Harbin hotel keeping threatened species in pen overlooked by bedrooms angers animal welfare groups
A Chinese hotel built around a central polar bear enclosure for the non-stop viewing pleasure of its guests has opened to immediate condemnation from conservationists.
At Harbin Polar Land in north-east China, the hotel bedrooms’ windows face onto the bears’ pen, with visitors told the animals are their “neighbours 24 hours a day”.
Continue reading...Editorial in state-run Global Times said Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor would likely stand trial in coming weeks
Two Canadian men detained in China are likely to stand trial in the coming weeks, according to a state-backed newspaper, dimming hopes that a diplomatic deal could secure their release.
Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been held without bail for more than 820 days, since they were detained soon after the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested on a US warrant in Vancouver.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab accuses Beijing of hollowing out the space for democratic debate
China’s rubber stamping parliamentary body has unanimously – bar one abstention and to sustained and loud applause – approved new laws ensuring that only people it deems “patriots” can govern Hong Kong, in a move critics say signals the end of the city’s remaining autonomy.
The final meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the annual “two sessions” political gathering also approved new domestic amendments and budgets, and the 14th five-year-plan, intended to strengthen and expand China’s domestic technology industry and market, and reach new GDP and population targets amid economic uncertainty and declining birth rates.
Continue reading...British-drafted UN statement watered down by China, Russia, India and Vietnam, as Amnesty says military using battlefield weapons on protesters
The United Nations has condemned the Myanmar military’s violent crackdown against anti-coup demonstrators as seven more people were reported shot dead in protests on Thursday.
Local media, witnesses and medics said six people were shot dead in the central town of Myaing when security forces opened fire on anti-junta protests and domestic media said one man was killed in the North Dagon district of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.
Continue reading...Developers built windfarms with a total capacity of almost 100GW in 2020, a rise of nearly 60% on previous year
China built more new windfarm capacity in 2020 than the whole world combined in the year before, leading to an annual record for windfarm installations despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
A study has revealed that China led the world’s biggest ever increase in wind power capacity as developers built almost 100GW worth of windfarms last year – enough to power almost three times the number of homes in the UK and a rise of nearly 60% on the previous year.
Continue reading...One buyer says he bought statue of former US president on Taobao as reminder not to be ‘too Trump’
Donald Trump is not known for his calm and peaceful demeanour, but that hasn’t stopped one entrepreneurial furniture-maker in China from casting a statue of the former US president in a pose more readily associated with the Buddha.
The Trump Buddha statue, listed on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao, is priced at 999 Chinese yuan (£110 GBP/$150 USD) for the small version, which measures 1.6 metres tall. A larger version, listed as 4.6 metres tall, is available for 3,999 yuan (£440/$610).
Continue reading...Asia Pacific commander Philip Davidson says Beijing wants to take Washington’s world leadership role by 2050
China could invade Taiwan within the next six years as Beijing accelerates its moves to supplant American military power in Asia, a top US commander has warned.
Democratic and self-ruled Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, whose leaders view the island as part of their territory and which they have vowed to one day take back.
Continue reading...Caroline Wilson incurs wrath of Beijing for WeChat post described as full of ‘lecturer arrogance and ideological prejudice’
Britain’s ambassador to China has been summoned for a dressing down by the authorities in Beijing over an “inappropriate” article she wrote defending recent international media coverage on the country, the foreign ministry said.
Caroline Wilson’s article in Chinese was posted on the official WeChat account of the British embassy in Beijing last week, amid already tense relations between Britain and China over issues including Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the media.
Continue reading...Russian space agency Roscomos and Chinese counterpart CNSA to develop research facilities on surface of moon or in its orbit
Russia and China have unveiled plans for a joint lunar space station, with the Russian space agency Roscomos saying it has signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the moon”.
The CNSA, for its part, said the project was “open to all interested countries and international partners” in what experts said would be China’s biggest international space cooperation project to date.
Continue reading...Thinktank publishes first non-governmental legal examination of China’s actions in Xinjiang
The Chinese government has breached every single article of the UN genocide convention in its treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, and bears responsibility for committing genocide, according to a landmark legal report.
The 25,000-word report, published by a non-partisan US-based thinktank, is one of the first independent, non-government legal examination of China’s treatment of Uighurs under the 1948 genocide convention.
Continue reading...Concerns over carbon emissions and food crises are fuelling a move away from meat consumption as a symbol of wealth
The window of a KFC in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou hosts the image of a familiar mound of golden nuggets. But this overflowing bucket sporting Colonel Sanders’ smiling face is slightly different. The bucket is green and the nuggets within it are completely meat free.
Over the last couple of years, after many years of rising meat consumption by China’s expanding middle classes for whom eating pork every day was a luxurious sign of new financial comforts, the green shoots of a vegan meat revolution have begun to sprout. Although China still consumes 28% of the world’s meat, including half of all pork, and boasts a meat market valued at $86bn (£62bn), plant-based meat substitutes are slowing carving out a place for themselves among a new generation of consumers increasingly alarmed by food crises such as coronavirus and African swine fever.
Continue reading...Foreign minister Wang Yi calls for cooperation and signals that Beijing will stand firm against criticism
China’s top diplomat has called on the US to drop the sanctions and restrictions introduced by Donald Trump and warned against international “hegemony and bullying” and interference in what Beijing considers internal affairs, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.
On day three of China’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, signalled that Beijing intended to hold firm against growing international criticism of its perceived expansionist and hostile activity and domestic human rights abuses.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to the Sahara
Continue reading...Target is in line with previous trends and could mean greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise
China has set out an economic blueprint for the next five years that could lead to a strong rise in greenhouse gas emissions if further action is not taken to meet the country’s long-term goals.
The 14th five-year plan, published in Beijing on Friday, gave few details on how the world’s biggest emitter would meet its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2060, set out by President Xi Jinping last year, and of ensuring that carbon dioxide output peaks before 2030.
Continue reading...Australian study finds a ‘coordinated effort by CCP’s propaganda apparatus’ to distract from critical BBC reports and redirect narrative
China’s Communist party orchestrated an international campaign to undermine the BBC and discredit its reporting during the first two months of the year, using western social media networks, an Australian thinktank has found.
Attacks intensified in response to high-profile BBC reports, including an investigation into systemic rape in internment camps in Xinjiang that was broadcast in early February, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said, in its report, “Trigger Warning”.
Continue reading... Police in China and South Africa have seized thousands of fake doses of Covid-19 vaccine
Police in China and South Africa have seized thousands of fake doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, the global police organisation Interpol said on Wednesday, warning this represented only the “tip of the iceberg” in vaccine-related crime.
The Lyon-based agency Interpol said 400 vials – equivalent to around 2,400 doses – containing the fake vaccine were found at a warehouse in Germiston outside Johannesburg in South Africa, where officers also recovered fake masks and arrested three Chinese and a Zambian national.
Continue reading...Getting rid of the virus completely now seems an impossible project. But there are powerful arguments in its favour
A year ago, when the World Health Organization published a report showing that China had shut down a highly contagious virus in a city of 11 million people, epidemiologist Michael Baker assumed that the international body would advise the rest of the world to follow China’s example. When to his amazement it didn’t, he decided that New Zealand (population 5 million) should go its own way, and started lobbying the government to pursue an elimination strategy.
He found some unexpected allies in New Zealand’s billionaires who, hearing what he was proposing, got on the phone to cabinet ministers too. On 23 March, New Zealand shut down and seven weeks later, its citizens emerged into a virus-free country. Baker, who estimates that the move saved about 8,000 lives, later asked the billionaires why they backed him: “They said, ‘We didn’t get filthy rich by not being good at assessing and managing risk.’ They were in it for the long haul.”
Continue reading...Accidental publication adds to growing body of evidence of Beijing’s efforts to persecute minority
Chinese labour programmes in Xinjiang are designed at least partly to reduce the population density of the Uighur ethnic minority group, according to a study accidentally published online.
The Chinese report, by academics of Nankai University, was taken down in mid-2020, but a copy was archived by the academic Dr Adrian Zenz. It adds to the growing body of evidence of Beijing’s concerted efforts to persecute Uighurs in what human rights experts and some governments have labelled cultural genocide.
Continue reading...Xi Jinping wants ‘positive energy’ but critics say the surveillance tools’ racial bias and monitoring for anger or sadness should be banned
“Ordinary people here in China aren’t happy about this technology but they have no choice. If the police say there have to be cameras in a community, people will just have to live with it. There’s always that demand and we’re here to fulfil it.”
So says Chen Wei at Taigusys, a company specialising in emotion recognition technology, the latest evolution in the broader world of surveillance systems that play a part in nearly every aspect of Chinese society.
Continue reading...Delegates descend on capital for week of pomp and pageantry including unveiling of 14th five-year plan
China is expected to unveil new political controls on Hong Kong at this week’s meeting of its rubber-stamp parliament, which is also likely to showcase President Xi Jinping’s further consolidation of power.
Beijing plans to ensure only “patriots” – Communist party loyalists – can run Hong Kong, according to a speech by a top Chinese official ahead of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC).
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