A whistleblower who exposed illegal working conditions in a factory making Amazon’s Alexa devices says he was tortured before being jailed by Chinese authorities. Tang Mingfang, 43, was jailed after he revealed how the Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Hengyang used schoolchildren working illegally long hours to manufacture Amazon’s popular Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices. Now, after spending two years in prison, he is appealing to the higher courts to clear his name. He has taken the difficult decision to talk publicly, despite being aware of…
Month: January 2022
China’s Covid-Era Controls May Outlast the Coronavirus
The police had warned Xie Yang, a human rights lawyer, not to go to Shanghai to visit the mother of a dissident. He went to the airport anyway. His phone’s health code app — a digital pass indicating possible exposure to the coronavirus — was green, which meant he could travel. His home city, Changsha, had no Covid-19 cases, and he had not left in weeks. Then his app turned red, flagging him as high risk. Airport security tried to put him in quarantine, but he resisted. Mr. Xie accused…
The case against zero-Covid excesses: Chinese lawyers speak out
Advertisement Now a professor at one of the country’s leading universities has called on authorities to stop excessive law enforcement and acknowledge the sacrifice made by people under strict preventive measures. In an article in China Newsweek magazine, Shen Kui, a professor at Peking University’s law school, said governments at all levels should compensate people for the material and psychological toll that the strict preventive measures brought. Shen said the zero-Covid strategy had a “surprise attack effect”, causing upheavals in the lives of people who suddenly are designated as confirmed…
Is It OK to Watch the Winter Games? A Former Olympian Weighs In.
By this time next week, the Winter Olympics will be well underway in Beijing. Like the Summer Olympics in Tokyo last year, the global gathering of athletes will occur during a global pandemic. But China’s first experience hosting the Winter Games comes when Canada’s relationship with the country is at a low amid an array of troubling human rights issues. My colleagues Steven Lee Myers, Keith Bradsher and Tariq Panja have provided an extensive and provocative look at how China was selected as the host of the Games despite its…
Beijing Winter Olympics reports jump in daily Covid cases
China has reported a jump in Covid cases among athletes and team officials at the Beijing Winter Olympics. The number of daily Covid infections rose to 19 on Friday from two a day earlier, and Games organisers said more cases could be expected in the coming days. Thirty-six Games-related personnel, including the athletes and officials, have been found to be infected, 29 when they arrived at the airport in Beijing and seven already in the “closed loop” bubble that separates event personnel from the public, the organising committee said in…
Why China has ‘drifted away’ from its African allies on military coups
Shinn said China had been critical of the military takeover in Guinea but quiet on Mali, and Beijing’s opposition to the UN Security Council action against coup leaders raised questions about its policy. Advertisement He noted that Moscow, which also blocked the move, had sent mercenaries from the Russian private company Wagner Group to support Mali’s military. “Military coups in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso complicate both China’s economic interests and foreign policy in the region, especially when Beijing’s policy is contrary to the prevailing African view,” Shinn said. [embedded…
American muckrakers: Peter Schweizer, James O’Keefe and a rightwing full court press
The official investigation of Hunter Biden’s dealings in China and elsewhere rests in the hands of David Weiss, a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in Delaware, and the US justice department under Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland. Politically speaking, we now have Red-Handed by Peter Schweizer, who would very much like to help us digest the business past of the 46th president’s troublesome son. Schweizer’s works include Clinton Cash, a compendium of opposition research that helped shape the presidential election in 2016. These days, he is president of the Government Accountability…
What China thinks of possible war in Ukraine
Jan 29th 2022 CHINA’S RELATIONS with Russia are the strongest they have been for 70 years. When President Xi Jinping welcomes Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader he calls his “best friend”, to a planned summit just before the Beijing Winter Olympics open on February 4th, powerful interests will bind the two men. China has capital to invest, technology to sell and an ever-growing appetite for oil, gas and other commodities. Russia’s economy, though ailing, complements China’s, offering natural resources that can be supplied via pipelines and railways which are—in happy…
Who’s Coming to the Beijing Olympics?
Advertisement Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced that China’s President Xi Jinping will attend the Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on February 4. Xi will play host to leaders from 25 other countries, who are set to attend the Opening Ceremony, a welcome banquet, and “relevant bilateral activities” from February 4 to February 6. More importantly, Hua included a list of which foreign leaders are coming to the Beijing 2022 Olympics. The full list of leaders who will attend, in alphabetical order by country: Argentina’s President…
China’s ambassador to US warns of possible military conflict over Taiwan
China’s ambassador to the US has said the two countries could face a “military conflict” over the future of Taiwan, in an unusually explicit reference to the prospect of war. “The Taiwan issue is the biggest tinderbox between China and the United States,” Qin Gang told the US public broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR), on Friday. “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in the military conflict.”…