces” have long been in the top rungs in the world.
So the game is open. Japanese industry is fully engaged in the project with famous brands like Mitsubishi, Toshiba and NEC,
which guarantees the Army, Navy and Air Force equipment of top quality.
There is a new law that permits the Japanese to send its armed forces
overseas if requested by an ally, or if required to thwart a Chinese
advance.
The new law ends an extended period in recent Japanese history and
might well cause significant military and political shifts throughout
the Middle East. Indeed, it ends the period of unilateral pacifism that
the allies imposed on the Rising Sun after the end of the Second World
War.
The American Secretary of State will blame the transformation of Hong Kong on the Chinese Communists, having seen first-hand that the vast majority of Hong Kongers want freedom.
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Photo credit: Wallpaperflare.
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/chinese-gates-michael-ledeen/
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