The Shenzhou-14 crewed spaceship and a Long March-2F carrier rocket seen at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.VCG/VCG via Getty Images
China’s main satellite launch center found a jammer near its base just before a launch, per local media.
The device, which has a maximum range of about 32 feet and can be bought online, was found in a car.
The jammer could interfere with a satellite’s signal, one scientist from the center told SCMP.
Researchers from a space center in China said they found a jamming device right outside their base just weeks before a scheduled rocket launch, according to local news outlets.
The device was found in a car being driven near the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province about two weeks ago, Yangtze Evening News reported on Sunday.
The space center didn’t say if the incident was an act of sabotage but noted that the jammer could interfere with navigation systems and make a rocket go off course, per the outlet.
China is set to send three astronauts to its Tiangong space station on Sunday via its Shenzhou-14 rocket. Among the crew is Liu Yang, who became China’s first woman to be sent into space in 2012.
According to Yangtze Evening News, scientists at the Jiuquan space center started detecting “abnormal” interference signals earlier this month and spent several days tracking them down.
The discovered device was a small frequency transmitter with a typical maximum range of 32 feet, per The South China Morning Post. The outlet reported that such devices could be bought on e-commerce websites like “Taobao” — China’s robust version of Amazon.
Despite its size, the device could be used to disrupt a satellite’s signal, which is already weak because it’s beamed from altitudes of more than 12,000 feet above the Earth, a scientist from the center told SCMP.
As of Tuesday morning Beijing time, the Shenzhou-14 launch is still proceeding as planned, with the Jiuquan space center’s facilities and equipment “in good condition,” Xinhua News reported.
If successful, the crewed mission will kick off the final construction phase of the Tiangong space station — China’s answer to the International Space Station (ISS). Chinese astronauts have been barred from the ISS since 2011 over US security concerns.
Tiangong, which means “Heavenly Palace,” comprises three modules that will be installed one by one. The first module has been in orbit since April 2021.
Zheng, 19, looked on track for a major upset when she claimed the opener in a tiebreak before Swiatek took control to win 6-7(5) 6-0 6-2 for her 32nd straight victory.
Zheng said she had no pain during the opening set but took a medical time out at 3-0 down in the second, having her back massaged on court before going to the locker room and returning with her right thigh strapped.
“Yeah, the leg was also tough. That compared to the stomach was easy…I cannot play my tennis, (my) stomach was too painful,” Zheng, ranked 74 in the world, told reporters.
“It’s just girls’ things, you know. The first day is always so tough and then I have to do sport and I always have so much pain in the first day. And I couldn’t go against my nature.
“I wish I can be a man on court, but I cannot in that moment…I really wish I can be (a) man (so) that I don’t have to suffer from this.”
Zheng, who made her Grand Slam debut at the Australian Open this year, said she had tried her best to compete but was happy she had progressed to the second week.
“If I don’t talk about today, I’m happy with my performance (on) this run. And to play against the number one in the world, I felt I really enjoyed (it) on the court,” she added.
“If I don’t have my stomach (pain) I think I could enjoy more, like to run better and to hit harder, to give more effort on court. It’s a pity that I couldn’t give what I want to give today.
“I just want (it so that) next time I play against her, I (am in) perfect shape.”
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Tuesday trade as investors watched for market reaction to the release of official Chinese factory activity data for May. Oil prices rose after EU leaders agreed to ban 90% of Russian crude.
The Shanghai Composite in mainland China was close to flat while the Shenzhen Component dipped 0.196%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index traded 0.18% higher.
China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for May came in at 49.6, an improvement over April’s reading of 47.4.
The May reading was above the 48.6 level expected from a Reuters poll but still below the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction. PMI readings are sequential and represent month-on-month expansion or contraction.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan hovered close to the flatline while the Topix index declined 0.09%. Over in South Korea, the Kospi climbed 0.1%.
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Australian stocks were lower as the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.23%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded little changed.
Markets in the U.S. were closed on Monday for a holiday.
Oil prices rise after EU agrees on Russia sanctions
Oil prices traded higher in the morning of Asia hours, after European Union leaders agreed to ban most Russian oil for its invasion of Ukraine by the end of 2022.
The agreement would “effectively cut around 90% of oil imports from Russia to the EU by the end of the year,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a tweet.
International benchmark Brent crude futures gained 0.62% to $122.43 per barrel. U.S. crude futures jumped 2.41% to $117.84 per barrel.
Currencies
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 101.616 — still off levels above 102 seen last week.
The Japanese yen traded at 128.08 per dollar following yesterday’s weakening from levels below 127.2 against the greenback. The Australian dollar was at $0.7184, against an earlier high of $0.7203.
TOKYO, May 24 (Reuters) – Japan scrambled jets after Russian and Chinese warplanes neared its airspace on Tuesday, when Tokyo was hosting the leaders of the Quad grouping of countries that includes the United States, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said.
Tokyo conveyed “grave concerns” to both Russia and China through diplomatic channels, Kishi said at a news conference that was broadcast online.
He characterised the incident as a likely provocation by both Beijing and Moscow on a day when U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australia’s newly elected leader, Anthony Albanese, were meeting in Tokyo.
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“We believe the fact that this action was taken during the Quad summit makes it more provocative than in the past,” he said, adding it was the fourth such incident since November.
Two Chinese warplanes flew over the Sea of Japan from the East China Sea and were then joined by two Russian warplanes for a flight together toward the East China Sea, Kishi said.
Later, the two Chinese warplanes were replaced by another pair believed to be Chinese, which then flew with the Russians on a long flight toward the Pacific Ocean, he said.
A Russian reconnaissance plane also flew over the open sea from the northern island of Hokkaido to the Noto peninsula on Japan’s main island, he said.
None of the aircraft entered into Japan’s airspace, he said.
Russia and China both confirmed they conducted a joint patrol. Russia’s defence ministry said the patrol lasted 13 hours over the Japanese and East China seas.
The exercise was part of an “annual military cooperation plan”, China’s defence ministry said.
Separately, South Korea’s military said it scrambled fighters after at least four Chinese and four Russian warplanes entered its air defence zone on Tuesday. read more
It was not immediately clear if the two events were related or if any of the same warplanes were involved.
The four leaders of the Quad – an informal grouping led by Washington – on Tuesday stressed their determination to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of an increasingly assertive China. read more
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Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo; additional reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Bernadette Baum
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
“Look, here’s the situation,” Biden told reporters during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo. “We agree with the One China policy. We signed on to it, and all the attendant agreements made from there, but the idea that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is (just not) appropriate.”
The President has made similar statements in the past, only to have the White House say longstanding US policy had not changed toward the self-governing island. The US provides Taiwan defensive weapons, but has remained intentionally ambiguous on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.
Under the “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially recognized Beijing’s claim to the island of 23 million.
In a statement following Biden’s remarks Monday, a White House official said the US’ official position remained unchanged. “As the President said, our policy has not changed. He reiterated our One China policy and our commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. He also reiterated our commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with the military means to defend itself,” the official said.
Taiwan lies fewer than 110 miles (177 kilometers) off the coast of China. For more than 70 years the two sides have been governed separately, but that hasn’t stopped China’s ruling Communist Party from claiming the island as its own — despite having never controlled it.
In recent weeks, Beijing has sent dozens of warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said that “reunification” between China and Taiwan is inevitable while refusing to rule out the use of force.
Biden compared a potential invasion of Taiwan by China to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, warning, “It will dislocate the entire region,” and emphasizing “Russia has to pay a long-term price for its actions.”
“And the reason I bother to say this, not just about Ukraine — if in fact after all he’s done, there’s a rapprochement…between the Ukrainians and Russia, and these sanctions are not continued to be sustained in many ways, then what signal does that send to China about the cost of attempting, attempting to take Taiwan by force?”
Biden said that China is “already flirting with danger right now by flying so close and all the maneuvers they’re undertaking.”
“But the United States is committed, we made a commitment, we support the One China policy, we support all we’ve done in the past, but that does not mean, it does not mean that China has the ability, has the, excuse me, jurisdiction to go in and use force to take over Taiwan,” he added.
WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday sued Steve Wynn, the former CEO of Wynn Resorts (WYNN.O), to compel him to register as an agent of China and accused him of lobbying then-President Donald Trump at Beijing’s behest in 2017.
Wynn’s lawyers denied the allegations, saying he had never acted as an agent of the Chinese government and “had no obligation to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act” (FARA).
From at least June through August 2017, Wynn contacted Trump and members of his administration to convey a Chinese request that Trump cancel the visa of a Chinese businessperson who had sought asylum in the United States, the department said.
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The department’s civil suit alleges it had advised Wynn in 2018, 2021 and April 2022 to register as an agent of China under FARA but he declined to do so. Wynn stepped down as Wynn Resorts CEO in early 2018.
“Where a foreign government uses an American as its agent to influence policy decisions in the United States, FARA gives the American people a right to know,” said Matthew G. Olsen, assistant attorney general for the department’s national security division.
Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake
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The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It seeks a declaratory judgment that Wynn has an obligation to register under FARA.
Wynn’s lawyers, Reid Weingarten and Brian Heberlig, said they disagreed with the department’s legal interpretation of FARA and looked forward to proving their case in court.
In a statement, the Justice Department alleged that Wynn acted at Beijing’s request “out of a desire to protect his business interests in Macau,” where Wynn Resorts operates a luxury hotel and casino.
Wynn conveyed the requests to cancel the businessperson’s visa to the Trump administration on behalf of Sun Lijun, a former vice minister in China’s Ministry of Public Security, the statement said.
It did not name the Chinese businessperson in question, but said the individual left China in 2014 and was later charged with corruption by Beijing.
Wynn conveyed Beijing’s request to Trump over dinner and by phone, and had multiple discussions with senior White House and National Security Council officials about organizing a meeting with Sun and other Chinese officials, the department said.
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Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Howard Goller
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
How do you become the richest man in the world? In Elon Musk’s case, part of it involves making workers in China put in hours that would be unacceptable according to labor norms elsewhere.
On Tuesday, the Tesla boss praised Chinese factory workers for pulling extreme hours while taking a shot at American workers. “There is just a lot of super talented hardworking people in China who strongly believe in manufacturing,” the billionaire said. “They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they will be burning the 3am oil, they won’t even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all.”
Musk’s comment comes as Tesla’s massive Shanghai “Giga-factory” pushes its workers to the limit to meet production targets amid an ongoing pandemic lockdown.
In April, Tesla restricted its Shanghai workers from leaving the factory under a so-called “closed-loop” system originally developed by Chinese authorities to contain Beijing Olympics participants. While locked inside, the workers were reportedly made to work 12-hour shifts, six days in a row, and to sleep on factory floors. Production at the plant was forced to halt this week due to parts shortages, the company said.
Labor rights and safety violations have been reported at Tesla’s Shanghai factory since it opened in 2018, with some workers making as little as $1,500 a month in what an investigation by local journalists called the “Giga-sweatshop.”
Even in the United States, Musk is well known for his disregard for labor norms and work-life balance: the tech billionaire infamously declared “nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week”. He has bragged about making Tesla’s US employees work 100-hour weeks, while claiming to have worked 120-hour weeks himself. In March, Musk called an all-hands meeting for his other company, SpaceX, at 1am.
These practices are on par with China’s extreme work culture, nicknamed “996”, in which workers are expected to work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. The practice has been the source of protests in recent years and has been characterized as a form of modern slavery.
Workers walk outside the Tesla Giga-factory in Shanghai, China, in November 2019. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Eli Friedman, a China labor expert and associate professor of international and comparative labor at Cornell University’s ILR School, said Musk’s remark should be understood in the “broader context of American corporations taking advantage not just of the low cost of labor in China, but the flexibility”.
For bosses like Musk, “that’s the comparative advantage: the fact that you have hundreds of thousands of workers that you can literally wake up in the middle of the night and put them on the production line,” Friedman said.
“It’s tapping into a kind of Orientalist narrative about these kind of robotic Chinese workers who, [Musk] says in a sort of valorized way, that this is a good thing,” the researcher added.
Officially, Chinese labor law mandates a 40-hour work week, with employees allowed up to 36 hours of overtime a month – which would come out to just over a 48-hour work week. But that’s not what happens in practice.
“There’s no pretence anywhere that that’s enforced,” said Friedman. “Excessive overtime is kind of a built-in feature of the whole model of industrial development in China. Very long hours and compulsory overtime, while not legal, are also completely the norm. And this is done regularly in consultation with local governments who are also tasked with enforcing the labor law.”
Employees in China are often asked to sign a “striver’s pledge” which waives their right to overtime pay and paid time off. And while many corporations in China have unions, the unions are funded by the employer, which makes them essentially powerless to negotiate against management, Friedman noted.
Tesla did not respond to questions about its factory’s work hours and policies.
China’s gruelling culture of extreme hours has been celebrated by tech billionaires in the country, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma, who has called the “996” system a “huge blessing”, and rival company JD.com’s Richard Liu, who has called workers who work fewer hours “slackers”.
In recent years, a growing movement of Chinese workers has stood up to oppose overwork, with some activists using tools like GitHub to compile lists of Chinese companies accused of violating labor laws. Anger over the country’s extreme work culture intensified last January after a 22-year-old worker for Shanghai-based e-commerce firm Pinduoduo collapsed and died after leaving work at 1.30am, after a run of brutally long shifts.
Incidents like these helped drive a trend among young Chinese social media users early last year promoting “tang ping”, or “lying flat” on the ground as a passive protest against work, which has since been restricted on the Chinese internet. Later in the year, China’s top court ruled that forced and excessive overtime was illegal, but the ruling has not been well enforced. Work stoppages, often unofficial “wildcat” strikes, continue to occur regularly in China.
Chinese and American labor norms have clashed in recent years, as bosses pit teams against each other.
The 2019 Netflix documentary “American Factory” described the conflicts that arose after a Chinese billionaire, Cao Dewang, opened a factory in an abandoned General Motors plant in Ohio. “American workers are not efficient, and output is low,” Cao complained at one point in the film. “I can’t manage them.”
Last week, the Wall Street Journal revealed that some of the US-based employees at Chinese-owned TikTok were expected to pull back-to-back all-nighters and spend as many as 85 hours a week in meetings to keep up with their Chinese colleagues.
In the United States, employees covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act must receive overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week. But the law places no cap on the number of hours an employee can work.
The grim backdrop to Musk’s comments is that “American workers are in a very subjugated position as well, unfortunately”, said Friedman.
“The not-at-all subtle threat is that these Chinese workers are a threat to you white American workers. If you don’t meet that standard, then your jobs are on the line.”
Chinese and U.S. flags flutter outside the building of an American company in Beijing, China January 21, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
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HONG KONG, May 6 (Reuters) – U.S. and Chinese regulatory officials are in talks to settle a long-running dispute over the auditing compliance of U.S.-listed Chinese firms, three people briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The standoff, if not resolved, could see Chinese firms kicked off New York bourses.
The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) denied an earlier Reuters report that said a team from the agency had arrived in Beijing for talks.
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This week the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) added over 80 firms, including e-commerce giant JD.com (9618.HK) and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (600028.SS) to the list of companies facing possible expulsion. read more
The talks between officials from the PCAOB and their counterparts at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) can be described as “late stage” after China made concessions in recent months, the people said.
But a PCAOB spokesperson said, “Recent reports that PCAOB officials are currently in China, or that PCAOB officials were in China earlier this year to conduct face-to-face negotiations, are untrue. The PCAOB has not sent any personnel to China since 2017.”
He said the board continues to engage with the Chinese authorities but “speculation about a final agreement remains premature.” As a result, the PCAOB is planning “for various scenarios”.
The CSRC on Friday did not respond directly on the status of discussions. It referred Reuters to official statements from both sides but did not specify which statements.
The sources asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Authorities in China have long been reluctant to let overseas regulators inspect local accounting firms, citing national security concerns.
But in a key concession, Chinese regulators last month proposed revising confidentiality rules for offshore listings and scrapping requirements that on-site inspections of overseas-listed Chinese firms be conducted mainly by domestic regulators. read more
Sources told Reuters last month that a preliminary framework for audit supervision cooperation between the two countries has been formed. read more
The spat over audit oversight of New York-listed Chinese companies, simmering for more than a decade, came to a head in December when the SEC finalised rules to delist Chinese companies under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act. It said there were 273 companies at risk but did not name them.
As of Friday, the PCAOB has identified 128 Chinese firms as at risk of being delisted.
The issue has been a major factor dragging on American depositary receipts (ADRs) issued by Chinese firms, with the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index tumbling 57% over the past 12 months.
Goldman Sachs estimated in March that U.S. institutional investors held around $200 billion worth of Chinese ADRs.
In addition to the concessions by Chinese regulators, there have been other signs that a deal is in the offing.
In late March, sources said the CSRC asked some of the country’s U.S.-listed firms, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (9988.HK), Baidu Inc (9888.HK) and JD.com, to prepare for more audit disclosures. Late last month, Fang Xinghai, the CSRC’s vice chairman said he expected a deal in the near future.
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Reporting by Xie Yu; Additional reporting by Katanga Johnson in Washington, Selena Li in Hong Kong and Jing Xu in Beijing; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and William Mallard
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant Ma co-founded, saw its Hong Kong-listed shares plunge as much as 9.4% Tuesday after Chinese state media reported that an individual surnamed “Ma” in the city of Hangzhou — where Alibaba is based — had been detained on national security grounds.
According to China’s state broadcaster CCTV, the suspect was placed under “compulsory measures” on April 25 on suspicion of “colluding with overseas anti-China hostile forces” to “incite secession” and “incite subversion of state power.”
The one-sentence report, which was swiftly picked up by other state media outlets and alerted across Chinese news platforms, triggered panic selling in Hong Kong, erasing an estimated $26 billion from Alibaba’s market value within minutes.
Amid the frenzy, Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the state-owned nationalist tabloid the Global Times, rushed to clarify on China’s Twitter-like Weibo that the report was misleading because the name of the suspect in question has three characters. Jack Ma’s Chinese name, Ma Yun, has only two characters. (CCTV later quietly updated its original report to match Hu’s assessment).
To further dispel concerns, the Global Times reported the accused man was born in 1985 in Wenzhou (while Jack Ma was born in 1964 in Hangzhou) and worked as the director of hardware research and development at an IT company.
The clarifications led to a rebound, with Alibaba recovering the majority of its losses by the day’s end.
The market’s roller coaster reaction is the latest sign of just how skittish investors are getting over China’s embattled tech sector, which has been a target of the Chinese government’s heavy-handed regulatory crackdown since late 2020.
Despite recent signals from the Chinese government it is preparing to rollback the campaign due to the economic impact, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal, the market frenzy on Tuesday indicates investor confidence remains shaky.
“I thought this was kind of an odd episode,” said Victor Shih, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego. “Whether that was a warning of sorts to the technology sector as a whole, or perhaps Jack Ma personally. Who knows? But it’s certainly demonstrated the government does not even have to arrest a senior technology executive to erase tens of billions of dollars from a company’s market valuation. It just needs to release some kind of information,” Shih added.
“That’s quite powerful. And certainly what happened yesterday was a clear illustration of that power, whether it was delivered or not.”
But the fact investors were so quick to believe Jack Ma, once China’s most high-profile billionaire, would fall afoul of state security authorities reveals something of the political reality many Chinese tycoons now live in.
“It doesn’t really matter anymore if it’s really him. The important thing is: a lot of people think it’s him, a lot of people expect it to be him, now that is interesting,” said a popular comment on Weibo, which drew 57,000 likes.
The turn in public sentiment against Ma is almost as spectacular as his rags to riches story. Until about three years ago, the English teacher-turned billionaire was widely worshiped for his charisma, outspokenness and self-made success. (He was even nicknamed “Daddy Ma” by some fans).
But as tech companies like Alibaba expanded their businesses empires, they’ve become the target of growing frustration and resentment among young Chinese workers who are fed up with gruelingly long work hours, high pressure and stagnant pay. (Jack Ma’s endorsement of China’s so-called “996” work culture, meaning working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week, drew intense criticism in 2019.)
As tech giants fell under the crosshairs of the Chinese government, “evil capitalists” have been increasingly blamed for various social ills, from relentless competition, skyrocketing property prices to lack of social mobility.
“Within just a few years, ‘Daddy Ma’ has been labeled as a ‘rotten capitalist’ in public opinion, and many people are looking forward to Ma’s downfall,” Xiang Dongliang, a blogger, wrote on WeChat.
“But the question is, will bringing down capitalists and driving out (so-called) foreign forces really make everyone’s life better?”
Jack Ma has mostly faded from public life and kept a low profile since Ant Group’s IPO in the US was halted by regulators in late 2020. Once among the most outspoken figures in China, he hasn’t posted anything on Weibo, where he has nearly 25 million followers, since October 2020.
His last Weibo post, about a meeting with some 100 school principals to discuss the future of China’s education, was flooded with critical comments.
“I won’t be surprised if old Ma is jailed one day,” the top comment said. “You’re just a capitalist! Don’t pretend to be a good person!” another comment screamed.
Jack Ma remained silent throughout Tuesday, as rumors against him swirled on the Chinese internet. Hashtags about the detention of the suspect surnamed Ma were among the top trending topics on Weibo, drawing hundreds of millions of views.
“He has only silence, which is a ‘special way of existing’,” Zhang Feng, a columnist, wrote in a widely shared WeChat article following the incident.
“This kind of silence is of profound significance. For a public figure, his speech itself is an ‘extension’ of his existence. When a person no longer speaks up, although he is still alive, still doing things, at least part of him has ‘vanished’.”
An Australian man who held up a sign displaying an insult against Chinese President Xi Jinping at a busy Asian market in Sydney said he’s been told by authorities he could be charged over the incident even though he was reportedly attacked by Chinese nationalists.
Drew Pavlou was filmed holding the sign that read “F*** Xi Jinping” in Chinese on Saturday at the Eastwood Plaza. The signage quickly triggered an angry reaction from some shoppers, some of whom vented their frustration, according to footage of the incident on Pavlou’s Twitter account.
.The video shows angry people confronting him.
“America has genocide,” according to subtitles in a video of the incident.
WARNING:GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
Another man snatches the sign and throws it to the ground. One said he was “disrespecting Chinese here.” During the encounter, Pavlou tells the crowd he is non-violent.
He later tweeted that the New South Wales Police Force contacted him to inform him that detectives were investigating him and that he would likely be charged.
“NSW Police want to charge me for holding a sign insulting Xi Jinping while campaigning in Sydney,” Lavlou wrote. “They won’t even tell me what I’m being charged with. I’m sick of attacks on free speech, Australia desperately needs a Bill of Rights to protect free expression.”
He also tweeted about the Chinese government’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims who have been rounded up and detained in camps.
A spokesperson for the police force declined to confirm that Pavlou was being investigated but said they were investigating an alleged assault that occurred during a political protest at the Eastwood Plaza.
“Following inquiries, investigators attended an Eastwood home and spoke with a 48-year-old man about 4.30pm today,” a police statement said. “He was issued a court attendance notice for Common Assault and is due to appear at Hornsby Local Court on Wednesday.”
In a tweet, Pavlou called threats of being charged an “intimidation tactic.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a commendation ceremony for role models of the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics at the Great Hall of the People , Friday, April 8, 2022, in Beijing. An Australian man provoked anger from supporters of Xi by holding a sign at a Sydney marker insulting the communist leader. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
In a Facebook post, he said he was making a simple point.
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“I should be able to insult a dictator like Xi Jinping in my own country without being physically assaulted & attacked. Australia is a democracy and we should be free to insult any leader no matter how coarsely – this is a simple principle of free speech,” he wrote. “No way would I have been surrounded by 50 people and physically assaulted if I held up a sign saying “F*** Scott Morrison” in Sydney. Why should Chinese ultra-nationalists get a free pass to assault people in Australia if someone insults Xi Jinping?”
