關於 treaty port ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

Haishenwai and Hong Kong (Lee Yee)

July 1, on the day of the 23rd anniversary of the Handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty, the Hong Kong National Law was promulgated.

July 2, the Russian Embassy in China published an article and a promotional video on its official Weibo to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the founding of Vladivostok. The article explained that Vladivostok means “ruling the East”.

During the Qing Dynasty, this city was called Haishenwai. It sits at the junction of Russia, China, and Korea. Facing the sea on three sides, this is a nonfreezing port. Since the Tang Dynasty, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing all had jurisdiction over this city. In the Yuan Dynasty, it was called Yongming City [literal translation in English was the City of Eternal Light]. In the Qing Dynasty, it was renamed to Haishenwai. Its port was opened even before Hong Kong, and was a location with much more geographical significance than Hong Kong.

Russia’s acquisition of Haishenwai in 1860 was made possible through extortion during the Anglo-French defeat of China, also known as the Second Opium War. The defeat of the Qing Dynasty led to the signing of Convention of Peking that consisted of treaties between the British and the Chinese, and the French and the Chinese respectively. Seeing the opportunity, Russia insisted that it helped in mediation, and asked that the treaty between the Russian and the Chinese be signed as well. Britain, with the treaty, took the Kowloon Peninsula. Russia, however, wanted more. It asked that the Convention of Peking not only recognize the validity of the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, but to designate the 400,000 square kilometers of Sino-Russia co-governed land, from the east of the Ussuri River to the sea (including Haishenwai), all to the sole sovereignty of Russia.

There have been several border talks with the Soviet Union and Russia since the establishment of the CCP, the last of which was an agreement between the Chinese and Russian foreign ministers in Vladivostok to determine the border covering thousands of kilometers between the two countries. It was an equivalent of China recognizing the Nebuchu Treaty, the Treaty of Aigun, the Convention of Peking, the Treaty of Tarbagatai and the land occupied by Russia in 1900, totaling 1.44 million square kilometers of land that is about 1360 Hong Kong. In the past, the city of Vladivostok came with “Haishenwai” in parentheses on Chinese maps. Now the parenthesis are gone.

The Russian Embassy in China’s commemoration of the 160th anniversary of the founding of Vladivostok on China’s Weibo, and the claim that it meant “ruling the East” were like a huge slap on the faces of mainland netizens who have long been bathing in patriotism. It started a wave of online anti-Russia sentiments. The typical mentality and rhetoric of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson would be that Russia is “deliberately provoking” and “seriously hurting the feelings of the Chinese people”. Yet, this time, China has been silent.

In view of the turbulence on the Internet, Global Times’ editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, posted on Weibo to put out the fire. He admitted that the Russians have not been respectful of the Chinese public, but the fact is that Vladivostok belongs to Russia, and said that “Us Chinese must accept this”. He cautioned that pro-America camps have been using the native land nostalgia of the Chinese to incite hatred towards Russia.

Yet haven’t the CCP been indoctrinating the native land nostalgia all along? Isn’t the hatred for Russia incited by the Russian Embassy’s Weibo? How are these related to the pro-America camps?

In the same 1860 Convention of Peking, while Britain handed over a prosperous international financial center to China after 130 years, Russia is celebrating 160 years of “ruling the East”. After the enactment of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, China condemned Britain’s new BNO policy, but expressed the “need to accept” to the Russian occupation and “slap in the face”.

The ideological foundation of the National Security Law is “without a country, there’s no home”, to promote “patriotism” and to punish “betrayal”. But where comes the rights for us commoners to betray the country? My late literary friend, Xiao Tong, said, “Give me 5 cents and I’ll sell you the country.” For something that is not yours, you have no right to sell it, nor the right to love it.

#Twitter戰線【天下制裁方向：科技產品、紅色資本、白手套 —— 請立即Retweet】

我已用英文撰文，公開回應白宮有意切實推動制裁的路透社報導，並提出經濟制裁應從三個方向，包括軍民兩用科技產品、紅色資本和白手套企業入手，呼籲各位幫忙Retweet，香港正與時間競賽，反制北京實在爭分奪秒：https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1265469996123041797

中文原文：https://www.facebook.com/200976479994868/posts/3025281830897638/

#眾志國際連結 #國際戰線

Reuters and Bloomberg just confimed that the US is likely to sanction China if it approves the hugely controversial bill that damages HK's autonomy. When Beijing insists on ignoring international responses and breaching international norms and rules, it is time for China to face the grave consequences and international backlashes for its irresponsible act of scraping an UN-filed Joint Declaration.

In fact, the world has already expressed concern over the evil and ill-defined national security law that will kill democratic movements in HK and harm global business interest in the city. But China keeps dismissing all doubts from world leaders, business sectors and even bar associations. This law is even eviler than the extradition bill last year. China’s poor human rights records have already proved that it will undeniably use the law to crush HK’s civil society and dissents.

For a long time, Hong Kong has been treated by Beijing as a white glove port for importing sensitive strategic commodities. Once the law is implemented, a secret police agency and a CCP-led China’s court will be imposed upon this global business centre. At that time, HK will fall into Beijing’s direct rule, and de facto becomes another city of China. Hence, all special treatments granted to HK need to be subject to reconsideration.

In fact, countries starts to realize the changing role of Hong Kong in a bigger picture of China’s global strategy. For example, Israel’s security officials just rejected a bid from CK Hutchison Holdings for the potential security risks of Chinese involvement in a plant construction in the disguise of "HK companies”.

To safeguard the city’s freedoms and urge China to stop further misconduct, world leaders, not only the US, should consider sanctions on China as the only effective strategic option to send a warning signal to Beijing. The sanctions should not only be restricted to personal sanctions like travel bans and asset freezes (since China won’t really realize the severity), but also partial sanctions on pro-CCP companies and dual-use technology.

Democratic values and the virtue to respect treaties are the foundation of democracies. If China’s flagrant breach of Joint Declaration, a legally binding international treaty at the United Nations, is tolerated, it will set a bad precedent to all other treaties and agreements alike.

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儘管拉人封艇，取締眾志不再是空談，留一口氣，點一盞燈，拜托大家幫忙延續國際戰線血脈：https://bit.ly/DemosistoBackup（是次籌募以美金結算）

What she said...

[Updated with additional information]

There is so much misinformation out there about the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy that requires criminal prosecution, which then warrants the separating of parents and children at the southern border. Before responding to a post defending this policy, please do your research...As a professor at a local Cal State, I research and write about these issues, so here, I wrote the following to make it easier for you:

Myth: This is not a new policy and was practiced under Obama and Clinton - FALSE. The policy to separate parents and children is new and was instituted on 4/6/2018. It was the “brainchild” of John Kelly and Stephen Miller to serve as a deterrent for undocumented immigration, and some allege to be used as a bargaining chip. The policy was approved by Trump, and adopted by Sessions. Prior administrations detained migrant families, but didn’t have a practice of forcibly separating parents from their children unless the adults were deemed unfit. https://www.justice.gov/…/press-rele…/file/1049751/download…

Myth: This is the only way to deter undocumented immigration - FALSE. Annual trends show that arrests for undocumented entry are at a 46 year low, and undocumented crossings dropped in 2007, with a net loss (more people leaving than arriving). Deportations have increased steadily though (spiking in 1996 and more recently), because several laws that were passed since 1996 have made it more difficult to gain legal status for people already here, and thus increased their deportations (I address this later under the myth that it's the Democrats' fault). What we mostly have now are people crossing the border illegally because they've already been hired by a US company, or because they are seeking political asylum. Economic migrants come to this country because our country has kept the demand going. But again, many of these people impacted by Trump's "zero tolerance" policy appear to be political asylum-seekers. https://www.npr.org/…/arrests-for-illegal-border-crossings-…

Myth: Most of the people coming across the border are just trying to take advantage of our country by taking our jobs - FALSE. Most of the parents who have been impacted by Trump's "zero tolerance" policy have presented themselves as political asylum-seekers at a U.S. port-of-entry, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Rather than processing their claims, according to witness accounts, it appears as though they have been taken into custody on the spot and had their children ripped from their arms. The ACLU alleges that this practice violates the US Asylum Act, and the UN asserts that it violates the UN Treaty on the State of Refugees, one of the few treaties the US has ratified. The ACLU asserts that this policy is an illegal act on the part of the United States government, not to mention morally and ethically reprehensible. https://www.nytimes.com/…/meatpackers-profits-hinge-on-pool…

Myth: We're a country that respects the Rule of Law, and if people break the law, this is what they get - FALSE. We are a country that has an above-ground system of immigration and an underground system. Our government (under both parties) has always been aware that US companies recruit workers in the poorest parts of Mexico for cheap labor, and ICE (and its predecessor INS) has looked the other way because this underground economy benefits our country to the tune of billions of dollars annually. Thus, even though many of the people crossing the border now are asylum-seekers, those who are economic migrants (migrant workers) likely have been recruited here to do jobs Americans will not do. https://www.upi.com/…/Donald-Trumps-wall-ign…/2621477498203/

Myth: The children have to be separated from their parents because the parents must be arrested and it would be cruel to put children in jail with their parents - FALSE. First, in the case of economic migrants crossing the border illegally, criminal prosecution has not been the legal norm, and families have historically been kept together at all cost. Also, crossing the border without documentation is typically a misdemeanor not requiring arrest, but rather has been handled in a civil proceeding. Additionally, parents who have been detained have historically been detained with their children in ICE "family residential centers," again, for civil processing. The Trump administration's shift in policy is for political purposes only, not legal ones. See p. 18: https://www.aclu.org/…/ms-l-v-ice-plaintiffs-opposition-def…

Myth: We have rampant fraud in our asylum process, the proof of which is the significant increase we have in the number of people applying for asylum. FALSE. The increase in asylum seekers is a direct result of the increase in civil conflict and violence across the globe. While some people may believe that we shouldn't allow any refugees into our country because "it's not our problem," neither our current asylum law, nor our ideological foundation as a country support such an isolationist approach. There is very little evidence to support Sessions' claim that abuse of our asylum-seeking policies is rampant. Also, what Sessions failed to mention is that the majority of asylum seekers are from China, not South of the border. Here is a very fair and balanced assessment of his statements: http://www.politifact.com/…/jeff-sessions-claim-about-asyl…/

Myth: The Democrats caused this, "it's their law." FALSE. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats caused this, the Trump administration did (although the Republicans could fix this today, and have refused). I believe what this myth refers to is the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which were both passed under Clinton in 1996. These laws essentially made unauthorized entry into the US a crime (typically a misdemeanor for first-time offenders), but under both Republicans and Democrats, these cases were handled through civil deportation proceedings, not a criminal proceeding, which did not require separation. And again, even in cases where detainment was required, families were always kept together in family residential centers, unless the parents were deemed unfit (as mentioned above). Thus, Trump's assertion that he hates this policy but has no choice but to separate the parents from their children, because the Democrats "gave us this law" is false and nothing more than propaganda designed to compel negotiation on bad policy. https://www.independent.co.uk/…/trump-democrats-us-border-m…

Myth: The parents and children will be reunited shortly, once the parents' court cases are finalized. FALSE. Criminal court is a vastly different beast than civil court proceedings. Also, the children are being processed as unaccompanied minors ("unaccompanied alien children"), which typically means they are in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Under normal circumstances when a child enters the country without his or her parent, ORR attempts to locate a family member within a few weeks, and the child is then released to a family member, or if a family member cannot be located, the child is placed in a residential center (anywhere in the country), or in some cases, foster care. Prior to Trump's new policy, ORR was operating at 95% capacity, and they simply cannot effectively manage the influx of 2000+ children, some as young as 4 months old. Also, keep in mind, these are not unaccompanied minor children, they have parents. There is great legal ambiguity on how and even whether the parents will get their children back because we are in uncharted territory right now. According to the ACLU lawsuit (see below), there is currently no easy vehicle for reuniting parents with their children. Additionally, according to a May 2018 report, numerous cases of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were found to have occurred in these residential centers. The report covers earlier years, but I'm including it here to highlight that there are problems with keeping children in large residential centers, even if they are run efficiently and supervised by licensed social workers and counselors. There is an abundance of empirical evidence that shows that residential care, even highly efficient ones, are no place for children, particularly very young ones: https://www.aclu.org/…/aclu-obtains-documents-showing-wides…

Myth: This policy is legal. LIKELY FALSE. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on 5/6/18, and a recent court ruling denied the government's motion to dismiss the suit. The judge deciding the case stated that the Trump Administration’s policy is "brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency." The case is moving forward because it was deemed to have legal merit. https://www.bloomberg.com/…/aclu-suit-over-child-separation…