People’s Bank of China allows commercial banks to hold less capital in reserve
China’s central bank has acted to pump more liquidity into the country’s economy in an attempt to prevent growth slowing in 2020.
The People’s Bank of China is allowing commercial banks to hold less capital in reserve, freeing up about 800bn yuan (£87bn) in new funds for loans. It will cut China’s banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 50 basis points, to 12.5%, from 6 January.
Continue reading...Police detain 400 and fire teargas as anti-government protests continue into 2020
A huge New Year’s Day march in Hong Kong has ended in mass arrests and street clashes as the anti-government movement – now in its eighth month – continued into 2020.
Police detained about 400 people on charges including illegal assembly and possession of offensive weapons after the rally on Wednesday, which organisers said was attended by more than a million people. It was one of the largest numbers of arrests in a single day since the unrest began.
Continue reading...Marchers begin to gather after New Year’s Eve violence saw police fire teargas and activists set fire to barricades
Thousands have gathered in Hong Kong to take part in a what is expected to be a huge New Year’s Day march, hours after police fired teargas on pro-democracy protesters marking the start of 2020.
The city has been battered by more than six months of unrest with marches attended by millions, as well as confrontations in which police have fired teargas and rubber bullets – and protesters have responded with petrol bombs.
Continue reading...Trump says he trusts leader to refrain from testing, despite Kim’s criticism of Washington’s ‘gangster-like demands’
Kim Jong-un has signalled that North Korea will lift its moratoriums on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests in a move likely to anger Donald Trump.
The North Korean leader told a four-day meeting of party officials in Pyongyang that the test ban, which Kim agreed to in talks with the US president, was no longer needed, state media said on Wednesday.
Continue reading...By 2010, China was beginning to have an impact on the global consciousness in a new way. Prior to the western financial crisis, it had been seen as the new but very junior kid on the block. The financial crash changed all that. Before 2008 the conventional western wisdom had been that sooner or later China would suffer a big economic meltdown. It never did. Instead, the crisis happened in the west, with huge consequences for the latter’s stability and self-confidence.
Related: Europe needs China’s billions. But does it know the price? | Juliet Ferguson
Continue reading...Prospect of agreement lifts stock markets but experts question impact on long-running tensions
Donald Trump has said he will sign the first phase of a long-awaited trade deal with China on 15 January, in a move that de-escalates the tariff war between the world’s two biggest economies.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the US president said “high-level representatives of China” would attend an official ceremony at the White House, adding he would also be travelling to Beijing for talks on the second phase of the deal.
Continue reading...Chairman Eric Xu warns that hit from US sanctions means telecoms firm must ‘go all out’ to maintain sales
The embattled Chinese telecommunications company Huawei says “survival” is its first priority after announcing sales were hit hard by a boycott from western countries.
Eric Xu, the company’s chairman, said estimated sales revenue would reach 850bn yuan for 2019 (US$121bn) - up roughly 18% from the previous year, but much lower than initially expected.
Continue reading...Leader of Early Rain Covenant, which is not sanctioned by Communist party, swept up in crackdown on religion under Xi Jinping
A Chinese court has sentenced the pastor Wang Yi to nine years in prison on charges of inciting subversion of state power and illegally operating a business.
Wang was among dozens of churchgoers and leaders of the Early Rain Covenant church detained by police in December 2018. Most were subsequently released.
Continue reading...The biophysicist was guilty of illegal practice in trying to alter the genetic makeup of twins Lula and Nana
The scientist who created the world’s first “gene-edited” babies has been sentenced to to three years in prison by a court in China.
He Jiankui said in November 2018 that he had used gene-editing technology known as Crispr-Cas9 to change the genes of twin girls, causing a backlash in China and globally about the ethics of his research and work.
Continue reading...Contest is in effect a referendum on the future of the self-governed island’s relationship with China
Citizen groups in Taiwan are fighting a Russian-style influence and misinformation campaign that is believed to originate across the strait in mainland China with just weeks to go before it votes for its next president,
Taiwan goes to the polls on 11 January to decide between two main candidates, incumbent president Tsai-Ing-Wen of the Democratic People’s party (DPP) under whom ties with Beijing have become fraught, and Han Kuo-Yu of the Kuomintang party (KMT), which advocates closer engagement with China.
Continue reading...Some are trusted aides, others are fixers who work in the shadows. Often unelected and unaccountable, they all have the ear of national leaders
The role of Dominic Cummings in plotting and facilitating Boris Johnson’s drive for power has focused attention on the influence exerted by behind-the-scenes advisers and confidants who have the ear of prominent politicians.
Powerful men and women around the world all have personal counsellors, trusted aides and backroom mentors. Then there are the “insiders” – string-pullers, fixers and manipulators with ambitions of their own. Few become well-known, although Cummings’s notoriety is by no means exceptional.
Continue reading...For over three years, Leo spent his days at the Qingpu prison in Shanghai silently packaging sticky notes, face masks, gift bags and labels while guards kept close watch. If he refused, he would be punished – barred from reducing his prison sentence, making phone calls home, or worse.
This Christmas, a cry for help from Leo and other foreign inmates of Qingpu was smuggled out, hidden in a Tesco greetings card. China has called the card and allegations of forced labour by foreign prisoners a “farce”.
Continue reading...Pushback against China’s initiative to build 200 homes sparks creative response
Kang Jian Shouchang Fang nursing home in Shanghai has gone to considerable lengths to placate neighbours who wish it had never been built in the first place – laying on baking lessons, lectures on staying healthy and monthly meetings with neighbourhood representatives. Other such homes offer yoga and play areas for children.
Shanghai, like many Chinese cities, is facing a rapidly ageing population and few facilities to care for elderly people. But in recent years, it has also become the scene of a wave of “nimby” (not-in-my-backyard) protests pushing back against a government initiative to build 200 new community nursing homes by 2020.
Continue reading...This year world leaders struggled to manage the fallout from the erratic tenant in the White House – as China flexed its imperial muscles. We look back at the events that created the most turbulence
Click here for 2019’s reasons to be cheerful
A year of high anxiety was rendered more alarming by intensifying clashes of interest between world powers. As international cooperation declined, and nationalist agendas gathered strength, China, the US, Russia and Europe, and their respective allies, emulators and proxies, engaged in often dangerous competition.
The Chinese communist regime’s increasingly assertive behaviour at home and abroad, reflecting the authoritarian outlook of its paramount leader-for-life, Xi Jinping, produced head-on collisions with western countries, notably over Hong Kong, trade, technology and the repression of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.
Continue reading...Police clashed violently with pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong after they stormed Harbour City mall in Tsim Sha Tsui on Christmas Eve.
Batons and pepper spray were used against thousands of demonstrators inside the shopping centre and on the streets as people inside the malls threw umbrellas and other objects at police.
Continue reading...Hundreds of officers guard main roads as thousands of shoppers and tourists look on
Hong Kong riot police fired rounds of teargas at thousands of anti-government protesters, many wearing masks and reindeer horns, after scuffles in shopping centres and a tourist district on Christmas Eve.
Demonstrators inside the malls threw umbrellas and other objects at police who responded by beating some with batons; one pointed his gun at the crowd, but did not fire.
Continue reading...Teresa Xu says doctor told her to hurry up and get married before having children
At the end of last year, Teresa Xu visited a hospital in Beijing to discuss options for freezing her eggs. The doctor said she could not help Xu, a single woman, because it went against regulations. Then she gave the 31-year-old some sisterly advice: hurry up, get married and have children now.
Xu was shocked and disappointed. “I had no way to express my anger,” she said. She felt like she was being treated like a wayward child. “Like I was an intruder, delaying other couples … like my demands were too much. I felt powerless and depressed.”
Continue reading...Donald Trump promises that a US-China trade pact will be signed ‘very shortly’
A pre-Christmas rally fuelled by hopes of waning trade tensions have pushed share prices to a fresh high and on course for their biggest rise in a decade.
Donald Trump’s promise that a US-China trade pact would be signed “very shortly” sent the MSCI gauge of stock markets around the world to new record levels.
Continue reading...Sonny Bill Williams has tweeted his support of the minority Uighur ethnic group, mirroring the stance of football star Mesut Özil which drew an angry response from China. Cross-code star Williams may further provoke Chinese officialdom with his social media post, which denounces the treatment of Uighurs.
In his tweet on Monday, Williams echoed the belief of Arsenal playmaker Özil, who is also a practising Muslim, that more countries should speak out against China’s reported actions of detaining Uighur people in “re-education camps”.
Continue reading...After my nation switched allegiance to China, it took journalists on a ‘look and learn’ tour
The invitation from the prime minister’s office came in mid-November, almost exactly two months after the event referred to as “the switch” – the day the government of Solomon Islands, after more than 30 years of diplomatic allegiance to Taiwan, unceremoniously switched recognition to China.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] want to take SI [Solomon Islands] media on an ‘Look and Learn’ tour of China,” the email said, “you’re on the list.”
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