Category Archives: China

Iain Duncan Smith calls for review of Chinese investment in UK

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Former Conservative leader says government should assess China’s influence in areas from 5G to Covid-19 research

Chinese ownership of British businesses should be subject to a national security review by the UK government to assess the impact of Beijing’s growing economic power, according to the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.

The senior backbencher – a leading figure in the rebellion that forced Downing Street to introduce tougher controls on Huawei – believes ministers have failed to deal with the scale of China’s influence on strategic industries in the UK.

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China grants consular access to two Canadians detained for two years

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Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were arrested for alleged espionage after Canada held Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou for extradition to US

China has granted consular access to two Canadians detained in the country for the first time since January as the diplomatic standoff between the two nations continued.

The Canadian government said on Saturday that Dominic Barton, Canada’s ambassador to China, was granted virtual consular access to Michael Spavor on Friday and virtual consular access to Michael Kovrig on Saturday.

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Hong Kong police arrest nine people suspected of aiding fleeing activists

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Police detain four men and five women suspected of arranging transport for activists who tried to flee by boat to Taiwan

Hong Kong police say they have arrested nine people suspected of helping 12 activists who fled the city in August, heading for Taiwan, but were intercepted by Chinese authorities and held on the mainland.

The group of nine arrested on Saturday included four men and five women, some of whom had been previously arrested for participating in the massive protests that threw the financial hub into turmoil last year, were taken into custody for “assisting offenders”.

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Taiwan’s president calls for less tension with China in annual address

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Tsai Ing-wen says she hopes ‘this is the beginning of genuine change’ after Xi Jinping’s UN speech saying Beijing would never seek hegemony

Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, says she has hopes for less tensions with China and in the region if Beijing will listen to Taipei’s concerns, alter its approach and restart dialogue with the self-ruled island democracy.

Speaking at Taiwan’s national day celebrations on Saturday, Tsai took note of recent remarks by Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in a video message to the UN general assembly that China would never seek hegemony, expansion or to establish a sphere of influence.

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Photo exhibition featuring Hong Kong protest images shut down in Macau

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World Press Photo Foundations says it is unclear why exhibition closed early amid speculation of political pressure over photos

A prestigious international press exhibition, featuring photographs of the Hong Kong protests, has been abruptly taken down in Macau, with organisers refusing to explain why, prompting speculation of political pressure.

The World Press Photo exhibition opened on 25 September and was scheduled to run until 18 October but was closed early. Local media quoted the government-run Macau Foundation denying any political pressure, and an organiser told local radio it was due to “internal management problems”, but declined to elaborate.

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Yang Hengjun: Australian writer held in China for almost two years officially charged with espionage

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Move paves way for Yang, who was arrested in January 2019, to face trial in China

An Australian writer who has been detained by Beijing for more than 20 months has been charged with espionage by Chinese authorities.

Sources with knowledge of the case told the Guardian the supreme people’s procuratorate had informed Yang Hengjun and his legal team that his case had been transferred to Beijing second intermediate court for prosecution.

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Plan for largest mine in Papua New Guinea history ‘appears to disregard human rights’, UN says

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The Chinese-backed gold, silver and copper mine at Frieda river risks catastrophic environmental destruction, special rapporteurs argue

The plan for the largest mine in Papua New Guinea’s history carries a risk of catastrophic loss of life and environmental destruction and “appears to disregard the human rights of those affected”, according to United Nations officials.

In an extraordinary intervention, 10 UN special rapporteurs have written with “serious concerns” to the governments of Papua New Guinea, Australia, China, and Canada, as well as the Chinese state-owned developers of the gold, copper and silver mine proposed for the remote Frieda river in the country’s north.

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Stolen Mao scroll worth £230m was cut in two by £50 buyer, police say

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Hong Kong police say person who bought scroll thought it was a fake and too long to display

A calligraphy scroll by China’s former leader Mao Zedong, estimated to be worth millions, was cut in half after it was stolen last month in Hong Kong, police have said.

The scroll was found damaged when police arrested a 49-year-old man in late September on suspicion of handling stolen property. The South China Morning Post, quoting an unidentified police source, reported that the scroll was cut in two by a buyer who had purchased it for 500 Hong Kong dollars (about £50) and believed the scroll to be counterfeit.

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‘It breaks my heart’: Uighurs wrongfully held at Guantánamo plead to be with families

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Salahidin Abdulahad, Khalil Mamut and Ayoub Mohammed are desperate to be reunited with their children in Canada

They were captured by bounty hunters, shipped across the world by American soldiers and held for years in Guantánamo Bay.

Salahidin Abdulahad, Khalil Mamut and Ayoub Mohammed were eventually cleared by US courts and released. Their time in the notorious prison, however, continues to haunt them.

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Flu vaccine shortages hit China after rush to avoid ‘twindemic’

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Long queues and inflated prices amid fears that flu could complicate anti-Covid effort

A surge in demand for flu shots in Chinese cities has caused shortages, long lines and triple markups on vaccines by scalpers selling them online.

Residents, afraid of the possibility of catching both the flu and Covid-19 – what some have called a “twindemic”, have rushed to clinics since China began its flu vaccine campaign in September.

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Creditors must wake up fast to threat of emerging market debt crisis

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Zambia could become the first country to default on its debts amid the fallout from Covid-19, but it won’t be the last

Zambia is running out of money to pay its debts. It has asked bondholders for breathing space so that it can put a restructuring plan in place. The copper-rich African state is at risk of being the first country to default on its debts since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Not the last though. Zambia is the canary in the coalmine, a harbinger of a full-blown crisis that has been lurking in the background from the moment the seriousness of Covid-19 became apparent.

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China confirms death of Uighur man whose family says was held in Xinjiang camps

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Beijing formally confirmed death to UN but man’s daughter disputes suggestion he died of ‘pneumonia and tuberculosis’ in 2018

The Chinese government has taken the rare step of formally confirming to the UN the death of a Uighur man whose family believe had been held in a Xinjiang internment camp since 2017.

More than one million people from the Uighur and Turkic Muslim communities in the far western region of Xinjiang are believed to have been detained in camps since 2017, under a crackdown on ethnic minorities which experts say amounts to cultural genocide. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has repeatedly refused requests by international bodies to independently visit and investigate the region, despite growing international backlash.

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After Hong Kong: China sets sights on solving ‘the Taiwan problem’

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An invasion may not be imminent but experts say armed forces could have capacity to mount one by the end of the decade

Soon after China imposed the new national security law that effectively ended Hong Kong’s limited autonomy, a hawkish legal academic in Beijing spelt out a warning to Taiwan.

The law was not just about ending a year of protests in Hong Kong, Tian Feilong said in an interview with DW News, it was also sending a message to Taipei – and to Washington, which has recently approved new arms sales and high-level visits by US officials to self-rule Taiwan.

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Drones, fever goggles, arrests: millions in Asia face ‘extreme’ Covid surveillance

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Coronavirus tracking measures handing ‘unchecked powers’ to authoritarian regimes, experts warn

Draconian surveillance measures introduced during the Covid-19 epidemic are handing “unchecked powers” to authoritarian regimes across Asia, human rights experts are warning.

In a report out today, risk analysts warn that “extreme measures and unchecked powers” brought in to tackle Covid-19 could become permanent features of government across the region, and have an impact on the rights and privacy of millions of people.

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Letters to Hong Kong: ‘the final victory will belong to us’

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Dissidents and exiles write to Hongkongers to express solidarity and offer hope for the future

Mainland Chinese residents, activists and writers have watched with dismay as Hong Kong – a city that was once a haven of free speech and political expression – becomes more like those across the border as China cracks down on dissent.

Three months on from the launch of Beijing’s national security law, several have shared advice, empathy and thoughts through letters to their counterparts in Hong Kong.

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‘In my dreams I’m there’: the exodus from Hong Kong

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Beijing’s national security law has prompted the exit of people from all walks of life in fear they or their children are at risk

Joe Kwong* loves Hong Kong. But he knows he has to leave.

A university-educated construction worker in his 30s, he is just one of many Hongkongers who have uprooted their lives in recent months – or are now planning to – because of fears over the rapid demise of the rule of law and civil liberties. Hong Kong’s descent into effective Chinese control has been swift, and was cemented in June by the introduction of the national security law, which prohibits acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces.

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The Guardian view on the US presidential debate: a bad night for the world | Editorial

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The dismal spectacle reminded viewers what is at stake in November for the US – and the rest of us

One unmistakable winner emerged from Tuesday’s presidential debate: Xi Jinping. The loser was the American public – and anyone else unfortunate enough to have sat through the grim 90-minute spectacle.

Variously described by commentators as a trainwreck, dumpster fire, shitshow and the worst debate in presidential history, it reflected the state of the race and the nation after four years of Donald Trump. This is America in 2020: wracked by a pandemic that has killed 200,000 people and highlighted its deep structural failings on healthcare and inequality, as well as the parlous state of its politics – a realm of bitter divisions in which facts appear to be optional.

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Families plead for Hong Kong activists accused of trying to flee by speedboat

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The ‘Hong Kong 12’ - arrested for allegedly trying to flee to Taiwan - have become the latest flashpoint for protesters

The family of a Hong Kong activist detained in China after allegedly attempting to flee to Taiwan by speedboat say they have had no communication from him and are relying on a piece of paper from Chinese authorities as confirmation of his whereabouts.

Andy Li was among 12 people caught by Chinese coastguards on 23 August. He had been arrested earlier that month under Hong Kong’s newly introduced national security law, after which the authorities had confiscated his passport before releasing him on bail.

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How HSBC got caught in a geopolitical storm over Hong Kong security law

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Bank’s future remains uncertain as it finds itself under pressure from Beijing and Washington

HSBC has been a fixture of the Hong Kong economy for more than a century. However, its origins as a financial bridge between Asia and the west have placed it in the centre of a modern day geopolitical storm. Facing pressure to choose sides as Hong Kong is convulsed by the new security law imposed by Beijing and Donald Trump pursues a trade war with China, HSBC is in danger of finding itself without friends in either direction.

Headquartered in London, but dependent on Hong Kong and China for profits, HSBC has been affected by tensions between Washington and Beijing – and shareholder concern over its controversial acceptance of an authoritarian crackdown in its key market.

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