Earlier this year Chinese programmer Jixian Wang moved to the Ukrainian port city of Odesa for work. Months later, Russia invaded the country. Mr Wang found that back home his friends and family were being told a different version of what was happening in Ukraine, by Chinese state media. He decided to start making videos highlighting the reality of his situation and posted them on Chinese social media in the hopes of reaching his fellow countrymen. Since then he has been heavily censored and briefly cut off from contact with…
Day: April 28, 2022
Chinese passenger traffic set for heavy fall over May Day holiday as Covid controls bite
The ministry also forecast passenger traffic would drop sharply in the Yangtze River Delta area in the east, which includes Shanghai, but hold up relatively well in the Greater Bay Area in the south and Chengdu-Chongqing area in the west. China has tallied over 550,000 local infections this month, with all provinces and regions, except Tibet, reporting local cases. Advertisement Wu Liangyou, an official with the National Health Commission, said infections are still at worryingly high levels and the pandemic situation is “complicated”, but Beijing, Hebei, Jiangsu and several other…
Your Friday Briefing: China’s Stimulus Plan
Good morning. We’re covering China’s economic stimulus plan, President Biden’s push for war funds and extreme heat in India and Pakistan. China’s Covid stimulus plan As China’s lockdowns continue and new infections continue to spread in Beijing, the central government has laid out a wide-ranging economic stimulus plan to staunch expected losses. The government will subsidize businesses, pausing unemployment insurance payments if companies avoid mass layoffs, as well as electricity and internet charges. Young people graduating from college will be subsidized if they start their own businesses, since few jobs…
China plans to roll out private, personal pensions
Apr 28th 2022 HONG KONG “ASTONISHING”, “SPECTACULAR”, “unprecedented”: China has won plaudits from the World Bank and other experts for the rapid expansion of its basic state pensions over the past dozen years. The number enrolled in these schemes (including one for urban employees) crossed 1bn in 2021. But the speedy construction of this first “pillar” of China’s pension system has not been matched elsewhere in the planned edifice. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Listen…
Pet-owners in China are banding together to save furry lives
Apr 28th 2022 BEIJING ASK URBAN Chinese if they see upsides to life in covid-19 lockdown, and a common reply is: I know my neighbours better. This is especially true of pet-owners. Tens of millions of Chinese are currently unable to leave their homes. All face being taken to isolation centres, should they test positive or be declared close contacts of a virus-carrier. A grim fate for anyone, centralised quarantine is terrifying for pet-owners, who must scramble to find a shelter or someone to foster their animals. If they fail,…
What the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Tells Us About the Belt and Road Initiative
Advertisement Conventional accounts frame China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through a geopolitical lens. In this context, the BRI is perceived as being formulated and implemented in a top-down process, whereby Beijing selects, finances, and constructs projects along the official economic corridors. Consequently, participant countries lack any real agency. However, evidence suggests that this framing is flawed on both accounts. First, the BRI combines bottom-up and top-down approaches to policy formulation and implementation since its foundations can be traced to provincial level initiatives. Therefore, its geopolitical dimension is incidental to…
Your Thursday Briefing: Russia Cuts Gas Supplies
Good morning. A gas crisis looms over Europe, anger grows in Shanghai and Singapore executes an intellectually disabled man. Russia cuts gas supplies to Europe In its toughest response yet to European sanctions, Russia halted natural gas shipments to Bulgaria and Poland. The E.U.’s top official denounced the move as “blackmail,” but European officials said they were prepared to weather the near-term impact: Poland’s gas storage facilities are 75 percent full, and it has been working for years to avoid being held to ransom by Moscow over energy. Germany also…
China cracks down on price gouging amid food shortages
Chinese authorities have said they are cracking down on price gouging as food shortages due to Shanghai’s lockdown continue and fears in Beijing prompt a run on supermarkets. It comes as social media platforms shut down the account of a high-profile critic of the government’s insistence on a traditional Chinese medicine product being rolled out to millions of residents. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Public Security pledged any individuals taking advantage of outbreaks to make a profit would be dealt with strictly, with fines of up to 3m yuan (£363,400).…
Risk of recession in Europe, US and China is rising by the day | Kenneth Rogoff
Is the global economy flying into a perfect storm, with Europe, China, and the US all entering downturns at the same time later this year? The risks of a global recession trifecta are rising by the day. A recession in Europe is almost inevitable if the war in Ukraine escalates, and Germany, which has been fiercely resisting calls to pull the plug on Russian oil and gas, finally relents. China is finding it increasingly difficult to sustain positive growth in the face of draconian Covid-19 lockdowns, which have already brought…