SCO Summit: China’s ‘Davos’ of Dictators Should Spur Democracies Into Action --
Countries that respect human rights must not legitimize criminal leaders such as Kim Jong-un or Min Aung Hlaing By Benedict Rogers in UCA News Earlier this week, some of the world’s most brutal tyrants, responsible for mass atrocity crimes and egregious repression, gathered in Beijing in a macabre d...
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/41776689
Earlier this week, some of the world’s most brutal tyrants, responsible for mass atrocity crimes and egregious repression, gathered in Beijing in a macabre dictator-fest.
Xi Jinping hosted Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, and Myanmar’s General Min Aung Hlaing, alongside the rulers of Iran, Belarus, and Vietnam, among twenty others, in a parade that ostensibly marked the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
In fact, it was an effort by China to showcase its weaponry and power, and galvanize an axis of authoritarianism to challenge democracies. It was a “Davos” of dictators.
That made the participation of a handful of democratically elected leaders, including Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim, and the president of Serbia and prime minister of Slovakia, disappointing — although India’s prime minister Narendra Modi deserves some credit for deciding to
Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine: the ultimate reality check for international law --
In 2025, the continued imprisonment of Ukrainian OSCE staff also reveals something strikingly profound about the state of international law: international institutions meant to safeguard it are not even able to protect their own staff.
cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3825031
Op-ed by Nataliya Gumenyuk, an Ukrainian journalist and founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab. The text is based on Ms. Gumenyuk's intervention at the Helsinki Debate on Europe in May 2025.
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Ukrainian human rights defenders and journalists have spent over a decade documenting Russia's political violence.
Initially, their work echoed the moral legacy of the Helsinki Accords, pressing authoritarian regimes to acknowledge human dignity.
But meanwhile, they increasingly believe there is only one way to protect people in occupied territories: liberation by force. After Russian troops were pushed out of Bucha, Kherson and Izyum, the persecutions of the local population stopped.
Many Ukrainians have come to a painful conclusion: international law cannot stop atrocities. It
China: The Colonial Roots of the Ongoing Uyghur Genocide --
Only by reframing this as a crisis of occupation, colonization, and national survival can the path to justice become clear.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32050493
[This is an op-ed by Salih Hudayar who is serving as the Foreign Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. He is also the leader of the East Turkistan National Movement and has been a prominent voice for the rights and self-determination of the East Turkistani people.]
For over a decade, the world has witnessed mounting evidence of internment camps, forced sterilizations, family separations, religious and cultural persecution, organ harvesting, forced labor, and high-tech surveillance emerging from East Turkistan—an occupied nation China refers to as the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” These atrocities, targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, have led multiple governments, including the United States, to designate China’s actions as genocide, while
Donald Trump’s America is becoming more like Xi Jinping’s China -
The West thought China would be entranced by its freedoms. But now an American president is aping Beijing’s repressive controls.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31700111
[...]
The Australian sinologist Geremie Barme observes that there are “haunting parallels” between the values shared by [U.S. President] Donald Trump and [China's] Xi Jinping. They both possess autocratic personalities. Their signature chants echo each other: Trump’s “Fight, Fight, Fight” and Xi’s “Struggle, Struggle, Struggle”, and they share values.
[...]
How to measure such a convergence? Helpfully, the Chinese Communist Party compiled a checklist for us. Document No. 9 was published in 2013, during Xi’s first months as president.
The document lists the regime’s “seven taboos” [...]
[...]
The first taboo is “Western constitutional democracy”. Essential to this is the separation of powers. [...] A practical
Executive Summary: Beijing’s diplomatic rhetoric advocates upholding international rules and norms, but this diverges sharply from both its words to party officials at home and its actions abroad that undermine and violate international laws and institutions. Beijing benefits from an international o...
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31295995
- Beijing’s diplomatic rhetoric advocates upholding international rules and norms, but this diverges sharply from both its words to party officials at home and its actions abroad that undermine and violate international laws and institutions.
- Beijing benefits from an international order in which other powers are restrained by rules that it claims are biased and so chooses not to follow. This explains how Foreign Minister Wang Yi can both promise to “safeguard … the international system with the United Nations at its core” and reject inconvenient international rulings as “a political circus dressed up as a legal action.”
- Polls suggest Beijing’s rhetoric is resonating with other countries, as Beijing offers itself as a new partner of choice to provide stability in an uncertain world. Its actions instead suggest it intends to divide democracies and create more freedom of action for Beijing.
[Archived article](https://
In the global clash between democracy and oligarchy, the US is switching sides --
As Trump empowers Russia and the far right, he is laying the foundation for undermining democracies around the world
cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2005305
This is an op-ed by Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, and a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
As Trump empowers Russia and the far right, he is laying the foundation for undermining democracies around the world.
Since the end of the second world war, liberal democracies have stuck together – led by the US. On the opposite side have been authoritarian states, led mainly by the Soviet Union, followed, after the demise of the Soviet Union, by Russia and China.
But all this is rapidly changing. Russia and China have morphed into oligarchies, run by small groups of extraordinarily wealthy people.
The US has been moving from a democracy to an oligarchy as well – and is doing so at lightning speed under Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
[...]