Standing before the studio audience the slim older man holds a microphone in front of his blue polo shirt, buttoned to the neck. Wang Qingming seems a little nervous as he faces his prospective date, a formidable looking woman with long black hair piled in a loose bun, her name tag obscured. “What bad habits do you have?” he asks. “I’m hungry,” she replies to laughter. “But no mahjong, no smoking, no drinking.” Asked about her health the woman says her physical condition is good, “but I can’t get pregnant…
Month: February 2022
Hong Kong: What went wrong with its Covid plan?
According to projections by the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the city will see a peak of more than 180,000 new cases daily by mid or late March, if current social distancing measures remain in place. By mid-May, the total death toll is forecast to have topped 3,200. BBC
Hong Kong orders compulsory Covid tests for all its citizens
“The coming one to three months are crucial in fighting the pandemic,” Ms Lam told reporters. “This quickly worsening epidemic has far exceeded the Hong Kong government’s ability to tackle it, so there is great need for the central government’s support in fighting the virus.” BBC
Voices From China: What the CCP Doesn’t Want You to Hear
Advertisement It is easy for people around the world to fall under the impression that China speaks with one authoritarian voice. The content promoted by state media to foreign and domestic audiences is dominated by glowing coverage of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the Chinese internet is fraught with xenophobic chatter and bullying by nationalistic netizens. But this impression is essentially fabricated – a result of the regime’s efforts to silence the many voices and perspectives that conflict with its narrative and support universal values such…
China appoints new special envoy for turbulent Horn of Africa region
China has appointed senior diplomat Xue Bing as its new special envoy for the Horn of Africa, a region that is currently troubled by conflict including in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Xue has previously worked as China’s ambassador to Papua New Guinea and has experience in Africa, America and Oceania, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday. His task will be to work to promote China’s “peaceful development” plan for the region which aims to help countries in the region “achieve long-term stability, development and prosperity,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin…
Ukraine’s Russia Crisis Reveals the West’s False Sense of Energy Security
Russia’s belligerence against Ukraine is underscoring once again the inextricable link between national security and energy security. Today, Russia is flexing its energy dominance over a dependent Europe. But tomorrow, the danger may come from China and its control over the raw materials that are key to a clean energy future. The United States and its allies must ensure that doesn’t happen. In recent years America has been lulled into a false sense of energy independence. The shale revolution of the past decade has generated incredible supplies of vital natural…
Scott Morrison’s China gambit is a Hail Mary from a flailing leader trying to galvanise fear | Peter Lewis
Scott Morrison’s efforts to politicise Australia’s complex relationship with China seems to be further soiling his own flagging reputation. Like a bull in the proverbial, he has spent the past fortnight bombarding the airwaves with hastily googled dossiers and cold war-era panics to suggest an Albanese government would become an antipodean branch office of the Beijing Politburo. Large sections of the national gallery have embraced his China pivot, breathlessly reporting the attacks on Labor, amplifying intelligence community blowback and catastrophising operational incidents that would normally demand sober assessment rather than…
Beijing Olympic Ratings Were the Worst of Any Winter Games
An average of 11.4 million viewers watched the Beijing Olympics on NBC Universal platforms each night — the smallest prime-time audience on record for any Winter Games and well off the 19.8 million nightly viewers for the Pyeongchang Games in 2018. More than two weeks of coverage, starting with the frigid opening show on Feb. 4 and ending Sunday, drew 160 million total viewers across the NBC television channel, the Peacock streaming service and other platforms, NBC Universal said on Monday. Dramatic story lines proliferated during NBC Universal’s 2,800 hours…
China accuses Australian defence force of ‘spiteful’ actions after laser accusation
China’s national defence ministry has accused the Australian defence force of “spiteful and provocative actions” as it brushed off the accusation that its warship had shone a laser at an Australian surveillance plane. But the Australian government hit back on Tuesday, confirming that the Australian plane had dropped buoys in the water to detect acoustic signals but only after the laser was detected. It said the Royal Australian Air Force had acted “within international law at all times”. The Australian government had demanded an explanation from Beijing over a “dangerous,…
In an Uneven Fight With China, Lithuania’s Brand Becomes Toxic
VILNIUS, Lithuania — A family-owned semiconductor company in Lithuania sold nothing to China, so it did not worry much last year when Beijing, furious at the Baltic nation for cozying up to Taiwan, began blocking imports of milk products, peat and anything else it could find with a “Made in Lithuania” label. Closing the door on Lithuanian exports, however, was just the start. Today, said Kristijonas Vizbaras, a founder of the successful chip maker Brolis Group, anything with a “Lithuanian smell,” no matter how faint — say, a German car…