China’s detention camps: Held in chains for using WhatsApp

Amid growing international concern about China’s human rights record, an unofficial tribunal in London is due to announce its findings on whether Chinese actions in the Xinjiang region amount to genocide. Erbakit Otarbay is one of an estimated one million Kazakhs, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities held as part of a mass incarceration programme. He gave evidence in the tribunal. Watch our interview with Erbakit, as he tells BBC correspondent Caroline Hawley how he was subjected to forced labour, indoctrination and violent beatings. China denies the allegations and has condemned…

Chinese Rover’s Moon Cube and Other Solar System Mysteries

Moon Cube and Mysteries of the Solar System Shannon Stirone🔭 Gazing at the planets and stars CNSA/EPA, via Shutterstock This week, images taken by China’s lunar rover, Yutu-2, showed a cube-shaped object on the moon’s surface. Did aliens leave an artifact on the moon? Or is it the latest case of mistaken identity around our solar system? → NYT

China’s indebted property sector highlights a fading economic revival

China’s economy has become heavily dependent on property development over the last decade. High-rise apartments have mushroomed across hundreds of cities to house a growing white-collar workforce, while glass and steel office blocks are dominating city centres, mimicking Shanghai’s glittering skyline. Valued at more than $50tn after 20 years of rapid growth, Chinese real estate is worth twice as much as the US property market and four times China’s annual income. George Magnus, an associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, says this real estate market ranks as the most important…

How China Censored Peng Shuai

This article is published with ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative newsroom. When inconvenient news erupts on the Chinese internet, the censors jump into action. Twenty minutes was all it took to mobilize after Peng Shuai, the tennis star and one of China’s most famous athletes, went online and accused Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier, of sexual assault. Ms. Peng’s post The allegation reached the heights of Beijing’s opaque political system, and officials turned to a tested playbook to stamp out discussion and shift the narrative. The tactics have helped Beijing…

Journalists in China face ‘nightmare’ worthy of Mao era, press freedom group says

Xi Jinping has created a “nightmare” of media oppression worthy of the Mao era, and Hong Kong’s journalism is in “freefall”, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). In a major report released on Wednesday, the journalism advocacy group detailed the worsening treatment of journalists and tightening of control over information in China, adding to an environment in which “freely accessing information has become a crime and to provide information an even greater crime”. “No matter the topic, those who refuse to comply with the official narrative are accused of harming…