Category Archives: China

Patience with Putin may be ebbing among friendlier countries

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Turkey, India and China respond cooly to news of planned referendums in Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia

Signs that some countries willing to tolerate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are losing patience have emerged as Turkey, India and China responded cooly to the announcement that four Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia were planning referendums on joining the Russian Federation.

Turkey, which has been at the centre of mediation between the west and Russia, issued a sharp rebuke, saying in a statement that it was concerned by attempts to stage unilateral referendums.

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Hong Kong journalist allowed to travel to UK after court grants bail

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Ronson Chan was arrested in September as part of an ongoing crackdown on dissent and free expression in the city

The head of Hong Kong’s journalists’ association will be allowed to travel to the UK for an Oxford fellowship after a court granted him bail and declined to place restrictions on his movement over a charge of obstructing police officers.

Ronson Chan was arrested on 7 September while he was covering a residence meeting at a Hong Kong housing estate. Police allege he refused to provide ID and behaved in an “uncooperative” way despite multiple warnings, and he was charged this week. Chan has claimed innocence, saying he was within his rights to ask police for identification before he produced his.

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Chinese police detain ‘godfather of film industry’ over abuse claims

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Du Yingzhe, a well-known tutor at a prestigious teaching academy, accused of abusing at least 19 students

Chinese police have detained a man over the alleged abuse of at least 19 former students at a prestigious tutoring academy, after a viral article outlined one of the country’s most shocking #MeToo cases in years.

Du Yingzhe, 40, was a well-known tutor at Shadow Road, which assists high school students to get into the country’s best art and film schools. On Monday Du was accused by a former student of harassing, grooming and raping students, including some who were underage and a 17-year-old girl who fell pregnant.

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China’s Lipstick King reappears, months after Tiananmen ‘tank cake’ row

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Celebrity livestreamer Li Jiaqi returns to screen after nearly four months of silence following a broadcast showcasing a tank-shaped dessert

China’s leading shopping livestreamer, Li Jiaqi, has returned to online commerce platforms almost four months after his feed was suddenly cut, which viewers suspected was linked to the errant appearance of a tank-shaped cake.

Li, also known as the Lipstick King for his ability to move huge amounts of product on his sales channels, briefly appeared on Alibaba Group’s Taobao marketplace on Tuesday evening.

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Will China’s plan for a ‘green silk road’ live up to environmental promises?

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China has pledged to make its Belt and Road initiative greener, but critics say environmental guidelines ‘nonexistent’

In July 2019, China rolled out the red carpet for the Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina. Flown to Beijing by the Chinese government, she was greeted with an honour guard and banquet and received by the president, Xi Jinping, and the prime minister, Li Keqiang. Three days later, she returned to her capital, Dhaka, with nine agreements worth billions of dollars to build power plants and provide other development assistance.

Hasina’s short visit benefited both countries. Big new infrastructure projects would help lift living standards in Bangladesh, but also enable China to strengthen its influence on its fast-growing neighbour of more than 160 million people.

This article was originally published by Ensia

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Ukraine war to take centre stage at UN as west and Russia vie for support

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The general assembly is expected to see fresh tussles over future of Ukraine, as well as the threats of famine and the climate crisis in the global south

The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis.

With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got underway on the sidelines of the Queen’s funeral.

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Indian government accused of ceding land in Himalayas to China

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Locals claim ‘buffer zones’ have been established in areas previously under Indian control

Indian people living near the country’s disputed Himalayan border with China have accused their government of giving away swathes of land after both sides agreed to withdraw troops from some contested areas and create buffer zones.

Earlier this month, Indian and Chinese troops, who have been locked in a tense border dispute since June 2020, began to draw back from the contested area of Gogra-Hot Springs after an agreement was reached to disengage.

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West weighs calling for China Uyghur abuses inquiry at UN

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Battle over influence at Human Rights Council, with Beijing warning of ‘politicisation of human rights’

Western powers are weighing the risk of a potential defeat if they table a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for an independent commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses by China in Xinjiang.

The issue is a litmus case for Chinese influence at the UN, as well as the willingness of the UN to endorse a worldview that protects individual rights from authoritarian states.

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Burning world’s fossil fuel reserves could emit 3.5bn tons of greenhouse gas

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The world will have released more planet-heating emissions than have occurred since the industrial revolution, analysis found

Burning the world’s proven reserves of fossil fuels would emit more planet-heating emissions than have occurred since the industrial revolution, easily blowing the remaining carbon budget before societies are subjected to catastrophic global heating, a new analysis has found.

An enormous 3.5tn tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be emitted if governments allow identified reserves of coal, oil and gas to be extracted and used, according to what has been described as the first public database of fossil fuel production.

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Joe Biden again says US forces would defend Taiwan from Chinese attack

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White House confirms US policy has not changed after president’s remarks on 60 Minutes show

Joe Biden has again said US forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, in his most explicit statement so far on the issue.

Asked in a CBS 60 Minutes interview broadcast on Sunday whether US forces would defend the self-ruled island claimed by China, he replied: “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”

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Monkeypox: don’t touch foreigners, says China health chief, as first case reported

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Official Wu Zunyou also called for people to avoid ‘skin-to-skin contact’ with those who had been abroad recently, as well as ‘strangers’

A senior Chinese health official has advised people to avoid physical contact with foreigners to prevent possible monkeypox infection after the first known case of the virus on mainland China was reported on Friday.

“To prevent possible monkeypox infection and as part of our healthy lifestyle, it is recommended that 1) you do not have direct skin-to-skin contact with foreigners,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted on his official Weibo page on Saturday.

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Anger in China after 27 people killed in Covid quarantine bus crash

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Tragedy in Guizhou province became a lightning rod for social media criticism of zero-Covid policy before posts were shut down

Anger has flared among social media users in China after 27 people died when a bus carrying them to a Covid-19 quarantine facility crashed in the south-west province of Guizhou.

With millions of Chinese still under tight restrictions thanks to Beijing’s strict zero-Covid strategy, the deaths in the early hours of Sunday quickly became a lightning rod for criticism of the government. Only two people have died from Covid in Guizhou in the entire pandemic.

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Beijing-backed Chinese language schools in UK to be replaced with teachers from Taiwan

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MPs in talks with Taiwan to help phase out Confucius Institutes as relations between the countries worsen

A group of cross-party MPs is in talks with Taiwan to provide Mandarin teachers to the UK as the government seeks to phase out Chinese state-linked Confucius Institutes, the Observer has learned.

There are currently 30 branches of the Confucius Institute operating across the UK. Although controversies have existed for many years, they have continued to teach Britons Chinese language, culture and business etiquette. These schools are effectively joint ventures between a host university in Britain, a partner university in China, and the Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF), a Beijing-based organisation.

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Major fire engulfs skyscraper in Changsha, central China

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State media report number of casualties currently unknown in blaze at telecommunications firm

A fire engulfed a skyscraper in the central Chinese city of Changsha, with authorities saying that no casualties had yet been found.

The blaze broke out in a 42-floor building housing an office of the state-owned telecommunications company China Telecom, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.

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Weather tracker: Typhoon Muifa wreaks havoc in China after summer of records

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Highest red alert issued in Shanghai as meteorological autumn does not give way to cooler temperature in France

Typhoon Muifa made landfall in eastern China on Wednesday evening, shortly after affecting Japan in previous days, arriving as a Category 2 storm and billed as the strongest on record to hit Shanghai, China’s largest city.

China’s central meteorological observatory issued its first highest typhoon red alert of the year. The tropical system brought sustained winds of 95mph, a threat of up to 200mm of rainfall and waves in excess of five metres.

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World Bank warns higher interest rates could trigger global recession

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Study says global economy is in steepest slowdown after a post-recession recovery since 1970

The world may be edging toward a global recession as central banks simultaneously raise interest rates to combat persistent inflation, the World Bank has warned.

The three largest economies, – the US, China and the eurozone – have been slowing sharply, and even a “moderate hit to the global economy over the next year could tip it into recession”, the bank said in a study.

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Anger among MPs as Chinese vice-president to attend Queen’s funeral

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Wang Qishan to be at service despite banning of Conservative MPs due to complaints about Chinese repression

The Chinese vice-president, Wang Qishan, is to attend the Queen’s funeral in a move that has prompted complaints from a group of British Conservative MPs that have been banned from travelling to China due to their campaigns against Chinese repression.

Wang will be the most senior Asian political leader to attend the service at Westminster Abbey and among the representatives of authoritarian states, a grouping that also includes Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is expected to lead a delegation to London, although his attendance at the funeral has not yet been confirmed.

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Putin tells Xi he understands China’s ‘questions and concerns’ over Ukraine

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Russian leader seems keen to curry favour with Chinese president as battlefield setbacks and sanctions bite

Vladimir Putin has told Xi Jinping that he understands China’s “questions and concerns” about the war in Ukraine, in a rare nod to tensions between the two states caused by the Russian invasion.

The remarks came as Xi and Putin met on Thursday for the first time since the war began, at a summit in Uzbekistan where the Russian president was expected to court the Chinese leader personally as an ally in his conflict with the west.

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China tells banks to check exposure to debt-laden Fosun conglomerate

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Sprawling group owns assets including Thomas Cook, Club Med and Wolverhampton Wanderers

China’s biggest banks and state-owned companies have been told to check their financial exposure to Fosun, the sprawling conglomerate that owns assets including the Premier League football club Wolverhampton Wanderers, as the heavily debt-laden group struggles from the impact of downturn in the property sector in its home market.

The financial strength of the Shanghai-based group, co-founded in 1992 by the billionaire Guo Guangchang and built into one of China’s largest non-state-owned conglomerates, has come under scrutiny after a huge sell-off in property bonds that began in June.

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Chinese pork prices surge to new high prompting authorities to act

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Pork costs in China, the world’s biggest consumer, rose an average of 22.5% last month

The price of Chinese pork surged to a new high in August, prompting authorities to take the year’s first dip into national meat reserves to ensure supply for the holidays.

Pork costs in China rose an average of 22.5% last month, compared with last year. It followed the highest recorded month-on-month increase of 25.6% in July, as CPI also hit a two-year high of 2.7%. August’s rise occurred despite an unexpected slowdown of CPI inflation to 2.5%.

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