Chinese imperialism and future Australian sovereignty

[Morrigu]

South African traders with China are illegally selling thousands of wild animals threatened with extinction and endangered, under the guise of legal exports, according to an investigation.

Monkeys have been stolen from the wild, and together with cheetahs, tigers, rhinos, lions and meerkats, they have been trafficked to circuses, theme parks, laboratories, zoos and “safari parks”, researchers found.

Their report says at least 5,035 live wild animals were exported to China from 2016 to last year – “an extremely conservative” estimate – including chimpanzees and “a bewildering number” of giraffe, which “are also eaten in China”.

Demand in China for products made from all types of wildlife remains high, with a 2018 investigation finding tiger wine openly sold in shops. The report authors note that consumption of animals including tigers, threatening wild populations, is legitimised by captive breeding. There are more tigers in captivity in the world than in the wild, WWF figures show.

The report authors say photos taken at Chinese importing centres, showing barren enclosures, “tell their own story of animal welfare violation and naked greed”, while the wildlife trade allows Covid-type disease to spread.


https://conservationaction.co.za/recent-news/south-africa-traffics-thousands-of-endangered-wild-animals-to-china-in-corrupt-and-growing-trade-investigation-finds/

[stui magpie]

Poor people have access to a resource, other people who have cash and no scruples are willing to pay for that resource. Supply and demand, which part do you try to stop? It's like the drug trade.

[Morrigu]

^ I know - without a market it ends that is the bottom line - as has been said by many “ tis only when the value of an animal is greater alive than dead” will the trade and cruelty end. Organised crime drives it now - big bucks involved like the drug trade but these are sentient creatures many of whom species will be extinct without serious action and China and Chinese living in many countries including USA and Australia are the major end market they need to change!!

Like human trafficking which is as abhorrent but less likely to result in extinction.

I don’t like this world much

[Jezza]

Some new developments concerning China.

China to impose 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley

[Pi]

The glorious progressive communist party continues to be a beacon of hope to those looking for an organ transplant.

https://www.healtheuropa.eu/im-going-to-china-theyre-shooting-my-donor/97063/

https://www.chinaorganharvest.org/

They have said they no longer do voluntary compulsory organ donation,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/chinese-government-may-have-falsified-organ-donation-numbers-study-says

Chinese state officials, on the back of the promised reforms, have been admitted onto the World Health Organization’s transplantation task force, and Chinese surgeons now regularly present at medical conferences and publish in international journals.

Trusted by the W.H.O, must be all good now right? its not like they tell lies about this sort of thing or anything else do they.

[Morrigu]

China legislators take on wildlife trade, skip traditional medicine

Shanghai: As China's parliament prepares new laws to ban the trade and consumption of wildlife, local action plans published this week suggest the country's fur trade and lucrative traditional medicine sectors will continue as usual.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theage.com.au/world/asia/china-legislators-take-on-wildlife-trade-skip-traditional-medicine-20200521-p54v5s.html

Pfft what a pathetic nothing - the WHO have enabled this through their endorsement of non-evidence based TCM - pathetic !! I hope the bad orange man sticks to his guns and defunds them!!

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic and heightened global tensions, China makes its move on Hong Kong
With the world focused on a pandemic that started in China, now is the moment chosen by the Chinese leadership to introduce a security law.[/b]

Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong fear it could be the death of their beloved territory.

Dennis Kwok is a Civic Party politician and warned that if the law comes into force "one country, two systems will officially be erased. This is the end of Hong Kong".

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/12275496

Seriously #fuckchina

[Pies4shaw]

The WHO hasn’t “enabled” anything. It has been rendered diplomatically incapable of forcing China to do anything by Trump’s attacks. China is thumbing it’s nose because the WHO doesn’t come backed by the US.

International Law 101 - an international organisation that is not the Security Council has no coercive power. All such institutions depend for their efficacy on the nations of the world taking notice of them. Nations will take notice of internal organisations because they think it is in their interest to do so. One of the reasons nations think taking notice of a organisation is in their interest is that major international powers back the organisation. No backing, no clout.

The Chinese policy is one I despise. It is, however, only made possible by US indifference. If the US withdrew support from the WHO to take a strong bilateral stand with sanctions, that might achieve a useful result. But this isn’t about getting results. It is about apportioning blame.

Are the 100,000 dead of COVID-19 China’s fault, the WHO’s fault or the US’s fault? The blaming is a domestic political game for internal US party-political consumption. It has nothing to do with achieving a diplomatic outcome. It is, frankly, not even activity capable of having such an outcome. It is the political equivalent of John Belushi’s address to Carrie Fisher from his knees in the drain under the ballroom near the end of the Blues Brothers.

[Morrigu]

^ absolute bloody carp - of course they have enabled it not only enabled it but endorsed it and did so long before COVID - 2018- nothing to do with the bad orange man!! Disgusting corrupt organisation!!

“ A few days ago, a news story in the journal Nature reported that the World Health Organization, which is supposed to be devoted to improving the health and medical care of people around the globe, will for the first time endorse a belief system called “traditional Chinese medicine.” I’m labeling TCM a belief system because that’s what it is–but the WHO will be endorsing it as a set of medical practices.

Here’s what TCM really looks like: the horrific slaughter of the last remaining rhinoceroses in Africa in order to hack off their horns, which are sold to become part of elixirs that some people mistakenly think confer strength, virility, or other health benefits. Last year, National Geographic ran a heart-wrenching photo essay showing some of the awful results of rhinoceros poaching in Africa; take a look at these photos here.

TCM also looks like this: black bears kept in grotesquely cruel “farms” with a permanent tube inserted into their abdomens so that their bile can be harvested. Despite a growing movement to end this inhumane practice (see this NY Times story), it persists today, with thousands of bears kept in cages so small they can barely move. No one can view photos such as these and say that TCM is a good thing.

And TCM is behind the slaughter of the last remaining wild tigers, which are virtually extinct now in Asia, so that men can foolishly eat their bones, claws, and genitals in the mistaken belief that tiger parts will make them virile. Here too, National Geographic has details and photographs that are almost too painful to look at.

And don’t get me started on pangolins, the beautiful, peaceful mammal that’s now perilously endangered because TCM practitioners think its scales have some sort of medicinal value. (They don’t.) For more on these gentle creatures

As the Nature article points out, TCM has been a scam for decades: it was revived and heavily promoted in China by former dictator Mao Zedong, who didn’t believe in it himself, but pushed it as a cheap alternative to real medicine.

Finally, why would the World Health Organization start pushing a set of unscientific practices that are likely to harm people’s health? Support for TCM grew during the tenure of former WHO director Margaret Chan, who ran the WHO until 2017 and who had close ties to China. When Nature tried to contact Dr. Chan, the WHO responded that Chan “is not answering questions on matters related to the WHO.”

By endorsing TCM, the WHO is taking a big step backwards. Let’s hope that the current leaders of the WHO will realize that this step undermines their core mission. The WHO should not advocate treatments that not only have no evidence to support them and that can cause real harm to patients, but also are the primary reason that humans are hunting rhinoceroses, tigers, pangolins, and other animals to extinction.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2018/10/01/who-endorses-tcm-expect-deaths-to-rise/#63b93bd46418

[Pies4shaw]

If you want to call my opinion crap, I’ll just leave you to it.

You could read this, though. If you think it’s crap, too, tell them: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-world-health-organization-failed/610063/

[Morrigu]

^ No see I’m not calling your opinion crap it’s just that the issue with the WHO is not solely related to this current situation- they sold out long ago!

I work in health care - evidence based practice is king as it should be - to have the WHO endorse medical practice that is medieval nonsense is more than disappointing it shows they are corrupt$ and China are the main beneficiaries of this!

[Morrigu]

Police fire tear gas in Hong Kong as hundreds protest against proposed national security laws

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-24/hong-kong-protests-against-proposed-national-security-laws/12281358

[stui magpie]

[pietillidie]

A timely reminder on the unsayable about the US as it tries to the outbully China:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/12280956

[pietillidie]

This is a good feature on Hong Kong from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-china-52786734

[David]