The Chinese government tried to stop the Nationalist Party covering the Leisure Clothing story
China’s ambassador to Malta, Cai Jinbiao (seen here with energy minister Konrad Mizzi) visited the Nationalist Party’s secretary-general before the Leisure Clothing stories broke and tried to ‘persuade’ him to stop the investigations.
A few days before the Nationalist Party media broke the story on violations of workers’ rights and people-trafficking at Chinese-government-owned Leisure Clothing, PN secretary-general Chris Said received a visit from the Chinese ambassador.
The purpose of the visit was to ‘persuade’ the Nationalist Party to stop its media investigation of Leisure Clothing.
At that point, there had been nothing in the media yet, but a NET News vehicle and reporters had been seen filming outside the factory and a news crew had also been seen waiting outside the Hal Far barracks where up to 300 Chinese indentured workers are confined in ramshackle conditions and rarely seen except when being transported in and out.
The PN’s newsroom had sent a cameraman, photographer and reporter to wait outside the barracks at 5.30am on a weekday, but for the first half-hour they thought they had been given the wrong information as there was absolutely no sign of life or movement. “Then suddenly at 6am a small convoy of coaches arrived and all these people filed out silently like ants, climbed into the buses and they drove off. They obviously had instructions not to wait around outside,” my source tells me.
I am also reliably informed that the Chinese ambassador tried to exert pressure – using the Chinese codes of behaviour in which nothing is ever overt or spelled out while at the same time being spelled out clearly – on the Nationalist Party’s decision-makers, saying that media investigations/coverage would damage the factory and its business, that the Nationalist Party was listening to people with an agenda and that it had been misinformed, and so on and so forth.
Bear in mind that at this point he did not know what form the coverage would take.
I am told that the PN secretary-general politely told the representative of the Chinese government that the Nationalist Party believes in press freedom, that it will not stop its journalists investigating the story, and that its only instructions to those journalists are to ensure that their facts are scrupulously correct.
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Hats off to Chris Said.
For an Ambassador to behave in this manner, it is more than evident that there is a huge stink, and the Chinese authorities are trying to use deodorants by sending their ambassador crawling to the PN. I think there are a lot more persons who have to answer for this huge scandal.
It’s great that Toni Abela is leading a delegation of the Labour Party in China. I’m sure that these brave defenders of the workers will protest in Tiananmen Square against this abuse. It would be very comforting if Dr Muscat, as leader of this progressive and liberal party, assures us that he has given such instructions.
This news should really leave many speechless.
One can only imagine what goes on behind the scenes between the Chinese dictatorship and the regime currently in government over here.
If I were in the PN’s Secretary General position during the visit by the Representative of the Repressive Regime, I would have asked ‘His Excellency’ to take out the prime minister’s balls from his pockets and lay them on the table as we speak.
I hope that the PN will not allow the Chinese methods to work in this country. Malta should only engage with China withing the framework of a democratic dialogue.
I wonder what the American ambassador’s views are on this, since she is so close to PL.
Signs of Chinese interference even with the party in Opposition.
[Daphne – EVEN with the party in Opposition? Have you not been reading this website? The Opposition (Labour) signed an agreement with China in 2010.]
Here it is, signed by The Great Leader himself:
https://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/128130324
You can find it here too:
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=384596058751
The PN should have asked for a million euros and solved their financial problems.
8 million.
With €8,000,000 the PN won’t win elections but it can just do that with a little more than 18,000 switchers.
Dak prinċipju! Għall-flus inbiegħ ruħi. Nittama li l-PN jibqa’ jżomm dan il-prinċipju… inkella jkun tilef l-għan li għalih twaqqaf dan il-partit.
My comment was totally a tongue-in-cheek one. I agree with you: better die a poor man than a rich criminal.
That the PN is in dire financial straits means only one thing: that the PN did not abuse of its position of power unlike the MLP/PN/Muscat and the gang.
The PN should have invited Ai Wei Wei to exhibit his works at PN HQ, and made TEN fricking million.
It’s not even called thinking out of the box. This is one-hat stuff.
Hear hear.
Iva, imma peress li ma kont mistieden ghall-konvenzjoni ideat, qed inhozz fl-ilma.
This can only mean that the PN has helped to persuade the Chinese to finance the likewise corrupt Labour Party in the coming elections.
[Daphne – China does so in any case. So what are you suggesting here, that the PN dives into China’s pocket alongside Labour?]
There will come a time, I know for sure, when myself and many others like me will go in front of Castille place and protest in the way we know best against this puppet subservient government much like the PEOPLE did in Tienanmen Square and in Hong Kong. Its now going too far.
The sooner, the better.
This is a sham Government, elected on a sham mandate.
Naqbel miegħek. Iż-żejjed kollu żejjed.
And let us pray that when that day of protest dawns on us, our Labour Party government won’t do what its previous incarnation did with North Korea and that Castille Square won’t become a replica of Tiananmen Square.
Let Malta’s MEPs – all of them – please promise and take note.
Today’s Times of Malta has a report about this topic.
Page 2 in bold letters ‘No abuse seen at the Leisure Clothing Factory’.
And the source of that sterling investigative reporting (worthy of a Pulitzer prize) is a…….. GWU official !
Unbelievable or what ?
I am starting to feel that the Times of Malta owners must have reasoned that rather than having to re-do their premises after another ‘spontaneous’ celebrations by PL supporters, they would rather do their whitewashing (of anything close to the PL) on the Times of Malta newspaper rather than on its own buildings. Must be cheaper in any case.
[Daphne – Times of Malta’s premises were built by the prime minister’s chief of staff (as a contracted job, I hasten to add). They are not going to be destroyed by a Labour mob any time soon. Unless, of course, Keith Schembri wants the opportunity to rebuild them and make even more money off the newspaper.]
Carry on Times of Malta.
“Mr Cai, sir, please accept my apologies, sir, Mr Cai. If these agitators spread further rumours, shame on them, we’ll close them down, Mr Cai, yes sir, we will.”
This news should have been given by the PN itself. In fact, they should have recorded the conversation and put it on YouTube.
One needs to use these methods to expose the Chinese regime.
Maybe they have and will use it when the time is right.
This also means that Malta has been crawling with Chinese spies for a very long time.
The Chinese started by planting Konrad with a Chinese wife.
The rest is history.
Well done PN we need more of this, and you need Claudette pace’s communication skills. Use her as communication ammunition in all that you do. She has a talent that is currently underutilized.
Wasn’t a Chinese man questioned about the disappearance of a large number of stray cats which were thought to be killed for food? Wasn’t he the cook at that factory? Is it possible all this went unnoticed when police investigated his story?
[Daphne – Yes, it’s the very same man and the very same factory.]
Kemm ghanda detectives fil pulizija tajbin alla j’bierek. Lanqas kapaci jaraw l’ovju. U ghandna secret service ukoll u hadt ma jinduna u jsaqsi domandi. Vera pajjiz imnejjeq.
What the secret service is prepared to see and not see depends on the direction the Labour begging bowl is pointing.
Ask its head.
The PN should invite Chinese dissidents to their next convention, and raise their middle finger at the fucking dictatorship.