Category Archives: China

Key pro-democracy figures go on trial over Hong Kong protests

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Veteran activist Lee Cheuk-yan accuses police and government of depriving Hongkongers of constitutional rights

A veteran champion of democracy in Hong Kong has described its legal system as an instrument of political suppression, after he and eight other high-profile figures went on trial in one of the biggest court cases linked to the protest movement that paralysed the city for more than a year.

“It’s the department of justice, the police department and the Hong Kong government who should be on trial because they have deprived us of our constitutional rights,” said Lee Cheuk-yan after the day’s proceedings. “This year is the year of the ox so we should be stubborn as an ox.”

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Libs Dems warn China over ‘international bullying’ after sanctions threat

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Chinese newspaper said countries that boycott 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over treatment of Uighurs would face retaliation

The Liberal Democrats have warned China against “international bullying” after a call by UK MPs for countries to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics was met by a warning of potential sanctions.

Last week, Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, joined with the Labour MP and former Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant in demanding that the government and the British Olympic Association act over the mass repression of the Muslim Uighur population in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, which campaigners say constitutes genocide.

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WHO investigator claims China refused to hand over key Covid information

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Australian infection expert, part of a team visiting Wuhan, says they were provided only with a summary of data

There is growing controversy over a World Health Organization investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic after one of its members said China had refused to hand over key data, and the US national security adviser said he had “deep concerns” about the initial findings.

An international delegation travelled to the Chinese city of Wuhan last month, as part of efforts to understand how the outbreak began. Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious disease expert who was part of the team, said they had requested raw patient data but were only given a summary.

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China hits back after US expresses ‘deep concerns’ over WHO Covid-19 report

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  • Biden administration requests data from early days of outbreak
  • China’s Washington embassy rejects accusations of interference

China has fired back at the US over allegations from the White House that Beijing withheld some information about the coronavirus outbreak from World Health Organization investigators.

The White House on Saturday called on China to make data from the earliest days of the Covid-19 outbreak available, saying it had “deep concerns” about the way the findings of the WHO’s Covid-19 report were communicated.

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All hypotheses on Covid-19 origins still being investigated, says WHO boss

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Comments from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came after another WHO expert said laboratory theory was ‘extremely unlikely’

The World Health Organization says it has not ruled out any theory on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, despite one top official earlier this week appearing to dismiss the idea it had escaped from a laboratory.

Speaking at a briefing on Friday, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said a summary report from the organization’s team sent to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the virus should be published next week, with a full report coming soon after.

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Huawei to seek UK court order to access HSBC records in bid to clear CFO

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Chinese company turns to UK high court in attempt to stop extradition of Meng Wanzhou from Canada to the US

Huawei’s battle to prevent the extradition of its chief financial officer from Canada to the US will open a new front at the British high court on Friday when the Chinese telecoms giant seeks an application to access records from inside HSBC in a bid to prove that she did not mislead the bank.

The future of Meng Wanzhou has become a major three-way point of diplomatic and legal tension between China, Canada and the US since she was arrested at Vancouver airport in December 2018.

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China bans BBC World News in retaliation for UK licence blow

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China has been critical of BBC reports on Xinjiang, while Ofcom recently revoked CGTN licence

BBC World News has been banned from airing in China, a week after Beijing threatened to retaliate for the recent revocation of the British broadcasting licence for China’s state-owned CGTN.

In a statement published at midnight Beijing time on Friday, China’s National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News’s coverage of China had violated requirements that news reporting be true and impartial and undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.

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Biden raises Taiwan and human rights with Xi Jinping in first phone call

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The conversation came hours after the US president announced a new Pentagon taskforce on China

Joe Biden has affirmed the US’s tough line on China’s human rights abuses and regional expansionism in his first phone call with president Xi Jinping since taking office.

Xi defended China’s policies as matters of sovereignty, but told the US leader confrontation would be “a disaster”, and called for the two sides to re-establish the means to avoid misjudgments, according to state media.

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China birthrate slumps as experts blame changing attitudes

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One-child policy fallout and rejection of marriage said to be among reasons for drop of about 15% in 2020

Fallout from decades of its one-child policy and changing social attitudes about family and marriage are driving a plummeting birthrate in China, experts have said, after preliminary figures this week showed a drop of about 15% in 2020.

Demographers and social commentators have said the reasons for the low birthrates include the high costs of housing and education, and growing rejection of marriage among young women. In 2019 the marriage rate hit a 14-year low.

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Dead Pigs review – winding tale of life in cash-crazed Shanghai

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Cathy Yan’s sprawling drama uses a real-life discovery of 16,000 porcine corpses to pick away at Chinese commercialism

A breezily westernised style of Chinese movie is on offer in this 2018 debut feature from Chinese-American film-maker Cathy Yan, who two years later went to Hollywood to direct Birds of Prey, starring Margot Robbie. Dead Pigs is an ensemble dramedy set in Shanghai that satirises – in a distinctly lenient way – the commercialism eating away at China’s heart. It is inspired by a real-life incident in which thousands of dead pigs were found in the city’s Huangpu river, dumped by poverty-stricken farmers who couldn’t pay the disposal fees; the pig symbolism reminded me a tiny bit of Alan Bennett’s A Private Function.

Related: 52 perfect comfort films – to watch again and again

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WHO investigation into Covid-19 origins offers no quick answers

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Analysis: start of long process by Wuhan team junks Trump allies’ claim that coronavirus escaped from a laboratory

The press conference given by the World Health Organization’s investigative team in Wuhan is unlikely to silence the most conspiratorial of the conspiracy theorists who took their lead from the fever dreams of the former Trump administration.

Indeed, the first and very partial findings in what was always going to be a long and drawn-out process have not told us much we did not already know about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

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WHO says theory that Covid spread from lab ‘extremely unlikely’ – video

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The head of the World Health Organization-led team looking into how Covid-19 originated said on Tuesday its investigation had uncovered new information but had not dramatically changed the picture of the outbreak.

Virus expert Peter Ben Embarek said the origin of the coronavirus pointed to a natural reservoir in bats. He said the hypothesis that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan was extremely unlikely and would not be part of any further study for his team

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Australian government denies meddling in Cheng Lei case after Chinese criticism

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Foreign minister Marise Payne says Australia stands up for its citizens but that does not mean it’s interfering with China’s legal system

The Australian government has rejected China’s claims of meddling after Canberra called for the detained Australian journalist Cheng Lei to be treated humanely, while the head of the security committee has labelled the accusation as “absurd”.

Chinese authorities have confirmed that Cheng – an anchor for the Chinese state-owned English-language news channel China Global Television Network – has been formally arrested “on suspicion of illegally providing state secrets to foreign forces” after nearly six months of detention.

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Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai to remain in jail as landmark security law case continues

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Media mogul is accused of foreign collusion and is the highest profile figure arrested under the national security law

Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai will remain in jail after the city’s highest court sided with authorities to keep him in jail pending further legal arguments, in the first real legal challenge to the national security law.

On Tuesday, the court of final appeal gave the department of justice leave to appeal against a high court decision to grant Lai bail while he awaits trial on foreign collusion charges under the national security law.

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Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic foundation condemns China’s treatment of Uighurs

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Australian billionaire previously called out for not criticising abuse despite Minderoo Foundation campaigning against slavery

Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic arm has publicly condemned the “forced labour and human rights abuses against the Uighur population”, as Human Rights Watch made a rare call for Australia to adopt targeted measures against China to halt imports linked to forced labour.

Forrest has previously been criticised for his refusal to condemn Beijing’s treatment of the Uighur minority despite funding a highly public campaign against modern-day slavery and forced labour.

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Australian journalist Cheng Lei formally arrested in China after six months’ detention

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Calls renewed for humane treatment of news anchor after arrest ‘on suspicion of illegally supplying state secrets overseas’

Chinese authorities have formally arrested the detained Australian citizen Cheng Lei “on suspicion of illegally supplying state secrets overseas”, prompting fresh calls for the journalist to be treated humanely.

Cheng, an anchor for the Chinese state-owned English-language news channel China Global Television Network, has been detained in China since mid-August, but the decision to proceed to the next stage of criminal proceedings marks a blow to her hopes of release.

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‘Bingeing free expression’: popularity of Clubhouse app soars in China

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US social media platform allows users to discuss sensitive subjects like Xinjiang and Taiwan, but many fear it could fall foul of China’s censors

Chinese internet users have flocked to the audio-only social media app, Clubhouse, for uncensored discussions on political and human rights subjects, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the persecution of Uighurs. But there are fears the popularity of the app could lead to censorship or recrimination.

The invitation-only US app, which is currently restricted to iPhones, allows users to listen in to discussions and interviews in quasi conference-call style online rooms. Running for almost a year, it became suddenly popular last week – particularly in China.

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MPs urge British Olympians to boycott 2022 Beijing Winter Games

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Lib Dem leader Ed Davey and Labour MP Chris Bryant urge officials and athletes to protest against oppression of Uighur communities

Senior political figures have called for British athletes to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing in response to widespread human rights abuses in China.

Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Labour MP Chris Bryant, a member of the foreign affairs select committee and a former junior foreign minister, said the government and the British Olympic Association should act.

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US return to the world stage presents huge opportunity for Britain

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Analysis: From Yemen and the Middle East, to Russia and China, the UK has to step up diplomatically

Joe Biden’s promise that the US is back on the world stage as an advocate of multilateralism holds huge opportunities for the UK so long as it steps up a gear diplomatically, uses its presidency of the G7 well and shifts its stance in the Middle East.

In the short term, Biden’s promise to end support for offensive operations in Yemen has led to calls for the UK to suspend its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including from the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood, and the shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy.

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UK quietly expelled Chinese spies who posed as journalists

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MI5 concluded three Beijing security ministry employees used cover of working for Chinese press agencies

Britain quietly expelled three Chinese spies last year who it said were posing as journalists, it has emerged, as tensions flare between the two countries over a range of media issues.

The intelligence agency MI5 concluded the three worked for China’s powerful Ministry of State Security (MSS) but had been using the cover of working for the country’s press agencies.

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