Hong Kong; Xinjiang papers; Xi on Marxism; Still no US-China trade deal

Hong Kong appears to have descended into chaos in certain areas over the weekend and Carrie Lam is nowhere to be seen. The weekend protests and the siege at the Polytechnic University had some of the ugliest violence so far. The propaganda rhetoric out of Beijing is ratcheting up in the wake of Xi’s tough comments last week, and the pressure on the Hong Kong police to use any means necessary to end the protests is clearly increasing.

Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley of the New York Times have an absolute blockbuster of a story on the crackdowns in Xinjiang, based on hundreds of internal documents leaked by “a member of the Chinese political establishment”. These documents are damning evidence of the Stalin-esque program to reengineer Xinjiang and its residents.

The most recent issue of Qiushi (Seeking Truth) leads with the speech “Learning basic Marxist theory is a compulsory course for Communists” that Xi Jinping gave at Politburo study session in April 2018.

I know a lot of people think…