Foreign Digest: Germany and China

Germany: Conservative Angela Merkel completed her service this month as Chancellor of Germany for 16 years. The Christian Democrat, who sometimes had to govern in a coalition with parties of diverse views, led the Federal Republic through a series of major crises, including the European debt crisis, the refugees crisis (particularly because of the Syrian Civil War), the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and the Coronavirus pandemic. Merkel, who had lived in Communist East Germany, was an ally of the United States in the War on Terrorism and against the aggression of Russian Federation tyrant Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer. Meanwhile, a German court recently convicted two Russians for the assassination of a Georgian man of Chechen ethnicity in 2019 and found that they had acted on state orders. The Russian Federation routinely kills political opponents in Russia and even abroad, sometimes using chemical weapons, among many other roguish behaviors. China: There was low turnout in today’s legislative elections in Hong Kong, as the opposition boycotted them because Communist China has broken its promises made to the United Kingdom in 1997 when the territory reverted from British rule that it would respect the city-state’s autonomy and liberty. The legislature is partly appointed and only candidates loyal to Peking are allowed to stand for election. The freedom of peaceful assembly is among the freedoms not tolerated, as more dissidents have been arrested and convicted for peaceful protests.