Month: May 2022

China Wants 10 Pacific Nations to Sign a Major Cooperation Agreement

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Advertisement China wants 10 small Pacific nations to endorse a sweeping agreement covering everything from security to fisheries in what one leader warns is a “game-changing” bid by Beijing to wrest control of the region. A draft of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press shows that China wants to train Pacific police officers, team up on “traditional and non-traditional security,” and expand law enforcement cooperation. China also wants to jointly develop a marine plan for fisheries — which would include the Pacific’s lucrative tuna catch — increase cooperation on…

Xinjiang Police Files Show Xi Jinping’s Personal Involvement in Uyghur Persecution

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Advertisement The Xinjiang Police Files, published this week by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in cooperation with a media consortium including the BBC, USA Today, ICIJ, and Der Spiegel, is an astounding treasure trove of images, documents, speeches, and spreadsheets of detainees detailing efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to wipe out all traces of identity and culture among its Uyghur population in China’s far-western Xinjiang region. One of the secret documents that the files expose is a speech given in June 2018 by Zhao Kezhi, China’s minister of…

China Claims Sabotage as UN Rights Official Visits Xinjiang

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Advertisement China on Tuesday said the United States, Britain, and other foreign powers are seeking to sabotage its foreign relations by orchestrating criticism surrounding a trip by the top United Nations official for human rights. China has long held back the fact-finding mission led by Michelle Bachelet, focused on allegations of mass confinement, forced labor, and compulsory birth control measures imposed on members of the Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Muslim minorities. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin went on the offensive over such criticisms Tuesday, saying “the U.S., Britain and…

Is Shanghai’s Lockdown Over?

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Advertisement This is the third entry in John D. Van Fleet’s Shanghai Lockdown Diary in The Diplomat. Read the first two here and here. Xujiahui, Shanghai, May 23: “Reports of our release have been greatly exaggerated.” So quipped one of the WeChat tribe here, with a hat-tip to U.S. author Mark Twain. Another complained, “What annoys me is people messaging from overseas saying, ‘I hear you’ve opened up.’” For weeks now, we’ve heard succeeding statements about release dates, but release itself has become like a rainbow, receding into the distance…

Tesla’s Aura Dims as Its Plunging Stock Highlights the Risks It Faces

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Chinese consumers “are edgy, they’re worried about the future,” Mr. Dunne said. “It’s a double whammy that Tesla confronts in China.” Tesla shares are reacting in part to the same forces that are roiling stock markets around the world: war in Ukraine, rising interest rates, the threat of recession, supply chain chaos and surging inflation. But Tesla shares have fallen much more than other Silicon Valley giants like Apple or Alphabet, the company that owns Google. Tesla accounted for three-quarters of the electric cars sold in the United States last…

UN human rights commissioner criticised over planned Xinjiang visit

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A group of 40 politicians from 18 countries have told the UN high commissioner for human rights that she risks causing lasting damage to the credibility of her office if she goes ahead with a visit to China’s Xinjiang region next week. Michelle Bachelet is scheduled to visit Kashgar and Ürümqi in Xinjiang during her trip, which starts on Monday. Human rights organisations say China has forced an estimated 1 million or more people into internment camps and prisons in the region. The US and a number of other western…

U.N. Human Rights Chief to Make First Trip to China Since 2005

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GENEVA — Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations’ top human rights official, will next week visit China, including its troubled western region of Xinjiang, on a trip that rights activists say holds significant risks for the credibility of her office. The trip by Ms. Bachelet will be the first official visit to China by a U.N. high commissioner for human rights since 2005, after years of discussions with Beijing to arrange it. But only sketchy details have emerged about what she will do and hopes to achieve in China, which has…

Warning Signs in China’s Economic Outlook as COVID-19 Spreads

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Advertisement New variables both within and outside of China in 2022 have placed the country’s economy under new pressure. In the first quarter, its economic growth rate was only 4.8 percent, which was 0.7 percentage points lower than the annual economic growth target of 5.5 percent, indicating that China will face challenges in stabilizing economic growth this year. Judging from the economic performance of various sectors in the first quarter, there have been some noteworthy risk signals in the country’s domestic economy. Among them, the Yangtze River Delta and the…