Month: June 2022

Advertisement My home country of Canada just announced that it would ban Huawei after coming under pressure from other members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing community (Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom) to do so. Canada justified the banning of the telecommunications giant on concerns for national security. Huawei has been associated with a number of scandals, including the notion that it operates as a tool for the Chinese security state to collect signals intelligence on millions (and potentially billions) of users through back channels. Brazil…

Since june 1st, when the authorities in Shanghai lifted a months-long lockdown, many aspects of life in the city have returned to normal. The once-deserted freeways around China’s financial hub are again full of traffic. The workers who moved into their offices during April and May have at last returned home. The number of cases of covid-19 found outside quarantine has dropped to single digits. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Listen to this story Save…

“There’s a lot of rhetoric, but the Chinese have to mind the gap very carefully if they want to launch an invasion of Taiwan, especially so close to the Ukraine crisis. The Chinese economy is far more interconnected with the global economy than Russia’s is,” says William Choong, senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. BBC

Advertisement After several years of negotiations with the Chinese government, the United Nations’ human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, finally made her long-awaited visit to China. The highly organized tour saw her visit two locations in Xinjiang, where Chinese authorities have faced accusations of widespread human rights abuses against the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic Muslims in the region. No journalists were allowed to accompany the visit, but Bachelet did hold a press conference in which she issued a statement highlighting the main outcomes of the trip. In the global context…

In February 2020 a shocking video began to circulate on Chinese social media. A group of African children are being instructed, by a voice off-camera, to chant phrases in Chinese. The kids repeat the words with smiles and enthusiasm — but they don’t understand that what they’re being told to say is ” I am a black monster and my IQ is low.” The clip ignited outrage in China and beyond. But no-one ever answered some crucial questions: why was this filmed? Where was it shot? Who made it? These…

Advertisement U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held his first meeting with China’s Minister of Defense Wei Fenghe on Friday, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Both men are also slated to speak later at the conference, Asia’s premier security forum, which draws defense ministers from across the region and beyond. The bilateral meeting was a welcome return to direct communication between top Chinese and U.S. defense officials. Previously, the Biden administration had attempted to have Austin speak directly to General Xu Qiliang, the vice chair of…

Advertisement In the context of China-U.S. strategic competition, U.S. President Joe Biden’s first visit to Japan attracted particular attention. Before his visit, the plan to release the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), the long overdue economic pillar of Biden’s regional policy, got the most attention. However, Biden’s astonishing remarks on Taiwan stole headlines, reminding people that the Taiwan issue is the most dangerous issue in China-U.S. strategic competition. On May 23, Biden held a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in Tokyo. Biden said that if Taiwan was attacked…

In april 2020, just after China’s first wave of covid-19 had passed, Hermès opened a new 511-square-metre shop selling luxury bags, scarves and jewellery in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province. The store described itself as “minimalist”. The response to its opening was anything but. Shoppers spent at least 19m yuan ($2.7m) on the first day, according to Women’s Wear Daily. One customer (the last to leave) posted online a photo of herself filling the boot of her car with shopping bags. She could not remember if she had spent…

“Why did I give birth to a monster?” asks the mother of Huang Shuli in his award-winning documentary short film, “Will You Look at Me”. Mr Huang, who grew up in the coastal city of Wenzhou, has filmed his mum tending her garden, picking flowers and swimming in the wild. There are several dreamy shots of her smiling when she sees him. The audio, though, is from an anguished conversation between the two about his homosexuality. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser…

It is nearly nine years since China’s president, Xi Jinping, began to unveil his first plan for global development. It was revealed in stages, in vague language that conveyed little of what was eventually to become a splurge of infrastructure-building across the world costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Poor countries were delighted; the West grew unnerved. But the Belt and Road Initiative (bri) has hit a few potholes. Covid-19 has taken a toll on debt-laden borrowers. Credit from China has shrunk. So Mr Xi has hatched a new idea.…