On Friday the Beijing controlled government in Hong Kong arrested Jimmy Lai, media tycoon, for unlawful assembly related to pro-democracy protests on August 31. This New York Post article states Lai may face 5 years in prison.

Along with China’s expansionist activities in the Phillipine Sea and the Uighur Concentration camps, the Hong Kong protests have taken the back seat in news coverage to the COVID-19 virus.

Doing a search for news stories on the virus yielded hundreds of results. Articles on the other China stories were few and far between. Whether the virus was intentionally released or not, the result has been to draw attention away from the human rights violations, expansionist ambitions and anti-democratic activities of the Chinese Government. The book, Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky describes this media phenomena in detail.