Foreign Digest Updates: China and Belarus

China

            Communist China has proposed laws that would effectively abandon its policy of allowing a different political system from its own authoritarianism for Hong Kong that respected its autonomy and liberty, as promised when the British territory reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.  There were more protests in the city-state and more violence and arrests by the Peking-controlled authorities.  As I have posted, China has been encroaching on Hong Kong’s rights.  A proposed law that would have allowed for residents of the territory to be extradited to the mainland was shelved last year after mass protests.  The Republic of China (Taiwan) has been observing the Communist Chinese repression warily and pursing policies that safeguard its freedom from Peking.

Belarus

           There was a large protest in Belarus against another term of office for the Belarusian dictator who has ruled the former Soviet Republic since independence in 1991 with an iron fist.  The regime usually does not tolerate the freedom of peaceful assembly, among other human rights, but did not interfere with this one.  Although they were not physically distancing, many protestors were wearing masks, in defiance of their authoritarian president’s dismissal of the pandemic as “mass psychosis.”  As I have posted earlier this month, the Belarusian despot has done nothing against the contagion and has exacerbated the problem by holding public gatherings and being a poor model of behavior himself.  The pandemic continues to spread in Belarus without any decrease.