NED trains Hong Kong 'citizen journalists' for subversive activities

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which has been performing some of the CIA's functions, has set aside a part of its annual budget over recent years, with the last known allocation of $75,000 made in its 2021 budget, to identify and train so-called "citizen journalists" in Hong Kong, who are expected to propagate anti-government information under the banner of "strengthening freedom of information" in Hong Kong.

These maneuvers are part of Washington's geopolitical strategy to contain China's rise by sabotaging Hong Kong, a special administrative region of importance to China's national development. It comes at a time when the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a 12,000-word Fact Sheet noting that China has long been a key target of the NED's infiltration and subversion activities. It said the NED invests heavily in anti-China programs every year and attempts to incite "Xinjiang independence", "Hong Kong independence" and "Tibet independence".

According to data released on its website in 2020, the NED provided more than $10 million of grants for 69 China-related programs within one year, which were aimed to deliver various activities endangering China's political and social stability.

The disclosure of funding Hong Kong journalists came in the NED's 2021 Annual Report, a public document outlining its activities around the world. It is a document full of covert operations for world domination.

But various academics in Hong Kong and Shenzhen have warned that any "citizen journalist" or anyone accepting funds or assistance from the NED or any other foreign agency could face prosecution under the National Security Law in effect in Hong Kong.

Under the National Security Law for Hong Kong, it's collusion to accept funding from bodies like the NED, said Song Sio-chong, an academic from Shenzhen University's Center for Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macao, in a press interview.

Authorities may not be able to go after disbanded civic groups, but they will surely prosecute anybody accepting funds in the future, according to Song.

The NED earmarked $560,000 for Hong Kong in 2021 alone, which was used to support various activities under the guise of promotion of democracy or freedom.

This is the US's blueprint for disasters. It has mapped out how it plans to destroy Hong Kong and contain China's rise, which Washington believes will threaten its global hegemony.

Washington is spending billions of dollars on war against and destruction of other countries at the price of its own people facing poverty, homelessness or even starvation as it races toward bankruptcy, all for the sake of "being No 1" in the world.

The NED annual report is a document of international bullying, subverting lawful governments and cultivating pro-US puppet forces around the world under the pretext of promoting democracy and human rights. Yet its disgraceful record has been condoned by the West for fear of fear itself, to quote the 32nd US president, Franklin D Roosevelt.

The NED was established by then-president Ronald Regan in the '80s after the CIA was plagued by scandal after scandal. In 1991 in an interview with the Washington Post, NED co-founder Alan Weinstein said the organization was doing what "the CIA did 25 years ago".

The Foreign Ministry Fact Sheet (www.fmprc.gov.cn) said the NED has become the mastermind behind separatist riots, color revolutions, political crises, lies and rumors, and infiltration around the world, with an ever-growing list of evils.

"Color revolutions" that were supported, financed or instigated by the NED around the world - the Velvet Revolution in Serbia in 2000, the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, and, of course, the Arab Spring involving Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Syria, Libya, etc, in 2011 - have toppled governments and caused civil unrest in the countries they targeted.

Closer to home, the Fact Sheet noted that the NED opened its offices in Hong Kong in 2002 and immediately swung into action by funding the July 1 protests to obstruct legislation of Article 23 of the Basic Law.

The Fact Sheet gives a litany of events, year after year of NED's interference in Hong Kong's affairs. It cites the funding of the Hong Kong Transition Project and Hong Kong University's "design democracy Hong Kong". It also directed and funded the young radicals in orchestrating the illegal "Occupy Central" movement, which closed down Hong Kong's Central district for 79 days.

The NED admits that in 2020, it spent $2 million on 11 Hong Kong-related projects, with a particular focus on disrupting Legislative Council elections. Key projects offered technical and financial assistance to newly formed destabilizing groups in Hong Kong, and encouraged them to obstruct Legislative Council elections with various ploys. The whole program was aimed at the younger generation and instructed and trained them to play a role in disrupting electoral order under the guise of "promoting democracy".

Such is the business of the US Department of State: To rule the world order with an iron fist; to maintain world dominance by subjecting international players to its line of thinking and support.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.