Category Archives: China

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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Indian and Chinese troops pull back from disputed Himalayan border area

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Forces disengaging in Gogra-Hot Springs area as peace talks since 2020 clashes carry on

Indian and Chinese troops have begun to pull back from another disputed Himalayan border area, as peace talks between senior military officials after deadly clashes in 2020 continue.

The two defence ministries confirmed troops were disengaging from respective sides in the area of Gogra-Hot Springs, in a move “conducive to the peace and tranquillity in the border areas”.

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Evergrande lenders appoint receiver to seize Hong Kong HQ – sources

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Crisis at debt-laden Chinese property developer deepens in wake of default last year and failure to sell building

Lenders to the struggling Chinese developer Evergrande Group have appointed a receiver to seize its Hong Kong headquarters, two sources have said, as the world’s most indebted developer struggles to emerge from its debt crisis.

Evergrande is saddled with more than $300bn (£260bn) in liabilities and has been kept alive by a government-run rescue operation since it defaulted on $22.7bn of overseas debts in December last year.

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Chinese nut-picker survives 200-mile journey in escaped hydrogen balloon

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Man spent two days aloft after balloon he was using to harvest pine nuts became untethered

A man has been found safe after he spent two days aloft in a hydrogen balloon that became untethered while he was using it to harvest pine nuts from a tree, according to Chinese state media.

The man, identified only by his surname, Hu, and a partner were collecting pine nuts on Sunday in a forest park in Heilongjiang province in north-east China when they lost control and the balloon sailed off on a 200-mile journey.

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Ex-president demands inquiry into Marshall Islands ‘mini-state plot’

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Hilda Heine calls for investigation into Chinese couple’s alleged efforts to bribe officials to help set up tax haven

A former president of the Marshall Islands has called for an investigation into an alleged plot by a Chinese couple to establish a mini-state inside its borders and set it up as a lucrative tax-break haven.

The pair were charged by US prosecutors with bribery and money-laundering offences over a “multi-year scheme” that included establishing a non-governmental organisation, allegedly bribing five Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) officials and attempting to bribe a sixth. One of the five was allegedly given cash to bribe others into supporting the carving out of a Hong Kong-style territory.

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Babel: the BookTok sensation that melds dark academia with a post-colonial critique

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Set at Oxford in the 1800s, Rebecca F Kuang’s new novel is a magic-infused allegory for structural oppression – and social media can’t get enough of it

A boy lies still beside the body of his mother. Her skin is blue and her eyes are open, wet and glassy. It is 1828, and a cholera epidemic has swept through Canton, China.

The boy is the only one left alive in the house and is on the brink of death when a quiet white Englishman brings him to London. There, the young Chinese boy is named Robert Swift and grows up in solitude, trained in English, Latin, ancient Greek and Chinese. For what reason, he does not yet know.

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Mooncake madness: China cracks down on extravagant versions of festival staple

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Modest packaging, capped pricing and auditing of sellers form part of Xi Jinping’s war on societal excess and ‘rampant money worship’

Chinese authorities have launched a crackdown on “sky high” mooncake prices ahead of this weekend’s autumn festival, amid government efforts to curb corruption and societal excesses.

Mooncakes, a small customary dessert baked with varying designs and fillings, are traditionally given to family and friends to celebrate one of the most important holidays in the lunar calendar. Known as mid-Autumn festival in China and Taiwan, it is called Tsukimi in Japan, Chuseok in South Korea, and Tet Trung Thu in Vietnam.

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Chengdu, Chinese city of 21m, has Covid lockdown extended indefinitely

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No date given for end of extended lockdown in city that is a crucial supplier of Apple products

Chengdu, the capital of the south-western Chinese province of Sichuan, has extended the coronavirus lockdown of most of its districts indefinitely as it hopes to stem further transmissions in the city of 21.2 million.

The mega city, which has most recently battled with heatwaves, power cuts and an earthquake, was locked down on 1 September after detecting a number of cases, becoming the largest Chinese metropolis to be slapped with the curbs since Shanghai earlier this year.

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