Category Archives: China

Hong Kong, China and universal values | Letter

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Michael Minden says we must grapple with the different realities of those who think and feel not as we do

I agree with Natalie Nougayrède’s point that “universalism is not a dirty word” (Hong Kong’s struggles are ours too, Journal, 19 June), but I don’t think it is “beautiful” either.

As I understand it, it entails a challenge to all of us to assume responsibility for our condition. This cannot be achieved by affirming values as universal because they belong to our particular vocabulary (“basic human aspirations”, “fundamental rights and freedom”, “essential, individual rights”, etc). It can only be achieved by grappling with the different realities of those who think and feel not as we do.

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Thousands gather outside police HQ in renewed Hong Kong protests – video

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Demonstrators including the activist Joshua Wong have blocked a main road through the city centre in Hong Kong and massed outside the police headquarters to demand the total withdrawal of a new extradition law, the release of detained activists and apologies for police brutality. The protest on Friday is the fourth major demonstration in the city in less than two weeks

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North Korea rolls out red carpet for Xi Jinping – in pictures

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Xi Jinping is greeted warmly in North Korea on his first state visit there as China’s president. He has backed North Korea’s new focus on economic development, saying in a speech in the capital that the nation under leader Kim Jong-un had ‘initiated a new strategic line of economic development and improving people’s livelihoods, raising socialist construction in the country to a new high tide.’ North Korea remains heavily dependent on aid, mainly from China and food security is a constant concern.

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Shanghai Sacred: inside China’s religious revival – photo essay

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Photographer and anthropologist Liz Hingley uncovers the spiritual landscape of China’s largest city, revealing the spaces and rituals of this cosmopolitan megalopolis that is home to 26 million people – and to religious groups from Buddhism to Islam, Christianity to Baha’ism, Hinduism to Taoism

  • Shanghai Sacred is at the Victoria Art Gallery & Museum at the University of Liverpool until 26 September as part of LOOK Photo Biennale, the forthcoming book will be published by GOST in November

By ritual, heaven and earth harmoniously combine

For the last thirty to forty years China has been undergoing one of the great religious revivals of our time. Alongside the country’s rapid pace of development, the search for meaning and celebration of the Sacred are shaping China’s future in new and significant ways.

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Two whales flown from Shanghai aquarium to sanctuary in Iceland

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Female 12-year-old beluga whales Little Grey and Little White arrive at Klettsvik Bay

Two beluga whales from a Shanghai aquarium have arrived in Iceland to live out their days in a unique marine sanctuary that conservationists hope will become a model for rehoming 3,000 of the creatures currently in captivity.

Little Grey and Little White, two 12-year-old female belugas, left behind their previous lives entertaining visitors at the Changfeng Ocean World and were flown across the globe in specially tailored containers.

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Himalayan glacier melting doubled since 2000, spy satellites show

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Ice losses indicate ‘devastating’ future for region and 1 billion people who depend on it for water

The melting of Himalayan glaciers has doubled since the turn of the century, with more than a quarter of all ice lost over the last four decades, scientists have revealed. The accelerating losses indicate a “devastating” future for the region, upon which a billion people depend for regular water.

The scientists combined declassified US spy satellite images from the mid-1970s with modern satellite data to create the first detailed, four-decade record of ice along the 2,000km (1,200-mile) mountain chain.

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Fears Hong Kong protests could turn violent amid calls to ‘escalate action’

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Protesters have given authorities until Thursday afternoon to answer demands to retract extradition bill

Hong Kong is bracing for fresh rallies on Friday, which many fear could turn violent, as protesters gave city authorities until Thursday to meet their demands on the retraction of the city’s controversial extradition bill.

Anonymous messages have circulated on social media and messaging services calling for people to gather outside the government headquarters in the Admiralty business district to “escalate their actions” if the Hong Kong government fails to meet their demands by 5pm on Thursday. It called on people to strike, close shops and stay off school on Friday. On one popular chat platform alone, the message received nearly 89,000 “likes”. A user called this “Hong Kong’s last battle”.

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Carrie Lam ignored public opinion, says freed activist

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Joshua Wong blames Hong Kong leader for city’s protests, despite her apology

Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, is the person responsible for mobilising the biggest protests in the city’s history, the freed student activist Joshua Wong has said.

The 22-year-old, who was the face of the last major demonstrations in Hong Kong in 2014, was released from jail on Monday following a two-month term for contempt of court.

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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam offers apology after protests – video

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Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has offered a 'sincere and solemn' apology to the people of her city following record protests on Sunday in response to the controversial China extradition law. In her first press conference since crowds poured on to the streets to denounce Lam, the bureaucrat-turned-politician described going through an emotional period of 'self-reflection', and said she hoped to heal rifts in society. However, Lam refused to fully meet any of the protesters’ requests for her to resign, withdraw her extradition law, and apologise both for police brutality and for describing one protest as a riot

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Sound of Hong Kong’s defiance reverberates in Beijing

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Beijing’s public support for Hong Kong leader likely hides private fury, but letting her go would be another humiliation

The most obvious casualty of Hong Kong’s extraordinary uprising against chief executive, Carrie Lam, and her campaign to tie the city more closely to China, will be the bureaucrat-turned-politician’s own career. If she stays on, it will only be as a lame duck leader.

But the city’s turmoil is also a major challenge to her boss and patron, Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

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China is harvesting organs from detainees, tribunal concludes

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Victims include imprisoned followers of Falun Gong movement, China Tribunal says

An independent tribunal sitting in London has concluded that the killing of detainees in China for organ transplants is continuing, and victims include imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement.

The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who was a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said in a unanimous determination at the end of its hearings it was “certain that Falun Gong were used for forced organ harvesting”.

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Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America’s dirty secret

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A Guardian report from 11 countries tracks how US waste makes its way across the world – and overwhelms the poorest nations

What happens to your plastic after you drop it in a recycling bin?

According to promotional materials from America’s plastics industry, it is whisked off to a factory where it is seamlessly transformed into something new.

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Hong Kong: pressure builds on Carrie Lam as public rejects apology

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Calls for leader to stand down after estimated 2 million march over unpopular extradition bill

Protesters have kept up pressure on Hong Kong’s leader by blocking streets outside the shuttered legislature building and welcoming the city’s most prominent political activist, Joshua Wong, on his release from jail.

As the political crisis entered its second week, Hong Kong’s police chief admitted that his officers had sought to arrest wounded demonstrators in hospitals after a previous protest, but claimed criminal screening was routine for anyone arriving at A&E.

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Man falls to his death to become Hong Kong protest’s first ‘martyr’

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Crowds mourn the unknown activist, praising his passion and sense of justice

Many among the vast crowds that marched through Hong Kong on Sunday carried white flowers tributes to an anonymous man who had fallen to his death the previous evening after unfurling a large protest banner on scaffolding near government headquarters.

No one knew the man’s name, or why he was there, even though protesters and an opposition politician spent hours trying to persuade him to come down with hymns and exhortations.

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‘Fighting for our freedom’: protesters flood into Hong Kong’s streets

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Authorities urged to withdraw extradition bill as Carrie Lam apology fails to calm ire

A wave of protesters hundreds of thousands strong, most dressed in black and many carrying white flowers of mourning, have swept through central Hong Kong to denounce a controversial extradition law and demand the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, steps down.

They poured in from all over the city, in numbers so large that the march route had to be extended, and then widened, with crowds spilling from the main road to fill neighbouring streets, and halting all traffic outside government headquarters.

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Hundreds of thousands take to streets in renewed Hong Kong protests – video report

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Protesters dressed in black have marched through central Hong Kong demanding a full retraction of the China extradition law. The huge new rally comes after Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, announced an indefinite halt to the proposed bill, which would allow residents and visitors to be sent for trial in China’s opaque Communist-controlled court system

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Hong Kong’s Carrie Lam defiant in face of extradition climbdown

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Chief executive adopts unapologetic, defensive tone and refuses to resign

Carrie Lam’s announcement that a controversial extradition bill had been suspended reinforced the Hong Kong chief executive’s reputation as a hard-nosed leader who can “put up a good fight”.

Throughout her press conference on Saturday, Lam adopted a resolute, unapologetic and defensive tone that her critics labelled arrogant and insincere.

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Ice cream and cake: Vladimir Putin hosts birthday party for Xi Jinping – video

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Russian president helps Chinese counterpart celebrate 66th birthday in style on Sunday, giving him Russian ice cream and sharing champagne before a summit in Tajikistan. The two leaders reportedly consider each other to be close friends.

Discussion of senior leaders' private lives is extremely rare in China and their exact birth dates are considered a state secret.

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