A May 31 editorial in the Global Times, a newspaper owned by the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, suggested that since the United States had expressed support for the demonstrators in Hong Kong — who took to the streets on May 24 to protest China’s new security law — then following the same logic exhibited by Washington, the Chinese government should issue a statement “to support the protests by African-Americans and the grassroots of U.S. society.”
The editorial quoted and paraphrased Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, saying she once called the protests in Hong Kong “a beautiful sight to behold.” The Global Times stated:
Now, the “beautiful sight” is extending from Hong Kong to over a dozen US states. US politicians now can enjoy this sight from their own windows. Quite a few places across the US are witnessing protesters setting police stations on fire, smashing shops, blocking roads, attacking places and destroying various public facilities, as if the radical rioters in Hong Kong somehow snuck into the US and created a mess like they did last year in Hong Kong.
The violent clashes in multiple cities erupted following the death of George Floyd, an African-American who died after being arrested by police in Minneapolis. Video footage showed a white uniformed officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as he repeatedly called out: “I can’t breathe.” The phrase “I can’t breathe” Has been taken up as a mantra by the protestors.
Chauvin has been fired from his job with the police department and has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Since Chauvin’s brutish actions were atypical of not only the rest of the Minneapolis police department, but of police departments in general across the United States, there can be little logical reason for violent riots in multiple cities. Unless, that is, these riots have been fomented by radical forces using Floyd’s death as a pretext to instigate violence.
Generally, when Republican leaders suggest that there may be foreign or leftist involvement behind the mass riots that have rocked major American cities, they are suspected of politicizing these events. On May 31, Attorney General William Barr issued a statement urging state and local governments to increase pressure against Antifa “and other similar groups.”
Barr explained, “With the rioting that is occurring in many of our cities around the country, the voices of peaceful and legitimate protests have been hijacked by violent radical elements. Groups of outside radicals and agitators are exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate, violent, and extremist agenda.”
So it is interesting that Susan Rice, national security advisor to former President Barack Obama, blamed the violent protests on “foreign actors,” and even suggested that Russia could be involved in instigating them.
“I’m not reading the intelligence today, or these days — but based on my experience, this is right out of the Russian playbook,” Rice said in a CNN interview on May 31. “But we cannot allow the extremists, the foreign actors, to distract from the real problems we have in this country that are longstanding, centuries old, and need to be addressed responsibly.”
Photo: AP Images
Warren Mass has served The New American since its launch in 1985 in several capacities, including marketing, editing, and writing. Since retiring from the staff several years ago, he has been a regular contributor to the magazine. Warren writes from Texas and can be reached at [email protected].
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