Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has been edited for release in China to ensure any gay references have been removed. The fantasy sequel, which has an estimated budget of $200m, contains allusions to a romantic history between the characters of Dumbledore and Grindelwald, played by Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen respectively. Six seconds of dialogue, including the lines “Because I was in love with you” and “The summer Gellert and I fell in love”, were taken out for the Chinese release on 8 April. “As a studio, we’re committed…
Month: April 2022
Shanghai Begins to Ease 2-Week Shutdown
Advertisement Some residents of Shanghai were allowed out of their homes as the city of 25 million eased a two-week-old shutdown Tuesday after a video posted online showed what was said to be people who ran out of food breaking into a supermarket. About 6.6 million people can go outdoors, but some must stay in their own neighborhoods, the online news outlet The Paper reported, citing city officials. The government said some markets and pharmacies would reopen. A health official warned Shanghai doesn’t have the virus under control despite easing…
US tells some consulate staff to leave Shanghai as Covid outbreak worsens
The US said on Tuesday it had asked all its non-essential staff and their family members at the Shanghai consulate to leave, in Washington’s latest response to the financial hub’s handling of the worsening Covid outbreak. The state department ordered the departure “due to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak” there, according to a spokesperson from its Beijing embassy. “It is best for our employees and their families to be reduced in number and our operations to be scaled down as we deal with the changing circumstances on the ground,” the person…
From the U.S. to China: A 3-Month Quarantine Horror Story
Before boarding his flight from Los Angeles to the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Xue Liangquan, a California-based lawyer, knew he was in for a bit of a headache. To visit his parents in eastern Shandong Province in January, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, Mr. Xue, 37, had already shelled out $7,600 for airfare. He had submitted negative test results to the Chinese authorities, as required for entry. Upon arrival, he would have to do three weeks of quarantine. Even so, he never could have foreseen just…
China Sets Aside Push to Spread Wealth in Pivotal Year for Xi
BEIJING — For much of last year, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, waged a fierce campaign to rein in private capital and narrow social inequalities. Regulators cracked down on tech giants and wealthy celebrities. Beijing demanded that tycoons give back to society. And the Communist Party promised that a new era of “common prosperity” was on the horizon. Now, the Communist Party is putting its campaign on the back burner. In doing so, Beijing is tacitly acknowledging that Mr. Xi’s push to redistribute wealth has unnerved the private sector —…
Three reasons China will not forcibly reunify with Taiwan any time soon
The flag of Taiwan is seen painted on Shihyu Islet in front of Xiamen, Fujian province, on October 19, 2021. Sitting on the front line between Taiwan and China, Kinmen is the last place where the two engaged in major fighting, in 1958 at the height of the Cold War, and where memories of war are burned into minds decades later. Photo: Reuters South China Morning Post
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…