Month: August 2021

国安法阴影下，香港大批区议员辞职

Chin@Strategy

By targeting opposition figures in local councils, the authorities are effectively burying the last vestige of democracy in Hong Kong. Dozens of politicians are in jail and facing potential life sentences on national security charges. Apple Daily, a major pro-democracy newspaper, has been forced to close after the arrest of its founder and top editors. Hong Kong’s largest teachers union and the Civil Human Rights Front, which organized large protest marches, both said in recent days that they would disband. Beijing has rewritten the rules for future elections to bar…

China lashes out at US over ‘fake news’ ahead of Covid origins report

Chin@Strategy

The Chinese government has stepped up its aggressive resistance against efforts by Western scientists to probe Covid’s origins – and is accusing the US of spreading fake news about laboratories in Wuhan. Ahead of US intelligence experts finalising a report demanded by President Joe Biden into the pandemic’s cause, which is expected on Tuesday, Beijing officials have demanded that Washington opens for public scrutiny a US military laboratory in Maryland. In this tit-for-tat, it is understood that US analysts have obtained data and research by Wuhan laboratories in order to…

A Century After the Titanic Sank, a Film Tries to Rescue 6 Survivors’ Stories

Chin@Strategy

Much about the Chinese sailors’ lives was influenced by the currents of history, including their presence on the Titanic to begin with. Labor strikes in Britain had left them without work, so their employer reassigned them to a North American route. The Titanic was supposed to take eight sailors as third-class passengers from Southampton, England, to their new ship in New York. When the liner struck an iceberg late on April 14, the eight men acted quickly. Five made it into lifeboats, but the other three fell into the subzero…

Hong Kong’s government is crushing the city’s pro-democracy unions

Chin@Strategy

Aug 21st 2021 HONG KONG ONCE CHINESE state media labelled the group a “poisonous tumour”, it was clear that its time was running out. Within hours of that slur, in late July, the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union was disowned by the city’s education bureau. For ten days the union, which represents about 80% of the city’s teachers, sought a reprieve. It cut ties with pro-democracy groups and with Education International, a global umbrella group. It promised to dream up new ways for schools to promote Chinese culture. But in…

China is happy to see America humbled in Afghanistan

Chin@Strategy

Aug 21st 2021 ON THE AFTERNOON of August 17th, as scenes of horror unfolded around Kabul, China’s envoy to Afghanistan recorded the tranquil mood at his own embassy. The ambassador’s smartphone images, proudly shared on social media by Hu Xijin, the editor of a Communist Party tabloid, show the Chinese flag snapping crisply against a summer sky, and front doors guarded by nothing more menacing than a tall porcelain vase. China’s propaganda machine is enjoying the fall of Afghanistan, at least for now. Chinese diplomats and state media have missed…

How the U.S. Exit from Afghanistan Helps China

Chin@Strategy

Beijing is now also positioned to hold greater influence over the country’s political landscape. Afghanistan’s history tells us that one group is rarely in control of the entire country, and given the Taliban’s lightning takeover, it’s reasonable to expect some civil strife. China — already the largest troop contributor to U.N. peacekeeping missions among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — has also registered a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops — a move that could make it one of the largest contributors overall. If a…

Biden Taps Burns and Emanuel as Ambassadors to China and Japan

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Friday nominated R. Nicholas Burns, a veteran Foreign Service officer and a former ambassador to NATO, as ambassador to China and Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and former President Barack Obama’s first chief of staff, as ambassador to Japan. Mr. Biden settled on both nominees months ago, people involved in the process said. But the official announcement was delayed in part because the United States needs the host countries to sign off on such selections before proceeding. The nominations were announced on Friday…

What Will Happen in Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s Canada Extradition Case?

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement When Meng Wanzhou’s flight touched down in Vancouver on December 1, 2018, she expected it to be a brief layover. Instead, unbeknownst to the Huawei CFO, the daughter of the telecoms giant’s founder Ren Zhengfei, she would have to stay for the long haul. Meng was detained and has been under house arrest for over two years, fighting extradition to the United States. Meng is accused of misrepresenting Huawei’s relationship with another telecom equipment seller doing business in Iran during a 2013 PowerPoint presentation to HSBC, allegedly defrauding the…

The U.S. Has Left Afghanistan. Will China Move In?

Chin@Strategy

This article will also appear in the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning. The stunning seizure of Afghanistan by the Taliban poses many significant geopolitical questions — chief among them who will fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of the United States and its NATO allies from the country after 20 years. The Taliban are on a P.R. offensive to try to show that they are a legitimate representative governing power that wants to have good relations with…