Monthly Archives: July 2020

Lisa Nandy said the Government should freeze the assets of Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses (BBC)

4 min read19 July

Labour is urging the Government to freeze the assets of any Chinese officials involved in the oppression of the Uighurs.

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy also said safeguarding national security has got to be the "plank" upon which all policy is based.

It comes amid worsening relations between the UK and Beijing after high-profile rows about Huawei and Hong Kong.

And on Sunday it was reported the Chinese media giant TikTok is ditching plans to open a global headquarters in London due to the "wider geopolitical context.

Speaking to Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Ms Nandy said she is "appalled" at alleged human right abuses by China against the mainly Muslim minority ethnic Uighur group.

"One very concrete thing the UK could do is freeze the assets of any Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses in China," she added.

"The UK should not be a haven for people who abuse human rights overseas.

But Chinas ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaomingdismissed such claims, saying every ethnicgroup in China is treated equal.

Speaking on BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show he was shown footage appearing to show Uighurs being blindfolded and loaded onto trains, and an interview with a woman who said she was forced into a sterilisation operation.

He replied by saying: "I do not know where you got this video tape.

Sometimesyou have a transfer of prisoners, as in any country."

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stopped short of decribing the treatment of Uighurs in China as genocide, but told the BBC it was "clear there are gross, egregioushuman rights abuses going on".

He added:"The reports of the human aspect of it - from forced sterilisation to the education camps - are reminiscent of something we have not seen for a long, long time.

"This from a leading member of the international community that wants to be taken seriously and in fact who we want a positive relationship with. But we cannot see behaviour like that and not call it out."

Butthe Liberal Democrats have called on the Foreign Secretary to acknowledge the Chinese government is "engineering a genocide of the Uyghur people.

In a letter to Mr Raab the party's foreign affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichaelurged the Government to use the next round of targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for human rights abuses in Xinjiang province.

He said: The images we have seen in recent days are harrowing and inhuman.

The Government has a duty to take a lead and do all we can to save theUyghur people.

"We must be clear what is happening here. The Chinese government is engineering a genocide.

"The Foreign Secretary must come before MPs before the recess and set out what urgent actions the Government will take, both on an international level and unilaterally."

On the wider issue of relations with China,Labour frontbencher Ms Nandy said: "We've got to be in a position first and foremost to safeguard our national security.

"And whilst Chinese investment is very welcome in the UK, there are serious concerns, which I've been raising actually for four years now.

"I was the shadow energy secretary who raised concerns about Hinkley Point nuclear power station, that we shouldn't be handing over large chunks of our key infrastructure to Chinese Government-backed firms here in the UK.

"And that's what has prompted the row about Huawei. For several years now, we've been saying to the Government that this is a high-risk vendor.

Three consecutive Conservative prime ministers have been told by their own security services that this is a high risk vendor and yet have done nothing to try and reduce their reliance in this company in our 5G network.

She added: "It doesn't help Britain's economic prosperity to have failed to safeguard national security, that's got to be the plank on which we base everything else.

"If we'd acted sooner, if the Government had paid heed to the warnings, not just from Labour, but from Conservative backbenchers as well and from our own security services, then we wouldn't be in a position now where the roll-out of 5G is delayed and where the costs have increased because we just didn't have a plan.

Continued here:

Government should freeze assets of Chinese officials involved in oppression of Uighurs, says Labour - PoliticsHome.com

The mayor added: In fact, we want them to leave.

The situation in Oregons largest city has become part of the national debate over what represents appropriate protest and what constitutes government oppression. Footage of people being scooped up on the streets of Portland and placed in vans has been circulated widely on social media in recent days, often accompanied by expressions of either delight or anger.

The deployment of federal agents has also fit with the presidents efforts to draw a contrast with Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who Trump has claimed is not interested in law and order.

The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it, Trump tweeted Sunday. Unimaginably bad things would happen to America. Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy.

Protests in Portland have continued since the death of George Floyd in Minnesota on Memorial Day. According to The Oregonian, the focus of the unrest has been a 12-block area; protests in other parts of the city have been largely without incident, but the disorder within the 12-block zone has included repeated skirmishes with police, as well as fires and vandalism.

In June, Wheeler called the destruction a horrible, horrendous miscalculation. One longtime community activist, Ronnie Herndon, added: That is a tactic thats been used to destroy Black people, not help Black people. On Saturday, a fire was set at the Portland Police Association, and police used tear gas in an attempt to clear the area.

In recent days, federal forces have been detaining and arresting protesters, and reports indicate that they have sometimes done so without identifying themselves and that they are using unmarked vehicles. Wheeler said the governments actions were in violation of the law and a threat to the nations democratic values.

The tactics that the Trump administration are using on the streets of Portland are abhorrent, Wheeler said, adding that people were being deprived of due process and being detained without probable cause.

As far as I can see, this is completely unconstitutional, Wheeler said.

The state of Oregon has sought to get rid of the federal agents, with Oregons attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, suing late Friday in federal court. The American Civil Liberties Union has also challenged the administrations actions.

Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) tweeted on Thursday. These Trump/Barr tactics designed to eliminate any accountability are absolutely unacceptable in America, and must end. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) added: We must get to the bottom of these abuses against Oregonians.

On Sunday, three House committee chairs demanded the administrations actions be investigated by internal Trump administration watchdogs. "The legal basis for this use of force has never been explained, wrote Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).

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Portland mayor to Trump administration: We want you to leave - POLITICO

A look at the Confederate Flag and 'Jim Crow Laws' in the United States from historian Richard Dowson

The last official remnant of the Confederate Flag has ended. This comes 155 years after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865. Slavery ended September 22, 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln and his government passed the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Confederate States economy was agrarian. It relied heavily on slaves to work the plantations and farms. Confederates wanted to continue slavery.

The Confederate Flag is associated with Slavery and Jim Crow Laws.

After the Civil War during reconstruction, southern states passed laws that marginalized African Americans. State and local laws were passed legalizing segregation in schools, public places, washrooms, restaurants, pubic transit and more and people became indentured farm workers with limited economic opportunity. The right to vote was curtailed by Jim Crow Laws.

The Confederate Flag continued as a symbol of slavery, and the segregationist Jim Crow Laws enacted in many Southern States after the Civil War.

The name Jim Crow was the stage name of entertainer Thomas Dartmouth Daddy Rice. In the 1830s he put on black face and pretended to be an ill-educated, stereotype African American Slave. The Jim Crown name came from the song, Jump Jim Crow he preformed.

Changes to segregation began in 1948 with President Harry Trumans Executive Order 9981 that abolished discrimination in the American Military based on race, colour, religion or national origin. This led to the end of segregation in the military in 1950, during the Korean War.

A notable story is that of Rosa Parks. In 1955 she was riding a Montgomery, Alabama public transit bus after work, heading home from her job. Coloureds had to sit in the back of the bus, Whites in the front. When the front section was full, White people sat in the Coloured section and those there had to give up their seat.

Rosa would not give up her seat when asked. She was arrested.

The case went to the Supreme Court and Rosa won the busses were de-segregated.

Change has been slow. Many of the remnants of Jim Crow continue, including efforts to limit voter registrations and voting opportunity in some Southern States.

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The Mississippi state flag and the Confederate Flag Symbols of oppression - moosejawtoday.com

The UK government has confirmed it will halt its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, after China imposed tough new national security laws.

Three Sky News correspondents have given their take on what today's statement from Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab means for UK-China relations...

Tom Cheshire, Asia correspondent

The UK has been pressuring China on an unprecedented number of fronts - Huawei, the oppression of the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang, and the national security law in Hong Kong.

Each intervention provokes a response from Beijing, which most recently promised "resolute reactions".

China has not shied away from those reactions with other countries - putting tariffs on Australian barley, imprisoning Canadian citizens, sanctioning US politicians. But so far there's been little actual retaliation towards Britain.

Suspending an extradition treaty with Hong Kong is unlikely to prompt one either: Beijing would probably have thought this a likely consequence of the national security law, and imposed the law anyway.

Huawei is still the bigger irritant - and we're waiting on the consequences of that. State media have floated the possibility of boycotting British brands and universities.

Jon Craig, chief political correspondent

Anyone hoping for sweeping reprisals from Dominic Raab against China over Hong Kong security laws and human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslims will have been disappointed.

He won plaudits from MPs by extending the arms embargo on China to Hong Kong, banning UK exports of lethal weapons and equipment used to suppress dissent, and the widely-predicted suspension of the extradition treaty.

The embargo would mean a ban on the export of equipment which might be used for internal repression such as shackles, intercept equipment, firearms and smoke grenades, the foreign secretary told MPs.

But what was missing from the foreign secretary's statement was sanctions on Chinese officials for the persecution of the Uighur Muslims, no doubt because this would have been seen by the Chinese as a much more provocative act.

His excuse, in his reply to the impressive Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, was that it takes months to gather the evidence of such human rights abuses and can't be done on a political whim.

Mr Raab concluded his statement by claiming his actions were "reasonable and proportionate".

But perhaps what was more revealing was when he told MPs: "We want to work with China." And then: "We want a positive relationship with China."

At the weekend, China's UK ambassador said in a TV interview that the British government was "dancing to the tune of the United States". Mr Raab was clearly trying desperately not to appear to be doing that.

We knew what was coming from the foreign secretary when Boris Johnson promised a tough, balanced and "calibrated" approach to China.

When it came, it was certainly agreed it was balanced and measures, but it could have been tougher.

Deborah Haynes, foreign affairs editor

Reasonable and proportionate - those are the words used by the foreign secretary to describe the UK's punishment of China over its actions in Hong Kong.

Beijing will not agree.

Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to London, has already warned that there will be consequences - they just have not yet been spelled out.

This is a pivotal time for the world's rising superpower, seeking to demonstrate its authority as global alliances come under strain and relationships change.

But the UK will take comfort in the knowledge that it is not acting alone.

:: Listen to Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker

Its decision to suspend an extradition treaty with Hong Kong follows similar action by Canada and Australia. The United States has also altered its relationship with Hong Kong.

The UK move to extend an arms embargo already imposed on mainland China to Hong Kong is designed to underline London's frustration with Beijing for pushing ahead with what is seen as a draconian national security law imposed on the former British territory.

Excerpt from:

How will UK's suspension of its Hong Kong extradition treaty affect relations with China? - Sky News

At the height of the Cold War in 1959, Congress established Captive Nations Week to show the American peoples solidarity with the hundreds of millions suffering under communist regimes. Scheduled for the third week of July, the occasion gave rise to annual parades and rallies in major American cities, with thousands of people taking to the streets, supported by governors, mayors and officials at every level of government, to demand the liberation of communist-controlled nations.

Sixty-one years later, Captive Nations Week which began Sunday is all but forgotten. Yet the phenomenon of communist subjugation of free people is real and growing, and 20 percent of the worlds population still lives under single-party communist dictatorships more than in 1989. If ever there were a moment to bring back Captive Nations Week, this is it.

In creating this week, Congress specifically called out the imperialistic policies of the Soviet Union. Today, this phrase is just as easily applied to the Peoples Republic of China, which dominates a growing number of lands and peoples, and aggressively seeks to add more to the list.

Hong Kong is the latest proof. Beijing has violated international treaty obligations with its passage in June of a so-called national security law that effectively ends the one country, two systems policy. The law empowers authorities to arrest anyone deemed to be subversive or secessionist, which in practice means anyone criticizing the Communist Party or advocating democracy and freedom ideals that are antithetical to Beijings socialism with Chinese characteristics. Hong Kong is now a captive city.

Yet Hong Kong is hardly the only place that Communist China has overrun. Congress noted the subjugation of Tibet when establishing Captive Nations Week, and to this day, Beijing seeks to stamp out Tibetan culture and the regional Buddhist faith. The regimes favored tools include the destruction of monasteries as well as the kidnapping and torture of Tibetan activists, which has led the Tibetan government-in-exile to warn of a Chinese-led cultural genocide. The apparent successor to the Dalai Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was kidnapped at age 6 by the Chinese Communist Party in 1995 and remains captive to this day.

Beijing also is perpetrating a demographic genocide against the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang. A June investigation by The Associated Press found that Chinese authorities are taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs, including forced abortion and sterilization. The regime has shunted as many as 3 million Uighurs nearly a third of the Uighur population into modern-day concentration camps, which Beijing calls Vocational Education and Training Centers. These tyrannical actions give new meaning to captive nation in the Chinese context.

Now China is signaling its intention to conquer Taiwan. The Chinese military recently held drills simulating the capture of Taiwanese territory, and communist officials and military officers have threatened war repeatedly with Taiwan in the past few months. Considering that Beijing spent more than two decades telegraphing its eventual takeover of Hong Kong, America and the world would be foolish to ignore Chinas clear desire to make Taiwan its captive.

Captive Nations Week was created precisely to draw American attention to situations such as these. While Communist China is far and away the most aggressive nation that embraces a Marxist ideology, there are several others. Communist Cuba essentially has taken Venezuela captive, and it has tried to do the same with Nicaragua. So, too, are Laos, North Korea and Vietnam still beholden to communist tyranny. This week should be a time for Americans of all backgrounds to express our sadness at the plight of the more than 1.5 billion people who still live in communist regimes.

Is it too much to ask to bring back Captive Nations Week? It may be too early to ask for the spontaneous street parades seen in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. But its not too soon for policymakers to rally around this annual event. It could and should become a central theme of U.S. foreign policy, especially with the growing realization on both sides of the political aisle that America is now forced to counter the global ambitions and predatory behavior of China.

What would that look like? Captive Nations Week would be an excellent time to roll out new sanctions against individuals and companies that participate in Chinese oppression. It also could provide an opening to announce new trade and economic measures that prevent Beijing from profiting from the places and people it dominates. By tying these actions to the concept of captive nations, policymakers would give their policies the kind of moral foundation that often has been missing in recent years. It would reaffirm that Americas pursuit of its national interests is inherently linked to the defense of universal ideals such as freedom and democracy.

Captive Nations Week once signified exactly that. Although it has been largely forgotten, its symbolic power remains as strong as ever both for the American people and those who are oppressed around the world. The U.S. has nothing to lose, and something to gain, by bringing it back.

Marion Smith is executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @smithmarion.

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It's 'Captive Nations Week' here's why we should care | TheHill - The Hill

New Delhi/Lucknow, Jul 21 (IANS): Congress in Uttar Pradesh is on an active mode ever since Priyanka Gandhi took over as General Secretary In charge of the party in the state and have made strong interventions from taking up farmers issues in Sonbhadra to offering buses for migrants during the lockdown which ran into a controversy.

As Gandhi makes interventions at regular intervals, state President Ajay Kumar Lallu hits the streets almost daily.

And all this is happening even as former Union Minister Jitin Prasada is trying to mobilise his community -- the most influential Brahmins -- even though the state party unit, as a whole, is not focussing on this.

Priyanka Gandhi through her tweets, statements and strong intervention is trying to position the Congress as the main opposition in the state even though the party was decimated in the last Lok Sabha election, winning just one seat -- Rae Bareli, which is considered the Gandhi family pocket borough.

Nadeem Javed, Chairman of the minority department of the party, said, "After Priyanka Gandhi came to the fore raising the issue of Covid management and law and order, the party has managed to catch the eyeballs of the people.

Jitin Prasada, who is trying to cash on Brahmin resentment against the current government led by Yogi Adityanath, has floated Brahmin Chetna Parishad and have been meeting scores of people through social media and holding meetings of his community, said: "Since independence, Brahmins have been never felt so helpless and been subjected to harassment.

"Since the past few years, the Brahmins are being treated badly and have been insulted knowingly. This is a part of a conspiracy and it is time to raise the voice against such atrocities."

The Brahmins, though, constitute only about 11 per cent of the population but their influence could change the game for the Congress which has withered away since 1989, when the state saw its last Brahmin Chief Minister N.D. Tiwari.

The same strategy was adopted by Mayawati in 2007 when BSP came to power with majority and the credit was given to Brahmins. Later, the community switched over to the BJP.

Brahmins are opinion makers in the state.

Said a party insider, "There is a vacuum of Brahmin leadership in the party. We once had leaders like N.D. Tiwari, Kamlapati Tripathi and Uma Shankar Dikshit but the community has no leader in the Congress now."

Meanwhile Ajay Kumar Lallu the state President has been on streets agitating against the government. He said: "We are struggling for the people and Congress does not see it in terms of political benefit but the way the government has adopted the method of oppression to silence the dissenting voices."

The Congress is upsetting the equations in the state where the Samajwadi party is still considered as the main opposition party but in optics, Congress has taken away the sheen from it, political analysts feel, the problem for the Congress is its weak organisation and lack of proper social engineering in comparison to the SP and BSP.

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Cong unleash 3-fold strategy in UP to be main opponent - Daijiworld.com

Kim Campbell-McLean is the executive director of the AnnauKatiget Tumingit Regional Inuit Women's Association. (Submitted by Kim Campbell-McLean)

When I heard the Newfoundland and Labrador government decided it was no longer appropriate to have a holiday celebrating John Cabot, I was shocked and ecstatic, both at the same time.

Needless to say, as an Indigenous woman, I have never celebrated Discovery Day.

In June, Premier Dwight Ball announced that the government will no longer call the holiday nearest June 24 "Discovery Day." For now, it will be called "the June holiday."

Ball also stated that in the spirit of reconciliation, the government will consult with Indigenous governments and organizations before a new name is chosen.

I am excited for the prospect of a holiday we all can celebrate and enjoy as a province, and I was shocked because the issue finally got the attention it needed to bring about positive change and reconciliation.

I thought about my ancestors.

I thought about the oppression they went through and how strong and resilient they were.

The writings of my great-great-grandmother, Lydia Campbell, came flooding through my mind like from a burst dam.

She wrote about the first race of Inuit people and how tall and beautiful they were. She wrote about how many Inuit families there used to be and on her travels seeing 20 or more sealskin tents all together. She wrote about seeing the Innu in their beautiful red birchbark canoes paddling beautiful Lake Melville, with the Innu men steering from the back, the women helping by paddling, and the children in front singing songs in their mother tongue.

She wrote about seeing Inuit after they returned from a world's fair, and how much they had changed. They no longer spoke Inuttitut and no longer dressed like Inuit.

She went on to write that over the years there was only one kayak left in the bay and hardly any Inuit or Innu around like there used to be. In her published diaries, she blames the European settlers for their demise.

I reflected, and then I whispered, "This one is for you."

I quietly thanked two very strong women who made a major influence on my life while growing up. They taught me that when you go forward in life with the purest of intentions for the betterment for all, profound change can happen.

It was with that teaching in mind, when I agreed to contribute my thoughts to Maclean's magazine last year. A reporter was working on an article last summer about Discovery Day.

That experience led me to write Premier Dwight Ball, who is also minister of Indigenous and Labrador affairs, just days later, officially asking for the name of the Discovery Day holiday to be changed.

After all, it was the premier himself who stated that if he received an official request to change the name of Discovery Day, his government would be open for discussion.

A few weeks ago, I was a guest on CBC Radio's CrossTalkto talk about this very issue once again. The timing of the show was as profound as the message:the need for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the need to decolonize our province.

Three days later, the premier announced that indeed, the holiday would be changed as of at that moment. Humbly, I have to wonder: did I help to make that change happen?

Well, folks, this is what reconciliation looks like in the year 2020. Decolonizing, one step at a time.

As a society, it is up to us to bring about reconciliation. It is up to us to look at and call out systemic racism for what it is and to advocate for change. The colonialistpolicies that make up government structures and institutions in our province and within Canada need to be challenged, by us.

It is up to us to do the work and hold our government accountable.

It is up to us.

Over and out.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

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This is what reconciliation looks like: Why Discovery Day needed to go - CBC.ca

There are least two areas in which this government, despite the odds, seems to have done some stellar work the first is the diplomatic work by Mohammad Sadiq that is helping forge Pakistans seriousness as Afghanistans most reliable partner and neighbour, and the second is the work to contain Covid-19 by Asad Umar and the NCOC that has clearly eased the post Ramazan/Ramadan and Eidul Fitr spike of Covid-19 infections and fatalities.

Both represent major successes for Pakistan, tenuous and temporary as they may be. Yet PM Khan and his supporters will find little to no traction for celebration. Hardly anyone has even acknowledged these positive developments. It all seems a little unfair. The big question is: why?

Well, lets imagine Prime Minister Imran Khan waking up every morning to assess his stature as the countrys undisputed leader. How would he be feeling? He has a cabinet in which members go after one another harder than they do the opposition. He has a press and media that has stopped gushing at his every smile and soundbyte (for the most part). He has a regional security situation in which Indias oppression in Kashmir is intensifying, with reports of thousands of RSS thugs being shipped to further intimidate and cow ordinary Kashmiris. He also has to consider the world after a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, with worrying reports of TTP consolidation and public threats being made by a mysteriously free and liberated Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Most of all, PM Khan is going to be held responsible, rightly or wrongly, for a broken and dysfunctional economy in which Covid-19 has wreaked untold havoc scores of unemployed Pakistanis will either not be covered by the BISP/Ehsaas programme, or will not find a one-time Rs12,000 cash grant to be enough to survive on.

If you think about all this from PM Khans perspective though, it would seem a little bit unfair. Covid-19 wasnt invented by PM Khan, and yet he has taken a lot of flak (for off-the-cuff speeches and misstatements) and received little credit (for relatively better than expected infection and fatalities numbers in July, and a swift passing of the post Ramazan/Ramadan and post-Eid spike).

Indias annexation of Kashmir on August 5, 2019 was not enacted by PM Khan. Yet many question what the government and PM Khan have done for Kashmir and Kashmiris.

The economic mess that PM Khan inherited has certainly not been fixed, but prior to Covid-19 he and his team had certainly managed to lend greater stability to the macroeconomic numbers leave aside the fact that I believe deficit reduction to be a misguided setting of tactics as strategic objectives (fiscal and external balances are tools to achieve policy goals, they cannot and should not be goals in and of themselves).

In so many things, whilst this government has been ill-prepared to govern, incapable of grappling with the wider challenges, and undeniably bereft of a grip over its own ambitious reform agenda: it has not been terrible at everything. Indeed, in perhaps the issue that should matter most to all Pakistanis the well-being of our fellow citizens the expansion of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) under the Ehsaas umbrella, has been one of the truly great moments in Pakistani statehood. With over 16 million households now having received an unconditional cash transfer of Rs12,000, the path to a universal basic income in Pakistan is now clearly defined. This alone can (and should) stand as an outstanding achievement for this government.

Yet Islamabad is abuzz with rumours. The intensity of the whispering ebbs and flows, but there certainly continues to be an intense sense of foreboding in the air. Smart money knows that the three pillars of the current regime are not going anywhere. But there is constant uncertainty and a wider sense of instability that makes the monsoon air thick with intrigue and anticipation. Again, the big question is: why?

PM Khan and his supporters will claim that the criticism of the government is rooted in vested interests as he and his cabinet enact major reforms to the countrys system of governance. When asked for proof, they will offer up the declaration of assets by the special assistants to the prime minister, and the publication of the sugar and wheat pricing scandals. But publishing these lists is neither a reform nor particularly reformist. From Hamood-ur-Rehman to Quetta, to Abbottabad to Faizabad, if the publication or leaking of facts and analysis was the same thing as reform, Pakistan would look very different than it is. This government either doesnt want to, or worse, is not capable of distinguishing between noise-making and system-making.

And this, at its heart, is the problem. The current government is not nearly as incompetent and incapable of governing as it seems. Its most profound and serious challenge is not Maryam Nawaz Sharif, or Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, or Maulana Fazlur Rehman, or any other political competition. This governments most profound and serious challenge is the undiagnosed and untreated case of verbal dysentery that afflicts almost every single member of PM Khans inner circle, and especially aspirants to this inner circle.

This is a killer flaw, and it is why there is so much political uncertainty in Islamabad. On its merits, the Pakistani opposition today cannot even violate the gag orders that restrict the primary leaders of the most potent opposition party, the PML-N. They are not about to enact some grand scheme to take down PM Khan. But what the PML-N, PPP, JUI-F and every other opponent do have going for them is PM Khan himself. They know that, for example, a series of slogans shouted at him in the assembly can distract him from his agenda, and set him and his core PTI support base on a destructive path.

Opponents of PM Khan have figured out the killer formula. You dont need to beat Imran Khan indeed, given how power is configured in Pakistan today, you cant. All you need to do is let Imran Khan beat himself. And beat himself he will.

The most important challenge facing the PTI government and its survival is not politics. It is economics. Covid-19 has exposed the foundational mess the economy is in. Daronomics, whilst perhaps unsustainable, and certainly costly, worked. It produced the one thing that this country needs more than any other thing: GDP growth.

Ask PM Khan: what is your economic vision? You will get a flurry of feel-good soundbytes. The word corruption will appear early and often. Why? There is no vision. Ask PM Khan: how will Pakistan enact a jobs-heavy recovery from Covid-19? You will get more soundbytes. More corruption blah-blah. Why? There are no jobs. Not now. Not in six months. Ask PM Khan: what is the plan for Pakistan to take advantage of the economic opportunities Covid-19 creates in international trade? You will get some feel-good soundbyte about diaspora and the PTIs fundraising prowess. Why? There is no plan.

This government will not go down because it is incompetent. It is not dramatically more incompetent than any previous government. It will go down because it is stuck on a container, nearly six years after the container almost sunk the entire political capital of the PTI. Being PM or a member of the cabinet is not a performance on a container. It is real. The ultimate test of the Pakistani leader is how many jobs she or he helps create, and how much more money he can put in pockets, in showrooms and on the streets.

Take a good look at the words and actions of PM Khan and his cabinet and ask yourself: where will the jobs come from? Where will the growth come from? How will more money get into more Pakistani pockets?

Silence.

Thats why this government is in trouble. The rest is just noise. And most of it is coming from the government itself.

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

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Disembarking the container - The News International