Category Archives: China

UK should give British nationality to Hong Kong citizens, Tugendhat says

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Move would be to reassure Hong Kong’s people rather than facing down Chinese threats, he says

The UK should give Hong Kong citizens full UK nationality as a means of reassurance amid the current standoff with Beijing, the chair of the influential Commons foreign affairs committee has argued.

Tom Tugendhat said this should have happened to people in the formerly British-ruled territory in 1997, when it was handed back to Chinese control, and that doing so now would reassure Hong Kong’s people that they were supported by the UK.

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Hong Kong protests: airport suspends flights for second day

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Hundreds of demonstrators stage new rally a day after shutdown at key transport hub

Hong Kong’s airport authority has suspended flights for a second day as thousands of protesters staged another rally at the busy international travel hub.

Tuesday’s action marked the fifth consecutive day of protests at the airport, as pro-democracy demonstrations in the Chinese territory entered their 10th week, with both sides showing few signs of backing down.

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China releases video showing troop carriers moving to Hong Kong border – video

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State media outlets videos with a rousing choral soundtrack show armoured troop carriers purportedly driving to Shenzhen, the south-eastern state that borders Hong Kong. Chinese officials have released a series of threatening statements about Hong Kong's protesters, with one claiming 'terrorism' was emerging in the city on Monday after flights were cancelled

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China’s conduct in Hong Kong comes under cautious scrutiny on Q&A

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Panellists debate whether Australia ‘turning a blind eye’ to China’s rising power

As demonstrators shut down Hong Kong’s airport on Monday in protest against police brutality, Chinese official said “terrorism” was emerging in the city.

Meanwhile, on the ABC’s Q&A program, the “people’s panellist” guest suggested he shared China’s view, prompting one of the more cautious political discussions ever held on the show.

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Powerful typhoon sweeps away buildings in eastern China – video

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Heavy rain swept through eastern China after Typhoon Lekima made landfall in the coastal province of Zhejiang on Saturday. The powerful storm left a trail of destruction after a landslide backed up a river that broke through debris and inundated homes. The death toll from Lekima rose to 44 on Monday morning, according to state media

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Closure of Hong Kong airport shines fresh light on protest movement

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Disruption on Monday stopped flights to UK, US and Australia and will be felt worldwide

The closure of Hong Kong international airport has shone a fresh global spotlight on the city’s protest movement.

The airport was forced to cancel all remaining passenger flights on Monday – more than 100 – after thousands of demonstrators flooded into the main terminal during the afternoon. The disruption will be felt worldwide, with cancellations including long-haul departures to the US, Australia and the UK.

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Hong Kong hit by more violence as protests enter 10th week

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Police fire teargas and beat demonstrators during fierce clashes across city

Hong Kong has once more descended into violence, with police firing teargas at protesters across the city as mass demonstrations calling for democracy entered their 10th consecutive week.

Clashes with police were particularly intense on Sunday night compared with previous days, as riot police fired teargas into a railway station to disperse crowds and were captured on film beating protesters with batons as they fled down an escalator in another station.

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Versace apologises after tops imply Hong Kong and Macau are countries

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One of China’s best-known actors, Yang Mi, ends contract over controversy

The luxury fashion label Versace and its artistic director, Donatella Versace, apologised to China on Sunday after one of its T-shirts was criticised for identifying the semi-autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau as countries.

Versace said on its Weibo account that it had made a mistake and had stopped selling and destroyed the T-shirts on 24 July.

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Beijing’s new weapon to muffle Hong Kong protests: fake news

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China’s media used to ignore the turmoil. Now the state is waging a campaign that could pave the way for intervention

As Hong Kong enters its third month of mass anti-government protests, across the border in China, people are seeing a very different version of events.

On Saturday, as protests entered their tenth weekend and demonstrators and police clashed in Hong Kong, the People’s Daily posted an article on the Chinese WeChat webchat service saying members from “all parts of Hong Kong society” were calling for the “violence to stop”. As peaceful rallies at the Hong Kong airport continued over the weekend, Chinese state media posted videos on Weibo of a tussle between demonstrators and an angry resident yelling: “We just want Hong Kong to be safe”.

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Pacific Islands Forum: Tuvalu children welcome leaders with a climate plea

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Climate crisis is more than a meeting agenda item in a host country that could be left uninhabitable by rising sea levels

As the leaders of Pacific countries step off their planes at Funafuti airport this week for the Pacific Islands Forum, they are being met by the children of Tuvalu, who sit submerged in water, in a moat built around the model of an island, singing: “Save Tuvalu, save the world.”

The welcome sets the tone for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting that will not only have climate change at the top of the agenda – as it has been for many years – but is being hosted by a country that the UN says is one of the most vulnerable to rising sea levels, which could render it uninhabitable in the coming century.

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British government’s Hong Kong intervention riles China

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Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, underlines ‘one country, two systems’ in call to Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong chief executive

China has lashed out at the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, after he spoke to Hong Kong’s leader about protests that have morphed from a campaign against a controversial extradition bill into rolling street demonstrations demanding electoral reforms.

Raab spoke to Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, and stressed the need for “meaningful political dialogue and a fully independent investigation into recent events as a way to build trust” in the territory, the UK Foreign Office said.

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Typhoon Lekima triggers landslides and floods in eastern China – video

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At least 18 people have been killed and 14 are missing after Typhoon Lekima triggered a landslide in eastern China. More than 1 million people have been evacuated amid widespread transport disruptions after the typhoon made landfall in Zhejiang province with maximum winds of 116mph (187km/h)

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Typhoon Lekima: 30 killed in eastern China after landslide

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Thousands of flights cancelled as natural dam collapses north of Wenzhou

A powerful typhoon left at least 30 people dead in China, after a landslide backed up a river that broke through debris and inundated homes, state media reported on Sunday.

Another 20 people remained missing, the official Xinhua News Agency said, and more than a million people were evacuated, state broadcaster CCTV has reported.

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‘P is for protest’: Hong Kong families take to the streets in pro-democracy rally

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Event billed as rally to ‘guard our children’s future’ given permit by authorities, unlike others planned for weekend

Armed with balloons and strollers, several hundred families took to the streets in Hong Kong on Saturday to show support for pro-democracy protests that are now in their third month.

The colourful and calm atmosphere at the rally was a far cry from the increasingly violent confrontations that have marked recent demonstrations by activists calling for greater freedoms in the city.

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US calls China ‘thuggish regime’ for targeting American diplomat who met Hong Kong protesters

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Anger at release of diplomat’s personal information as Hong Kong police bring back police chief who handled 2014 Occupy protests

A US official has described China as a “thuggish regime” for disclosing personal details about a US diplomat who met student leaders involved in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

The denunciation came as the US became the latest country to issue a travel alert to the territory on Thursday, and Hong Kong’s police force brought out of retirement a senior officer who led the police response to the 2014 Occupy movement.

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Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices

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Leaked documents show children as young as 16 recruited by Amazon supplier Foxconn work gruelling and illegal hours

Hundreds of schoolchildren have been drafted in to make Amazon’s Alexa devices in China as part of a controversial and often illegal attempt to meet production targets, documents seen by the Guardian reveal.

Interviews with workers and leaked documents from Amazon’s supplier Foxconn show that many of the children have been required to work nights and overtime to produce the smart-speaker devices, in breach of Chinese labour laws.

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Surprise rise in Chinese exports boosts shares in Europe and Asia – as it happened

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A degree of calm has returned to world stock markets, after heavy selling earlier this week amid fears that the one-year trade war between the US and China was turning into a full-blown currency war. Washington branded Beijing a currency manipulator after the yuan fell sharply beyond the seven-to-one-dollar mark on Monday. This led to turmoil in financial markets – and US and UK stocks had their worst day this year.

Investors have been cheered today by better-than-expected trade data from China and the stabilisation of its currency. Wall Street has opened higher. In Europe, shares are even further ahead.

On Wall Street, stocks are up after the opening bell, mirroring gains in the UK, where the FTSE 100 index is 0.7% ahead at 7,250.

Gold pulls back after sharpest daily gain in 7 weeks but holds above $1,500 https://t.co/lnRzEbdH4z

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Hongkongers stage ‘laser show’ to protest against arrests – video

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Protesters in Hong Kong gathered to support the use of laser pointers in demonstrations after a university student leader was arrested for buying and carrying laser pointers. Police had sought to justify the arrest of Keith Fong, head of the Baptist University student union, by showing how one of the lasers could burn through newspaper. Fong was arrested on suspicion of carrying offensive weapons

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