Gordon Cheung 🔥 張逸斌

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[Gordon Cheung 🔥 張逸斌 @gordoncheung]

1st part of 3. The lovely ColArt team made a short film (directed by Storyfire) about me pottering and wittering on about making art in the studio. Thanks Sophia Olver for arranging stuff. https://t.co/BLOZzFe2Bv
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@colart_united @gallerygriffin #gordoncheung #art #artiststudio

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

I rarely have reasons to be proud of France these days, but this is definitely one.

France's parliament just voted - unanimously, 170 votes to 0 - a law that institutionalizes the restitution of cultural artifacts looted during the colonial era (the law covers a massive 157-year period).

It's going absolutely viral in Chinese social media because of this speech 👇 by MP @JPatrierLeitus who noted in Parliament that it included items stolen to China during the joint British-French sack of the Summer Palace in 1860.

Patrier-Leitus cites Victor Hugo's famous 1861 letter to Captain Butler, the British officer who wrote to him seeking his endorsement of the expedition - and got the exact opposite.

Hugo wrote (whole letter here: https://t.co/zyWomXJYBn):

"One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned. Victory can be a thieving woman, or so it seems. The devastation of the Summer Palace was accomplished by the two victors acting jointly. Mixed up in all this is the name of Elgin, which inevitably calls to mind the Parthenon. What was done to the Parthenon was done to the Summer Palace, more thoroughly and better, so that nothing of it should be left. All the treasures of all our cathedrals put together could not equal this formidable and splendid museum of the Orient. It contained not only masterpieces of art, but masses of jewelry. What a great exploit, what a windfall! One of the two victors filled his pockets; when the other saw this he filled his coffers. And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. Such is the story of the two bandits.

We Europeans are the civilized ones, and for us the Chinese are the barbarians. This is what civilization has done to barbarism.

Before history, one of the two bandits will be called France; the other will be called England. But I protest, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity! the crimes of those who lead are not the fault of those who are led; Governments are sometimes bandits, peoples never.

The French empire has pocketed half of this victory, and today with a kind of proprietorial naivety it displays the splendid bric-a-brac of the Summer Palace. I hope that a day will come when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China.

Meanwhile, there is a theft and two thieves. I take note.

This, Sir, is how much approval I give to the China expedition."

Hugo's letter is so revered in China that a bronze bust of him stands today at the Summer Palace ruins - I believe the only instance of a Westerner honored in China at the site of his own country's crime.

A powerful testament of how much a single act of intellectual honesty can redeem, if not a nation, then at least a name.

Hugo was also prescient: as Patrier-Leitus notes, that day "when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China" has indeed come (even though the "delivered and cleansed" part is, overall, pretty questionable in the current context).

This new law doesn't only concern China and the Summer Palace: it concerns ALL stolen artifacts by France during the period ranging between November 1815 and April 1972 - corresponding to the start of the second French colonial empire to the entry into force of the UNESCO convention on cultural property.

It's a massive scope: 157 years, thousands of objects and dozens of nations with potential claims. It's France reckoning with its colonial past in an unprecedented way and the fact ALL of France's MPs voted in favor of the law, without a single exception, is also pretty remarkable.

Hopefully this will also serve as a signal to other countries, especially the UK - the other "bandit" in Hugo's letter.

There is this Chinese saying from the Zuo Zhuan (左传), one of the foundational Confucian classics:

"To err and be able to correct it - there is no greater virtue." ("过而能改，善莫大焉", "guò ér néng gǎi, shàn mò dà yān").

France, with this law, proved its virtue.

[Gordon Cheung 🔥 張逸斌 @gordoncheung]

@thecyrusjanssen There’s also an angel/demon above him

[Shadow of Ezra @ShadowofEzra]

Sir Richard Knighton admits the United Kingdom is preparing a major plan to ready the whole country for a major global war.

Everybody, from the military and police to hospitals and industry, has to be ready for the transition to war.

[Carl Zha @CarlZha]

Chinese kids know ball

[PLA Military Updates🇨🇳 @PLA_MilitaryUpd]

🇨🇳Chinese social media rap song: “Too Much Winning💸”😂

This song is actually FIRE 🔥

[Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 @joncoopertweets]

Damn. Iran just dropped an A+ level troll on Trump in this new LEGO movie.

I’m no fan of Iran at all… but this one actually nails him. 😂😂

[Aleksey The Great 🇷🇺🎖 @aleksthgrt]

🚨BREAKING

🇨🇳 China :

"Despite its 240-year history, the US has only managed to go 16 years without war."

"It has established 800 military bases in more than 80 countries around the world."

"The US is the main actor behind global chaos and the biggest destroyer of regional peace and stability."

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

People aren't paying enough attention to this but it's genuinely insane.

This 👇is Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to China under the Biden administration.

First of all the very notion that he'd gloat and call it a "badge of honor" to have so antagonized the country he was ambassador to that they had to issue an official statement to rebuke him says a lot about the man.

In a normal world, diplomacy is about building bridges, not bragging about burning them...

But that's not the insane part. The reason why China issued their statement (found here: https://t.co/5BfUhtOiac) is because Burns had been publicly taunting them for NOT doing more to oppose America.

Yes, you read that right, the former **American** ambassador to China, was mocking China for being **not hostile enough** toward his own country.

I'm not exaggerating. Back on March 1st, at the beginning of the Iran war, Burns called China a "feckless friend" of Iran for not doing more to help Iran fight his own country (https://t.co/yFV9xEB0zD).

He then doubled down on Bloomberg TV on March 28th, calling China "fickle" for failing to confront the U.S. over both Iran and Venezuela (https://t.co/4f0eFhyCqR).

I mean, how unhinged is that? The man keeps mocking a rival nuclear-armed power for exercising restraint toward his own country and refusing to start WW3.

And then, when China "rebukes" him, saying that he's trying to "drive a wedge" between China and other countries while "distorting China's stance for peace" - honestly one of the most measured responses imaginable given what he'd been saying - Burns treats it like a trophy.

A former top diplomat, proud of trying to make the world's most dangerous relationship - that he was in charge of - worse.

And keep in mind: this isn't some Trump admin loony who used to be a Fox News host or some sort of shoddy businessman. Burns is supposed to be the best the American foreign policy establishment has to offer: a career diplomat under both parties, ambassador to NATO, Undersecretary of State, Biden's handpicked envoy to Beijing, and now professor "of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations" at Harvard Kennedy School.

That's the scariest part of all: Burns isn't a deviation from the system. He IS the system. Which means rot isn't at the margins - it's at the core.

[Theophan the Recluse Fan @LowStudies]

@kajakallas You've cut off oil from the Strait of Hormuz by not having enough guts to stand up to the US.

[DadHDdiy @DontBlockFlMan]

@Matt_Pinner

[Censored Humans @CensoredHumans]

Anyone caught that hand gesture during Netanyahu's speech?

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

The difference is by design.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Says everything you need to know about this guy that his "heart aches" for the "3 American heroes" killed while attacking his own country, but he had nothing to say about the 150+ Iranian elementary schoolgirls they just killed (https://t.co/3Alyjxh6jw).

Like father, like son.

[Li Zexin 李泽欣 @XH_Lee23]

Time to repost:

"The US is a war addict. Throughout its over 240-year history, it has been at war for all but 16 years.

The US has 800 overseas military bases in over 80 countries and regions.

The US is the main cause of international disorder, global turbulence, and regional instability."

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

The attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States are illegal, unprovoked and unjustifiable.

Peace and diplomacy was possible. Instead, Israel and the United States chose war.

This is the behaviour of rogue states — and they have jeopardised the safety of humankind around the world with this catastrophic act of aggression.

Our government must condemn this flagrant breach of international law, and urgently pursue a foreign policy based on justice, sovereignty and peace.

[adam @AdameMedia]

Bombing Iran
Starving Cuba
Enslaving Venezuela
Genociding Palestine
Depopulating Ukraine
Threatening Greenland

The US and Israel are the single greatest threat to world peace. They are the terrorists of the world and we are all victims.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

The world's two rogue states, Israel and the USA, have started a war not against Iran but against the whole world. We stand with Iranians, with Humanity, against the notion that Israel and the US can bomb anyone their fancy takes them to bomb. https://t.co/Xn8bo7q5Xc

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

The U.S. is literally launching a global fight to prevent nations from protecting their citizens' private data.

And they're simultaneously telling everyone they shouldn't use Huawei because of privacy concerns...

[adam @AdameMedia]

America is literally run by the Epstein list.

[Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 @jacksonhinkle]

Israel is a terrorist state