China’s Vision for Relations With Europe Is Slipping Out of Reach

Advertisement The April 1 Summit between the European Union (EU) and China was the first in the aftermath of the Ukraine war – and, for that matter, the first since the shelving of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment in May last year. Sino-European relations have steadily deteriorated over recent years, in light of rising tensions over security and trade concerns, European criticisms of perceived human rights violations in China, and an escalating cycle of sanctions and counter-sanctions. In hopefully shedding some light on the future of Beijing-Brussels dynamics, this piece…

‘This cannot last’: residents in locked down Shanghai scream from their balconies – video

Shanghai, China’s financial hub, started easing its lockdown in some areas on Monday, despite reporting a record high of more than 25,000 new Covid-19 infections, as authorities sought to get the city moving again after more than two weeks.  Pressure has been building on authorities in the country’s most populous city – also one of its wealthiest – from residents growing increasingly frustrated as the curbs dragged on, leaving some struggling to find enough food and medicine.  Footage circulating online showed people screaming from their balconies, with the person filming…

China’s Echoes of Russia’s Alternate Reality Intensify Around the World

When Twitter put up a warning message atop a Russian government post denying civilian killings in Bucha, Ukraine, last week, China’s state media rushed to its defense. “On Twitter @mfa_russia’s statement on #Bucha got censored,” wrote Frontline, a Twitter account associated with China’s official English-language broadcaster, CGTN. In a Chinese Communist Party newspaper, an article declared that Russians had offered definitive evidence to prove that the lurid photos of bodies in the streets of Bucha, a suburb of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, were a hoax. A party television station in Shanghai…

‘It feels like the end of the world’: Taiwan civilians practise for war as Ukraine revives China fears

On a muggy night in a Taipei park, its concrete pavilion lit by the glow from nearby lampposts, a dozen people spread yoga mats and plastic bags on the floor. The atmosphere is convivial and relaxed as they warm up, taking turns to lead the group through exercises copied from US army basic training videos online. They practise drills, dragging each other as injured deadweights, out of the way of a fictional harm. The scene, inside the charming Da’an Park, is made all the more incongruous by the pavilion’s other…