The death toll from the disaster at a gold mine in Shandong province rises to 10
Chinese rescuers have found the bodies of nine workers killed in explosions at a gold mine, raising the death toll to 10.
Eleven others were rescued a day earlier after being trapped underground for two weeks at the mine in Shandong province. One person was still missing, officials said on Monday.
Continue reading...In virtual address to World Economic Forum, Chinese president calls for multilateral approach to crisis
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has sent out a warning to Joe Biden that he risks a new cold war if he continues with the protectionist policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
In an address to the virtual World Economic Forum event, Xi called for a multilateral approach to solving the economic crisis caused by Covid-19 and said the pandemic should not be used as an excuse to reverse globalisation in favour of “decoupling and seclusion”.
Continue reading...Crew on two vessels face further investigation in Pacific nation, a month after similar incident in Palau
Two Chinese fishing vessels have been detained by Vanuatu authorities amid allegations they were fishing illegally in the Pacific nation’s territorial waters.
This is the first time that Chinese vessels have been accused of illegal fishing activities in Vanuatu’s territory, but their confinement comes just a month after Palau detained a Chinese-flagged vessel reportedly illegally harvesting sea cucumber, or beche-de-mer, in the western Pacific state’s territorial waters.
Continue reading...Clash in Sikkim happened days before talks aimed at ending tensions in Ladakh border dispute
Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in another violent clash along the Himalayan border last week, as tensions between the two nuclear powers showed no signs of abating.
According to reports, Indian and Chinese troops came to physical blows on Wednesday along the high-altitude border in north Sikkim, a small Indian state, situated between India and Bhutan, which has been a flashpoint of India-China conflict for decades.
Continue reading...Escalation prompts US president, Joe Biden, to make first public remarks on relationship with Taipei
Chinese bombers and fighter jets have entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone for the second day in a row in an unusual and provocative escalation of its military activities that has prompted the Joe Biden administration’s first public remarks on its relationship with Taipei.
Fifteen Chinese aircraft entered the Taiwanese defence zone on Sunday, Taiwan said, a day after 12 war planes including eight nuclear-capable H-6K bombers entered the airspace between mainland Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea.
Continue reading...Weird and wonderful buildings are springing up in China and elsewhere, driven by cities’ desire to make a mark in a world full of eye-popping imagery
An image opens on my screen: a 2,000-seat theatre on the edge lands of Guangzhou, a territory of raw new towers and just-departed rural ghosts, designed to look like a swirl of red silk, imprinted with “tattoos” of phoenixes, cranes and other ornithology. It refers, goes the explanatory text, to Guangzhou’s historic role as “the birthplace of the silk road on the sea”. It is a declaration of something where there was formerly nothing, a three-dimensional advertisement for the colossal Sunac Wanda cultural tourism city of which it is part. I peer at the image – is it virtual or real? It’s real.
It enters a mental folder already bulging with such projects as a football stadium – reportedly the largest in the world – under construction in the same city in the shape of a giant lotus flower. Also the completed Zendai Himalayas centre in Nanjing, a 560,000 sq metre mixed-use development shaped like a mountain range, which is said to adapt “the traditional Chinese shanshui ethos of spiritual harmony between nature and humanity to the modern urban environment”. Other prodigies demand attention: a pair of super-tall skyscrapers in Shenzhen whose conjoined nether regions melt into tree-filled terraces and undulant glass, a quartet of twisting aluminium-clad towers in Qatar and apartment towers in Vancouver propped like tulip heads on narrow stalks.
Continue reading...Chinese rescuers pull 11 gold miners to safety, two weeks after they were trapped by an underground explosion. Crowds gather to watch the miners, one of whom shines a torch on his face and all of whom have been blindfolded to protect their eyes, being helped to waiting ambulances. Twenty-two workers were trapped in the Hushan mine by the blast on 10 January in Qixia, a gold-producing region under the administration of Yantai in coastal Shandong province
Continue reading...UK community speaks out in effort to pressure government to take stronger stance
Leading figures in the UK Jewish community are using Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January to focus on the persecution of Uighur Muslims, saying Jews have the “moral authority and moral duty” to speak out.
Rabbis, community leaders and Holocaust survivors have been at the forefront of efforts to put pressure on the UK government to take a stronger stance over China’s brutal treatment of the Uighurs.
Continue reading...TV footage showed the first miner ‘extremely weak’ lifted out of the goldmine, after 22 were trapped from a 10 January blast in Qixia
Chinese rescuers have pulled 11 gold miners to safety, two weeks after they were trapped by an underground explosion, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Footage showed the first miner to be rescued, a black blindfold across his eyes, being lifted out of a mine shaft in the morning. The miner was extremely weak, CCTV said on its Weibo site.
Continue reading...The ebullient tech tycoon embarrassed China’s leaders and went missing. Now he’s back, but seems far less outspoken
Wearing burgundy lipstick and a long peroxide wig, the diminutive entrepreneur who would soon become China’s richest man took to the stage and belted out Can You Feel the Love Tonight? from Disney’s The Lion King.
Jack Ma, chief executive of e-commerce giant Alibaba, had earned the right to make a spectacle of himself. On that day in September 2009, in front of 16,000 adoring employees packed into Hangzhou’s Yellow Dragon stadium, the eccentric but iron-willed former English teacher was celebrating. He had built a bona fide tech champion, China’s answer to Amazon, eBay and PayPal rolled into one.
Continue reading...The leader has declared victory over the virus, but a fresh outbreak is complicating the narrative
When Britain was in its second lockdown last November and the economy was contracting, China’s quarterly growth rate was hitting 6.5%. Figures last week showed that for the full year, the world’s second-largest economy could boast a growth rate of 2.3% while all its rivals in Europe and the Americas were going backwards.
The trend could be traced back to Beijing’s efforts to tackle the virus – albeit after a period of denial – and keep infection rates among the lowest in the world.
Continue reading...Officials plan to test everyone inside a designated zone of Kowloon Peninsula’s Jordan neighbourhood during two-day lockdown
Thousands of people in Hong Kong have been ordered to stay in their homes in the city’s first coronavirus lockdown, as authorities battle an outbreak in one of its poorest and most densely packed districts.
The order bans about 10,000 people living inside multiple housing blocks within the neighbourhood of Jordan, on the Kowloon Peninsula, from leaving their apartments unless they can show a negative test.
Continue reading...An online movement is pushing back against the country’s ferocious work culture of long hours for seemingly little gain
On the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, enthusiastic slackers share their tips: fill up a thermos with whisky, do planks or stretches in the work pantry at regular intervals, drink litres of water to prompt lots of trips to the toilet on work time and, once there, spend time on social media or playing games on your phone.
“Not working hard is everyone’s basic right,” said one netizen. “With or without legal protection, everyone has the right to not work hard.”
Continue reading...Despite a near record total of export goods to China last year, there are fears rocky relations between the two countries have yet to hit bottom
If anyone was hoping for a breakthrough in the relationship between Australia and China in 2021, the signs are not good. The year has started much as 2020 ended, with dozens of ships carrying Australian coal still stranded off the Chinese coast and with Beijing accusing Canberra of “weaponising” national security by blocking an investment proposal.
While the Morrison government is bracing for a protracted standoff with Australia’s largest trading partner in what officials call “strategic patience”, there are fresh questions as to whether Canberra has a comprehensive plan for managing the relationship with an increasingly assertive and powerful China.
Continue reading...Chinese foreign ministry announced sanctions against Mike Pompeo and 27 others as Biden was taking presidential oath
China has said it wants to cooperate with Joe Biden’s new US administration, while announcing sanctions against the “lying and cheating” outgoing secretary of state Mike Pompeo and 27 other top officials under Donald Trump.
The move was a sign of China’s anger, especially at an accusation Pompeo made on his final full day in office that China had committed genocide against its Uighur Muslims, an assessment that Biden’s choice to succeed Pompeo, Anthony Blinken, said he shared.
Continue reading...Alibaba co-founder, not seen since Beijing began crackdown on his firms, says he has been ‘studying and thinking’
The Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has made his first public appearance since Beijing began a crackdown on his business empire.
Ma, a celebrity businessman and one of the richest people in China, had not spoken publicly since regulators blocked the flotation of Ant Group, the financial payment company he controls. His absence had fuelled speculation that he may have fled China.
Continue reading...Incoming US administration criticises move to remove entry bans as independent panel criticises WHO for not declaring emergency until 30 January
The Trump and Biden camps have clashed over future Covid travel restrictions with less than two days to go before the handover of power in Washington. It comes as an independent panel said Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully a year ago, and criticised the World Health Organization (WHO) for delays in declaring an international emergency.
In the US, a political row is brewing after Donald Trump announced he would rescind Covid entry bans on most non-US citizens arriving from Brazil and much of Europe, including the UK, effective 26 January, two officials briefed on the matter told Reuters.
Continue reading...UK court would determine whether China is committing genocide against Uighurs if measure passed
The government is struggling to contain a potential backbench rebellion over its China policy after the Conservative Muslim Forum, the International Bar Association (IBA), and the prime minister’s former envoy on freedom of religious belief backed a move to give the UK courts a say in determining whether countries are committing genocide.
The measure is due in the Commons on Tuesday when the trade bill returns from the Lords where a genocide amendment has been inserted. The amendment has been devised specifically in relation to allegations that China is committing genocide against Uighur people in Xinjiang province, a charge Beijing has repeatedly denied.
Continue reading...Country was expanding at a faster rate than before the coronavirus pandemic at the end of 2020
China’s economy has posted its strongest growth in two years after completing a rapid recovery from the slump caused by the Covid-19 pandemic at the start of 2020.
Although the 2.3% annual increase in activity for the world’s second biggest economy was its slowest since 1976, by the final three months of last year China was expanding at a faster rate than before the crisis.
Continue reading...Workers trapped in a gold mine after an explosion at the site in eastern China on 10 January have sent a written note to the surface saying that 12 of the miners trapped underground are still alive.
Twenty-two workers were trapped in the Hushan mine, in Shandong province. The condition of the other 10 is not known. It was not until 30 hours later that the accident was reported, however, leading to severe criticism of those responsible
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