Questions are growing about why Wall Street and the brightest will gather in Hong Kong next week for a financial summit alongside Hong Kong’s leader, who has been sanctioned by the U. S. government. The U. S. puts it like Iran, Myanmar, Syria and Venezuela.
Two US lawmakers have now added their voices to the allegation of money laundering as the most sensitive bosses in corporations such as Apollo Global Management (APO), Blackstone (BX), Carlyle Group (CG), KKR (KKR) and J. P. Morgan Chase (JPM) by attending the event.
Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Jim McGovern called on the leaders of US corporations such as BlackRock (BLK), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) to “reconsider” their participation in Global Financial Leaders. ‘ Investment Summit, which will take place from 1 to 3 November.
“Their presence serves to legitimize Hong Kong’s swift dismantling of autonomy, press freedom and the rule of law through the Hong Kong government acting alongside the Chinese Communist Party,” the U. S. lawmakers said.
In addition, the Hong Kong Council for Democracy published a report Business Not As Usual: International Companies in the New Authoritarian Hong Kong. The Washington D. C. -based group’s online pagewas temporarily blocked in Hong Kong, where I earned a “This site is inaccessible” error. message, telling me “Check if there is a typo in www. hkdc. us”.
I checked. There are no typos. You can only use another country’s site or VPN, just like sites banned in mainland China. But Hong Kong, in theory, still has freedom of speech, assembly, political dissent. . . In theory.
The report said it was “unacceptable corporate behavior” to attend the Hong Kong summit, as participation supported the Hong Kong government “to whitewash its human rights atrocities. “
You can get a link to this report here, supplemented through the international database of corporate bad actors, which you can consult here. The report cites 42 cases of business misconduct in Hong Kong and describes the company’s unacceptable habit of enabling police violence, amplifying dissent, aiding authoritarian rule and backing the Hong Kong regime.
McGovern also took to Twitter (banned in mainland China but lately visible in Hong Kong) to ask “executives of the big banks” of Goldman, BlackRock, Citi and Morgan Stanley “to cancel their stopover in Hong Kong, where they plan to meet the same other people who dismantled freedom and democracy in Hong Kong. “He said that “we will have to call the multibillion-dollar companies. “
Merkley and McGovern head the Executive Committee of the U. S. Congress. The U. S. Department of Justice China. La presence of Wall Street executives “has the effect of covering up the Hong Kong government’s human rights abuses,” while providing “political cover” for Hong Kong CEO John Lee Ka-chiu.
“The prestige quo in Hong Kong is not the right choice for those companies,” Merkley and McGovern warn. They promise that the factor will be “an applicable fear of Congress” if Wall Street leaders aid and inspire human rights abuses in Hong Kong and the Chinese government’s efforts to “export an intolerant style of foreign order. “its inhabitants”.
Lee is scheduled to deliver the conference’s keynote address, through Hong Kong’s central bank equivalent, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, to show that “business as usual” in Hong Kong. The city, desperate to repair its position as a hub, has dumped the mandatory quarantine of Covid-19 hotels in part to allow for the event.
Lee, a former police officer and head of secret security in Hong Kong, sanctioned in August 2020 by the U. S. Treasury Department. The U. S. government is accused of its involvement in efforts to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy and limit Hong Kongers’ civil liberties.
Jim Zelter, Co-Chairman of Apollo, Rob Kapito, Chairman of BlackRock, Jonathan Gray, Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone, William Conway Jr. , Co-Founder of Carlyle, Jane Fraser, Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup, David Solomon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs, Daniel Pinto, Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of J. P. Morgan Chase, Co-CEO of KKR, Joseph Bae, Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO James Gorman and State Street Global Advisors President and CEO Cyrus Taraporevala will be the headlines at the level for the summit events.
The two members of the U. S. Congress The U. S. military also notes that Lee has “refused to fully cooperate with U. S. sanctions. “”U. S. Treasury on Russian assets in Hong Kong. ” This month we had an oligarch’s megayacht in town, the 465-foot Nord boat. Lee refused to capture him, it belongs to the sanctioned oligarch Alexey Mordashov, as “there is no legal basis” for doing so.
Lee insists that no “unilateral” sanctions will be identified through Hong Kong, saying the city only complies with United Nations sanctions. Lee called the “alleged” sanctions against him “barbaric” and added: laughing at so-called sanctions.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader killed in August in a drone strike in Afghanistan, is on the U. S. sanctions list of “specially designated nationals and stranded individuals. “There is Abd Al Aziz Awda, the ideological leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. terrorist group. Russian President Vladimir Putin is being sanctioned along with many supporters of the oligarch and Russia’s two largest banks.
Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, is on the list along with his nuclear program and public entities, adding North Korean government-owned aircraft.
Lee Hong Kong’s security secretary at the time sanctioned, along with then-Director General Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong police chief and 8 other people. Lee was punished for “coercing, arresting, detaining or imprisoning persons under the authority of the National Security Law, as well as taking an interest in its development, adoption or implementation. “
This hated national security law, imposed through the Beijing government in Hong Kong without any contribution from Hong Kongers, is still in force. In fact, Lee, as the city’s leader, is now even more guilty of enforcing it.
Because street protests in Hong Kong have stopped, those living abroad will arguably think life has returned to normal in Hong Kong. But that’s not the case. All political dissent has now been eliminated in Hong Kong, which faces Kafka-style rule through “patriots only,” i. e. personally elected officials in Beijing. These officials insist that the city is relaxed and fair.
But it’s quite the opposite. Even seeking election to the government is seditious or a threat to national security if it plans to block the administration’s plans. Many opposition politicians are on trial for organizing an ad hoc primary. Therefore, being elected, if you are in opposition, is illegal. .
This week, activist Chow Hang-tung was excluded from the Justice of the Peace in her national security case over the term “Tiananmen Square bloodbath” at her trial. She was vice president of the organization that organized the 1989 Tiananmen Square memorial vigils and is accused of failing to respond to a secret security police request for data regarding the paper.
Justice Peter Law sided with prosecutor Ivan Cheung when Cheung objected to his use of the term. Cheung advised that he refer only to the “Fourth of June incident,” and the justice of the peace agreed that he would not be allowed to say “Tiananmen massacre. “and that he used “appropriate terminology in an unbiased manner. ” The prosecution also objected to mentioning a “murder” that day.
Chow, who said she wasn’t sure what she could say that day, is accused of failing to provide data after the National Security Police demanded it. He obtained recognition in August 2021 for handing over data on his work with the surveillance organization as a “foreign agent,” representing a foreign force.
But Chow has no right to know what foreign force he intended to represent. The prosecution said disclosure of the data would “harm the public interest” and conceals the data.
This gives the impression that Chow worked with the CIA, the Mossad, the Russian FSB or some other difficult-to-understand espionage service. Democratic China, a Canadian organization that defends democracy in ChinaThe federation was created, as Chow’s Hong Kong Alliance for China’s Patriotic Democratic Movements, after the Chinese military opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Far from being a foreign spy, it turns out that Chow simply cooperated with a foreign organization that pursues the same purpose as his organization, to advance the cause of democracy in China and remember June 4. When the prosecution objected to a bail request for Chow, he sent a screenshot of the Federation for a Democratic China’s online page in the resolution denying bail. Despite this obvious error, the justice of the peace told prosecutors that he did not have to answer questions about the identity of the organization. During the trial, it emerged that Chow’s organization won HK$20,000 (US$2,548) from “Organization 4,” believed to be this Japanese organization.
Chow says he has “great difficulty” in making his case because the court and prosecutor’s office are “playing hide-and-seek,” refusing to allow him to describe the goal of his now-dissolved organization in Hong Kong, refusing to allow him to describe what the organization does in Japan, and refusing to verify what “foreign force” it intended to represent.
You have to sympathize with her. Hong Kong’s puppet government, police forces and prosecutors have argued in instances that democracy advocates are agents of “foreign forces,” but have never stipulated what those foreign forces are. Like Chow, prosecutors gave the impression that they were acting as spies, however, the organization is possibly an innocent organization newly founded abroad, or as in Chow’s case, has a similar goal that is legal but contrary to Beijing’s wishes.
Police arrested another 10,279 people during pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019. It processed 2,893 cases, adding 517 under the age of 18. He held others without bail and for long periods of time.
The U. S. government The U. S. government issued a notice to corporations in July 2021 warning corporations doing business in Hong Kong to comply with sanctions, as well as a new law in mainland China that promises to punish corporations that apply sanctions. in civil and criminal consequences under U. S. law,” the U. S. Department of State, Treasury, Commerce, and Homeland Security warned. U. S.
He noted that U. S. persons and entities are prohibited from conducting certain transactions with blocked “persons” unless they download an explicit license to do so. The U. S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets ControlU. S. jurisdiction, as well as foreign entities, adding foreign monetary institutions,” if you do business with U. S. corporations or individuals. The U. S. government is required to use “risk-based sanctions enforcement” with a formal sanctions program.
The ongoing repression in Hong Kong continues, ridiculously. On Thursday, two other people were convicted of sedition and jailed for applauding in court and criticizing a comment of approval during an earlier hearing involving a leader of the Tiananmen Square bloodbath memorial event. One of them reportedly accused the judge of deciding the case on a political agenda, while Pastor Garry Pang Moon-yuen allegedly told the judge that “you have lost consciousness. “charged with sedition, rather than contempt of court, and Pang was jailed for a year.
At the time of publication, Alex Frew McMillan had no information about the titles mentioned.
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