Dictatorships Russia and China bonded by animal cruelty and belligerence

China is certainly a dictatorship. Russia is, in my view, a dictatorship dressed up as a democracy. China has no genuine animal protection laws. There is mass animal cruelty. There is change afoot because there are people in China who want to see change and animals protected. But for such a large country to have no overarching animal protection law is a scandal and it surprises me that they are not made pariahs internationally.

 Dictatorships Russia and China bonded by animal cruelty. The circus lions of Russia where they are exploited and kept under deplorable conditions and trained cruelly. Image: see credit bottom left.

Russia lives in the past. My research indicates that in 2010 there were no federal laws in Russia to protect animals. In 2014, Russia for the first time adopted an overarching animal welfare act Federal Law Number 498 but it seems to be defective and I would argue poorly enforced. There is mass fur farming which is inherently cruel and what prompted this post was the desire by Russia to hang onto the past and continue to use animals in circuses.

Below is a list of countries which have passed bans on the use of wild animals in circuses according to Stop Circus Suffering.com. 

• Austria
• Bolivia 
• Bosnia and Herzegovina 
• Colombia 
• Costa Rica 
• Croatia Cyprus 
• El Salvador
• England 
• Estonia 
• Greece 
• Guatemala 
• Ireland 
• Israel 
• Luxembourg 
• Macedonia 
• Malta 
• Mexico 
• The Netherlands 
• Paraguay 
• Peru 
• Romania 
• Scotland 
• Serbia 
• Singapore 
• Slovakia 
• Slovenia

There is a growing movement in Russia to ban the exploitation of animals in circuses but they think their circuses are the best. There is a long tradition. The state-run company Rosgostsirk which, as I understand it, organises 38 static and five travelling services across the country received 1.3 billion rubles in state aid. The organisers of the circuses regard animal advocates as nutcases spreading myths. Their attitude is very similar to sport and trophy hunters who also like to entertain themselves with cruelty to animals.

My focus on circus animals in Russia was prompted by a story in the Mail Online in which the Saratov circus was opening after a Covid lockdown. They were very proud of their reopening but a vicious fight broke out between lions which scared the spectators. Some of them ran for the exit. The trainers gained control with sticks but the whole thing was unedifying and unpleasant. 

It highlighted the need for change. Lions and tigers in zoos are an outdated concept. The world has moved on. Russia refuses to move on which is why they are a pretty poor country with perhaps the biggest difference between the rich and the poor on the planet.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

The video above from the Mail Online shows the scuffle or fight that broke out between the lions. It is sad to see because these lions are kept in deplorable conditions, constantly caged up and moved from pillar to post. Everybody knows it is inherently cruel to do this to lions and tigers but the Russians don't seem to see it that way. 

They considered the reopening of the circus as a "splendid momentous event". One trainer Vladislav Goncharov admitted that many countries had banned live animal performances but he said that Russia will continue to have them because children come to the circus primarily to see animals and clowns. He said "We will support and popularise it."

Cruelty is pretty well essential if you're going to train circus animals. It is inherent in the process. It is so demeaning to see these magnificent lions treated like this. As one animal rights group spokesperson, Irina Novozhilova, said, "No circus conditions will be humane for one simple reason. Training goes hand-in-hand with cruelty. Circuses are always cruel beyond limits. And circuses with animals should be banned."

Russia and China need to wake up on animal rights and welfare. Their outdated attitude to animal welfare damages them internationally. It brands them as insensitive thugs. It is time for change in these dictatorships.

Biden says China to face repercussions on human rights but what about animal rights?

I'm sure hundreds of millions of people are happy that Biden says China must face repercussions on human rights. Apparently he had a two hour conversation on the phone with the Chinese president Xi Jinping. On CNN he implied that President Xi knows that there will be repercussions, "Well...there will be repercussions for China and he knows that".

Biden and Xi. Let's have some hard talk about animal rights please. Pic in public domain.

He is of course referring to the abuses of human rights with respect to the Chinese Muslim community which has been well reported in the news media for a very long time. I think we can conclude that there is hard evidence of these abuses. It's been referred to as genocide because of forced sterilisation.

But this brief note is not about human rights, concerning as they are, it's about animal rights which are even more dramatically abused in China. I'm referring to the fur trade business in China which is the biggest in the world. I'm also referring to the cat and dog meat trade in the south of China.

I know people will say that eating cat and dog is no different to eating normal livestock but it is. These animals are killed brutally. They are rounded up from streets sometimes in the north of the country and ship down south. Sometimes they are people's pets and often times they are feral cats but this is a total breach of animal rights. There is no discussion about that. If you know about the Chinese cat meat and dog meat trade you will have to agree with me. 

The photos are too horrible to publish here. It is that bad believe me.

You could perhaps almost justify eating cats and dogs if they were killed as per European slaughter house standards. But even then I would question the concept of eating domestic cats and dogs. They are our pets. It is not part of the human-cat or dog 'contract' that we eat them. We are meant to support each other. That is the original concept and we need to stick to it.

But above all if the Chinese, because of their superstitions, think that eating cat is good for them then, please God, kill them humanely before you eat them. And if you don't and consistently abuse animals as you do, I would like to see President Biden bringing this into the equation.

It is no good confining our criticism of China to human rights. What is so difficult about joining human rights with animal rights? Why couldn't he say that China will face repercussions for human and animal rights abuses? 

You just have to add three words "and animal rights". Those three words may save the lives of millions upon millions of cats and dogs who die under incredibly distressing circumstances. What's so difficult about that?

And it is particularly galling to me because President Biden is an animal lover. He seems to have forgotten them in his statement. I trust that he will do the right thing and let's not forget the animals, please.

Woman in China wants to make a coat for a cold stray cat

This is a picture of a woman in China who is measuring up a stray cat for a coat. The picture you see was taken on the night of October 25 in the city of Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province which is in northern China. We don’t know the name of the good Samaritan in the photograph. 

The woman was filmed apparently planning to make a coat for the white stray cat that you see. She appears to be putting some felt material on the cat's back. The still image is part of a video captured by a passing woman who was with her husband. They spoke to the woman and found out that she was looking after some stray dogs as well. It tells us that this there are people in China who are very concerned about animal welfare. Sometimes people in in the West forget this because we see animal cruelty perpetrated at the wet food markets or the cat and dog meat market in the south of China and of course we can't forget the industrial scale of the cat and dog fur market. China is the major exporter of cat and dog fur. The industry is known for its cruelty.

The gentleness and kindness of the woman in the photograph also reminds us that there are no general animal welfare laws in China even in the 21st-century. The cat you see in the photograph is not protected by a nationwide animal welfare law. Thousands of years without proper protection of animals under the law has resulted in, I would argue, a generally poor relationship between the citizens of that country and their animals. This is manifested in the above-mentioned businesses which are based on animal cruelty. I know it is politically incorrect to criticise another country either directly or by implication but it is impossible to avoid it. 

 

Let's just say that this woman is an individual who is concerned about animal welfare and let's say that the government of China is not concerned about animal welfare. There is a disconnect between some citizens of the country and the government. But everyone says that there is a huge pressing need for the Chinese government to introduce animal welfare legislation ASAP in order to bring the country into the 21st century with respect to the relationship between the citizens and animals.