Day: December 3, 2021

Dec 4th 2021 THE LEADERS of China’s Communist Party have spent a long time waiting for liberal democracy to look as fragile as it does today. Now, filled with scorn for a dysfunctional West, they think that their moment has come. Angered, specifically, by President Joe Biden’s summoning of over 100 countries to a virtual Summit for Democracy on December 9th and 10th—including Taiwan, an island that China claims as its territory—China is responding with fighting talk. Officials are seizing every chance to explain why their always-controlling, sometimes-ruthless political system…

Dec 4th 2021 IN THE WORLD of sport, it was a remarkable rebuke of China’s ruling Communist Party. On December 1st the Florida-based Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) said it would stop holding tournaments in mainland China and Hong Kong in response to the silencing of Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis star, after she had publicly accused a former senior Chinese leader of sexual assault. Steve Simon, the WTA’s boss, used language typical of human-rights groups, not of firms with profits at stake. He accused China’s leadership of failing to handle…

Dec 4th 2021 SHANGHAI SOON AFTER Zhang Jiajia gave birth to a boy in 2017, she went to her local social-security centre in Shanghai to claim maternity benefits. These would include reimbursements for services such as prenatal check-ups and midwifery, as well as compensation for lost workdays. But Ms Zhang (a pseudonym) was turned away. The centre wanted proof of marriage. As a single mother, she had none. Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. China’s…

Advertisement As explored in previous pieces in this series, the New York State Legislature has numerous connections to the PRC government, both directly through the Consulate General and indirectly through United Front groups. Those ties culminated in an ongoing bid to make the PRC’s National Day, October 1, a public holiday in New York state, at a time when China-U.S. tensions were (and are) riding high. For the past two years, a group of New York state legislators has been seeking to pass a bill that would declare “October 1st,…

Advertisement China-Turkey relations have been full of ups and downs since 1971. In addition to some structural problems related to trade, the Uyghur issue seems to be the most insurmountable issue driving a wedge between China and Turkey. The Uyghur issue has triggered political tensions between the two countries many times. There is a large Uyghur diaspora population residing in Turkey, and Turkic nationalist sentiments extend to the Uyghur ethnic group. China, meanwhile, is extremely sensitive to any hint of separatist sentiment stemming from the Uyghurs, including appeals to transnational…