Senior MPs say attendance of Han Zheng, accused of breaching Sino-British treaty with Hong Kong crackdown, would be insult
Senior Conservative MPs have labelled the expected attendance of China’s vice-president at King Charles’s coronation as “outrageous”.
Han Zheng, who was recently appointed as president Xi Jinping’s deputy, is expected to represent China at the May event, Politico reported.
Continue reading...Growing number of social media users find using Korean American actor Ma Dong-seok’s image as avatar gets better response
Chinese social media users are turning to a Korean American action star for help in their daily lives, with a growing trend of swapping out their online avatar for Ma Dong-seok’s photo to get better responses from landlords and customer service agents.
In recent weeks a growing number of Chinese people have changed their profile photos to shots of Ma, who also goes by the name Don Lee and has starred in horror-action film Train to Busan and Marvel’s The Eternals, saying “it makes life easier”.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary warns a war across Taiwan strait and likely destruction of semiconductor industry would have global effects
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would destroy world trade, and distance would offer no protection to the inevitable catastrophic blow to the global economy, the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, warned in a set piece speech on Britain’s relations with Beijing.
In remarks that differ from French president Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to distance Europe from any potential US involvement in a future conflict over Taiwan, and which firmly support continued if guarded engagement with Beijing, Cleverly said “no country could shield itself from the repercussions of a war in Taiwan”.
Continue reading...German magazine accused of putting down India with caricature depicting population overtaking China
A cartoon in the German magazine Der Spiegel poking fun at India as it becomes more populous than China has been castigated as “racist” by Indian ministers.
The cartoon shows a rickety old Indian train packed with people and swarms of passengers atop it. On a parallel track, a sleek Chinese bullet train is seen with just two drivers, looking surprised at the sight of the Indian train.
Continue reading...Secretive visa scheme has been used to fast-track Chinese staff to promote Communist party values at Confucius Institutes
UK government funding for Mandarin teaching at branches of the Chinese state-linked Confucius Institute is to be axed, but they will not be closed, as Rishi Sunak promised last year.
The step is expected to be announced by James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, on Tuesday and comes as research shows that a secretive visa scheme has been used to fast-track Chinese government-vetted staff to come to the UK to promote Chinese Communist party (CCP) values at the institutes.
Continue reading...Milestone marks the first time since 1950 that China has dropped to second place in global population ranks
India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, according to UN population estimates, the most significant shift in global demographics since records began.
According to the UN’s projections, which are calculated through a variety of factors including census data and birth and death rates, India now has a population of 1,425,775,850, surpassing China for the first time.
Continue reading...Reported detention of Li Yanhe has echoes of 2015 disappearances of five Hong Kong booksellers
Concerns are mounting for a Taiwan-based book publisher believed to have been detained in China, in a case that has echoed the disappearances in 2015 of five Hong Kong booksellers.
Li Yanhe, also known by the pen-name Fucha, reportedly travelled to Shanghai last month to visit relatives but has been uncontactable since Thursday. His alleged detention was first reported by Bei Ling, a Chinese writer and activist, who said on Facebook that he had been told by various sources that Li had been arrested by authorities in Shanghai.
Continue reading...Call comes after Australia’s defence review says activities in South China Sea ‘threaten rules-based order’
The Chinese government has urged countries not to “hype up the so-called China threat narrative” after a major Australian defence review criticised its activities in the South China Sea.
The Australian government’s defence strategic review, released on Monday, labelled the intense competition between China and the United States as “the defining feature of our region and our time”.
Continue reading...Local governments approved more coal power in first three months of 2023 than all of 2021
Local governments in China approved more new coal power in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, according to official documents.
The approvals, analysed by Greenpeace, reveal that between January and March this year, at least 20.45 gigawatts of coal power was approved, up from 8.63GW in the same period in 2022. In the whole of 2021, 18GW of coal was approved.
Continue reading...Lu Shaye’s comments raise fresh questions over China’s role in brokering peace in Ukraine
France, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have expressed dismay after China’s ambassador in Paris questioned the sovereignty not only of Ukraine, but all the former Soviet Republics including the Baltic states.
Lu Shaye’s remarks in a TV interview late on Friday raise fresh questions about the faith the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has placed in China to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine.
Continue reading...Josep Borrell says safeguard would show Europe’s commitment to the ‘absolutely crucial’ area
European navies should patrol the disputed Taiwan Strait, the EU foreign policy chief has said, echoing earlier comments stressing how crucial Taiwan is to Europe.
Josep Borrell wrote in an opinion piece in the Journal Du Dimanche that Taiwan “concerns us economically, commercially and technologically”.
Continue reading...Experts say Australia should look beyond criticism that is largely for domestic Chinese consumption and engage on a broader level
Australia’s strategic defence review, to be made public on Monday, is likely to spark a hostile response from China and set off a new round of claim and counterclaim about the precarious relationship between the two countries.
Sir Angus Houston, the former head of the Australian military who led the review with the former defence minister Stephen Smith, said when it was launched last year the strategic circumstances were “the worst I have ever seen in my career and lifetime”.
Continue reading...Comments indicate extent to which Taiwan is trying to bolster western support before possible invasion
Taiwan’s foreign minister has said he is preparing for the possibility of a conflict with China in 2027.
Speaking on LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr, Joseph Wu said: “We are taking the Chinese military threat very seriously … I think 2027 is the year that we need to be serious about.”
Continue reading...National security experts express concern over resumed construction of a Chinese station which could be used for intelligence operations
Australia should be concerned about the prospect of China using a new research station in Antarctica to assist surveillance operations in the southern hemisphere, according to national security experts.
Satellite imagery collected by Washington-based thinktank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), shows construction of the station on Inexpressible Island near the Ross Sea has resumed for the first time since 2018.
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Continue reading...UN population officials say it is not possible to pinpoint a date because of uncertainty about data
India is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country with almost 3 million more people by the middle of this year, according to UN figures.
The State of World Population 2023 report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates India’s population will be 1.4286 billion by the end of June, compared with China’s 1.4257 billion.
Continue reading...Director of Changfeng hospital among those detained after deadliest fire in China’s capital since 2002
Chinese authorities have said they have detained a dozen people over a hospital fire in Beijing that left at least 29 dead and forced desperate survivors to jump out of windows to escape.
The fire, which broke out on Tuesday afternoon at the Changfeng hospital in China’s capital, killed mostly patients, and left scores of other people injured.
Continue reading...Extreme temperatures described as ‘worst April heatwave in Asian history’ as records threatened in India, China, Thailand and Laos
A severe heatwave has swept across much of Asia, causing deaths and school closures in India and record-breaking temperatures in China.
Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian, described the unusually high temperatures as the “worst April heatwave in Asian history”.
Continue reading...Some managed to escape from multi-storey building by fashioning bedsheets into makeshift ropes
A fire at a hospital in Beijing has killed at least 29 people and forced dozens to evacuate, a Chinese government official has said.
As clouds of black smoke billowed into the sky late on Tuesday, people trapped in the multi-storey building apparently tied bedsheets into makeshift ropes and escaped by climbing out of windows, as seen in videos circulating on social media.
Continue reading...Exclusive: British foreign secretary says failing to engage ‘closely and regularly’ with Beijing would be ‘really counterproductive’
Britain should not “pull the shutters down” on China, as it would be counterproductive to the national interest, the foreign secretary has told the Guardian.
In a warning to Conservative hawks, James Cleverly insisted there was not a binary choice to be made between treating China as either a threat or an opportunity, and said the UK’s approach needed to be more nuanced.
Continue reading...Lowy Institute poll indicates one in five Chinese-Australians were called offensive names in 2022, down 10 points from 31% in 2020
Chinese-Australians have continued to experience racist insults but at a lower rate than when diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing erupted in 2020, a new study has found.
Polling commissioned by the Lowy Institute indicates one in five Chinese-Australians said they were called offensive names because of their heritage in 2022.
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