Boycott the 2022 Berkeley China Summit
Boycott the 2022 Berkeley China Summit
The Issue
As UC Berkeley steps into a new semester of academic exploration and social justice activism, we are deeply disappointed to know that the University of California at Berkeley is going to provide a platform for Zhang Jianmin 张建敏, the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco to speak at the 2022 Berkeley China Summit on October 1, 2022. We are highly concerned that Zhang's presence at this well-intended summit to bring about bilateral communication and cooperation between China and the US will contribute to the whitewashing of crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). We urge you to sign this petition to urge the UC Berkeley community to boycott the Summit and stand against CCP.
The CCP, leading the Chinese government, has been notorious for serious violations of human rights, crackdowns on freedom of expression, religion, and press, and making aggressive neocolonialist advances in other countries. To be specific, throughout the years, they have committed to:
1. Egregious violations of human rights against Tibetans and Uyghurs
2. Mass political persecution and imprisonment in Hong Kong
3. Mass arrests and abuses against human rights lawyers and activists in China
4. Neocolonialist aggression toward other countries disguised as the “Belt and Road Initiative”
Details can be found at the end of the letter, under Appendix.
The above are a few of the many examples of how the Chinese government has been violating human rights, limiting free speech, and imposing neocolonialist foreign expansion. Zhang Jianmin, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco, is the representative of the tyrannical regime in the United States.
UC Berkeley, a place where all individuals strive to uphold a just community in which discrimination and hate are not tolerated, somehow has committed to providing a venue for atrocious human rights offenders a space to spread their conspiracy to people unaware of these jarring crimes of the CCP, to pollute the freedom and civil liberties on campus and in the US, and to promote the ideals of an unjust, discriminatory, and intolerant world. His participation has brutally humiliated students and communities marginalized and oppressed by the CCP, and will undermine Berkeley both as an institution that upholds the values of democracy, justice, and academic freedom and as a space that should defend people against injustice.
Hence, we urge you to sign this petition to join us in the fight to boycott activities that falsely present China as a free and harmonious country. The business opportunities in China lay their foundation on the blood and tears of people who are wrongfully persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured to death. UC Berkeley ought not to grant human rights violators the media spectacle they desperately wanted, and instead mislead students and scholars who are unaware.
We call for the UC Berkeley community to join us in standing up against injustice. Our demands are as follows:
1. We urge everyone to refuse to attend the 2022 Berkeley China Summit in protest against CCP’s human rights abuses.
2. We urge UC Berkeley to refuse to provide a venue for CCP members to speak on campus.
3. We urge the facilitators and participators of The Berkeley China Summit to correct your mistake and join us in keeping our students and our campus safe by signing on to this call for a campus-wide boycott.
In Solidarity,
Hong Kong Affairs Association of Berkeley (HKAAB)
Contact: hkaaberk@gmail.com
Co-signatories:
- DC4HK
- US Hongkongers Club
- Julia Tomaszewska, EECS, 2026, UC Berkeley
- Suen, Elliott, Civil Engineering, 2021, grad, UC Berkeley; MCB, 2020, undergrad, UC Berkeley
- Webb, Ersebet, Undeclared (Humanities)
- Molly Baskette, Lead Pastor, First Church Berkeley UCC
- Bickett, Samuel, Fellow, Georgetown Center for Asian Law
- Wong, Mason, graduate student, Asian Studies, Georgetown University
- Kao, Kinen, Atmospheric Science, 2027, Ph.D., Penn State University, Co-Founder of Penn State Students For Hong Kong
- Kwok, Anna, Campaign and Strategy Director of Hong Kong Democracy Council
- Tsephel, Tenzin, Tibetan Association of Northern California
- Dorji Lobsang, San Francisco Regional Tibetan Youth Congress
- Dhondup, Tashi, Joint Secretary, San Francisco Tibetan Youth Congress
- Kern, Brian, Hong Kong activist
- Siu, Joey, Hong Kong activist
- Alicia Arietta, Hong Kongers in San Francisco Bay Area
- Vassallo, Giovanni, Staff member in Hematology/Oncology at UCSF
- Lee, Lok Yiu Ames, Vice President of Diablo Valley College’s Hong Kong Students’ Association
- Fan, Yu Sang, Vice President of PR of Diablo Valley College HKSA
- Chan, Lance, Hong Kong activist
- 香港人日程表
- MK, Hongkonger
- Lau, Angel
- NG, Eunice
- pho
- Elisa Long
- Elliot, Emt
- Gyaltsen Lungrig
To co-sign the letter publicly, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ukakfmsBkSUUSNaE6
Appendix: What Crimes have the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Committed?
1. Egregious Violation of Human Rights against Tibetans and Uyghurs
On August 31, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner released the “Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the People’s Republic of China” [8], pointing out that the CCP arbitrarily detained Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups in a discriminatory manner in the name of “anti-terrorism” and combating "extremism", which may have resulted in committing “crimes against humanity”. Since 2017, the CCP has been illegally arresting and detaining Uyghurs, cutting off their communication channels, imposing forced labor, and even torturing them with beatings, brainwashing, and rape. These acts aimed to erase their identity and autonomy and have seen no sign of stopping.
The 2021 Freedom House report listed Tibet and Syria as the least-free countries in the world. Reported abuses of human rights include intensive surveillance, restricting freedoms of religion and languages, arbitrary arrest, maltreatment in custody, and tortures [6]. Since 2009, 159 Tibetans have committed self-immolation in protest of the CCP’s repressive ruling [7]. The CCP has refused to respond to the world’s calls on returning the Tibetans to their deserved freedom and has only been tightening its grip on the autonomous region.
2. Mass Political Persecution and Imprisonment in Hong Kong
In June 2019, Hong Kong people rose in solidarity against the CCP and its puppet Hong Kong government’s plan to pass the draconian Extradition Bill (Amendment), which will open up a channel to send political activists in Hong Kong back to the Mainland for closed and unjust trails. The people of Hong Kong took to the streets, only to be brutally suppressed by the Hong Kong Police Force, including mass arrests, unreasonable use of force, and numerous suspicious cases of suicide by protesters [1]. The Hong Kong government further retaliated by arbitrarily passing the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2020, destroying Hong Kong’s democracy and autonomy, and leaving acts of police brutality against democratic protestors unanswered. Within the past three years, more than 10,000 have been arrested in connection to activism and protest participation [2]. At least half of those arrested are under the age of 25, with the youngest being only 12. Under the National Security Law, activists are being targeted on baseless pretexts, and jailed, while others have been driven into exile [3].
3. Mass Arrests and Abuses against Human Right Lawyers and Activists in China
In 2015, the “709 Crackdown” saw the arrest of around 300 Chinese activists and human rights lawyers. Having probed prison deaths, labor rights cases, and the mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, these lawyers have faced closed-door trials and some were allegedly tortured [5]. As of now, all of them are incarcerated with no political rights, disbarred, or placed under severe surveillance. Some of them have already died in prison without clear accountability.
4. Neocolonialist Aggression towards Other Countries Disguised as the “Belt and Road Initiative”
Since 2017, President and CCP’s General Secretary Xi Jinping has pushed forward a so-called “win-win” strategy, namely “The Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), in the hope of setting up neo-colonies in vast pieces of land in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. By taking the role of a creditor, the CCP coerces other countries into building the infrastructure they do not need, and through controlling the construction corporations, the ridiculously massive projects ultimately benefit state-owned Chinese enterprises in the end. High-profile BRI projects have severely damaged many underdeveloped countries’ fragile economic systems because of overpricing and corruption and pushed many to the verge of bankruptcy, such as Sri Lanka, Khazakstan, Ethiopia, and many more.
In recent days, the CCP has presented growing interest in militarily annexing Taiwan, a self-governing country with the highest level of freedom and democracy in Asia. In August 2022, the CCP fired numerous missiles into the economic zones of Taiwan and Japan, unbelievably violating international law. The CCP’s aggression toward Taiwan is only the tip of the iceberg of its massive imperialist ambitions to take control of the Asia-Pacific region, and even the world.
[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/hong-kong/
[2] https://www.hongkongwatch.org/pol-prisoners
[3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/07/12/hong-kong-delegation-faces-un-scrutiny-rights
[4] https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/9-09242022175923.html?encoding=traditional
[7] https://savetibet.org/tibetan-self-immolations/
435
The Issue
As UC Berkeley steps into a new semester of academic exploration and social justice activism, we are deeply disappointed to know that the University of California at Berkeley is going to provide a platform for Zhang Jianmin 张建敏, the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco to speak at the 2022 Berkeley China Summit on October 1, 2022. We are highly concerned that Zhang's presence at this well-intended summit to bring about bilateral communication and cooperation between China and the US will contribute to the whitewashing of crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). We urge you to sign this petition to urge the UC Berkeley community to boycott the Summit and stand against CCP.
The CCP, leading the Chinese government, has been notorious for serious violations of human rights, crackdowns on freedom of expression, religion, and press, and making aggressive neocolonialist advances in other countries. To be specific, throughout the years, they have committed to:
1. Egregious violations of human rights against Tibetans and Uyghurs
2. Mass political persecution and imprisonment in Hong Kong
3. Mass arrests and abuses against human rights lawyers and activists in China
4. Neocolonialist aggression toward other countries disguised as the “Belt and Road Initiative”
Details can be found at the end of the letter, under Appendix.
The above are a few of the many examples of how the Chinese government has been violating human rights, limiting free speech, and imposing neocolonialist foreign expansion. Zhang Jianmin, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco, is the representative of the tyrannical regime in the United States.
UC Berkeley, a place where all individuals strive to uphold a just community in which discrimination and hate are not tolerated, somehow has committed to providing a venue for atrocious human rights offenders a space to spread their conspiracy to people unaware of these jarring crimes of the CCP, to pollute the freedom and civil liberties on campus and in the US, and to promote the ideals of an unjust, discriminatory, and intolerant world. His participation has brutally humiliated students and communities marginalized and oppressed by the CCP, and will undermine Berkeley both as an institution that upholds the values of democracy, justice, and academic freedom and as a space that should defend people against injustice.
Hence, we urge you to sign this petition to join us in the fight to boycott activities that falsely present China as a free and harmonious country. The business opportunities in China lay their foundation on the blood and tears of people who are wrongfully persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured to death. UC Berkeley ought not to grant human rights violators the media spectacle they desperately wanted, and instead mislead students and scholars who are unaware.
We call for the UC Berkeley community to join us in standing up against injustice. Our demands are as follows:
1. We urge everyone to refuse to attend the 2022 Berkeley China Summit in protest against CCP’s human rights abuses.
2. We urge UC Berkeley to refuse to provide a venue for CCP members to speak on campus.
3. We urge the facilitators and participators of The Berkeley China Summit to correct your mistake and join us in keeping our students and our campus safe by signing on to this call for a campus-wide boycott.
In Solidarity,
Hong Kong Affairs Association of Berkeley (HKAAB)
Contact: hkaaberk@gmail.com
Co-signatories:
- DC4HK
- US Hongkongers Club
- Julia Tomaszewska, EECS, 2026, UC Berkeley
- Suen, Elliott, Civil Engineering, 2021, grad, UC Berkeley; MCB, 2020, undergrad, UC Berkeley
- Webb, Ersebet, Undeclared (Humanities)
- Molly Baskette, Lead Pastor, First Church Berkeley UCC
- Bickett, Samuel, Fellow, Georgetown Center for Asian Law
- Wong, Mason, graduate student, Asian Studies, Georgetown University
- Kao, Kinen, Atmospheric Science, 2027, Ph.D., Penn State University, Co-Founder of Penn State Students For Hong Kong
- Kwok, Anna, Campaign and Strategy Director of Hong Kong Democracy Council
- Tsephel, Tenzin, Tibetan Association of Northern California
- Dorji Lobsang, San Francisco Regional Tibetan Youth Congress
- Dhondup, Tashi, Joint Secretary, San Francisco Tibetan Youth Congress
- Kern, Brian, Hong Kong activist
- Siu, Joey, Hong Kong activist
- Alicia Arietta, Hong Kongers in San Francisco Bay Area
- Vassallo, Giovanni, Staff member in Hematology/Oncology at UCSF
- Lee, Lok Yiu Ames, Vice President of Diablo Valley College’s Hong Kong Students’ Association
- Fan, Yu Sang, Vice President of PR of Diablo Valley College HKSA
- Chan, Lance, Hong Kong activist
- 香港人日程表
- MK, Hongkonger
- Lau, Angel
- NG, Eunice
- pho
- Elisa Long
- Elliot, Emt
- Gyaltsen Lungrig
To co-sign the letter publicly, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ukakfmsBkSUUSNaE6
Appendix: What Crimes have the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Committed?
1. Egregious Violation of Human Rights against Tibetans and Uyghurs
On August 31, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner released the “Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the People’s Republic of China” [8], pointing out that the CCP arbitrarily detained Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups in a discriminatory manner in the name of “anti-terrorism” and combating "extremism", which may have resulted in committing “crimes against humanity”. Since 2017, the CCP has been illegally arresting and detaining Uyghurs, cutting off their communication channels, imposing forced labor, and even torturing them with beatings, brainwashing, and rape. These acts aimed to erase their identity and autonomy and have seen no sign of stopping.
The 2021 Freedom House report listed Tibet and Syria as the least-free countries in the world. Reported abuses of human rights include intensive surveillance, restricting freedoms of religion and languages, arbitrary arrest, maltreatment in custody, and tortures [6]. Since 2009, 159 Tibetans have committed self-immolation in protest of the CCP’s repressive ruling [7]. The CCP has refused to respond to the world’s calls on returning the Tibetans to their deserved freedom and has only been tightening its grip on the autonomous region.
2. Mass Political Persecution and Imprisonment in Hong Kong
In June 2019, Hong Kong people rose in solidarity against the CCP and its puppet Hong Kong government’s plan to pass the draconian Extradition Bill (Amendment), which will open up a channel to send political activists in Hong Kong back to the Mainland for closed and unjust trails. The people of Hong Kong took to the streets, only to be brutally suppressed by the Hong Kong Police Force, including mass arrests, unreasonable use of force, and numerous suspicious cases of suicide by protesters [1]. The Hong Kong government further retaliated by arbitrarily passing the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2020, destroying Hong Kong’s democracy and autonomy, and leaving acts of police brutality against democratic protestors unanswered. Within the past three years, more than 10,000 have been arrested in connection to activism and protest participation [2]. At least half of those arrested are under the age of 25, with the youngest being only 12. Under the National Security Law, activists are being targeted on baseless pretexts, and jailed, while others have been driven into exile [3].
3. Mass Arrests and Abuses against Human Right Lawyers and Activists in China
In 2015, the “709 Crackdown” saw the arrest of around 300 Chinese activists and human rights lawyers. Having probed prison deaths, labor rights cases, and the mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, these lawyers have faced closed-door trials and some were allegedly tortured [5]. As of now, all of them are incarcerated with no political rights, disbarred, or placed under severe surveillance. Some of them have already died in prison without clear accountability.
4. Neocolonialist Aggression towards Other Countries Disguised as the “Belt and Road Initiative”
Since 2017, President and CCP’s General Secretary Xi Jinping has pushed forward a so-called “win-win” strategy, namely “The Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), in the hope of setting up neo-colonies in vast pieces of land in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. By taking the role of a creditor, the CCP coerces other countries into building the infrastructure they do not need, and through controlling the construction corporations, the ridiculously massive projects ultimately benefit state-owned Chinese enterprises in the end. High-profile BRI projects have severely damaged many underdeveloped countries’ fragile economic systems because of overpricing and corruption and pushed many to the verge of bankruptcy, such as Sri Lanka, Khazakstan, Ethiopia, and many more.
In recent days, the CCP has presented growing interest in militarily annexing Taiwan, a self-governing country with the highest level of freedom and democracy in Asia. In August 2022, the CCP fired numerous missiles into the economic zones of Taiwan and Japan, unbelievably violating international law. The CCP’s aggression toward Taiwan is only the tip of the iceberg of its massive imperialist ambitions to take control of the Asia-Pacific region, and even the world.
[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/hong-kong/
[2] https://www.hongkongwatch.org/pol-prisoners
[3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/07/12/hong-kong-delegation-faces-un-scrutiny-rights
[4] https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/9-09242022175923.html?encoding=traditional
[7] https://savetibet.org/tibetan-self-immolations/
435
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Petition created on September 26, 2022