Day: June 24, 2021

Jun 25th 2021 ON JULY 1ST the Chinese Communist Party will celebrate its 100th birthday. The occasion has prompted a surge of interest in “red tourism”, involving visits to sites associated with the revolution that brought the Communists to power in 1949, and with the lives of Communist leaders. One of the best-known destinations is Jinggangshan in the southern province of Jiangxi. It is where Mao Zedong created the first rural base for the revolution in 1927. Another is Zunyi in the south-western province of Guizhou, where a crucial meeting…

Advertisement On June 23, China held a virtual conference on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), formally titled the “Asia and Pacific High-level Conference on Belt and Road Cooperation.” The meeting was hosted by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, with President Xi sending a written address. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the conference was attended by “more than 30 parties, including foreign ministers or economic ministers of relevant countries in Asia-Pacific and representatives of the United Nations and other international organizations.” The countries in attendance, according to a Foreign Ministry…

Jun 24th 2021 BEIJING UNTIL CHILDREN reach the age of about 15 in China, education is free. So why is it that more than half of a typical family’s spending goes on it? The answer is cramming classes: a financial burden so great that it is often said to discourage couples from having children at all. Now officials are trying to rein in the industry, in part, it appears, to relieve the pressure on people’s wallets. Parents are not sure it will work. Listen to this story Your browser does…

Jun 24th 2021 HONG KONG’S largest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, ceased publishing on June 24th. Under the city’s security law, police in recent days had frozen its bank accounts, raided its newsroom and arrested six people, including its editor and chief executive, who have been charged with colluding with foreign powers. Apple Daily printed 1m copies of the final edition, nearly 13 times more than usual. Newsstands swiftly sold out. Staff are pictured greeting supporters outside the paper’s office. Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio>…

Advertisement Over the last quarter-century, as China’s “peaceful rise” carried the country to new economic and geopolitical heights, Beijing was engaged in an ever-expanding campaign of transnational repression. From neighboring Pakistan and the states of Central Asia, to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar, China has seen through the detention and, at times, deportation of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities fleeing Beijing’s grasp. A new report and dataset put together by researchers Bradley Jardine, Edward Lemon, and Natalie Hall under a joint initiative by the Oxus Society…

Advertisement As detailed in Part 1, the New Zealand Supreme Court recently gave conditional approval to the extradition of Kyung Yup Kim, a South Korean national and long-term New Zealand resident who is accused of murdering a young Chinese woman in Shanghai. The Court’s decision rests upon the belief that official assurances from China can alleviate the risks and doubts that a fair trial will be granted to Kim. For example, if by July 30 the New Zealand government can obtain assurances that the prosecution will not have greater opportunity…