Diaspora

Agnes Chow says HK is a ‘place of fear’

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The momentous news of Agnes Chow’s escape to Canada and her regaining of freedom of speech (see below) comes at the same time as her colleague, Tsang Chi-kin, famous for escaping death by police bullet in Hong Kong, has been put up for a grotesque TV confession arranged by HK police. A place of fear indeed. —Magnus Fiskesjö, magnus.fiskesjo@cornell.edu

Source: BBC News (12/7/23)
Agnes Chow: Fugitive activist says Hong Kong is now a ‘place of fear’
By Kelly Ng, BBC News, Singapore

Hong Kong is now a “place full of fear” for pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow, who says she has no plans to go home. Getty Images.

Hong Kong is now a “place full of fear”, pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow, who recently jumped bail, said. Ms Chow was under investigation for “collusion with foreign forces”, but had been allowed to study in Canada.

The 27-year-old is now a fugitive in Toronto. She told the BBC that she does not intend to return home.

Hong Kong authorities say that they will “spare no effort” in pursuing her for the rest of her life if she does not turn herself in.

A controversial national security law, which gives Chinese authorities expansive powers over political and civic activity in Hong Kong, has been widely used against activists like Ms Chow.

Ms Chow ran Hong Kong pro-democracy group Demosisto with fellow activists Nathan Law and Joshua Wong and was one of the leaders of large-scale anti-government protests held in 2012, 2014 and 2019. Continue reading Agnes Chow says HK is a ‘place of fear’ →

HK activist flees to Canada

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Source: NYT (12/4/23)
Agnes Chow, a Hong Kong Activist, Fled to Canada and Isn’t Likely to Return
Ms. Chow said she had to make a “patriotic” visit to the mainland to get her passport back. The Hong Kong police condemned her intention to “openly jump bail.”
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

A woman wearing a medical mask and glasses is seen in the back seat of a police vehicle.

Agnes Chow, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, being arrested by police at her home in Tai Po, Hong Kong, in August 2020. Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Agnes Chow, a prominent pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong who was arrested as part of a sweeping crackdown, said over the weekend that she had fled to Canada and planned to skip bail, in a bold challenge to the authorities.

Ms. Chow had been arrested in 2020, along with several other dissidents, including the newspaper mogul Jimmy Lai, after Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong to curb dissent. The authorities were investigating Ms. Chow on suspicion of collusion with external elements, a vaguely defined political crime that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. She was later released on bail.

Ms. Chow wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday that she had traveled to Canada in September to study at a university. She said she had decided not to return to Hong Kong in December to report to the police, as the authorities had requested. “Perhaps I will never go back again in my lifetime,” she wrote.

Hong Kong’s national security police condemned her expressed intention to “jump bail” and urged her to “immediately turn back.” In a statement on Monday, the Hong Kong government said that it would “spare no effort” in bringing Ms. Chow to justice and warned that she could not “evade legal liabilities by absconding.”

In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman who was asked about Ms. Chow’s statement said that no one was above the law and that illegal acts would be punished. Continue reading HK activist flees to Canada →

Museum of Chinese in American and Public History

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Dear all,

The ‘Global Diasporic Chinese Museums Network Initiative Public Talk Series’ will host the fourth talk on Tuesday 28 November. Our speakers are Ms. Yue Ma, Director for Collections and Research and Mr. Herb Tam, Curator and Director of Exhibition at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). They will give a talk on the Museum of Chinese in America and Public History: Reflecting Immigrant Stories from A Local and Global Perspective  美国华人博物馆与公共历史： 从本地和全球角度反映移民故事

The talk will be given in English. Simultaneous translation into Mandarin Chinese will be provided.

Date: Tuesday 28 November 2023
Time: 11:00 am to 12:30 pm (GMT)
Venue: Online
Zoom ID: 812 0303 1870
Password: 12345

Meeting link:

https://ntu-sg.zoom.us/j/81203031870?pwd=MzBjeFVLb0hVbmNpNTU4dnJ5TXZhdz09#success

Abstract

Yue Ma, Director of Collections and Research, and Herb Tam, Curator and Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) will discuss the complexities of public history work within the Museum of Chinese in America. Yue Ma will present the development of MOCA’s collection and its relevance to contemporary researchers, scholars, students and artists. Herb Tam will expand on the vision and conceptualization of MOCA’s exhibitions and their relationship to the collection and audience expectations. Their talk will reveal how various dynamics – resources, visitor feedback, institutional history, local and global politics – impact the work of a medium-sized social history museum embedded in an ethnic enclave. Continue reading Museum of Chinese in American and Public History →

Uyghur filmmaker who studied in Turkey prosecuted in China

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Source: Ethnic ChinaLit (Bruce-Humes.com) (11/9/23)
Uyghur Film-maker Who Studied in Turkey Prosecuted in China

In “Uyghur film-maker claims he was tortured by authorities in China,” the Guardian reports that Ikram Nurmehmet, a director known for his Uyghur protagonists in films such as The Elephant in the Car, recently had his day in court in Ürümqi:

“I was held in a dark room for 20 days and physically tortured,” Nurmehmet reportedly said during the trial, adding that he had been made to give false confessions under duress while in detention. “I never joined any terrorist group or any political activities while I was in Turkey,” he said.

It is not clear who revealed what Nurmehmet testified, but the report notes that members of his family were present at the trial. That such a trial was open to anyone outside of the prosecution is rare, as China normally treats terrorism-related trials as state secrets. He has reportedly been charged with terrorism and participating in a separatist movement.

According to Peter Irwin, an associate director for research and advocacy at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, who also spoke to the Guardian, the Turkey connection is key:

“There are a lot of people being sentenced who went to Turkey. In some ways, what this film-maker was doing through his work – the humanisation of Uyghurs and [facilitating] communication between Uyghurs and Chinese people – I think the government is suspicious and worries about this kind of stuff.” Continue reading Uyghur filmmaker who studied in Turkey prosecuted in China →

Overseas Chinese History Museum lecture

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The ‘Global Diasporic Chinese Museums Network Initiative Public Talk Series’ will be hosting the next talk on Monday 18th September at 12: 00 pm to 13:30 pm (BST)

Our speaker, Mr. Ning Yi, Deputy Director of Overseas Chinese History Museum of China, will give a talk on Tracing the History of Chinese Diasporas and Narrating Stories of Cultural Exchange — Explorations and Practices at the Overseas Chinese History Museum of China. The talk will be given in Mandarin Chinese. Simultaneous translation into English is provided.

The event is jointly hosted by HOMELandS (Hub On Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces) at University of Westminster and the Chinese Heritage Centre of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. It is organised as part of the project Global Diasporic Chinese Museums Network Initiative funded by AHRC.

This is a free event, held online via Zoom. Please register here – Eventbrite link – for access to the meeting on the day.

Best wishes,

Cangbai Wang c.wang6@westminster.ac.uk

Seediq want Sweden to keep their ancestors’ cultural artifacts

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Source: Taiwan Plus News (9/4/23)
A Taiwanese Indigenous group wants Sweden to keep their ancestors’ cultural artifacts.
By Louise_Watt

This video doesn’t say which Stockholm museum is showing the Seediq collection. The objects may be from the Ethnographic Museum but Michel Lee in the picture has been with the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. Both belong in the listed group of state museums in charge of exotic objects: the National Museums of World Culture.

It seems this is the exhibit at the EM.

Best wishes to them all. The Seediq are lucky to be allowed to exist and take charge of themselves; what a contrast to genocide China.

ps. If the museums get good press and many visitors, it might become more difficult for the government bureaucrats to kill them.

(There is an ongoing crisis right now with the National art gallery, next door neighbor of the MFEA, which may have to close and move from its purpose-built edifice across from the Palace. It was renovated last year, but the profiteering state buildings agency SFV would prefer to evict all museums so they can rent the [purpose-built and renovated] buildings to whoever has more money  — it’s a La-la-land of fake “market” economics and corrupt politics; people outside Sweden cannot believe it–they want to believe it’s a well-managed country that cares responsibly for its culture and monuments. Not so… I myself quit as MFEA director in the face of this uncertainty.)

regards,

Magnus Fiskesjö, magnus.fiskesjo@cornell.edu

Code Pink, Code Red

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This is extremely useful for understanding the “Codepinkers.”–Magnus Fiskesjö <magnus.fiskesjo@cornell.edu>

Source: China Media Project (8/16/23)
Code Pink, Code Red
The China-related agenda of the “Women for Peace” organization might be taken more seriously as a call for respectful dialogue and cooperation if its narratives were not so closely aligned with those of the Chinese party-state.
By David Bandurski

In a months-long investigation published earlier this month, The New York Times explored the links between a “lavishly funded influence campaign” pushing Chinese state propaganda narratives and American millionaire Neville Roy Singham, long a champion of far-left causes. The report touched on the increasing involvement in China-related work of the anti-war activist organization Code Pink — whose co-founder, the American political activist Jodie Evans, married Singham in 2017.

As the Times report and other sources have noted, Code Pink was openly critical of China’s human rights record prior to 2017. The organization has since moderated that critical stance and the China page of its website focuses on a campaign called “China Is Not Our Enemy,” also the title of a regular webinar series hosted by Evans since 2021, and a dedicated Twitter (X) account.

The campaign’s object is simple enough: taking action to advocate for peace with China in the face of bilateral relations that have grown dangerously strident, and calling for greater dialogue to reduce the risk of conflict. The premise of the campaign is more problematic. Relations have worsened, Code Pink claims, because politicians and media in the United States have stoked confrontation. The group never seriously addresses the legitimate concerns many Americans have about China, including its worsening one-party authoritarian politics, its illiberal approach to human rights, and its broad repression of civil society. Continue reading Code Pink, Code Red →

Global web of Chinese progaganda leads to US tech mogul

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Source: NYT (8/5/23)
A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul
The Times unraveled a financial network that stretches from Chicago to Shanghai and uses American nonprofits to push Chinese talking points worldwide.
By Mara Hvistendahl, David A. Fahrenthold, Lynsey Chutel and Ishaan Jhaveri

Neville Roy Singham, right, in 2016 with the activist Jodie Evans. In 2017, they married and he sold his tech firm. Credit…Jim Spellman/WireImage, via Getty Images

The protest in London’s bustling Chinatown brought together a variety of activist groups to oppose a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. So it was peculiar when a street brawl broke out among mostly ethnic Chinese demonstrators.

Witnesses said the fight, in November 2021, started when men aligned with the event’s organizers, including a group called No Cold War, attacked activists supporting the democracy movement in Hong Kong.

On the surface, No Cold War is a loose collective run mostly by American and British activists who say the West’s rhetoric against China has distracted from issues like climate change and racial injustice.

In fact, a New York Times investigation found, it is part of a lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda. At the center is a charismatic American millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, who is known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes.

What is less known, and is hidden amid a tangle of nonprofit groups and shell companies, is that Mr. Singham works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide. Continue reading Global web of Chinese progaganda leads to US tech mogul →

Waiting To Be Arrested at Night

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Source: NPR (8/1/23)
‘Waiting To Be Arrested At Night’ is the story of a Uyghur poet’s escape
By Emily Feng, NPR

Tahir Hamut Izgil is one of the best-known living Uyghur poets. He left Xinjiang amid a Chinese crackdown on the Uyghur people — an escape at the heart of his book, Waiting To Be Arrested At Night.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

One of the greatest living Uyghur poets lives in Washington, D.C. Tahir Hamut Izgil escaped from his native Xinjiang to the U.S. in 2018. At that time, rights groups say the Chinese government was detaining at least hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and imprisoning writers that Izgil worked with. His new book about this experience, “Waiting To Be Arrested At Night,” has just been published, and NPR’s Emily Feng talked to him about the process of writing it.

TAHIR HAMUT IZGIL: (Speaking Uyghur).

EMILY FENG, BYLINE: To remember is important. But for those who remember, like Tahir Hamut Izgil, the memories are a painful responsibility.

IZGIL: (Through interpreter) I myself don’t like to reread my own book. Every time I read part of it, I feel like I’m going through those events again. Continue reading Waiting To Be Arrested at Night →

Canadian politicians who criticize China become targets

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Source: NYT (7/15/23)
Canadian Politicians Who Criticize China Become Its Targets
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As China increases its reach in diaspora communities, Chinese Canadian politicians in Vancouver are the focus of Chinese state interference in Canadian politics.
By Norimitsu Onishi (Reporting from Richmond, Burnaby and Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada)

Kenny Chiu, a former member of Parliament representing a district outside Vancouver, appears to have been targeted by supporters of China because of his public criticisms of China’s human rights record. Credit…Alana Paterson for The New York Times

The polls predicted a re-election victory, maybe even a landslide.

But a couple of weeks before the vote, Kenny Chiu, a member of Canada’s Parliament and a critic of China’s human rights record, was panicking. Something had flipped among the ethnic Chinese voters in his British Columbia district.

“Initially, they were supportive,” he said. “And all of a sudden, they just vanished, vaporized, disappeared.”

Longtime supporters originally from mainland China were not returning his calls. Volunteers reported icy greetings at formerly friendly homes. Chinese-language news outlets stopped covering him. And he was facing an onslaught of attacks — from untraceable sources — on the local community’s most popular social networking app, the Chinese-owned WeChat.

The sudden collapse of Mr. Chiu’s campaign — in the last federal election, in 2021 — is now drawing renewed scrutiny amid mounting evidence of China’s interference in Canadian politics.

Continue reading Canadian politicians who criticize China become targets →

Not a Foreigner–cfp

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Dear MCLC list members,

We invite submissions of paper abstracts for the panel titled “Not a Foreigner: Sinophone Immigrant Literature as a Diasporic Return“ to be held in-person at the AAS 2024 Annual Conference.

By addressing questions of culture, identities, and home, this seminar aims at filling an epistemological niche concerning the Sinophone world. The primary concern of this seminar is to examine the entangled Chineseness in Sinophone immigrant literature closely. Papers that explore a broad spectrum of genres and disciplines will be welcome. Potential topics and themes include (but are not limited to):

  • The politics of cultural identity
  • Diaspora and exile
  • Literary cartographies
  • Self-writing versus writing the self

Please send proposals no later than 26 July 2023 to Anqi Liu at aliu1@smcm.edu.

Anqi Liu
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
aliu1@smcm.edu

Melody Yunzi Li
Assistant Professor in Chinese Studies
University of Houston
mli40@Central.UH.EDU

New Tiananmen exhibit in NYC

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Source: NYT (6/2/23)
Tiananmen Exhibit Is ‘a Symbol of Defiance’
A new display on the 1989 massacre is set to open in Manhattan, two years after a Tiananmen museum closed in Hong Kong.
By Lola Fadulu and Ashley Southall

ImagePhotos of people who were killed during the Tiananmen Square protests. Credit…James Estrin/The New York Times

A new exhibition is set to open in Midtown Manhattan memorializing those killed when Chinese troops opened fire on pro-democracy protesters who had gathered in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The exhibit, which will open this month, comes two years after officials in Hong Kong cracked down on commemorations of the Tiananmen Square protests.

The 2,000-square-foot display includes newspaper clippings, letters written to protesters who were sent to jail, a bloodstained banner and a tent. Organizers said they also have many pictures, audio and video that have yet to be displayed.

“We’re much more than a museum, more than any museum, because this is a symbol of defiance,” said David Yu, the executive director of the group that organized the exhibition.

Many of the items in the exhibition — which were displayed in Washington, D.C., last year — are from friends of Zhou Fengsuo, an exiled former protest organizer whose name and picture are on the Chinese government’s 1989 list of the 21 most-wanted students. Since 1989 he has worked closely with political prisoners. Continue reading New Tiananmen exhibit in NYC →

Eat Bitter

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Source: The China Project (4/21/23)
‘Eat Bitter’ personalizes China’s relationship with the Central African Republic
Co-directors Sun Ningyi and Pascale Appora-Gnekindy offer a depoliticized, if at times dismissive, look into the lives of a Chinese construction manager and a Central African laborer.
By Amarsanaa Battulga

Still from Eat Bitter

Eat Bitter, a co-production between China and the Central African Republic, is the latest documentary to shed light on China-Africa relations. The film had its world premiere last month at the prestigious Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, better known as CPH:DOX, just one day after news broke out that nine Chinese nationals were killed during an attack on a gold mine in the Central African Republic.

However, Eat Bitter largely avoids depicting such conflicts. Instead, Sūn Níngyì 孙宁忆 and Pascale Appora-Gnekindy choose to highlight personal stories and relationships between the Chinese and Central African residents in the capital city of Bangui in their first full-length film.

“I didn’t want to discuss China’s influence in Africa, or [make] a film that focuses solely on economy or politics,” Sun, who initiated the project, explained in an interview. The resulting observational documentary focuses almost exclusively on two men who represent different sides of the China-Africa relationship but also share the same basic pursuits in life: family, wealth, and happiness.

Eat Bitter — a literal translation of the Chinese phrase 吃苦 chīkǔ, or “endure hardships” — starts with a series of strikingly beautiful shots of the Ubangui River at dawn as two locals row a canoe. One of them stands up, prays aloud, and jumps into the water. Moments later, he emerges back on the surface while his partner pulls up from the bottom of the river a bucket that he’s filled with sand, and empties it on the canoe. Continue reading Eat Bitter →

The undoing of Guo Wengui

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Source: NYT (3/30/23)
The Undoing of Guo Wengui, Billionaire Accused of Fraud on 2 Continents
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He cultivated powerful allies and built an empire in China. Then, fleeing charges, he turned his charms on America. Now the law has caught up with him.
By Michael Forsythe and Benjamin Weiser

The Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, pictured at his Manhattan apartment in 2017, when he was in self-imposed exile in the United States. He is now in federal custody. Credit…James Estrin/The New York Times

Luc Despins, a New York bankruptcy lawyer, typically took on difficult jobs: After the energy company Enron collapsed years ago, he helped thousands of victims recover some of their money.

But when Mr. Despins was appointed by a bankruptcy court last year to locate the assets of Guo Wengui, a Chinese property mogul and political provocateur who had failed to repay tens of millions of dollars to a hedge fund, the assignment presented very different challenges.

In November, protesters appeared outside his home and that of his ex-wife. Photographs of his daughters, along with their names and employers, were posted on Gettr, a social platform catering to the American right. A video online accused Mr. Despins of helping to build concentration camps on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Protesters even entered his office lobby, Mr. Despins testified in court.

“Partners of the firm have been chased up the escalator, with people running — screaming, you know, ‘C.C.P. dog,’” he said.

It would be among the last of many harassment campaigns carried out in Mr. Guo’s name by his global legion of followers. Mr. Guo may now be at the end of a remarkable trajectory, from billionaire Beijing insider to fugitive critic of the Chinese Communist Party and ally of Trump Republicans. That path, fueled by bravado, ruthlessness, a keen political antenna and alleged theft, has left lingering suspicion about his allegiances. And it has now taken him from his Manhattan penthouse to his new place of residence: the Brooklyn federal detention center. Continue reading The undoing of Guo Wengui →

Sinophone Southeast Asian Crossings

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Sinophone Southeast Asian Crossings:
A Symposium on Nanyang Culture, History, and Memory

Panel 1: 2-3:20pm
Speaker: Professor Chan Cheow Thia 曾昭程, National University of Singapore
Author of Malaysian Crossings

Panel 2: 3:40-5pm
Speaker: Ms. Li Zishu 黎紫書
Author of The Age of Goodbyes 

April 6, 2023 (Thursday)
2-5pm

Zoom registration link:
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NC-Rw5ksTZiNT9H9_73F7w

Posted by: Yedong Sh-Chen <yedongchen@g.harvard.edu>