A sandstorm has combined with already high air pollution to turn the sky over Beijing an eerie orange. Air quality indexes recorded a “hazardous” 999 rating on Monday as commuters travelled to work through the thick, dark air across China’s capital and further west. Large-scale deforestation is considered a factor in the spring dust storms that are relatively common at this time of year and are usually attributed to winds blowing across the Gobi desert
Continue reading...Category Archives: China
Why Britain is tilting to the Indo-Pacific region
Critics warn of imperial fantasy but the economic and political forces pulling the UK back to the region are real
Some will call it a tilt, others a rebalancing and yet others a pivot but, either way, the new big idea due to emerge from the government’s foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday will be the importance of the Indo-Pacific region – a British return east of Suez more than 50 years after the then defence secretary Denis Healey announced the UK’s cash-strapped retreat in 1968.
Boris Johnson and his admirals are billing the focus on a zone stretching through some of the world’s most vital seaways east from India to Japan and south from China to Australia as Britain stepping out in the world after 47 years locked in the EU’s protectionist cupboard. Others warn Johnson is indulging a hubristic and militarily dangerous imperial fantasy.
Continue reading...Beijing skies turn orange as sandstorm and pollution send readings off the scale
Capital of China suffers ‘hazardous’ levels of air pollution with authorities issuing second-highest safety alert
A massive sandstorm has combined with already high air pollution to turn the skies in Beijing an eerie orange, and send some air quality measurements off the charts.
Air quality indexes recorded a “hazardous” 999 rating on Monday as commuters travelled to work through the thick, dark air across China’s capital and further west.
Continue reading...Trade war fallout: how reliant is Australia’s economy on China?
China’s importance to the Australian economy has exploded in recent years – but data shows Australia is not nearly so important to China
China’s importance to the Australian economy has exploded over the past decade, fuelled by an apparently insatiable need for iron ore and helped along by increasing demand for luxury goods as the country became richer, analysis of UN trade data by Guardian Australia reveals.
Continue reading...Hong Kong: UK accuses China of breaching joint declaration
Beijing guilty of ‘ongoing non-compliance’ with 1984 deal, says foreign secretary Dominic Raab
Dominic Raab has accused China of breaching the legal deal over the governance of Hong Kong, amid criticisms of Beijing’s attempts to tighten its control over the territory.
In a major escalation of diplomatic tensions, the foreign secretary said the UK considered China to be in a “state of ongoing non-compliance” with the Sino-British joint declaration as he condemned Beijing’s decision to reduce the role of the public in picking Hong Kong’s leaders. China has instead handed power to a pro-Beijing committee, which will appoint more council members.
Continue reading...China reports Australia to UN body over ‘violated’ human rights
China itself has been accused of operating detention centres, with more than 1m people estimated to have been detained in Xinjiang
China has said it is “deeply concerned” by what it described as the Australian government’s operation of offshore detention centres, and has called for the sites to be closed immediately.
Ties between the two countries soured in 2018 when Australia became the first nation to publicly ban China’s Huawei from its 5G network and worsened when Australia last year called for an inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus.
Continue reading...Chinese hotel with polar bear enclosure opens to outrage
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...Canadian men detained in China to face trial ‘soon’ as hopes of diplomatic deal dim
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...China adopts new laws to ensure only ‘patriots’ can govern Hong Kong
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...Myanmar: UN calls for ‘utmost restraint’ from military as more deaths reported
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...China leads world’s biggest increase in wind power capacity
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...Chinese entrepreneur sells pensive Donald Trump Buddha statues
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...China could invade Taiwan in next six years, top US admiral warns
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...China summons UK ambassador over ‘arrogant’ article on media freedom
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...China and Russia unveil joint plan for lunar space station
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...China breaching every act in genocide convention, says legal report on Uighurs
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...China’s appetite for meat fades as vegan revolution takes hold
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...China calls on US to drop Trump-era sanctions and warns against ‘bullying’
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...Hong Kong activists and plight of the Uighurs: human rights this week in photos
A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to the Sahara
Continue reading...China’s five-year plan could push emissions higher unless action is taken
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.
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