Police fire teargas on thousands of protestors in the Hong Kong village of Yuen Long on Saturday, who had gathered despite a police ban. Last week thugs indiscriminately attacked commuters at Yuen Long train station, a move critics see as a covert attempt by the mainland Chinese government to intimidate pro-democracy protesters
Continue reading...Category Archives: China
Now that Putin is Xi’s ‘best and bosom friend’, where does that leave the west?
An ever closer alliance between Beijing and Moscow has the Pentagon worried as a threat to US power in south-east Asia
It sounds unpleasant, even painful. But as they ponder the linked challenges posed by China and Russia, Pentagon strategists are earnestly discussing whether Vladimir Putin, Russia’s famously athletic leader, will perform a “reverse Nixon”.
This is neither a daring swivel on the parallel bars nor an unusual sexual position. At issue is whether Putin will emulate the 37th US president, Richard Nixon, whose groundbreaking 1972 cold war outreach to China tilted the strategic balance in America’s favour.
Continue reading...Hong Kong: police fire teargas as thousands march in Yuen Long
Activists defy police ban to stage protest at site of last weekend’s violent clash
A peaceful march in the town of Yuen Long to condemn an attack by suspected gang members on commuters turned violent as Hong Kong riot police fired teargas and rubber bullets on the crowd and used batons to beat protesters.
On Sunday, the government said 11 men had been arrested, aged between 18 and 68, for unlawful assembly, possession of an offensive weapon and assaulting a police officer. “Police condemn the deliberate attacks by violent protestors and will investigate all illegal and violent acts,” the government said in a statement.
Continue reading...Hong Kong protests held at airport after Yuen Long attack – video report
Staff at Hong Kong international airport have begun an 11-hour protest in an attempt to hold the government to account for violent attacks on residents by suspected gang members last week. Flight attendants and airport staff were joined by demonstrators dressed in black, the signature colour of the territory's protest movement. Protesters could be heard chanting 'free Hong Kong' as travellers arrived at the terminal
Continue reading...Hong Kong airport staff stage protest against Yuen Long attack
Flight attendants and airport staff join protesters to condemn government and police
Flight attendants and airport staff have begun a planned 11-hour protest at Hong Kong international airport to call on the government to account for a violent attack on residents by suspected gang members last week.
The aviation staff were joined by demonstrators dressed in black, the signature colour of the Chinese territory’s protest movement, who filled the airport’s arrival hall on Friday. They sat on the ground chanting “Free Hong Kong” as shocked travellers walked through the terminal.
Continue reading...How the state runs business in China
Much of modern China’s epic growth was driven by private enterprise – but under Xi Jinping, the Communist party has returned to being the ultimate authority in business as well as politics. By Richard McGregor
When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he extolled the importance of the state economy at every turn, while all around him watched as China’s high-speed economy was driven by private entrepreneurs. Since then, Xi has engineered an unmistakable shift in policy. At the time he took office, private firms were responsible for about 50% of all investment in China and about 75% of economic output. But as Nicholas Lardy, a US economist who has long studied the Chinese economy, concluded in a recent study, “Since 2012, private, market-driven growth has given way to a resurgence of the role of the state.”
From the Mao era onwards, Chinese state firms have always had a predominant role in the economy, and the Communist party has always maintained direct control over state firms. For more than a decade, the party has also tried to ensure it played a role inside private businesses. But in his first term in office, Xi has overseen a sea change in how the party approaches the economy, dramatically strengthening the party’s role in both government and private businesses.
Continue reading...‘All Hong Kongers are scared’: protests to widen as rural residents fight back
Sleepy town of Yuen Long becomes battleground after suspected gangster attack on commuters
Yuen Long, a quiet residential area close to the Chinese border, has become the unlikely next battleground of Hong Kong’s protest movement.
Over the last seven weeks, demonstrators have planned rallies across the territory – in parks, along main roads, in the airport and outside government offices – calling for the withdrawal of an extradition bill and making other political demands. But Yuen Long, known as one of the more remote, isolated areas in the north-west, had never been on the agenda.
Continue reading...Chinese-Australian history predates the first fleet – and my family helped me find out how | Benjamin Law
When you’re the child of migrants, your forebears may as well have come from the moon. So I set out to rediscover mine
Growing up in Queensland as ABCs (Australian-born Chinese), my siblings and I would get our backs up whenever strangers complimented us on our English – which was often. “Why wouldn’t I be fluent?” I’d think, fuming. “I was born in Nambour.” It didn’t matter: white Australians around us seemed as impressed by our English, as much as our Hong Kong relatives pitied our butchered Cantonese.
Yet I have an admission. Whenever I saw or encountered other Chinese-Australians speaking fluent English myself, my jaw would hang in disbelief. Seeing Chinese-Australians – or any Asian-Australians, really – on TV was rare in the 1980s and 1990s. But when people like Annette Shun Wah presented on SBS, Elizabeth Chong showed Bert Newton how to stuff a chicken with spring onions, or Dr Cindy Pan discussed prophylactics on Sex/Life – and with Australian accents, like mine! – my brain couldn’t process it. Weren’t my family the only ones?
Continue reading...Hong Kong protests: China blames ‘black hands’ of US for unrest
Foreign affairs ministry and state media accuse US of seeking to bring down the region
Beijing has blamed political unrest in Hong Kong on “black hands” from the US, advising America to remember that “Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong”.
“We can see that US officials are behind such incidents. Can US officials honestly tell the world what role they played and what are their aims?” said, Hua Chunying, a ministry of foreign affairs spokeswoman, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Joint Russian and Chinese air patrol heightens tension in Korean peninsula
Moscow says it carried out its first long-range operation with Beijing, prompting warning shots from South Korean jets
Russia has said it carried out its first long-range joint air patrol with China in the Asia-Pacific region, a mission that triggered hundreds of warning shots from South Korean jets and a strong protest from Japan.
The flight by two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers, backed up by a Russian A-50 early warning plane and its Chinese counterpart, a KJ-2000, marks a notable ramping-up of military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow.
Continue reading...Li Peng obituary
Hardline Chinese premier who sent in crack troops to suppress the protesters of Tiananmen Square
Li Peng, who has died aged 90, was one of the most influential politicians in China during the first two decades of the “reform and opening up” process begun under Deng Xiaoping in 1978. He had perfect revolutionary credentials, and roots within the Communist party, but will be remembered most for his role in the events of 1989, which saw the suppression of student demonstrators by the armed forces in which hundreds if not thousands died.
As premier and head of government, Li Peng ordered the pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in May of that year to return to their campuses. After this failed, he declared martial law on 20 May, and issued the order for crack troops from the People’s Liberation Army to move in on the demonstration in the early hours of 4 June.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s trade war hurting China more than US, says IMF
Brexit uncertainty and impact of Iran sanctions also likely to slow world growth, says Fund
Donald Trump’s claim that his protectionist measures are hurting China more than the US has received support from the International Monetary Fund in new forecasts showing how a fresh slowdown in the global economy has been concentrated in emerging economies.
The Washington-based IMF said the outlook was gloomier than it envisaged three months ago due to the tit-for-tat tariff war between the world’s two biggest economies, Brexit uncertainty and the impact of sanctions against Iran on oil prices.
Continue reading...Li Peng: former Chinese premier known as ‘Butcher of Beijing’ dies aged 90
Politician known abroad for his role in crushing 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
The former Chinese premier Li Peng, reviled by rights activists and many in the Chinese capital as the “Butcher of Beijing” for his role in the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests, has died, according to state media.
Li, who was 90, died on Monday in Beijing, Xinhua reported, more than three decades after his government authorised a bloody suppression of student-led pro-democracy protests in the early hours of 4 June 1989.
Continue reading...Hong Kong protesters pledge to stand up to thugs after attack
Anger growing against police and authorities after masked men left 45 people in hospital
Protesters in Hong Kong have pledged to stand up to thugs who attacked demonstrators at the weekend as public anger grows towards the government and police.
Demonstrators have filed for a permit to hold a rally on Saturday in Yuen Long, the district on the outskirts of Hong Kong where dozens of masked men chased and beat commuters and protesters with wooden poles and metal rods, leaving at least 45 people in hospital. Police arrived after the assailants left.
Continue reading...‘Where were the police?’ Hong Kong outcry after masked thugs launch attack
Police accused of doing nothing to stop suspected triads storming train station and beating people including women and children
Pro-democracy activists and lawmakers in Hong Kong have accused the police of standing by as men dressed in white attacked commuters and protesters late on Sunday, leaving 45 hospitalised, including one who is critically injured.
Video footage showed dozens of men, most in masks, storming a mass transit station in Yuen Long, chasing passengers and beating them with rods. Among those hurt in the attack were demonstrators returning from a large anti-government rally, as well as a pregnant woman and a woman holding an infant, according to witnesses.
Continue reading...Chinese tech shares leap up to 500% as Nasdaq-style market launches
Star listing of domestic tech firms is seen as an attempt to bypass US markets in trade war
China’s tech scene was handed a fresh vote of confidence as investors piled into Shanghai’s new Nasdaq-style stock exchange and sent shares skyrocketing up to 500%.
The launch of the Star listing of domestic tech firms is seen as China’s answer to the US’s Nasdaq, and an attempt to sidestep American markets in its long-running trade war with Washington.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on moon landings: a new race for space | Editorial
The Apollo 11 mission inspired the world. What has happened in the ensuing half-century?
When Neil Armstrong stepped on to the moon 50 years ago, it was down to a giant leap of political and scientific imagination. His footprints on the powdery lunar surface changed the way we saw ourselves, confirming that humanity could escape its earthly coils. The mission unleashed a dream of what we as a species might do. Yet only a dozen people have walked on the moon, all between the summer of 1969 and the end of 1972.
Did we lose our primordial urge to explore? Almost certainly not – though Buzz Aldrin this week decried “50 years of non-progress”, probes have travelled to Pluto and beyond. But times have changed. The cold war rivalry that catalysed the space race vanished. The Soviet Union was first with a satellite, dog and astronaut in space. Today Washington and Moscow play the great game in the Middle East, not the heavens, although both are now contemplating a return to the moon: Donald Trump wants to make America great again by putting astronauts there by 2024, though some think China may get there first; Russia talks of landing cosmonauts by 2030.
Continue reading...Yingying Zhang killing: US man jailed for life for rape and murder of Chinese scholar
Brendt Christensen has never revealed the whereabouts of Yingying Zhang, whom he raped and then decapitated in Illinois
A former doctoral student has been spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison in Illinois for kidnapping and killing of a 26-year-old scholar from China.
Jurors deliberated for eight hours over two days at the court in Peoria before announcing they were deadlocked on whether 30-year-old Brendt Christensen should be put to death for killing Yingying Zhang.
Continue reading...Yang Hengjun: Australian writer detained in China expected to be charged, lawyer says
Yang, who has been detained for six months, is expected to be charged with endangering national security
Australian writer Yang Hengjun is expected to be formally charged with endangering national security, according to his lawyer.
Yang, a Chinese public intellectual who has long advocated for democratic reforms in China, has been detained for the last six months in an unknown location in China.
Continue reading...Trump claims trade war is working as China’s growth hits 27-year low – business live
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including reaction to the latest Chinese GDP report
Earlier:
- Alan Turing to feature on new £50
- Introduction: China’s growth rate drops to 6.2%
- Lowest levels since records began in 1992
- But industrial production and retail sales have strengthened
If you’re just tuning in, here’s our news story on the Chinese growth figures.... and president Trump’s response.
Donald Trump has claimed that his tariff battle with China is working after official data from Beijing showed growth in the world’s second biggest economy dropping to its slowest pace since 1992.
The US president said the impact of his protectionist measures had been to cause an exodus of companies from China, as Beijing announced that its annual rate of expansion had slowed from 6.4% to 6.2% in the second quarter of 2019.
In tweets that were immediately challenged by economists, Trump said his tough action had forced China’s leaders to the negotiating table.
Related: Donald Trump claims trade war is working as China's economy slows
European stock markets ended the day higher, blown upwards by hopes of fresh Chinese stimulus measure to prop up growth.
After a brief stint in the red the FTSE has powered higher on Monday as risk on dominated. Better than expected results from Citigroup boosting Wall Street and the prospect of stimulus for China lifted the FTSE at the start of the week.
Chinese GDP data showed that the economy grew by 6.2% its lowest level of growth in almost a decade. However, rather than depressing the market, hopes of stimulus for the world’s second largest economy have boosted risk appetite, lifting demand for riskier assets such as stocks. Just as we are seeing with the US, the prospect of easing financial conditions is not being interpreted as bad news for stocks. Instead the prospect of cheaper borrowing in the case of the Fed and support from the PBOC is giving investors plenty of confidence to buy in.
Continue reading...