'Show Absolutely No Mercy': Inside China's Mass Detentions
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C M Y K Nxxx,2019-11-17,A,001,Bs-4C,E3_+ Late Edition Today, mostly cloudy, brisk, high 43. Tonight, mostly cloudy, a bit of rain late, breezy, low 38. Tomorrow, cloudy, periodic rain, cold, high 46. Details, SportsSunday, Page 8. VOL. CLXIX .. No. 58,514+ © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2019 $6.00 Aide Disclosed INTENSE LOBBYING Bolton Meeting ‘Show Absolutely No Mercy’: BY FEDEX SLASHED About Ukraine Inside China’s Mass Detentions ITS TAX BILL TO $0 Trump Was Unmoved By AUSTIN RAMZY for how to handle their anguished questions, be- After Private Talk and CHRIS BUCKLEY Leaked documents ginning with the most obvious: Where is my HONG KONG — The students booked their family? A $1.6 BILLION WINDFALL tickets home at the end of the semester, hoping reveal how Xi “They’re in a training school set up by the government,” the prescribed answer began. If By NICHOLAS FANDOS for a relaxing break after exams and a summer of and other leaders pressed, officials were to tell students that their and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG happy reunions with family in China’s far west. Pledges to Invest Savings relatives were not criminals — yet could not WASHINGTON — John R. Instead, they would soon be told that their have secretly waged From the Trump Cut parents were gone, relatives had vanished and leave these “schools.” Bolton, President Trump’s na- a ‘people’s war’ The question-and-answer script also includ- tional security adviser, met pri- neighbors were missing — all of them locked up Were Not Fulfilled in an expanding network of detention camps ed a barely concealed threat: Students were to vately with the president in Au- to round up be told that their behavior could either shorten gust as part of a bid to persuade built to hold Muslim ethnic minorities. or extend the detention of their relatives. Mr. Trump to release $391 million The authorities in the Xinjiang region wor- Muslim minorities This article is by Jim Tankersley, “I’m sure that you will support them, be- in security assistance to Ukraine, ried the situation was a powder keg. And so they Peter Eavis and Ben Casselman. in Xinjiang. cause this is for their own good,” officials were a senior National Security Council prepared. WASHINGTON — In the 2017 advised to say, “and also for your own good.” aide told House impeachment in- The leadership distributed a classified direc- fiscal year, FedEx owed more than The directive was among 403 pages of inter- vestigators last month. tive advising local officials to corner returning $1.5 billion in taxes. The next year, The meeting, which has not students as soon as they arrived and keep them nal documents that have been shared with The it owed nothing. What changed been previously reported, came quiet. It included a chillingly bureaucratic guide Continued on Page 12 was the Trump administration’s as Mr. Bolton sought to marshal tax cut — for which the company Mr. Trump’s cabinet secretaries had lobbied hard. and top national security advisers The public face of its lobbying to convince the president that it Where Is My Family? effort, which included a tax pro- was in the United States’ best in- posal of its own, was FedEx’s terest to unfreeze the funds to help This document, obtained by The New York Times, advised Chinese officials in the Xinjiang region what founder and chief executive, Ukraine defend itself against Rus- to tell students whose parents had been detained in camps built to indoctrinate Muslim minorities. To Frederick Smith, who repeatedly sia. But Mr. Bolton emerged with protect the source’s anonymity, The Times recreated this page to eliminate any identifying markings. took to the airwaves to champion Mr. Trump unmoved, and in- the power of tax cuts. “If you make structed the aide to look for new the United States a better place to opportunities to get those officials Detainees are called “concen- invest, there is no question in my in front of Mr. Trump. trated education and training mind that we would see a renais- “The extent of my recollection school students,” one of sance of capital investment,” he is that Ambassador Bolton simply several euphemisms the said on an August 2017 radio show said he wasn’t ready to do it,” said Chinese government uses. hosted by Larry Kudlow, who is the aide, Timothy Morrison, refer- now chairman of the National ring to Mr. Trump, according to a Economic Council. transcript of his testimony re- Four months later, President leased by House Democrats on Question No. 1: Where is Trump signed into law the $1.5 tril- Saturday. my family? lion tax cut that became his signa- Mr. Bolton, who left the White ture legislative achievement. House in September, has emerged FedEx reaped big savings, bring- over weeks of interviews as per- “You have nothing to ing its effective tax rate to less haps the single most important worry about” — the food is than zero in fiscal year 2018 from witness who has evaded House high-quality, and tuition is 34 percent in fiscal year 2017, Democrats as they build a case free, the document says. meaning that, over all, the govern- that Mr. Trump abused the powers Former detainees say ment technically owed it money. of the presidency by withholding facilities are sometimes But it did not increase investment vital military assistance and a overcrowded and unsanitary, in new equipment and other as- coveted White House meeting and food can be withheld as sets in the fiscal year that fol- from Ukraine until it delivered in- punishment. lowed, as Mr. Smith said busi- vestigations he wanted. The new nesses like his would. disclosure only makes clearer the Nearly two years after the tax significance of his potential testi- law passed, the windfall to corpo- mony. rations like FedEx is becoming It also underlines the dilemma Question No. 2: Why are clear. A New York Times analysis that House Democrats face over my relatives required to be of data compiled by Capital IQ their decision to press ahead with in these schools? shows no statistically meaningful proceedings without his testi- relationship between the size of mony. Last week, Mr. Bolton’s law- the tax cut that companies and in- yer told House investigators that Family members sent away dustries received and the invest- his client could discuss “many rel- “have come under different ments they made. If anything, the evant meetings and conversa- degrees of harmful companies that received the big- tions” of interest to their inquiry, influence in religious gest tax cuts increased their capi- Continued on Page 24 extremism and violent tal investment by less, on average, terrorist thoughts,” the than companies that got smaller document says. cuts. TWO VERSIONS MSNBC and Fox FedEx’s financial filings show News had different takes on the that the law has so far saved it at impeachment hearings. PAGE 25 Continued on Page 22 In Louisiana, Governor’s Victory After 5 Years, Youth Football Man Flees ICE, and His Judge Shows Limits of Trump’s Support Roars Back in East Texas Town Faces a Trial and Time in Jail By RICK ROJAS and JEREMY ALFORD By KEN BELSON By ELLEN BARRY BATON ROUGE, La. — Gov. weeks of the race, warning Louisi- MARSHALL, Texas — One had banned only five years ago. NEWTON, Mass. — When she movement, passing a series of le- John Bel Edwards of Louisiana, ana voters that a loss would re- evening last spring, a retired doc- Football is a powerful cultural was brought before a court this gal rulings that constrain Immi- the only Democratic governor in flect poorly on his presidency — tor named James Harris carried a force in Marshall, a city of about spring, charged with the federal gration and Customs Enforce- the Deep South, narrowly won re- the same appeal he made in Ken- pickle jar filled with bright red 24,000 people in East Texas, crime of obstruction of justice, ment from detaining immigrants election Saturday, overcoming the tucky earlier this month to try to Jell-O to Marshall’s school board where high school games can Judge Shelley Joseph did not look in courthouses. intervention of President Trump, help Gov. Matt meeting. like a rebel. The judge’s who visited the state multiple Bevin, who ulti- He shook it up so the Jell-O Her face was tear-streaked, and supporters say ON DEFENSE times in an effort to help Mr. Ed- mately lost. sloshed against the glass, a repre- bore an expression of helpless dis- she is no cru- ward’s Republican challenger and Of the three sentation, he told the school board Debating When to Play may, as if she were struggling to sader, but an in- demonstrate his own clout. governor’s members, of what happens to the take in the upside-down world in experienced It was the second blow at the races this year, brain during a hard hit in football which she was the defendant. judge who draw half of the city’s residents ballot box for Mr. Trump this all in deep red and what can happen to those who In April, she and a court officer, stumbled into a and church ends early on Sundays month in a Republican-leaning states, Republi- are allowed to play the sport at a Wesley MacGregor, were accused bitterly con- state, following the Democratic cans won only young age. when the Dallas Cowboys are of allowing an immigrant to evade tested area of playing. victory in the Kentucky gover- one, in Missis- Gov.