HONG KONG: Thousands of protesters, chanting « Sovereignty belongs to the people!  » marched through Hong Kong on New Year’s Day to protest at the government’s legal bid to unseat pro-democracy lawmakers Nathan Law, Lau Siu-lai, Leung Kwok-hung, and Edward Yiu.
The four popularly elected legislators, who led the rally, were the latest targets of a government move which pro-democracy parties describe as a witch hunt.
It came after the city’s courts ousted two pro-independence lawmakers – Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Leung – for failing to swear their oaths of office correctly, a move backed by Beijing.
The Hong Kong government now wants to bar the other four legislators for alleged breaches in their swearing-in ceremony and in their oaths of allegiance.
« We can see that under Hong Kong’s rule of law, the government, with its unlimited resources, will use legal procedures to bully leaders and representatives with fewer resources, » Joshua Wong, a prominent student leader, told AFP at the rally.
« This has shown that ‘One Country, Two Systems’ is a failure and we should use the 20th anniversary of the handover to reflect on our political situation. « 
Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 under a deal which gives it broad autonomy and preserves its freedoms and the rule of law for 50 years. But there are fears these freedoms are being eroded by Beijing.
« The four lawmakers are genuinely concerned about the future of Hong Kong to ensure that our core values will be maintained, » Peggy Ng, a retired civil servant, told AFP at the rally.
« Particularly, that our next generations will enjoy the freedoms that I have enjoyed before. « 
Court proceedings against the four are scheduled to start in February.
Organisers of the march said 9,150 people attended, while police estimated an maximum attendance of 4,800.
A 1,200-strong pro-Beijing committee will elect Hong Kong’s next leader in March.
The current unpopular chief executive Leung Chun-ying has announced he will not seek re-election, citing family reasons.
Banners at the march caricatured the likely election candidates and highlighted their pro-establishment positions.
Sunday’s rally also sought to raise funds for the four lawmakers to fight the government’s challenge in court.
The two ousted pro-independence lawmakers separately announced last week they were making a final legal bid to overturn their exclusion from the legislature.

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Activity at China’s factories slowed in December but still represented the fifth consecutive month of expansion in the latest sign that the world’s No. 2 economy is stabilizing.
The monthly purchasing managers’ index by the Chinese Federation of Logistics and Purchasing was 51.4 in December, the second highest level of 2016. The highest reading was November’s 51.7 — the first time the index had hit that level since July 2014.
December’s figure climbed from 49.7 a year earlier.
The index is based on a 100-point scale with the 50-point mark separating expansion from contraction.
China’s manufacturing sector picked up throughout the year following an uneasy start in an upbeat sign for the wider Chinese economy, which posted steady growth of 6.7 percent in the third quarter.
China’s economy has cooled gradually over the past six years as Beijing tries to pivot away from heavy reliance on export-based manufacturing and investment toward consumer spending.
However, the government has supported the manufacturing sector with stimulus measures aimed at shoring up growth, including heavier spending on public infrastructure projects.

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Sixteen people, mostly medical workers, were convicted of involvement in an organ trafficking ring and sentenced to between two and five years in jail by a court in Shandong on Friday, mainland media reported. The ring performed illegal kidney transplants at various hospitals and clinics in Jinan, Taian and Feicheng cities since 2014, according to provincial news portal Iqilu.com. The report did not identify the hospitals involved or specify how many transplants had been performed before the ring was busted in May 2015. Instead, it said the trading spanned more than a dozen provinces and municipalities, including Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Chongqing. Citing the Lixia district court in Jinan, the report said the ring consisted of at least two doctors, one anaesthetist, a nurse, an assistant doctor and other paramedics. Using Tencent QQ and other social networking tools, they searched online for kidney sellers across the country, arranging for tests and matches between sellers and potential buyers. Patients were asked to pay between 400,000 to 600,000 yuan (HK$670,000), sometimes more, for each transplant, while sellers received about 40,000 yuan, according to the report. Surgeons and paramedics made 3,000 to 10,000 yuan per surgery and the bulk of the profit was split among five ringleaders.

© Source: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2058585/team-medical-workers-ran-organ-trafficking-ring-china
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As one whose information was stolen, I got a warm and fuzzy when the Feds sent a letter offering credit monitoring at no cost to me other than as a taxpayer and tips how to prevent identity theft. I was doing a good job of protecting my identity until I had to share info with the Feds to update my security clearance.
Via Mediaite:
Dapandico |
January 1, 2017 4:00 pm

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SINGAPORE: It is often said among China-watching circles that the most politically-sensitive issues of Beijing can be summed up in four Ts: Taiwan, Tibet, Tiananmen and East Turkestan, the separatist name preferred for Xinjiang.
As the new year begins, a new set of five Ts can also be useful markers to look ahead to 2017 in China.
Even before Mr Trump assumes the presidency on Jan 20, he had drawn the ire of China by taking a call from Taiwan Presiden Tsai Ing-wen and openly mocked the “One China” principle.
And let’s not forget the American leader had repeatedly blamed climate change on China during the hustings and threatened to slap tariffs of up to 45 per cent on Chinese imports.
It is safe to say the 83 per cent Chinese surveyed who felt he was morally fit to be president might be having second thoughts now.
The unpredictability of Mr Trump’s administration will flummox and frustrate Beijing’s leaders, diplomats and military for much of 2017. 
She showed it in the last seven months, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus, a tacit agreement that the mainland has insisted to indicate fealty to “One China”.
And by successfully placing the call to Mr Trump, she displayed an audacity and creativity which must worry the mainland.
In return, the retaliation from Beijing has been swift. China refrained from courting Taiwan’s diplomatic partners during the eight-year term of Mr Ma.
But the mainland formally established ties with Gambia in March and San Tome and Principe in December. Taiwan now has only 21 diplomatic partners.
The international space of Taiwan will continue to shrink in 2017, as China takes a hardline stance against Ms Tsai. The breakaway island will feel the suffocating choke of Beijing even more strongly. 
Japan is marching towards re-militarisation; North Korea remains under the rule of an unpredictable regime; South Korea is on its way to impeaching a president who had at one point been the cosiest leader to Beijing when she attended a military parade in 2015.
Further south, Sino-ASEAN ties will continue to be dominated, some say haunted, by the South China Sea.
But the most awkward bilateral relation within the larger architecture looks set to shift from Sino-Philippines to Sino-Singapore.
The seizure of Singapore’s nine military armoured vehicles in Hong Kong in November remains unresolved.
The latest news that a top-level bilateral annual meeting has been postponed indefinitely suggests that feathers will be further ruffled between Singapore and China in the Year of the Rooster.
The answer is likely to be fairly optimistic. While China flexes its muscles politically, it is expected to be very friendly in Asia when it comes to economics.
Mr Trump’s ascension will spell the demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an America-led pact which would have included some 40 per cent of the global economy.
That gives China’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) a precious lifeline to fill the void, and several countries, including Japan, have signalled its intent to shift from the dying TPP to RCEP.
To add to the alphabet soup, China also has a larger pact called the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), further lowering tariffs and promoting trade.
China was hoping to seal the RCEP in 2016, but given some member countries were still waiting to see if the TPP could rebound after Mr Trump takes office, it was premature. But the smart money would be to bet on it taking off in 2017. 
The 19th Party Congress marks the halfway mark of President Xi Jinping’s supposed 10-year term and changes at the Politburo Standing Committee – the apex body of the party, are expected.
Such a reshuffle usually engenders a fierce and treacherous fighting within the top echelons of the CCP, with some occasionally spilling out into the public eye.
During the last transition in 2012, for instance, the struggle led to the purge of Politburo member Bo Xilai, amid a full-blown drama of corruption, murder and even a Cold War-style defection.
If that is any indication of what is to come in 2017, don’t look away. The big story is in China.
The writer is author of When the Party Ends, winner of the Singapore Literature Prize 2016, and former China bureau chief at The Straits Times. He is also a founding partner of The Nutgraf, a content marketing agency.

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BEIJING: A court in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui has handed out sentences of up to 20 years in jail for 67 people involved in a mafia-style gang that engaged in gambling, extortion and violence, state news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday.
The leader of the gang, 37-year-old Xing Zhaogang, was released from jail in 2012 after serving time for violent assault, but then returned to a life of crime and became a « gambling lord » in Anhui, Xinhua said, citing the court.
Between October 2014 and April 2015, Xing’s gang made 20 million yuan (US$2.9 million) in profits from their underground gambling operation, and beat up and threatened those seen as rivals, the report added.
But he and his gang were caught and put on trial in November, Xinhua said.
The court found Xing guilty of organising a mafia-style gang, including using violence against his rivals, and gave him a 20-year jail sentence, the report said.
The other 66 members of his gang got sentences ranging from five months to 14 years in jail, it said, without giving other details or saying when the court had reached its verdict.
It was not possible to reach legal representatives for Xing or the other convicted people for comment.
Such organised crime is rare in China. In 2015, a former mining tycoon was executed after being found guilty of leading a 36-member gang on a crime spree spanning two decades.

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Sean Spicer, the incoming White House communications director, suggested Sunday that President Obama’s imposition of Russian sanctions related to email hacking was politically motivated, considering China recently did far worse without punishment.
“Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t,” Spicer said on ABC’s “This Week.” “China took over a million records. And a White House statement wasn’t even issued. … So there is a question about whether there’s a political retribution here versus a diplomatic response.”
Obama, a Democrat leaving office next month after two terms, has insisted the hacking probe is non-political, saying, “There is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action.  »
But he also has made clear his beliefs that the Russian hacking « create(d) more problems for the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign.  »
Obama’s announcement Thursday of the sanctions follows the U. S. intelligence committee making statements that connect Russia to the hacking and releasing of emails from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the campaign chairman for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Clinton supporters argue that the emails contributed to Clinton’s defeat by Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Spicer insisted several times Sunday that Trump will decide after meeting this week with U. S. intelligence officials about whether Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin were indeed involved.
Meanwhile, he suggested that Americans, including the mainstream media, immediately and overwhelming accepted the assumption about Russia’s involvement without all of the facts.
“Everyone in the media wants to jump forward and make a conclusion based off…anonymous sources that are coming out of the intelligence community,” Spicer said.
He also argued that the Obama administration’s report on the sanctions was supposed to prove Russia’s involvement but instead pointed out lapses in the DNC’s Internet security.
“What this says is that the DNC had a problem with their IT security and people tried to hack it and that (the DNC) needs to do a better job of protecting it,” Spicer said.
He also seemed to suggest that Obama’s punitive actions on Russia were politically motivated, considering their severity and because they’ll be put in Trump’s lap when he takes over the White House in three week.
“You haven’t seen a response like that in modern history for any action,” Spicer said about Obama expelling 35 Russian diplomats and closing separate Russian compounds in Maryland and New York.
He argued that Obama took no known action two years ago when China took a million-plus records that included sensitive data on federal employees including him.
“They sent everyone who had worked in the government a letter saying that you’ll get free monitoring of your credit,” Spicer said. “That’s all they did.”

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CHINA will never allow anyone to “make a great fuss” about its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights, President Xi Jinping said in his New Year’s address, while China’s top official in charge of Taiwan ties warned of risk ahead in 2017.
China’s increasingly assertive moves to push its territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea, including building artificial islands, has unnerved its neighbours.
“We adhere to peaceful development, and resolutely safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” Xi said, in comments carried by state media late on Saturday.
“Chinese people will never allow anyone to get away with making a great fuss about it,” he said, without elaborating.
China claims most of the South China Sea. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.
While Xi made no direct mention of self-ruled Taiwan, aside from extending New Year’s greetings to them, the head of China’s policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office in his New Year’s message said that 2017 would see uncertainty.
“Looking ahead to 2017, the situation in the Taiwan Strait is complex and serious, and the development of relations are facing many uncertain factors and risk,” Zhang Zhijun said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
SEE ALSO: China considering strong measures to contain Taiwan – sources
China hopes that people on both sides can show resolve and courage, to ensure the “correct direction” of the peaceful development of ties and work to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, he added.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Saturday that Taiwan will be “calm” when dealing with China, but uncertainties in 2017 will test the island and its national security team, even as she recommitted to maintaining peace. 
China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, who it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a renegade province.
U. S. President-elect Donald Trump angered China last month when he spoke to Tsai in a break with decades of precedent and cast doubt on his incoming administration’s commitment to Beijing’s “one China” policy.
China’s military has become alarmed by what it sees as Trump’s support of Taiwan and is considering strong measures to prevent the island from moving toward independence, sources with ties to senior military officers said. – Reuters

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