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Monthly Archives: October 2015

Xi Jinping in Britain: Submission Impossible

23 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Christian Davies in Foreign Affairs

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China, Hong Kong, UK Foreign Policy

The Government is right to engage with China, and in doing so to make compromises along the way. But give the impression that your principles are a bit of a sham, and you will not get any credit for compromising on them

When I worked in Parliament, we used to receive dozens of petition e-mails each year expressing strong opposition to the Yulin Dog Meat Festival in China. Every year, at the Summer Solstice, thousands of dogs are slaughtered in Yulin in Guangxi province and served as hotpot. The petition demanded the British Government intervene in order to stop the ‘barbaric’ practice. Despite the expressed opposition of Simon Cowell and Ricky Gervais and hundreds of thousands of online petitioners, the practice continues.

The petitioners’ arguments – we do not regard dogs as animals to be eaten, therefore you must give up your ‘barbaric practice’ – are music to the ears of the Chinese authorities. They distract from elements of Chinese opposition to the festival (there is tension in China between proletarian dog-eaters and bourgeois dog-walkers), and help Beijing to argue that Westerners have always tried to impose their culture on China under the guise of universal human rights.

Chinese authorities can – and do – respond by arguing that Britain justified the Opium Wars with talk of ‘free trade’, and that support for ‘autonomy’ for Tibet and ‘rights’ for the Uighur in Xinjiang are designed to encourage seditious forces to weaken China; ‘democratic reform’ is designed to undermine the Chinese Communist Party, the one political system that managed to get China off its knees.

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Reporting on ‘Hybrid War’ in Ukraine

08 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by Christian Davies in Foreign Affairs

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Russia, Ukraine

The purpose of Russian propaganda is not to convince reporters on the ground who can see the truth for themselves, but to sow doubts in the minds of those who struggle to identify lies from afar.

Kiev – In August 2014, six months after the departure of former President Viktor Yanukovych and the initiation of Russian military operations in Crimea, shrines to the fallen and barricades that had long taken on a commemorative quality vied for space on Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti with encampments inhabited by protestor-fighters who either refused to abandon a revolution they regarded as incomplete, or had nowhere else to go.

Slightly less shabby – in most cases – were the foreign correspondents frequenting the bars and cafes around the Maidan’s periphery and its surrounding streets. They gather to socialise, compare notes and conduct interviews, moving back and forth between their temporary bases in the capital and the numerous fronts in the east of Ukraine. Their experiences, and those of many of their colleagues, help us to understand not only the challenges of reporting on the Ukraine crisis, but also how both warfare and journalism have undergone similar processes of fragmentation and change.

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Labour’s Phoney Debate

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by Christian Davies in Politics

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Labour, UK Politics

Labour MPs have made a virtue of necessity by extolling the merits of external consultation and public engagement, even as they prepare for an internal battle for the levers of power

Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters did not sweep him to victory simply because they like him. They see his triumph as the first step towards a transformation of the Labour Party, and have already identified MPs who do not belong in their Brave New World. If Corbyn does not deliver on their aspirations, he risks being abandoned in favour of a new firebrand.

There is little doubt that Corbyn would oblige if he could, but though he has taken the Leader’s Office, he has not yet taken control of the Party. Many in Labour headquarters are viscerally opposed to a man they consider to be disloyal and self-indulgent. Less than 10% of Labour MPs supported his candidacy, and a majority of his Shadow Cabinet appear to hold the view that they should serve the Party in order to save it from its Leadership, rather than serve the Leadership for the good of the Party.

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