Month: December 2021

Congress Passes Ban on Goods From China’s Xinjiang Region

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to approve legislation that would ban the import of a wide array of products made in China’s Xinjiang region in a drive to prevent companies from sourcing goods produced through forced labor by persecuted Muslim minorities. Its passage was a victory for supporters of an aggressive human rights measure that faced a fierce corporate lobbying campaign from businesses that argued it was too onerous and would disrupt global supply chains. The vote sent the measure to President Biden’s desk, where he was…

US importers to face ‘crazy hard’ hurdles once bill targeting Xinjiang forced labour becomes law

Chin@Strategy

Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen on a billboard with the slogan, “Administer Xinjiang according to law, unite and stabilize the territory, culturally moisturize the territory, enrich the people and rejuvenate the territory, and build the territory for a long term,” in Yarkent County in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in March 2021. Photo: AP South China Morning Post

What’s Behind China’s Crackdown on Celebrities?

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Advertisement For fans of Chinese celebrities, the summer of 2021 was a rough one. On August 18, Kris Wu, a Canadian Chinese actor and singer who was a former member of the popular K-pop group Exo, was arrested and charged with sexual assault. Days later, the government fined Chinese young actress Zheng Shuang $299 million for tax evasion. In addition, in late August, Zhao Wei, one of China’s most well-known actresses since the late 1990s, disappeared. Overnight, her social media accounts, fan sites, and her films and television shows all…

China’s #MeToo Victims Face Abuse, Payback for Going Public

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Advertisement Human resources and upper management wouldn’t deal with her accusation of sexual assault, a former employee of Alibaba said. So she went into the busy cafeteria at the Chinese e-commerce giant’s headquarters and screamed out her plight. Now she’s facing online harassment, accusations of lying from the wives of the two men she accused, and a defamation lawsuit from a Alibaba vice president who was forced to resign. And, she revealed recently, the company fired her. Women in China often face such troubles if they choose to speak publicly…

PRC Perspectives on Subnational Diplomacy in China-US Relations

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Advertisement In 1985, the small farming town of Muscatine in Iowa hosted a young Chinese delegation seeking to learn about agricultural techniques. The group’s leader, then Communist Party secretary of a rural county in Iowa’s sister state of Hebei province, forged deep connections with the local community and was awarded a golden key by then Muscatine mayor. Twenty-seven years later, in 2012, Xi Jinping, the previous delegation leader, who had become vice president of the People’s Republic of China, announced his decision to take a trip back to Iowa in…

Hu Xijin, Chief of China’s Global Times, Will Retire

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During the presidential administration of Donald J. Trump, Mr. Hu would often work late, firing off rejoinders at the U.S. president’s tweets. Other Chinese diplomats and state media journalists followed, taking to American social media platforms blocked in China to hit back at Beijing’s critics. In the process, they have at times stirred international controversy and inflamed relations with other countries. Growing up in Beijing, Mr. Hu was not always the picture of party loyalty. As a Russian literature graduate student in 1989, he joined the crowds of pro-democracy protesters…

Outspoken editor of Chinese state tabloid Global Times retires

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A Chinese state tabloid editor who became a leading voice of strident nationalism with millions of social media followers has announced his retirement. A self-described former pro-democracy protester turned outspoken newspaper editor, Hu Xijin helped usher in a new era of brash, assertive nationalism under the president, Xi Jinping. In a social media post on Thursday, Hu said he had stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Global Times, which is owned by the ruling Communist party’s flagship newspaper the People’s Daily. The 61-year-old wrote to his 24 million followers on…

Japan PM will not attend Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony

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Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said he will not attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but it is not clear if the country will join a US-led diplomatic boycott of the Games over human rights abuses. Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Kishida said: “I have no plans at this point to attend” and did not clarify if Japan would send any officials to the event, amid reports that it was unlikely to snub the hosts altogether. Kishida has said only that he will make a…

Beijing court rules bitcoin mining contracts ‘invalid’, advises local governments to shut down remaining farms

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Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture was one of six “model zones” selected to carry out business activities that could absorb the excess energy being generated. However, in May 2021 China’s State Council announced a crackdown on bitcoin mining, on top of the then existing ban on cryptocurrency trading. Advertisement In the court case, Beijing Phonf argued that it only earned 18.35 bitcoin, worth around US$900,000 based on Thursday’s market value, but even lower based on bitcoin’s value over the past summer. The plaintiff demanded the blockchain company turn in another 278.17…

UK public don’t want ‘perennial fights of a permanent Brexit’ with EU – report

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The British public do not share the government’s appetite for perpetual conflict with the EU and more people see the bloc as a key future partner than the US, according to a report on post-Brexit foreign policy. “The Johnson government seems to need the perennial fights of a permanent Brexit,” the report, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank, said, warning that its approach was “eroding the UK’s capacity to cooperate with the EU”. At the same time, it said, “the British public do not have any particular…