Day: December 1, 2021

WTA suspends China tournaments over Peng Shuai

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Peng Shuai was not seen in public for three weeks after making allegations of sexual assault The Women’s Tennis Association has announced the immediate suspension of all tournaments in China amid concern for Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai. Peng, 35, disappeared from public view for three weeks after accusing a top Chinese official of sexual assault. WTA chief Steve Simon said he had “serious doubts” that Peng was “free, safe and not subject to intimidation”. “In good conscience, I don’t see how I can ask our athletes to compete there,”…

WTA Suspends Tournaments in China Over Treatment of Peng Shuai

Chin@Strategy

The women’s professional tennis tour announced Wednesday that it was immediately suspending all tournaments in China, including Hong Kong, in response to the disappearance from public life of the tennis star Peng Shuai after she accused a top Communist Party leader of sexual assault. The move, which represents a groundbreaking shift in how major sports organizations deal with China’s increasingly authoritarian government, comes as the Women’s Tennis Association has failed to speak directly with Peng after she made the accusations in posts on her social media channels that were soon…

A Game Designer in Beijing Bought Toy Guns. China Imprisoned Him.

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China’s strong gun controls mean that fatal shootings are rare, and many citizens support the laws to keep it that way. But there has been a growing debate over the legal definition of a firearm. Experts say China’s regulations — which ban buying, selling or owning weapons above a very low threshold of force — are vague and hard for laypeople, even judges, to understand. The result, critics say, is that unsuspecting buyers of compressed-air and spring-powered toys are turned into criminals. China’s gun control law of 1996 states that…

‘China Day’ in New York: A Case Study in United Front Work

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Advertisement On June 18, 2019, the same day that U.S. President Trump and Chinese President Xi held a phone call agreeing to meet after the breakdown of trade talks amid the intensifying trade war, the New York State Senate unanimously adopted a resolution introduced four days prior by Senator James Sanders Jr., chairman of the Senate Committee on Banks, and co-sponsored by 61 other lawmakers. Sander’s resolution sought to designate October 1, 2019, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule, as China Day, and the first…

Airbnb allegedly hosts Xinjiang rentals on land owned by sanctioned group

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Airbnb has reportedly listed more than a dozen properties on land owned by the Xinjiang paramilitary corporation, which has been sanctioned by the US over its alleged involvement in mass human rights abuses against Uyghurs by the Chinese government. The American media outlet Axios reported on Wednesday that the short-term rental company was at risk of exposure to US regulations preventing business dealings with sanctioned entities. Airbnb, which is a major sponsor of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, said it was not required to vet the “underlying landowner” of properties…

Terrawatch: what the world can learn from China’s sinking city

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Fissures and sinkholes are the norm in China’s Shanxi province. Intensive agriculture combined with major coal production has put huge pressure on water resources and sucked the earth dry, leaving the city of Taiyuan, with a population of 5 million, and the surrounding area suffering some of the highest subsidence rates in the world. Pipelines, roads, bridges and railways need constant repairs, and gaping cracks in buildings have resulted in entire communities having to be rehoused. Since 2003, the Chinese government has been trying to solve this problem by diverting…