Feb 19th 2022 HONG KONG is about to endure its worst three months since the covid-19 pandemic began. With new case numbers running at thousands per day and doubling every few days, the financial and trading hub of 7.5m people faces an outbreak that—were it happening in mainland China—would trigger a citywide lockdown, with millions of people told to stay home, if necessary for weeks. Listen to this story Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Hong Kong will not…
Day: February 18, 2022
Why Companies Struggled to Navigate Olympics Sponsorships
WASHINGTON — Companies usually shell out for Olympic sponsorship because it helps their business and reflects well on their brands. But this year, with the Olympics in Beijing, Procter & Gamble paid even more to try to prevent any negative fallout from being associated with China’s repressive and authoritarian government. The company, one of 13 “worldwide Olympic partners” that make the global sports competition possible, hired Washington lobbyists last year to successfully defeat legislation that would have barred sponsors of the Beijing Games from selling their products to the U.S.…
‘Wild and ruthless’: Katharine Murphy on surprise rebellion and familiar tactics
Katharine Murphy discusses with Jane Lee the drama of the federal parliament’s first sitting fortnight – from the failed Religious Discrimination Bill to attacks on Labor on national security – as both major parties count down the days till the election is called. How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know The Guardian
The Re-emergence of an ‘Aerospace Clique’ in Chinese Politics?
Advertisement Since the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012, several accomplished Chinese systems engineers from the China Aerospace Science and Technology (CASC) and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) have been promoted to take on provincial leadership positions. The rise of technocrats in Chinese politics is certainly not a new phenomenon. Tracing back to influential figures such as Qian Xuesen and Ding Henggao, China’s space and missile industry has enjoyed high political standing since the late 1950s. Engineer-politicians dominated the CCP’s leadership during the…
Returning to China After Being Expelled
Returning to China After Being Expelled Amy Qin📍Reporting from the Olympics bubble In March 2020, the Chinese government expelled a group of American reporters. I was forced to leave Beijing, my home of eight years. This month, I returned to China for the first time to cover the Olympics. Here’s what I saw → NYT
How citizenship row clouded Eileen Gu’s Olympics
Until recently, the US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu – or Gu Ailing as she is known in China – was one of the rising numbers of Chinese Americans straddling the two countries. They are comfortable operating between the two cultures and systems, taking pride in their heritage as well as their upbringing. Gu, now 18, was born in San Francisco to an American father and a Chinese mother. She’s a big fan of Chinese dumplings and, every summer, she flew back to Beijing to attend cram school for mathematics. “When…
Climate change: Covid shutdown linked to record rainfall in China
“There was heating over land due to aerosol reductions but also cooling over the ocean due to a decrease in greenhouse gases, which intensified the land/sea temperature difference in the summer,” explained lead author Prof Yang Yang from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, in China. BBC