Optimum contributors targeted by the Hong Kong Authority
PRESS RELEASE
Toronto
July 4, 2023
Yesterday the Hong Kong Authority posted arrest notices and a 1 million dollar Hong Kong bounty($127,000 U.S.) for eight former Hong Kong citizens now living in exile in various countries. Those countries include the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
Various Hong Kong groups, including Honk Kong Watch and its CEO Benedict Rogers and author of The China Nexus, Thirty Years in and Around the Communist Party’s Tyranny, had this to say about the actions of this brutal regime.
“We condemn this outrageous attempt by the Hong Kong National Security Police to target, intimidate, and silence pro-democracy activists and lawmakers living overseas.
It is no coincidence that these warrants and bounties have been issued two days after the third anniversary of the imposition of the draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong by Beijing.”
Yet the U.K. government and many others remained silent in an apparent attempt to appease Beijing to continue to trade with a dictatorship that has no interest in civic, social or human rights. Can corporations and governments in the free world continue to sweep the issues and mounting evidence surrounding the treatment of citizens in China that express any desire for a voice, autonomy or self-rule? Or should we ignore those global citizens who share our values for peace, freedom and democracy and do business as usual?
Nathan Law wrote the Preface to Roger’s book, and Finn Lau wrote the foreword to the upcoming The Mosaic Effect, both published by Optimum. Benedict Rogers is available to discuss the actions of the HK Authority, its implications and how governments should react.
Contact Dean Baxendale at 647 970 1973 or publicty@optimumpublishinginternational.com to arrange an interview.
Montreal | Toronto | London www.opibooks.com 647-970-1973
OPTIMUM PUBLISHING INTERNATIONAL has been publishing award-winning books since 1978. Best-selling books from celebrated authors such as Margaret Trudeau, Greg Clark, Margo Oliver, Don Johnston, Clive Hamilton, Sam Cooper, Tasha Kheiriddin and Robert Fulford to name a few. Committed to the relentless pursuit of truth, bold editorial choices, and brilliant, timeless writing, Optimum's legacy and future are best described by three simple words: Books That Matter.
HKW condemns the HK National Security Police's targeting of pro-democracy activists overseas
Today, the Hong Kong National Security Police have issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight Hong Kong pro-democracy activists living overseas.
The arrest warrants have been issued for pro-democracy activists Nathan Law, Dennis Kwok, Ted Hui, Kevin Yam, Anna Kwok, Finn Lau, Elmer Yuen, and Christopher Mung, alongside a bounty of $1 million per individual for information that could lead to their arrest under the National Security Law. Three out of the eight pro-democracy activists currently reside in the UK, two reside in Australia, and three reside in the United States of America.
This is the first time that arrest warrants and bounties have been issued in relation to overseas activity related to the National Security Law.
Those notable individuals targeted include former pro-democracy lawmakers, prominent Hong Kong lawyers and trade unionists, and activists who have campaigned against the National Security Law overseas.
The United Nations has repeatedly called for the repeal and suspension of the National Security Law, including the UN Human Rights Committee which was “deeply concerned about the overly broad interpretation” of the National Security Law and recommended that the HKSAR repeal the law and refrain from applying it in the meantime. Last week, the European Parliament passed its third resolution on the human rights situation in the HKSAR in three years, stating that “fundamental freedoms, the rule of law, and the judiciary’s independence in Hong Kong have deteriorated alarmingly” since the imposition of the National Security Law.
Commenting on the issuing of arrest warrants and bounties, Hong Kong Watch’s Chief Executive, Benedict Rogers, said:
“We condemn this outrageous attempt by the Hong Kong National Security Police to target, intimidate, and silence pro-democracy activists and lawmakers living overseas.
It is no coincidence that these warrants and bounties have been issued two days after the third anniversary of the imposition of the draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong by Beijing.
We urge the UK, USA, and Australian Government to issue statements guaranteeing the safety of those activists named and the wider Hong Kong community living overseas, likeminded governments to suspend the remaining extradition treaties with the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong, and for coordinated action to introduce an Interpol early warning system to protect pro-democracy activists overseas.”
The Brussels Press Club
Brussels Book Launch The Interview
Benedict Rogers launched his new book The China Nexus, Thirty Years in and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny. The article from EU today is below.
https://eutoday.net/news/politics/2022/china-nexus-benedict-rogers
China Nexus: We need to wake up to "dangerous and insidious threat” to the West, says Benedict Rogers
China, it has been alleged, is a “more dangerous and insidious threat” to the West than Russia because it is more embedded in its institutions. This is the personal view of the author of a new book which is highly critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“We need to wake up to this,” is the message from Benedict Rogers, a UK based senior analyst for East Asia, founder of Hong Kong Watch, and an important voice in Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW.)
The respected writer, speaking at the Brussels Press Club on 8th November said the book was “a call to action” and contains ten recommendations on how the international community should handle its affairs with China.
The allegations, which are unsurprisingly (and unconvincingly) rebutted by Chinese Communist Party authorities, are made in “The China Nexus” a book that that seeks to record the political environment in China over the past 30 years.
Rogers told reporters, “This is the book that the Chinese regime does not want you to read and tells of party’s complicity with atrocities and its threat to freedoms around the world including in Tibet, Hong Kong, the persecution of Christians, forced organ harvesting, the crackdown on civil rights, plus the rising threat to Taiwan and the rights crisis in Myanmar.”
It also deals, he said, with the regime’s alleged complicity with North Korea and ends with the international community’s response, both what it is doing and what he says it should do.
The book has been praised by, among others, Lord Patten of Barnes, the Last Governor of Hong Kong , who said, “This outstanding book by one of Britain’s foremost and most knowledgeable campaigners on human rights in China and Asia as a whole is an excoriating and comprehensive denunciation of the appalling and increasingly harsh abuse of its citizens by the communist regime in Beijing. It should be read by everyone concerned about the challenge of sharing our planet with Communist China in the years ahead.”
The book describes the “hopes we had in early 1990s that China might start to open up. These hopes have been dashed,” the author claims. The allegations in the book are robustly refuted by the Chinese authorities.
Rogers first went to China in 1992 to teach English and he says he “had a wonderful time.”
He also lived in Hong Kong as a journalist.
One “key message”, he said, was that “far from being anti-China I must say that I love China as a country and have made a lot of friends there. It is the CCP I am critical of. I just want people in China to have their rights respected.”
Rogers has visited the country more than 50 times and says that during this time “there was a sense that there was some space for civil society and religious practitioners.”
“Yes, there were red lines but under the current regime all this space has vanished along with many of its critics.”
The “turning point”, he says, came just before Xi Jinping came to power at the time of the Beijing Olympics.
“By the time of the 2010 revolutions around the world the Chinese regime saw what was going on in other countries and decided it did not want the same happening there,” he said.
He claims, “The years since have seen the development of a surveillance state, the practice of forcing state controlled churches to display his image and the Tibet crackdown.”
Turning to the “threat” to Taiwan he said, “We all should do all we can to prevent an invasion. Taiwan matters because it is a vibrant democracy and one of the best examples in the region that champions human rights. An attack on Taiwan would be an attack on the international rules based order. It’s a vital partner and the major producer of PC chips. If this fell into the hands of the CCP that would be dangerous,” he alleges.
Rogers said, “When the president first came in he appeared popular but his policies, for example, on the pandemic combined with his seeming assault on what his predecessors did, has made him less popular.”
He added, “I wrote this book as a wake up call to the free world. I love China.I just oppose the CCP which poses a threat to our freedoms around the world.”
He said that a few years ago he was denied entry to Hong Kong on the orders of the Beijing regime and has also suffered a “steady campaign of intimidation and harassment.”
He said, “I have had threatening letters to my home in London, to my neighbours and even my mother. She was told to tell her son to stop doing what I am doing. The fact that they would go to such lengths is extraordinary.”
Rogers founded and leads “Hong Kong Watch”, a UK based group and website.
He added, “I was told in emails that unless I shut it down I could face a prison term of up to life in Hong Kong. This illustrates the extent of the tentacles of the CCP and it is time to wake up to this. This book is a call to action.”
The book has 10 recommendations which, he said, include “ending impunity for regime atrocities which would embolden action against Taiwan, look at providing lifelines for those who need to escape Hong Kong and defending our own freedoms and rules based order.”
The book is timely as it comes in the wake of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress.
Rogers said, “It also comes amid events that we could not have anticipated such as the recent incident at the Manchester consulate which was a shocking example of regime aggression on the streets of the UK, the German chancellor’s recent visit to Beijing which asks lots of questions and the president being given an unprecedented 3rd term which could put him in power for life or at least another 5 years.”
CEO Benedict Rogers issues challenge to Beijing – and to new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
We can no longer ignore China’s intensified repression of its own people or the threat posed by the Chinese government to human rights, democracy and trade worldwide.
Explosive new book by Hong Kong Watch CEO Benedict Rogers issues challenge to Beijing – and to new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
On October 25, Optimum Publishing International is proud to launch The China Nexus: Thirty Years in and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny. The launch will take place at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge at 5.30 pm, and will feature remarks by author Benedict Rogers, a panel discussion including Lord Alton of Liverpool, Baroness Helena Kennedy and Uyghur activist Rahima Mahmut, and a book-signing.
In his seventh book, Rogers chronicles his journey and experience as a teacher, journalist and human rights activist in China, Hong Kong, Myanmar (Burma) and North Korea, exposing human rights violations, political repression, religious persecution, forced organ harvesting, and genocide against the Uyghurs. Through extensive research and interviews, Rogers also lays bare the shocking extent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s threats to Taiwan and infiltration of western power structures at the highest levels, including in his home country of the United Kingdom.
The book is published just over a week after the Chinese Consul-General in Manchester and several consular officials brutally attacked peaceful Hong Kong protesters, including dragging one man, Bob Chan, into the consulate’s grounds where he was severely beaten. The launch also comes just days after the former President of China Hu Jintao was mysteriously removed from the CCP’s 20th National Congress in Beijing under Xi Jinping’s eyes, a clear indication of Xi asserting his absolute control.
In an open letter delivered to 10 Downing Street today[TK1] , Rogers calls on new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to take a hard line to prevent further erosion of human rights and democratic norms both at home and abroad. “For the sake of British sovereignty and freedoms, the new Prime Minister must enact a China policy that protects and promotes democratic values, the rule of law and human rights. He needs to make it clear from the outset that the British people will tolerate no further erosion of these ideals,” Rogers said. “This is more urgent than ever, in the wake of last week’s attack on these values on the streets of Manchester and the CCP Party Congress which saw President Xi Jinping consolidate his power as never before.”
In The China Nexus, Rogers reveals:
The extent of China’s influence at the United Nations, including donating millions of dollars to what former US representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, Ambassador Kelley Eckels Currie, calls a “Chinese slush fund” which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres can access “for his personal use to do whatever he wanted, with no oversight from anybody other than his office and the Chinese government”. Ambassador Currie says that China has “co-opted” Guterres.
· The scale of the Chinese regime’s complicity with crimes against humanity in Myanmar and North Korea, and the severity of its threats to Taiwan.
· The severity of the crackdown in Hong Kong, the genocide, crimes against humanity, slave labour and torture of the Uyghurs, the continued atrocities in Tibet, the intensity of the persecution of Christians and Falun Gong practitioners, the extent of forced organ harvesting and the widespread, systematic repression of dissidents, bloggers, lawyers, journalists and civil society activists across China.
· His exclusive interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in which His Holiness sets out his proposal for a “Middle-Way Approach” where Tibet remains within China’s sovereignty but enjoys a high degree of autonomy and self-rule.
· The author’s own first-hand experiences of harassment and threats from agents of the CCP regime, including intimidatory letters at his home in London, his mother receiving threats, and the threat of a prison sentence in Hong Kong issued by the Hong Kong Police Force.
“The Chinese Communist Party regime has unleashed a new Cold War against the free world. If you read the speeches of Xi Jinping, or any of the CCP’s documents in recent years, that is clear. Our leaders cannot let us down,” emphasized Rogers. “Our fight is not with the citizens of China; having spent much of my life in the country, I want to make it clear that I love China and its people. It is for them that we must act to stop the CCP’s repression, prevent an invasion of Taiwan and protect our freedoms at home and around the world. And the time to act is now.”
For an interview or to RSVP for the launch, contact:
Benedict Cameron
Cameron Publicity
Tel: 44 07903 951957
Email:ben@cameronpm.co.uk
New Book Exposes CCP’s extensive and pervasive human rights abuses
We can no longer ignore China’s intensified repression of its own people or the threat posed by the Chinese government to human rights, democracy and trade worldwide.
October 19, 2022
THE CHINA NEXUS
Thirty Years In and Around the
Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny
By Benedict Rogers
Foreword by Lord Alton
Preface by Nathan Law
Published 25th October 2022 | USA & Canada 8th November
We can no longer ignore China’s intensified repression of its own people or the threat posed by the Chinese government to human rights, democracy and trade worldwide.
· A comprehensive analysis of the human rights crisis in China, from Hong Kong to the Uyghurs to Tibet, from forced organ harvesting to religious persecution and the crackdown on dissidents, media, civil society and lawyers, this book also assesses the Chinese Communist Party regime’s complicity with atrocities worldwide and its threat to our own freedoms.
• Drawing on the author’s 30 years of experience as a journalist and human rights campaigner in and around China (and subsequent ban from the country), the book examines the
international community’s response to the challenges posed by Beijing and offers ideas for ways forward for China policy.
· Author Benedict Rogers is available for interview, byline pieces or commentary.
Benedict Rogers first went to China at age 18 to teach English for six months in Qingdao (1992), three years after the Tiananmen Square massacre. That opened the door to a thirty-year relationship with China, teaching English in schools and hospitals, working as a journalist in Hong Kong, documenting the plight of refugees, and campaigning for human rights. Pioneering international inquiries into forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, the genocide of the Uyghurs and global action for Hong Kong, as well as highlighting the Vatican's silence, the author has been at the heart of advocacy for human rights in China in recent years. In 2017, on the orders of Beijing, he was denied entry to Hong Kong, 20 years after he had moved to the city as a journalist and activist.
This book tells the story of Rogers’s fight for freedom for the peoples of China and neighbouring countries Myanmar and North Korea, chronicles the emerging global movement for human rights in China, and sets out what the free world should do next. It describes the importance of the "China Nexus" in both the author’s personal journey and the challenges of modern geopolitics. Rogers takes readers on a harrowing yet inspirational journey, honouring the leaders and participants in the human rights activities that the Chinese Communist Party has suppressed since its inception in 1949. He exposes the regime’s programs of re-education, cultural assimilation, and multiple genocides, purportedly designed to lead to the creation of a more harmonious society, and lays to rest the CCP’s specious claims that all Chinese citizens are equal and are afforded basic human and civil rights.
About the Author
BENEDICT ROGERS is a human rights activist and writer specialising in Asian policy and geopolitics. He is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Watch, Senior Analyst for East Asia at CSW, an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), the Stop Uyghur Genocide Campaign and several other charities, and Deputy Chair of the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.
Rogers is a regular contributor to national and international publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy and The Tablet. He has appeared regularly on the BBC, Al-Jazeera, CNBC, Sky News and other television and radio broadcasts, contributed to an Intelligence Squared podcast, and testified in the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, the Japanese Parliament and the US Congress. He regularly briefs and advises Parliamentarians and policymakers around the world.
In 1992, aged 18, he lived in Qingdao, China for six months, teaching English, and from 1997-2002, the first five years after the handover of Hong Kong, he lived in the city, working as a journalist. He is the author of six other books and presently lives in London.
The China Nexus will be published by Optimum Publishing International and available in hardback (£24.99), paperback (£18.99) and ebook (£11.99) at all good book shops and online book sellers. Canada Paperback $29.95 | USA Paperback $24.95
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