Good morning. We’re covering sustained shelling in Ukraine, China’s new economic plan and the fallout of a terrorist attack on a mosque in Pakistan. Russian attacks halt evacuations As Russian forces continued shelling Ukraine, at least three people — a mother and her children — were killed outside Kyiv as they tried to get to safety. For the second straight day, the authorities called off an evacuation from the besieged port city of Mariupol. Here’s the latest. Russian forces were struggling to advance on multiple fronts. The Ukrainian military said…
Month: March 2022
‘They took my world’: fashion giant Shein accused of art theft
Vanessa Bowman paints the world around her: the 19th-century village church, her back garden, the leaves on the trees in the fields where she walks her dog. Once she has chosen a scene from her rural Dorset idyll, she puts brush to canvas, sometimes poring over the details for days in her studio. Over three decades she has honed a unique style and earned a loyal fanbase, with 20,000 followers on Instagram and commissions from House & Garden, Prince Charles’s Highgrove shop and Farrow & Ball. But when she received…
The Cancellation of Mother Russia Is Underway
Bloomberg quoted Marina Gretskaya, a 32-year-old Russian living in London who moved last year to work in communications. She kept a ruble savings account in an online Russian bank, Tinkoff. Two weeks ago, her assets there were worth $7,400. On Monday, the ruble plummeted more than 30 percent against the dollar. That evaporated more than $2,000 from her savings. “It’s a month’s salary,” she said. The same is almost certainly true for tens of millions of Russians — and it’s just starting. Oh, and by the way, in this wired…
China’s Latest Disinformation Campaign Against Taiwan Backfires Amid the Russia-Ukraine War
Advertisement The Chinese government has been preparing to launch an evacuation operation, helping citizens of China, Hong Kong, and Macao to flee from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Taiwanese people holding specific certificates are also eligible for the evacuation registration, which reflects China’s official claim over Taiwan’s sovereignty. The Taiwanese government immediately rebuked China’s inclusion of Taiwanese citizens in the evacuation plan. However, a China-based Taiwanese vlogger, Lin Wei-kang (who goes by the online moniker “Kang-kang”), released a video praising the Chinese government’s responsiveness amid the crisis. In this video,…
China sets lowest economic growth target in decades at annual meeting
China has set its lowest annual GDP target in decades, as premier Li Keqiang warned of a “grave and uncertain” outlook against the backdrop of the coronavirus, a slowing economy and uncertainty over the war in Ukraine. Li announced on Saturday the unusually modest target of about 5.5% growth for 2022 – the lowest since 1991 – in an address to about 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People. Li said the world’s second-largest economy “will encounter many more risks and challenges,…
China’s Legislative Session to Focus on Economy
BEIJING — When China’s legislature opened its weeklong annual session on Saturday, Chinese leaders were eager to use the event to bolster confidence in the country’s economy. Beijing used the National People’s Congress to pledge that China’s economy, the engine of global growth, will regain momentum despite a punishing slump in housing, rising commodity prices, scattered lockdowns to control coronavirus outbreaks and widespread uncertainty over the war in Ukraine. Beijing’s ability to maintain political and economic stability is paramount as the ruling Communist Party prepares the ground for Xi Jinping,…
China Outlines Plan to Stabilize Economy in Crucial Year for Xi
BEIJING — China’s premier, Li Keqiang, on Saturday announced a target for the country’s economy to expand “around 5.5 percent” this year, signaling the government’s emphasis on stabilizing growth in the face of global uncertainty from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Premier Li laid out the goal in his annual policy speech at the opening in Beijing of a weeklong session of China’s Communist Party-controlled legislature. The target appeared aimed at maintaining political and economic stability as Xi Jinping, China’s leader, looks to secure another five-year term in…
Ukraine invasion: Can China do more to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine?
If you look back to the 5,000-word document signed off by Presidents Xi and Putin when they declared their deepening, unlimited alliance you’ll see that objection to Nato expansion unites them, though the agreement covers multiple areas of common ground and planned co-operation; in space, in the Arctic, on Covid-19 vaccines. BBC
As it happened: ‘Two sessions’ 2022 – China increases defence spending, sets GDP growth target of ‘around 5.5 per cent’
China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), starts its annual meeting on Saturday. The NPC meeting is part of the “two sessions” – one of the biggest events on the country’s political calendar – along with the meeting of the top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The sessions, also known as the lianghui, are an important window into the central government’s policies but this year the meetings will also be a chance to take the political temperature before the Communist Party’s national congress this…
Foreign embassies in China puzzle over a diplomat’s detention
Mar 5th 2022 BEIJING FEAR IS A potent tool, but not always a precise one. In the foreign embassies of Beijing, there is no doubt that China’s secret police wished to send a chilling message when they detained a Japanese diplomat for some hours on February 21st, trampling the legal principle of diplomatic immunity. Envoys debate whether the operation was an attack on Japan, overreach by aggressive spooks or a calculated warning to foreign missions that even routine meetings with Chinese contacts are out of bounds, as national-security rules tighten…