Mar 1st 2022 TO THE FERVENT revolutionaries who ran China in 1968, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was a monstrous crime, but not a surprise. Watching from Beijing, Chairman Mao Zedong and his aides saw a vindication of a long-standing suspicion: that the once-proud Soviet Union was now ruled by “socialist imperialists”, on a par with the capitalists in charge of America, the original imperialist superpower. Indeed, Mao’s deputy, Zhou Enlai, accused Soviet leaders of active collusion with America, involving a scheme to divide the world into two spheres of…
Month: February 2022
Why the Chinese Internet Is Cheering Russia’s Invasion
The countries’ friendship has “no limits,” they declared. Given that the leaders met just weeks before the invasion, it would be understandable to conclude that China should have had better knowledge of the Kremlin’s plans. But growing evidence suggests that the echo chamber of China’s foreign policy establishment might have misled not only the country’s internet users, but its own officials. My colleague Edward Wong reported that over a period of three months, senior U.S. officials held meetings with their Chinese counterparts and shared intelligence that detailed Russia’s troop buildup…
China Was Woefully Unprepared for the Russia-Ukraine War
Advertisement While countries around the world warned their citizens to avoid traveling to Ukraine before the imminent military conflict, China did not take significant actions until the day Russia started its invasion. Instead, it downplayed the potential for conflict and thus missed the chance to safely evacuate Chinese citizens. The information posted by the Chinese Embassy to Ukraine showed that the Chinese diplomatic mission changed its stance on the security crisis three times in less than a week. Initially recognizing the Russia-Ukraine war as a regional conflict, the Chinese embassy…
How Reliable Are China’s Statistics?
Advertisement In January, China announced its population statistics for 2021, with a net gain of 480,000 for the year. Although this is greater than the entire population of 61 other countries, it represents China’s slowest increase since 1960, when Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” famine killed tens of millions of Chinese people. Paramount leader Xi Jinping is pushing reforms to encourage fertility, but China’s population growth seems destined to stall for some time. Beyond this story, however, there is an important question about China’s statistics that most reporting never addresses:…
We Are All Living in Vladimir Putin’s World Now
Over the last two months, the Moscow-Beijing alliance has moved from hypothesis to reality, thanks to the shared goal of challenging American dominance. While Chinese elites are hardly excited about Russia’s reckless invasion of Ukraine (the Chinese hold dear their commitment to nonviolation of state sovereignty), there is no doubt they will stay on Moscow’s side. Look at how Beijing refused to officially describe Mr. Putin’s war as an invasion. President Xi Jinping may be the biggest beneficiary of the current crisis: America not only looks weak; it also now…
‘They were fooled by Putin’: Chinese historians speak out against Russian invasion
For Xu Guoqi, a Chinese historian, Beijing’s reluctance to denounce Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is alarming. “I’m a historian of the first world war. Europe sleep-walked into a huge conflict over 100 years ago, which also had had enormous consequences for China,” Xu said. “The world may be at the point of no return again”. But looking at how Chinese diplomats are responding to it, and how Chinese people have talked about it on social media in the past week, he said, “I’m afraid it seems we still have…
We’re hiring a China-focused data journalist
Feb 28th 2022 THE ECONOMIST has always sought to stand out for its numeracy and analytical rigour. Our data-journalism team conducts original research, using cutting-edge methods to ask and answer important, relevant questions about politics, economics and society. We are looking to hire a data journalist for a full-time, permanent position with a focus on China. If you would like to do pioneering work at the intersection of data science, journalism and computational social science, and to share your research with The Economist’s influential global audience, please get in touch…
Your Monday Briefing: Ukraine Agrees to Talks
Good morning. We’re covering diplomacy and posturing in Ukraine, research into the pandemic’s origins and another North Korean missile test. Ukraine agrees to Russian talks President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine agreed to talks with Russia “without preconditions” on the Belarusian border. Just before the announcement, President Vladimir Putin issued a new threat to the West, telling the Russian military to put its nuclear forces on alert. Western powers are uniting around Ukraine. The E.U. said it would close its airspace to Russian planes and finance the donation of weapons. Turkish…
Ukraine: what will China do? There are signs it is uneasy about Putin’s methods
China’s decision to abstain on Friday night at the end of the UN security council vote condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine may be a source of deep frustration in the west, but it will also send a nervous tremor through the Russian ministry of foreign affairs that China’s protection is not unconditional. UK-based diplomats, looking at the stance adopted by China in the middle of the week, were expecting Beijing to join Russia in voting against the US-sponsored motion, but in common with the United Arab Emirates and India,…
Uncharmed: why Chinese film fans are shunning Hollywood
Matt William Knowles, a 36-year-old Hollywood actor, has been packing for a forthcoming trip to China in the past week. He’s looking forward to his first China visit since the pandemic. “The last time I was in China was late 2019 when I served as the honorary mayor for a village in southern China.” While his career in Hollywood continues to blossom, finding work in China hasn’t been easy these past few years for Knowles. The pandemic changed the film industry, and the deteriorating diplomatic relations between America and China…