Month: June 2022

It is almost too polite to call the deepening rivalry between China and the American-led West a new cold war. The original cold war between America and the Soviet Union was grimly rational: a nuclear-armed confrontation between hostile ideological blocs which both longed to see the other fail. For all their differences, China and Western countries profit vastly if unevenly from exchanges of goods, people and services worth billions of dollars a year. Their respective leaders know that global problems from climate change to pandemics or nuclear proliferation can only…

People in Shanghai are beginning to adapt to the “new normal” a week after most of the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted. The city had been in lockdown for two months as China imposed its “zero Covid” policy on the 25 million inhabitants following an outbreak of the virus. But some curbs still remain in place. Video by the BBC Shanghai team. BBC

Advertisement During the annual Boao Forum, held in April 2022, China’s President Xi Jinping delivered a speech via videolink proposing a “global security initiative” (GSI) based on the principle of “indivisible security.” The speech was notable because it is the first time China has hinted at its readiness for a new approach to global security “with Chinese-characteristics.” But Xi’s description of the GSI was sorely lacking in details. So will it actually succeed? A Troubled and Divided World There are solid reasons why Beijing has chosen this moment to propose…

Advertisement In theory, China’s “zero COVID” approach is a top-down policy of the central government under President Xi Jinping. In reality, the task of interpreting and implementing the policy falls largely to subnational government actors. This has prompted the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reinvigorate its traditional grassroots governance technique of mass mobilization. But while this has been an effective tool of social control during the pandemic, persistent mobilization threatens to hamper effective administration. Evolving from the revolutionary “mass campaigns” under Mao Zedong, the modern Chinese state continues to mobilize…

Li Jiaqi is one of China’s biggest internet celebrities with over 64 million followers. The live-streamer is an online salesman hawking wares from skincare to baby products, jewellery and make-up. He once sold 15,000 lipsticks in a single session, earning the nickname Lipstick King. BBC

By Wanyuan Song and Jana TauschinskiBBC News Published 6 June Image source, BBC; Getty Image; Nasa Three Chinese astronauts have begun a six-month mission, to work on the country’s new space station. It is China’s latest step towards making itself a leading space power for the decades ahead. What is the Tiangong space station? Last year, China put into orbit the first module of its Tiangong or “Heavenly Palace” space station. It plans to add more modules, such as Mengtian science lab, by the end of the year. Next year,…

Environmentalists have long fretted about soaring global demand for sand. It is used to make the concrete that is being poured into the world’s expanding cities, often at the expense of vital ecosystems such as rivers and lakes from which the material is extracted. No country is hungrier for it than China, where the damage caused by rampant illegal mining has been enormous. In March the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, called it “irreparable”. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does…

To grasp the dire state of political debate in modern China, consider this: there are reformist speeches by Deng Xiaoping, the late paramount leader, that could easily be banned by censors today. A good example is Deng’s speech on the benefits of collective leadership of the Communist Party and Chinese state, delivered in August 1980 as he moved against veterans of the recently ended Mao era and replaced them with modernisers. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio>…