Our graphic novel YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION was selected to be on @MSNBC and Ali Velshi's Banned Book Club segment. Thank you so much to Ali and the production team! @badiucao and I enjoyed our stop in the studio to discuss authoritarianism, democracy, and activism!
As someone who has had my press credentials denied by authoritarian China, I never thought I'd see this crap happen in the US. And this "most reporters are okay but @Acosta is aggressive" thing is the EXACT line Chinese propaganda printed about me. It's a tactic, people.
News out of Asia is insane today. 🇵🇭 36 years after People Power in the Philippines, the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos is set to be the next president. Yet it's people power in 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka as PM Rajapaksa steps down and they've literally burned his house down. 🔥
BY THE WAY WHITE HOUSE REPORTERS: Something foreign correspondents in places like Beijing and Moscow have learned: Hang together, or else you'll hang separately. My peers supported me when I got expelled from China. That stuff matters.
Elon Musk has a Tesla factory in China and he wants to sell more cars there, as many China observers note. What happens if Beijing leans on him about say, a Uyghur or Hong Kong activist account? Or about Chinese disinformation bots leveraging this platform?
The people of Hong Kong should be up for the Nobel Peace Prize. Two million protesters — orderly, recycling, giving way to ambulances as massive crowds part, giving safety hat and gear to visiting foreign correspondents — what better example of peaceful resistance in 2019?
In my grandparents’ generation, Japan was a destroyer, not a defender. Now Kishida is in Ukraine, a strong democratic voice. As an ethnic Chinese, I then see Xi with Putin the same week and honestly, the contrast — it makes me sad.
Notable how swiftly India’s Narendra Modi responded — he announced a national day of mourning two hours ago while many world leaders are still working on their statements of condolences.
Sharing a picture from my most recent meeting with my dear friend, Shinzo Abe in Tokyo. Always passionate about strengthening India-Japan ties, he had just taken over as the Chairman of the Japan-India Association.
Beijing shot its own people 30 years ago. The world went ahead and did business with China. A million people are in concentration camps. Global trade continues apace. And now in Hong Kong — Beijing knows exactly what the world will do — so what incentive does it have to stop?
Right now, they're singling out @Acosta. But tomorrow it'll be Journalist X. And later Journalist Y and Z. It can happen very quickly. And of course, there's always something wrong with the reporter. They'll go back ten years to find something you misreported if they have to.
My theory why so many dudes weirdly, viscerally hate Zelenskyy: It’s because he didn’t flee when the tanks rolled into Ukraine. Deep down, bros around the world know they wouldn’t have done the same, so there’s an attempt to tear down the man that reminds them of their cowardice.
If you care about Ukraine 🇺🇦 and its fight for democracy, then it's worth learning about the election in the Philippines 🇵🇭 and what's at stake or what just happened in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰. In the latter protesters have been out in the streets for weeks.
In both the Philippines 🇵🇭 and Sri Lanka 🇱🇰, you're talking about decades-long political dynasties, the battle for democracy against authoritarianism, the limits and power of the people — all set within the dumpster fire of misinformation on social media.
