At a virtual AGM last Sunday, South Cambridgeshire Councillor Sarah Cheung-Johnson was unanimously elected as the new Chair Chinese LibDems for 2022. The meeting was well attended including by members from the Korean and Vietnamese diaspora communities.
am a Councillor on Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and I reported to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee at our March meeting that we had to be vigilant when Hongkongers with BN(O) status start to arrive in the country in family groups. I warned that with hate crime on the rise, even in Tunbridge Wells, the Community Safety Team had to be on the alert that people are not being attacked for their ethnicity. Hate crimes had risen by 3.2% since last year due to the constant repetition on the media that Chinese were responsible for the spread of the "Wuhan virus". This is untrue as recent studies have shown Covid-19 had been brought into the UK via Europe. It was most likely from Northern Italy where there was a severe outbreak of C-19 cases with over 6,000 recorded deaths by mid March.
"Hong Kong now faces unprecedented and fundamental crisis since its establishment as a free trade port. The worst event which had taken place was the Japanese occupation. The Japanese turned this once flourishing, special and vibrant place into an abyss. The Operation Armour, which directs all life-saving materials for the post-war Hong Kong, was based on a mutual trust and support and a special bond traversing blood and racial differences. It is no exaggeration that the people of Hong Kong owes something to Her Majesty. After delving into the history of WWII Hong Kong, I can say it fundamentally changed my view and I am feeling I have some special duty as one of the British Nationals.
The following letter by Linda Chung to the local press in Camden, Hampstead and Highgate and published in full this week is reproduced below:
"This House Believes China is interested in co-existence rather than domination".
It was another action packed 4-days at conference with a wide array of debates, diverse fringe and training sessions at conference. These included the Uighur motion that was passed with only 2 objectors, an emergency trade motion "Solving the Supply Chain Crisis" proposed by Sarah Olney MP and drafted by CLD executive member, Paul Reynolds (see below), and a Race Equality amendment to the Strategy motion drafted by LDCRE (LibDem Campaign for Race Equality) and supported by CLDs.
