Taps Coogan – December 4th, 2020
Enjoy The Sounding Line? Click here to subscribe for free.
Enjoy The Sounding Line? Click here to subscribe.
I try to avoid getting on political soapboxes here at The Sounding Line but I am going to make an exception today. I hope that you permit the digression.
As long time readers may have noticed, I have steadily increased the coverage of all things ‘China’ over the years and, in particular, the human rights issues.
The reality is that the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) is engaged in the most egregious and widespread human rights abuses since Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or Hitler. Those abuses have been ongoing for decades but appear to have gotten worse since Xi Jingpin took the helm of the CCP.
If you don’t know what forced organ harvesting is, sadly, it’s time to learn. There are an estimated 1.5 million prisoners of conscience in China, including Falun Gong, Uighur Muslims, Christians, and Tibetan Buddhists. Tens of thousands of those prisoners are killed for the purposes of harvesting their organs every year. The CCP promised to end the practice in 2015, implicitly acknowledging that it occurs. Non-partisan international experts assert that it continues unabated.
Many of those same prisoners are being forced to work in a growing network of forced labor camps across China making products for our virtual-signalling multi-national companies like Coca-Cola, Nike, Calvin Klein, etc…
Even the non-forced labor in China is often horribly inhumane. Suicides became so prevalent at the live-in dormitory-style Foxconn factories making Apple products in China that they cynically installed “anti-jumper” suicide nets outside all the windows.
Meanwhile, the CCP is attempting to seize ‘disputed’ territory from Bhutan, India, Nepal, and its neighbors in the South China Sea. It has destroyed Hong Kong’s autonomy and is building an invasion force to capture neighboring democracy Taiwan. It is funding political groups in the US.
American political leadership has been implausibly naive about the CCP until recent years. Time will tell how they handle the issue moving forward. Fortunately, we don’t need to rely on politicians to make a difference vis-a-vis China.
During the Cold-War, there was relatively little the average American civilian could do in their daily lives to meaningfully protest the Soviet Union. Trade between the West and the Soviet Union was minimal.
There is a good chance that the device you are using to read this article was made in China, as are the shoes on your feet, the shirt on your back, and most of the manufactured goods around you right now.
It is long past time that the free people of the World boycotted the CCP. If you are an American, buy American. If you can’t find what your looking for made in the US (or your home country), buy anything other than made in China. That will be inconvenient, but isn’t that the whole point? The solution to this problem is you and me having a bit of backbone.
Would you like to be notified when we publish a new article on The Sounding Line? Click here to subscribe for free.
Would you like to be notified when we publish a new article on The Sounding Line? Click here to subscribe for free.
Taps, thanks for sharing your views. It should be pointed out that Hong Kong is now feeling the heat from China and few people have taken notice.. Americans tend to overlook how China treats its millions of citizens that do not make an effort to march in step. The ruling Communist Party has built “re-education camps” in an attempt to bring these people into the “modern, civilized” world promote what the government calls “ethnic unity” but in simpler terms the apparent goal is to force detainees to embrace the Chinese communist party and an effort to fully control the hearts… Read more »
Historically it was the Chinese that throw out Western Barbarians but now the West wants out. Question is the real reason ?
Is it human rights, after ignoring abuses for past 30 years while U.S. firms profited by importing products and component parts made with cheap labor, or is that the Chinese Communist Dragon now represents a major economic as well as a national security threat challenging U.S, supremacy and leadership which presupposes a vibrant economic system based on democracy and free enterprise ? We need to look in the mirror which no doubt was made in China.
Voodoo Economist, I can’t speak for anyone else’s “real reasons,” only my own. One can moralize all they want about China-UK relations in the 1800s, soulless multinationals, or whatever else. When I look in the mirror I see someone that’s tired of buying stuff made in China.