MESOPOTMIA NEWS : DOWNGOING WEST & COMMUNIST CHINA IMPERIALISM

Top of the Agenda
Hong Kong’s government outlawed mockery of China’s national anthem (SCMP) today on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which the Chinese government crushed with military force.
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Hong Kong will deploy three thousand police officers (SCMP) to enforce a ban on an annual candlelight vigil commemorating the protests, ostensibly on public health grounds. Hong Kongers plan to light candles across the city (Reuters) and speak out online instead. The anniversary comes as historic protests continue across the United States against police killings of Black people. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), a staunch China hawk who has condemned Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on Wednesday calling for the military to restore order in the United States.
Analysis
“The ban on the vigil added to the drumbeat of concerns that Beijing’s demands for security and stability would further erode Hong Kong’s civil liberties,” Austin Ramzy, Tiffany May, and Javier C. Hernandez write in the New York Times.

“It was exactly 31 years ago that I covered the Chinese military’s assault on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square. There was outrage worldwide, with virtually the only praise in the West coming from … Donald Trump,” Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times.