The outgoing UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, has said that China had committed “serious human rights violations” against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province which may amount to crimes against humanity. Bachelet’s damning report was published with only 11 minutes to go before her term came to an end at midnight Geneva time. Publication was delayed by the eleventh-hour delivery of an official Chinese response that contained names and pictures of individuals that had to be blacked out by the UN commissioner’s office for privacy and safety reasons. The Chinese…
Month: August 2022
2 Major Traps on China’s Path to Global Leadership
Advertisement Chinese authorities are anything but humble when they set out their long-term vision: making their country a leading economic and technological power by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the creation of the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese don’t just want to be a superpower – they believe that they deserve to be one, that it’s their destiny to lead the world. Chinese leaders are convinced that we’re witnessing the end of the post-Cold War Pax Americana and the transition to a new world order, which will ultimately find…
How China’s Coal Commitment Went up in Smoke
Advertisement In April 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a Leader’s Summit on Climate that “China will strictly control coal-fired power generation projects, and strictly limit the increase in coal consumption over the 14th Five-Year Plan period [2021-2025] and phase it down in the 15th Five-Year Plan period [2026-2030].” This year, Xi is eating those words. Five-year plans are the foundational guidelines that map out economic goals, development policies, and overall reforms for China for every five-year period. They have determined the direction of China’s development since 1953. However, in…
Xi Jinping poised to further consolidate power at party congress
The announcement of a Communist party meeting that is expected to cement Xi Jinping’s agenda for the coming years shows the strength of Xi’s “ultimate authority”, analysts have said. The CCP’s twice-a-decade meeting will begin on 16 October and is likely to run for several days. Xi, considered the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, is expected to further consolidate his political power, which he has wielded with increasing authoritarianism since taking charge of the party in late 2012. Recent domestic and global challenges had prompted some doubts among…
China’s record-breaking 2022 heatwave and drought – a visual explainer
Affected areas Since July, provinces and cities in southern China, including Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing and Sichuan, were affected by drought. Low water levels in the Yangtze River increased pressure on hydroelectric power plants, affecting water supply and electricity production for millions of people and many companies, forcing the temporary closure of factories in some provinces. SichuanHydropower generates around 80 per cent of Sichuan province’s electricity. The drought cut Sichuan’s power generation capacity by 50 per cent year on year in August ChongqingThe Jialing River, a tributary of the…
Solomon Islands Suspends Visits by Foreign Navies, Raising Concerns Over China
WASHINGTON — The Solomon Islands has suspended visits by U.S. and other foreign military vessels, American officials said Tuesday, raising concerns in Washington that the Pacific nation is turning away from engagement with the United States in favor of working with China. The Solomon Islands gave notice of the decision after a U.S. Coast Guard ship and a British Royal Naval ship failed to get timely approvals last week to make routine stops in a port. The Solomon Islands government formally notified the United States on Monday that it had…
‘It’s getting extremely hard’: climate crisis forces China to ration electricity
There were still some streetlights on the Bund, one of the main roads in central Shanghai. But the decorative lights which light up the city skyline – blue, pink, and red – were turned off for two days to cope with the peaking power demand. The power restriction imposed by the city authorities, was the first in Shanghai, the financial hub of China. But across the rest of the country similar restrictions have been put in place, as cities, notably in the south-western region, grapple with ongoing power shortages caused…
Review: “A Continent Erupts,” by Ronald H. Spector
A CONTINENT ERUPTS: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955, by Ronald H. Spector Early on the morning of Sept. 2, 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur boarded the battleship U.S.S. Missouri to preside over the ceremony marking the Japanese surrender in World War II. Among the representatives of the nine Allied nations was a group of defeated colonial officials. Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival, who had surrendered Malaya to the Japanese, was there. So was General Philippe Leclerc, “a hero of the European war, who had been recently dispatched to…
China’s Crucial Party Congress Has a Date: October 16
Advertisement The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a date: It will begin on October 16, according to a state media summary of a CCP Politburo Central Committee meeting held on August 30. The National Congress will select the CCP’s – and, by extension, China’s – top leaders for the next five years, although in practice the question of who will make the various leadership bodies is determined well before the CCP delegates make it official through their votes at the Congress. Since the reform and…
What Do Foreign Delegations Mean for Taiwan?
Advertisement Following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait in the aftermath, the Cold War mentality is back in force, highlighting Taiwan as a potential flashpoint between the United States and China. The unfolding crisis between Washington and Beijing could rewrite the future of both powers as well as regional countries in a way that the world can barely imagine. In his latest book “The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China,” Kevin Rudd,…